The best advice I never got...
When I was a 17-year-old, starry-eyed, young physicist wannabee (which pretty much sums me up throughout most of high school...except for the part about being 17), I made a couple of pretty serious mistakes in my life. While I'm fairly sure that it has worked out in the long run, there are a few things that might have made me think twice had someone just sat down and told them to me.
1 - Taking a break is perfectly okay.
I went to a talk on Thursday given my a powerhouse researcher at MIT. I've read several of this person's papers and knew they were highly regarded.
Imagine my surprise when it came out that there was a 15 year gap between finishing their MS and PhD, that they worked in industry for a while, that they actually just got a PhD recently, and that they have a nearly adult child.
My husband also took a break midway through his BS to work at a co-op for a semester. He said that he had been struggling before he left, but things fell into place when he went back to school.
When I was younger, my parents told me not to take a break from school because they feared I would never graduate. Likewise, one of the prevailing attitudes in academia is that if someone takes a break, they cannot and never will be able to cut it.
Perhaps that attitude is changing, though. I've taken various breaks from school and I think it's helped me to get a better perspective on things. I really think it helped to me figure out what I really wanted to do with myself as well as where my priorities lie. (It's too hard to figure some of those things out when all you can see are the crises and deadlines looming right in front of your face.) You may also find that you acquire not only maturity but actual useful skills during the interim.
While I love my parents dearly and I understand they have good reasons for their advice, I also think they're missing the big picture on something very important: if you really want to finish, you'll find a way. If you realize you have other priorities, then you won't go back. The most important thing is for you to be okay with your decision and move in a direction that makes you happy.
2 - Another piece of advice is that sometimes you just need to put your head down and keep moving forward.
I know this sounds contradictory to the previous advice. I think maturity is partly knowing when to keep moving and when to take a break.
I guess this one has been on my mind a lot because of my students. I have a quite a few who are as neurotic about grades as I used to be. I'm not saying I like the attitude of those who are slackers, but there is something we can learn from people like that. Sometimes those "slackers" grow to be very accomplished people. Some of them know what is important and realize that it's not worth sweating some of the small stuff that they have to go through to get there.
I guess the best example I can think of is someone I know who resented the fact that they had to take a lot of what they viewed as superfluous classes in order to get their degree. They eventually got so frustrated that they quit trying and never finished. Realistically, though, they didn't make their goal and probably never will because every place they go will have the same requirements.
I'd say that there are a lot of people, particularly those going through school for engineering (where you don't get to the really fun stuff until the last year or year and a half) who feel this way. However, the ones who make it seem to be the ones who are willing to work through the unpleasant stuff without letting it sack their emotional energy. Maybe you won't get the most awesome grades, but there are reasons why colleges often evaluate "major GPA" versus overall GPA for people who look at grad school. And sometimes it may take a few bad or rough experiences for you to hit your stride.
3 - The final piece of advice lies somewhere between these two: don't be in such a rush!
I had this notion that I would have a PhD in particle physics (which is what I wanted to do at that bright young age) by the time I was 28. Reality struck, and it turned out that I got my BS when I was 28. Yeah, those breaks and other things changed what I anticipated would be a four-year BS into a ten-year BS. I got my MS at the age of 33. Actually, that was faster than I thought it would take given I was going part-time and homeschooling my son simultaneously. I'm not even going to guess when I'll finish my PhD. It'll happen when it happens.
My husband made a comment as he was finishing his PhD. For those of you who aren't aware, his PhD took him ten years. This is because he was working full-time during his efforts. (Despite a couple attempts at trying to cut back to part-time, he often ended up working more than 40 hrs/wk. while being paid for 32 hrs/wk. When you're salaried, that's how it works. Thus, these attempts didn't last too long.) So while it was pretty hard on him to take that long, there were things that happened later in this journey that enabled him to finish. For instance, if you can believe it, there was a nifty bit of progress in technology that happened in the last three years. He spent a lot of time working on it, and that helped him to finish. That wasn't available when he started his dissertation, and he could have been going down a hopeless road without it.
I've seen a lot of people burn out or feel like failures because they took a bit longer than they "planned" at various goals in life. I think many people would be happier if they could be a bit more zen about their progress. You have to enjoy the journey because, in reality, while that goal will feel pretty good, it's not going to bring the satisfaction you often imagine. It's better to try to engender that feeling while working toward the goal so that you'll be sure to make it all the way through. And if you aren't feeling the satisfaction you hoped, I'd check out points one and two to see which fits your situation.
1 - Taking a break is perfectly okay.
I went to a talk on Thursday given my a powerhouse researcher at MIT. I've read several of this person's papers and knew they were highly regarded.
Imagine my surprise when it came out that there was a 15 year gap between finishing their MS and PhD, that they worked in industry for a while, that they actually just got a PhD recently, and that they have a nearly adult child.
My husband also took a break midway through his BS to work at a co-op for a semester. He said that he had been struggling before he left, but things fell into place when he went back to school.
When I was younger, my parents told me not to take a break from school because they feared I would never graduate. Likewise, one of the prevailing attitudes in academia is that if someone takes a break, they cannot and never will be able to cut it.
Perhaps that attitude is changing, though. I've taken various breaks from school and I think it's helped me to get a better perspective on things. I really think it helped to me figure out what I really wanted to do with myself as well as where my priorities lie. (It's too hard to figure some of those things out when all you can see are the crises and deadlines looming right in front of your face.) You may also find that you acquire not only maturity but actual useful skills during the interim.
While I love my parents dearly and I understand they have good reasons for their advice, I also think they're missing the big picture on something very important: if you really want to finish, you'll find a way. If you realize you have other priorities, then you won't go back. The most important thing is for you to be okay with your decision and move in a direction that makes you happy.
2 - Another piece of advice is that sometimes you just need to put your head down and keep moving forward.
I know this sounds contradictory to the previous advice. I think maturity is partly knowing when to keep moving and when to take a break.
I guess this one has been on my mind a lot because of my students. I have a quite a few who are as neurotic about grades as I used to be. I'm not saying I like the attitude of those who are slackers, but there is something we can learn from people like that. Sometimes those "slackers" grow to be very accomplished people. Some of them know what is important and realize that it's not worth sweating some of the small stuff that they have to go through to get there.
I guess the best example I can think of is someone I know who resented the fact that they had to take a lot of what they viewed as superfluous classes in order to get their degree. They eventually got so frustrated that they quit trying and never finished. Realistically, though, they didn't make their goal and probably never will because every place they go will have the same requirements.
I'd say that there are a lot of people, particularly those going through school for engineering (where you don't get to the really fun stuff until the last year or year and a half) who feel this way. However, the ones who make it seem to be the ones who are willing to work through the unpleasant stuff without letting it sack their emotional energy. Maybe you won't get the most awesome grades, but there are reasons why colleges often evaluate "major GPA" versus overall GPA for people who look at grad school. And sometimes it may take a few bad or rough experiences for you to hit your stride.
3 - The final piece of advice lies somewhere between these two: don't be in such a rush!
I had this notion that I would have a PhD in particle physics (which is what I wanted to do at that bright young age) by the time I was 28. Reality struck, and it turned out that I got my BS when I was 28. Yeah, those breaks and other things changed what I anticipated would be a four-year BS into a ten-year BS. I got my MS at the age of 33. Actually, that was faster than I thought it would take given I was going part-time and homeschooling my son simultaneously. I'm not even going to guess when I'll finish my PhD. It'll happen when it happens.
My husband made a comment as he was finishing his PhD. For those of you who aren't aware, his PhD took him ten years. This is because he was working full-time during his efforts. (Despite a couple attempts at trying to cut back to part-time, he often ended up working more than 40 hrs/wk. while being paid for 32 hrs/wk. When you're salaried, that's how it works. Thus, these attempts didn't last too long.) So while it was pretty hard on him to take that long, there were things that happened later in this journey that enabled him to finish. For instance, if you can believe it, there was a nifty bit of progress in technology that happened in the last three years. He spent a lot of time working on it, and that helped him to finish. That wasn't available when he started his dissertation, and he could have been going down a hopeless road without it.
I've seen a lot of people burn out or feel like failures because they took a bit longer than they "planned" at various goals in life. I think many people would be happier if they could be a bit more zen about their progress. You have to enjoy the journey because, in reality, while that goal will feel pretty good, it's not going to bring the satisfaction you often imagine. It's better to try to engender that feeling while working toward the goal so that you'll be sure to make it all the way through. And if you aren't feeling the satisfaction you hoped, I'd check out points one and two to see which fits your situation.