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For most graduate research, the finding is not an amazing field-changing big bang. Few grad students are that fortunate. You should be able to predict what the
by kiba 6y ago
For most graduate research, the finding is not an amazing field-changing big bang. Few grad students are that fortunate. You should be able to predict what the answer is going to look like from past work, and the error bars.
Does it ever works that way for field changing big bang ideas? Every human achievement was built upon the back of previous achievement and works, either by you or someone else.
- musicale 6y agoIt's easy to forget that grad school is the start of a career rather than the summit, so the work just has to be publishable, not earth-shattering. Most nobel/turing/fields level work doesn't happen while the researcher is still in graduate school, because a) it usually benefits from additional experience, knowledge, and resources and b) it can sometimes take years to complete. It also might not be obvious to a dissertation committee (or anyone else) how field-changing certain work actually is until many years have passed, and they might dismiss it early on. Consider Tim Berners-Lee, who was actually a Physicist but received the Turing award because the web (and HTTP/HTML) turned out to have much greater impact than predecessors like FTP, NNTP, PLATO, HyperCard, Director, Xanadu, Intermedia, Gopher, AOL, etc.. Another reason that more mundane research tends to work better is that groundbreaking work is often hard to publish (and get support/funding for), particularly if it isn't completely solid and seems to contradict or supersede established theory or practice. However, if you are choosing between multiple projects that all seem doable within the allotted time frame, picking the one with higher positive impact on the field (and/or elsewhere) may be a good approach.