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That last paragraph hits home. I was always ‘good at school’ (even though I spent a lot of effort studying to maintain that status), up until I got to my PhD pr
by rotexo 6y ago
That last paragraph hits home. I was always ‘good at school’ (even though I spent a lot of effort studying to maintain that status), up until I got to my PhD program and I couldn’t just ‘regurgitate simple models’ and succeed anymore. I got my PhD in the end, but I’m not as successful as many of my peers have been. Acceptance that I am not an elite scientist and committing to the work anyways was the thing I learned in grad school that has helped me in industry so far.
- quacked 6y agoObtaining a PhD seems like the academic equivalent of growing and harvesting a crop, or creating a profitable business. It's so insane that students can make it all the way to hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and dozens of years of hard study before anyone actually requires them to produce something original that yields additional value.
- sjg007 6y agoWell you have to learn the skills to produce the cash crop.. that's what takes a long time. The adage that overnight success takes 10 years. Well that applies to everyone, including academics.