Two Weeks and Counting

I've done it. I've landed a new job, best of all a job that I can be proud of and feel challenged by. I have learned a bit from these last 3 months. Not about science or research, but a bit about myself. Specifically, how in my adult life I've frequently let my work (or schooling) define who I was. I labeled myself "college student", "conservationist", and "grad-student" in turn. (All the while thinking of myself as an independent person who rejected labels.) It's a bit funny to think that I only realized this short coming when I got stuck in to a job I was ashamed of, and had to search for purpose and meaning in other parts of my life. I certainly haven't gotten it all figured out (what would be the fun of figuring everything out this early on) but I have found that I need to have goals and purpose in my personal life as well as my professional (maybe even first).

Why a PhD isn't for me

Well, it's the eve of my masters thesis defense and for my last pre-masters blog post I've settled on a somewhat topical topic (can topics be topical? or is that ridiculously redundant). I've been asked a lot over the last few months about continuing school and getting a PhD. I've had a wide variety of inquires about this possible future (some inquires more coercive than others) from professors, classmates, family and friends and there is always a necessity to explain yourself. And the explanations seem to need to be better than "While that PhD assistantship in a remote corner of Idaho studying the viscosity of mud on a rainy day is hard to pass up, I value my sanity and would like to be able to afford to buy a new pair of socks in the next 10 years." So, aside from issues of money, connivence, and sanity I give you my top three reasons (well maybe not the TOP three, but three good ones anyway) why a PhD is not for me:

1. I want to live where I'll be happy, near home. I want to have mountains and ocean and sun and rain and snow and feel like I have the conveniences of civilization without living anywhere near a mega-city. Professors that are just starting out need to be free to move to the best job, not the best location, and PhD positions with private industry invariably put you in mega-cities.
2. I have no desire to be a book-keeper or accountant, especially one with no training. It's amazing that without financial training professors are expected to juggle budgets, manage grant money, and find ways to magically make money appear and disappear in different places so that labs can have a functioning staff and equipment.
3. I want to be happy. It's sad and hard to admit but I don't think many professors I know are very happy. I know a lot of it is connected to current budget crises and the added stress of pay cuts and a uncertain future for the University. I think they are frustrated and unhappy, and kind of stuck because of the massive investment they've made too their programs. It's a lot like the stress of being a small business owner without having much control over improving the situation.

So for now this is it, no Phd for me, just a lowly Masters of Science and a plan to be happy.

Making plans

I've always been one for planning the future.  Today I started thinking back to some of those plans and I realized that things have rarely ever turned out the way that I had intended.  Life seems to take its own direction without regard to my plans, and usually I think it turns out just as good or better that way.  I've always just sort of fallen into the next great stage of life.  Marriage, college, career, graduate school.  I'm not implying I wasn't involved or that these things just happened to me.  Point of fact I worked my tush off for each one of them.  But each turned out entirely different than my plans had been, and each seemed to just fall into place in the beginning.  

What seems cruelly ironic about this is I think that unknowingly I've been depending on the next great stage of life to line itself up after graduate school.  At conferences, in discussion with old friends and peers, reading the news, I feel like I'm always on the watch for what will be next for me.  Some clue of what the future holds.   Now, unlike in the past, I have no plan for what will come next.  I have no solid answer for my plans after grad school, though I usually make something up about getting a job.  (A plan that seems less and less likely every time I read the news.)

I have to wonder, was there a point to planning? Will life just go the right way if I work hard and keep myself open to new directions?  Or was having the plan an important part of being redirected to where I am now?