On research.
I don't know if its years of brainwashing that got me so interested, so damn keen on spending the rest of my life in a lab coat. Maybe it is.I know graduate students who have spent years of their youth on research. They are brillant and commited people, who in other words, don't have much of a life outside of lab. When I meet them, I ask them one thing -- "If you could choose all over again, will you still have gone for graduate studies?"
I never had a firm "yes, its still grad work for me"
Its the kind of answer that wavers, hesitant. Something like, "maybe not"
Then the sigh of resignation that its no point making such statements now anyway.
Then, I posed the same question to my supervisor. He didn't exactly give me an answer.
Just now, during an interview, I was asked why research? And when I said I liked it, my interviewer laughed! He must be thinking that I'm masochistic!
The really brillant ones rarely choose research as a career choice. Think about it objectively... you spend an additional 5 years to get a Phd, another 2 years on post-doc. Thats 7 years. Assuming you start when you are 24, by the time you are done, do the sums yourself... Considering that you spend so much of your time worrying over your bacteria etc etc... you don't really have much time for anything else. Anyway, after you have completed all the academic requirements, you start looking for your first job at the age of 32!
Life is certainly not easy in research.
Then, our wonderful politicians paint such a fanciful picture of it. Even the polytechnic's poster for Life Science course was something like... take this course and you could cure cancer... kids have no idea that with a diploma, it gets you only as far as technician... they call it technologist I think.
Labels: geek
posted by eline @ 1:58 PM
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