How to abandon my interest in a certain subject?

juillet
Wed, 04 Dec 2013 13:36:33 +0000

I’m interested in HIV prevention research and World War II history. However, I’m far more interested in the former than the latter, especially on a scholarly level. So I am pursuing a PhD in public health to do research on HIV prevention, and I read historical novels and nonfiction about World War II in my spare time.

There’s no inner conflict; everyone is interested in more than one thing. Just because you’re interested in something, though, doesn’t mean that you have to study it. If you want to pursue stem cell research for your PhD, then do that - as long as you are selecting that one for reasons of actual passion.

Then read some pure math articles in your spare time. You could take a class or two when you have time or make friends with some of the pure math grad students and talk proofs with them. You could go to some lectures on pure math at your new university. Of course, most of your time will need to be dedicated towards getting ahead in your own field, but that doesn’t mean that you have to completely abandon your other passions. In fact, a university is pretty much the perfect place to do that.