Sometimes I feel like the only person in the world without a PhD. I know, I know, I know - I have a job I really really like that pays me really well, and I've been around the PhD process (see "Cohort" for a lengthier description) enough to know that it mostly sucks, job prospects afterward blow, yada yada yada. Sure. That doesn't stop me from occasionally entertaining the delusion that one day I'll go to grad school.
As such, the polls at FSP & Isis's places are making me think of my own question. I'm wondering the following - why did you decide to go to grad school? Did you pick grad school over med school? Getting a salaried job? Did you really put much thought into it?
How about this: "I am a [postdoc/grad student/professor/what-have-you] and I went to grad school because ..."
17 comments:
I am a PhD student and I am going to grad school in order to be able to do self-directed research on my topic of choice. When I was younger I expected to go to Veterinary School (because I liked medicine but not people) but did a lot of soul searching in undergrad and the couple of years afterwards and realized that scientific research was the thing for me. I'm very passionate about a particular research topic, and that plus my personality make me an excellent fit for academia. I put a lot of thought into this choice, more than anyone I know, in part because I had some discouragement from going to grad school, and in part because I want to direct the path of my life as much as possible.
I am an assistant professor and I went to grad school, and never considered medical school. I had always felt myself leaning towards teaching as a career, and when I fell in love with research, my sights were set on college-level jobs that require a PhD. The responsibility of funding a lab in this climate does not thrill me, but I love the mentoring and teaching that accompanies the process of thinking, doing and communicating science in an academic position.
My parents were older when they got their non-science masters degrees and had to juggle family responsibilities, their full-time jobs, and when they were paying for classes, each of my parents worked a part-time job. While I am certain I wanted the PhD, my family wanted to make sure I finished a maximal terminal degree right after college so I wouldn't have to endure the troubles they had and so I would enjoy the process more. I might have taken more time to work before grad school had my parents not been so intolerant/terrified of the prospect of my doing a PhD later in life.
I'm an assistant professor now, but at the time I just went to grad school because it was "the next step" and I had a scholarship to go do my PhD in Scotland through a 3-year program. I genuinely liked doing research, and knew I liked the place because I'd done a summer project there, and just kinda flowed into it from my previous experiences. I didn't wake up to how much I could do with it, and how deeply the potential to drive a lab with my own directions mattered to me, until about halfway through my postdoc.
Additional responses from people I've asked this question to IRL:
"I'm a group leader at a pharmaceutical company and I went to grad school because I enjoyed the research component of my third year at university. Grad school seemed like the thing to do."
"I'm a professor at a SLAC and I went to grad school (instead of med school) because I liked science but don't really like people. I figured I could handle being poor as long as I kept on being poor - if I had gotten a 'real job' after undergrad on the premise that I'd go back to grad school someday - pssshaw. Yeah right."
I am an assistant professor and I went to grad school rather than med school because I love the intricate puzzle of scientific research, enjoy teaching and didn't have a burning passion to want to heal the sick.
I am a postdoc (soon-to-be asst prof) and I went to grad school because I understood my options at the time to be (a) go to med school, (b) go to grad school, (c) get a job. I love to solve puzzles and figure things out, so grad school seemed like the best option. Plus, I really didn't feel ready to get a job, and I saw medicine as boring and formuliac (if you have symptom A, C and F then you get medicine X...although now that I'm older and wiser I see that not all subspecialities are like that. Dr. House, for instance, does cool stuff...) :)
I am a PhD working in industry and I went to grad school because I thought I wanted to become a professor, doing science and teaching and travelling to conferences and rely my research. After doing a post doc and publishing papers and I am looking for a new venture since I don't think my previous view of professorship is on par with reality.
I thought about MD in my teens but realised that my personality would remember all the people I couldn't save rather than the ones I could save and decided to go into research where I design the experiemnts and the bacteria go with me ;)
I am an Administrator/Clinical Project Director and I went to grad school because I fell in love with doing research and "doing" science/problem solving when I was a technician (after finishing my undergrad and not knowing what else to do, I got a job as a tech...)
I am an academic in the UK and I went to grad school because I wanted to do some original research. I was quite clear in my own mind that if the PhD was all I did, if I then went on to a grad job, still having some papers in my name, some original contribution to the knowledge base that I loved to study, would be enough return on those years.
I am a postdoc and I went to grad school because I love digging into a problem and have trouble letting it go until I have figured it out.
It took most of my undergrad time to realize that. The 'next logical step' for me was med school. But I wasn't excited about it. Then I took my first P-chem test and a light bulb went off. I realized that I loved a challenge that required deep thought and analysis, that I wanted to solve problems and make discoveries. And that I don't like (sick) people enough to spend my days taking care of them.
I'm a grad student and went to grad school because I love doing research. Coming from an arts-y undergrad program, med school was never really an option (nor an interest). I ended up doing a science-y master and am now combining the two fields in my PhD for which I moved overseas. I most certainly do not regret that decision!
I'm a postdoc and I went to grad school because 1) I enjoyed my undergraduate research, 2) I didn't care for the job market the year I graduated, 3) I knew I'd be able to do more interesting work in grad school than the traditional stuff I was trained to do in undergrad, and 4) I am ambitious and wanted a degree that matched my ambition.
I'm an asst. prof now, and I went to grad school because I met a girl :-). No, really: she's a US citizen and resident, I'm from the UK and was working there, going to grad school seemed the easiest way to change country. I figured the worst that could happen was I'd have the PhD and get paid for doing so (better than I would in the UK); we've been married 11 years now :-)).
I am a research technician at a non-academic institution, and I've decided to apply to grad school this coming December because I'm dissatisfied with the research environment I'm currently in.
After a year away from being in the academic environment (graduated undergrad 12/08), I'm finding that I miss the spirit of discourse and curiosity in academia. I miss being around young people eager to discover interesting things. Maybe that's naive and rosy-eyed. I'm also finding that I would one day like to direct my own research and work on my own questions.
I’m ABD (out next year?!), and I went to grad school after several years in industry because I wanted to be in a position to direct my own research and that of others. I was also—and still am—toying with the idea of eventually becoming a prof; I like teaching, too. I’m in engineering, so med school wasn’t really an option/interest. My employer is footing the bill for my studies, and that means I get a stipend >3x what the average grad student makes, so financially, it hasn’t been such a sacrifice. I work at a national lab with lots of PhD’s, and almost everyone has been very supportive. The only down side to my arrangement is that I was geographically limited in terms of the schools I could apply to. When I graduate, I’ll get a substantial raise and owe my employer at least two years – I’m thinking of it as an enforced post-doc.
One more thing:
I've been around the PhD process … enough to know that it mostly sucks…
Thankfully, that hasn’t been my experience. Yes, there’s some uncertainty and stress involved that wasn’t present when I was full-time on the job. But then again, I used to read journal articles in my spare time – now it’s my *job* to do this, so that’s nice.
…job prospects afterward blows …
I think that totally depends on the field. In my area, one can get a TT job without even a post-doc (somewhat rare, but it happens, and at some very good schools, too). Significant opportunities exist in industry, too. Where I work, people w/PhD’s are on a different pay scale than those without, and certain leadership positions are almost exclusively held by PhD’s.
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