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The Life Lessons You Need Before You Pick A PhD Path

The Life Lessons You Need Before You Pick A PhD Path

Laura Buckler1873 28-Jun-2018

Like a rambling old man telling a long-forgotten story, this article takes you on a trip through a thought museum that highlights uncomfortable and unsettling truths. If you are a smart, you will read this article through and consider its messages because if you are making a decision about your career while you are only reading positive material, then you are doing yourself a disservice.

The Two Types of People You Encounter When Entering College  

Professional writers from Essays Scholaradvisor say that there are two types of people. There are those who enter their senior year and college without really giving much thought to their future; they just do it because they know they need some sort of degree. And, there are people who have given it lots of thought and are certain of what they want to do and what they need to achieve to build their career.  

 [+] Life will teach you that both are wrong!!!

Climate Change Is Not the Most Important Social Issue 

When college graduates were asked what the most pressing and important social and global issue is, their replies were mostly “Climate Change.” 

Ask the same question to people in their mid-30s, and the answer is all forms of debt, be it political, global and personal debt. 

Are people in their mid-30s wrong? Of course they are not wrong. People in their mid-30s hold a piece of the puzzle that people leaving college do not. If debt were not the biggest social issue, then people could afford energy efficient appliances, and governments could afford to switch to green energy. Life teaches you things. Life hands you pieces of the “Life” puzzle as you gain more experience.  

[+] You are wrong because you do not hold all the puzzle pieces!!! 

How Being Wrong Applies to Potential PhD Students 

You are at an advantage and a disadvantage. Frankly, you hold more pieces of the puzzle than people who are just starting college, and if you understand the previous paragraphs and have just changed your mind on the most important social issues, then you probably hold more puzzle pieces than your professors.  

On the other hand, you are going to learn things through your life where you may look back and regret not making different choices. You do not hold all the puzzle pieces, so you need to make plans to accommodate the unexpected. To put it in investor lingo, you need to diversify your portfolio a little. You need to become a little more flexible and be prepared to adapt. 

[+] You must assume the road will be rocky and then plan accordingly!!! 

Life Is Harder Than You Think – Learn to Adapt 

You have no idea what life is going to hand to you. Some college footballers expect a full career until that irreparable ankle break, and some people expect a long and dedicated career until they accidentally have twins and the mother/father leaves them to raise the kids alone. 

You can guard against what life throws at you, but you cannot protect yourself for what it has in store, you must learn to adapt. Furthermore, you must do what Donald Trump did and persevere no matter how hard other people try to knock you down. A fool will try to dig for diamonds in the sand, but a bigger fool will never even try.  

Dip Your Toe into The Career Of Your Choice 

When I was somewhere between my junior and senior year (about 17yrs old), I wanted to be a biomedical scientist. Thanks to a lot of lying and several attempts, I found myself in a large laboratory that tested human waste for viral diseases. It turns out that almost all lab work is like working in a factory where the repetitiveness is mind-numbing. I also discovered that everything I do in the fields I chose would have to be tested on animals (even if I only theorized). Can you imagine how disappointed I would have been if I had gone all the way through my PhD years to be qualified for a job I would hate? 

[+] Are you in love with the field of study rather than the job that is connected with it??? 

I Wanted to Be A Judge Until I Read Judge Judy’s Books 

I read three of Judge Judy’s books because I went through a stage of wanting to be a judge after three Pakistani men beat me up and got away with it because I couldn’t pick them out of an identity parade. However, one of Judge Judy’s books exposed the world of law so vividly that it gave me nightmares and I decided I couldn’t be a judge. Suffice it to say that she showed me that there is rarely a straight answer where justice is done, in most cases, it is a choice between something terrible and something just as terrible or worse. 

[+] Push your expectations and question your own motives!!! 

The Tricky Piece of Advice 

Here is a great piece of advice that will serve you well throughout your life and applies to more than just picking a PhD. However, this piece of advice is like a gun. For example, a woman may use a gun only once to stop a man from assaulting her, or a woman may take a gun and shoot bullet holes in her ex-boyfriend’s car. How you use this advice will determine its usefulness.  

Use a negative bias to keep questioning and pulling apart your idea. Look for reasons why your PhD field won’t work for you, why you may fail, why it may lead to a career you hate. Push yourself to keep chipping away at your own ideas and visions of the future and ask yourself what you will do if your negative assumptions are correct. 

The reason this advice is gold to some and poison to others is because some people do this all the time and it leads to inaction and procrastination. Many of the “I will do it one day,” crowd are people who have a negative bias, and some are so critical that they cannot see past the possible negatives and therefore never move forward or take risks.  

Finally, before you continue on the path of life and collect ever more pieces of the puzzle, here are a few pieces of advice that will guide you through the coming years. 

  • Drop your arrogance and be prepared to be wrong 
  • Your job will change your personality
  • Changing is a sign of growth, even if the change is just an opinion
  • You control how offended or pleased you are with what life has to offer
  • Life gets harder as you age, it doesn't get easier
  • The ones who self-congratulate are often on the wrong side
  • Having a long-term partner is only good if both partners enrich each other’s lives
  • Your professors are not always right because they live a sheltered life within the walls of a college/university
  • Hold yourself accountable without patting yourself on the back
  • Life is unfair, you can lament that fact, or you can be thankful
  • If you can say anything definitively, then you are wrong*

* Unless it relates to what action you will take next if you are sure that is the action you will take and that you will follow through.


Updated 29-Oct-2020

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