<p>I’m a first year Ph.D student in bioengineering and am having some doubts about whether I’ve made the right choice by going for a Ph.D. I’m not miserable by any means; my classes and research are interesting, my advisor has been very good to me so far, and the people in my lab are very supportive and friendly. It’s just that when I look at the work that Ph.D’s do in industry and academia, it seems overwhelming and I can’t imagine being capable of doing those jobs or working that hard. I like research more than any other job I could do, but I wouldn’t say it’s my passion or something I think about in my spare time. It’s something I can do to support myself that I don’t hate, but I still prefer to do go out, watch sports, read, etc. Are all Ph.D’s really people who live and breathe the subject they are studying? Or are there some who want to have a “normal” life that involves research, but doesn’t revolve around it?</p>
<p>Yes, doubts are natural. Everyone I’ve talked to who has successfully completed a PhD program, and who is at advanced stages of their program, has told me that at some point they had doubts - sometimes serious doubts that made them want to quit. I myself had doubts in years 3 and 4, and nearly quit my program myself.</p>
<p>It’s also very normal in your first year to feel incapable of what your mentors and others in your field do. That’s to be expected. I felt that way too - I was like, “No way I’ll ever be able to be an independent researcher; I don’t know enough about my field, and I don’t know enough about research methods to do any of that.” That’s the way you’re <em>supposed</em> to feel. Eventually, you WILL feel very capable. I felt that way too in my first and second year; I was like “I am not as intelligent as these professors, or my advanced colleagues. I am never going to be capable of independent research like them.” But I’m in my sixth year now and that’s all changed - I do feel knowledgeable about my field, intelligent, and capable of independent research. Your coursework, your qualifying exams (or studying for them, really) and the process of writing your dissertation will teach you a lot and strengthen your confidence.</p>
<p>As far as the research career goes - I wondered the same thing. Everyone around me seemed much more intense than I did, and more of a “true researcher”. I realized that 1) I have to “do me.” I can only be as intensely interested and passionate as I am, not as anyone else is, and trying to make myself moreso is useless, and 2) that yes, there are many researchers who don’t eat, sleep, and breathe research or their field. I know many with children and spouses, with hobbies (INTENSE hobbies! People who run marathons and spin and sell their own yarn and sing in amateur music groups and help run volunteer animal shelters). They love research, and they love their jobs, but they like to do other things too. Me, too - I really like to write and think about my field, and sometimes in my spare time I read nonfiction books about it. But it’s not like I spend my leisure time reading scientific articles and writing my dissertation. (I’m supposed to be writing it right now!)</p>
<p>There’s a place for every kind of researcher. The ones who work at Harvard and Yale, or at Bell Labs or at certain labs in the NIH or in industry - they’re the ones who want to work 80 hours a week and publish 20 articles a year or whatever. Then there are ones that work at top SLACs, at R2s and other comprehensive universities, or at 9 to 5 jobs in federal agencies or at think tanks, who have more of a balance. You have to seek out the balance that works for you. Let the ones who want to work the mad hours do that!</p>
<p>Absolutely yes. I failed a class my first semester, lost my assistantship and almost packed up my apartment that very night. Graduate school is hard and it is 100% OK to have moments where you don’t think you can hack it, where you don’t think you belong, where you don’t think it’s worth it.</p>
<p>My son is in a PhD program in Nuclear Engineering. He knows this is what he wants. He works incredibly hard, but manages to have some outside activities on the weekend, AND a serious girlfriend! I don’t know how he does it! He also has run 3 half marathons. He is 23! He was slow at first in HS, then he seemed to come alive his Junior year of HS.</p>