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Thanks a lot for your comments. You are insanely good at reading between the lines. I don't let it get me down that my adviser doesn't give me that much approv

by javert 12y ago

Thanks a lot for your comments. You are insanely good at reading between the lines. I don't let it get me down that my adviser doesn't give me that much approval, because I'm not in it to get his approval. I also don't let it get me down that he doesn't think my work is that much of a contribution, because I genuinely do believe it is. I did let that stuff get me down for a long time, so I have been miserable part of the time, but I have learned an important life lesson about not letting your own self-esteem come from other people's standards. You have to set your own standards and do your own thinking and evaluation. This is true in all areas of life, but it's super important for self-esteem. I don't think my adviser is just using me to help his career. He's too established to need that. It's just not a factor. That is definitely something to look out for in academia but not all professors are that hardcore/machiavellian. Your questions may have been purely rhetorical, but in case not, my plan is to finish my doctorate and then most likely go on to become a practicing (i.e. non-academic) computer scientist. I do think all this is worth it in terms of not spending much time with my family (I mean my parents' generation, as I'm not married and have no kids) on holidays. It would have been a much larger tradeoff if I had had much social (friends/romantic) prospects, but I don't think I really would have done much better outside of grad school (my best years are still ahead of me in all that kind of stuff). And I do have some really good colleagues that basically are friends, AND I get to do real computer science full time, which is basically a dream come true.

Balgair 12y ago
" You have to set your own standards and do your own thinking and evaluation. This is true in all areas of life, but it's super important for self-esteem." I agree and also struggle with this. Many times I put others opinions of me in front of my own. I need to work on it, but I don't have any clue where to start. If you know of any strategies, I'm all ears. Do remember to watch out for recommendations though. Having an advisor that thinks little of you can and does hurt your chances at jobs. Especially for a PhD candidate, they will be looking to you as a senior role and likely will ask for recommendations. Make sure to have friends that can vouch for you that make sense to a hiring manager. You need to weave a good reason you are using some friend and not your advisor. I know it seems silly, considering what I just said about external self-esteem, but cover your bases. I am envious of you a bit. I wish I could love programming as much as you seem to. I struggle a lot with the logic and basic concepts. I hate doing it, but since I am willing to, I get the job a lot. Also, the dyslexia makes bug finding an impossibly frustrating job. ';' and ':' look just the same to me. Lastly, thank you for the compliment. "You are insanely good at reading between the lines." At least, I hope it was. Wait, I'll keep my self-esteem and think of it only as such.
- javert 12y ago
  I think when we are little children we learn that when our parents or other adults tell us we are good, we are good, and when they tell us we are bad, we are bad. For the kinds of things that a child deals with, they were possibly or probably accurate most of the time (unless your parents were alcoholics or something---and one of mine was; then you get told or treated as "bad" all the time). So your brain just learns to operate this way, until you retrain it. And retrain it, you must. Because the kinds of things adults deal with are much more complicated, plus some adults take advantage of others, are dishonest, don't think things through thoroughly, make mistakes, etc. So if you don't retrain your brain in this regard, you will constantly get "punished" by other adults judging you negatively. The question is, how to retrain it? In a nutshell, I think the answer is: it just happens automatically by consciously thinking about this issue every time it is relevant. e.g. when my adviser says something that threatens my self-esteem, I remember the principle that his judgement may not be correct, and that it should not affect my self-esteem, and then come up with my own honest, meticulous judgement, which should and does affect my self-esteem. (If you aren't "honest" and "meticulous", you won't really trust your own judgement, so it won't sink in and the whole technique won't work.) Those are my thouhgts/strategies, hope it's helpful. I appreciate your point about recommendations. My adviser's judgement does matter for that, just not for my self-esteem, and you have to separate the two, because they are different things. I think I'll probably be OK on the merit of eventually publishing the code I am working on (plus some more papers), which will mean more than anything my adviser could say for the kind of work I want to potentially do (though I might actually just totally change fields after I graduate [1]). And don't worry, if you keep looking and refuse to give up, changes are very, very high that you will find something as fulfilling as programming could have been, had you actually enjoyed it more. I guess you've already figured this out though since you mentioned planning to study neurosci. [1] Because the kind of programming I like doing is really cutitng edge and research-y. I like solving really challenging problems slowly and carefully and thoroughly. Not sure I'll find this in industry and not sure I could live with "just normal" programming.

by javert 12y ago

Balgair 12y ago

" You have to set your own standards and do your own thinking and evaluation. This is true in all areas of life, but it's super important for self-esteem." I agree and also struggle with this. Many times I put others opinions of me in front of my own. I need to work on it, but I don't have any clue where to start. If you know of any strategies, I'm all ears. Do remember to watch out for recommendations though. Having an advisor that thinks little of you can and does hurt your chances at jobs. Especially for a PhD candidate, they will be looking to you as a senior role and likely will ask for recommendations. Make sure to have friends that can vouch for you that make sense to a hiring manager. You need to weave a good reason you are using some friend and not your advisor. I know it seems silly, considering what I just said about external self-esteem, but cover your bases. I am envious of you a bit. I wish I could love programming as much as you seem to. I struggle a lot with the logic and basic concepts. I hate doing it, but since I am willing to, I get the job a lot. Also, the dyslexia makes bug finding an impossibly frustrating job. ';' and ':' look just the same to me. Lastly, thank you for the compliment. "You are insanely good at reading between the lines." At least, I hope it was. Wait, I'll keep my self-esteem and think of it only as such.

javert 12y ago
I think when we are little children we learn that when our parents or other adults tell us we are good, we are good, and when they tell us we are bad, we are bad. For the kinds of things that a child deals with, they were possibly or probably accurate most of the time (unless your parents were alcoholics or something---and one of mine was; then you get told or treated as "bad" all the time). So your brain just learns to operate this way, until you retrain it. And retrain it, you must. Because the kinds of things adults deal with are much more complicated, plus some adults take advantage of others, are dishonest, don't think things through thoroughly, make mistakes, etc. So if you don't retrain your brain in this regard, you will constantly get "punished" by other adults judging you negatively. The question is, how to retrain it? In a nutshell, I think the answer is: it just happens automatically by consciously thinking about this issue every time it is relevant. e.g. when my adviser says something that threatens my self-esteem, I remember the principle that his judgement may not be correct, and that it should not affect my self-esteem, and then come up with my own honest, meticulous judgement, which should and does affect my self-esteem. (If you aren't "honest" and "meticulous", you won't really trust your own judgement, so it won't sink in and the whole technique won't work.) Those are my thouhgts/strategies, hope it's helpful. I appreciate your point about recommendations. My adviser's judgement does matter for that, just not for my self-esteem, and you have to separate the two, because they are different things. I think I'll probably be OK on the merit of eventually publishing the code I am working on (plus some more papers), which will mean more than anything my adviser could say for the kind of work I want to potentially do (though I might actually just totally change fields after I graduate [1]). And don't worry, if you keep looking and refuse to give up, changes are very, very high that you will find something as fulfilling as programming could have been, had you actually enjoyed it more. I guess you've already figured this out though since you mentioned planning to study neurosci. [1] Because the kind of programming I like doing is really cutitng edge and research-y. I like solving really challenging problems slowly and carefully and thoroughly. Not sure I'll find this in industry and not sure I could live with "just normal" programming.