The Rabbit Hole

Over a decade ago, I wrote down on my university application what I wanted to study in university. The decision was made with almost no consideration towards my future because I honestly had no idea what to expect after grade 12! Coming from a loving home, good grades from rather finite efforts, and a more-or-less privileged life of just winging it, I didn’t feel much pressure to treat university as career prep machinery – I simply just wanted to go with the flow with what I was good at already.

With that in mind, I was teetering between two subjects: chemistry or physics. Perhaps to the surprise of those who knew me back then, I didn’t even have math on my mind! I suppose high-school-me thought nothing about opportunities in actuarial science, applied statistics, and the huge finance market, but hey – I was in high school and I really didn’t think much about getting paid.

Having to decide whether to put chemistry or physics first turned out to be a pretty easy decision for 17 y.o. me – it all came down to whether or not I would have to suffer through another English course of essay writing and searching up literature summaries. Interestingly enough, the chemistry program required a junior English course, whereas the physics program did not…and voila~the decision was made. Physics would be my calling.

The tales of my undergraduate days is one for another day, so we fast forward and say that despite the years of tough study in undergrad, I still loved being able to explain and understand the world around me. And another 8 years later, which included 6 weeks abroad travelling in East Asia after my BSc, a year off deciding where to go for grad school, an MSc, a pandemic, and a PhD program later, I have finally completed a 13 year long journey.

This isn’t meant to be an all-inclusive post about academia, but one that simply marks the cliche’d end and beginning of a chapter in my life. Life passed by so quickly and so much happened despite the feeling that “my life” has still not really started. While I feel like I missed out on a lot of “regular societal growth” as per developing a career and building equity during my 20s, I also don’t regret going on this journey. Sure, regrets certainly exist, but I would do it all over again if I were to go back in time.

I think a lot of PhD graduates typically feel regretful immediately after graduation, and perhaps even more so when looking at the current job market. I don’t think I’ll be completely immune to this either. What I do know is that grad school has given me experiences that are so unique that I would not trade them away for a few years of career development. This is not meant to diminish the decision of those who didn’t go through grad school, but rather I do not want to diminish the rewarding (but somewhat traumatizing) experience that is pursuing a PhD.