It’s been a while. Let me tell you a true story.
Many were gracious enough to read my very first blog post at the end of last year, and then I dropped off the face of the earth. Why? Let me tell you a story, and maybe something in it will ring true or be helpful to someone.
This last year was an extraordinary transition period for my wife and I. I had just finished up my physics bachelor's degree in April of 2023, but I got into 0/15 graduate programs I applied to despite all of my hard work. I thought I had a very competitive application, but the lack of admission said otherwise.
I started to doubt why I worked so hard to get into graduate school. Those of us in the US are generally raised with the idea that we live in a meritocracy. The idea is that you will get what you want if you just work hard and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. I came to learn that this isn’t completely true, and I’m not sure why it’s so pervasive in our society. We live in a want-to-be but-kind-of-is meritocracy. Some things are based on merit, but many things are not. Most things are a strange mix of both. Who you know can be far more important than what you do.
It was decision time: do we continue to pursue a graduate program or do I just let go of science and enter the job market? Graduate school is, after all, a long, arduous, and poverty-stricken process. I’m 28, and my wife is 29, and the thought of another 4-6 years of no money is tough to swallow. Being this close to 30 and still barely being able to pay bills because of our late start in education is depressing. It would be much easier to just start working.
But after much thought, we decided to try again for graduate school for a few reasons. The biggest one is that I don’t think it would hurt us. A PhD in physics will most likely open doors rather than close them. We think it will give us more than whatever we would be giving up in those 4-6 years. Also, I think I would always feel like I didn’t achieve what I was capable of if I decided against a PhD. This would be the last time that we tried to get in though; if I worked so hard and made all of these sacrifices and still didn’t get in a second time then maybe science isn’t for me.
So we needed a temporary place to go for a year to get ready for another round of applications. It just so happened that I had connections at a government research lab that has positions created for the express purpose of employing people like me while they decide on next steps. The research lab hopes that you will return after a PhD if you liked your time there. I could take some time to get more experience, make more connections, and apply to graduate programs a second time.
Applying to graduate school is no joke, and it’s even more stressful when you know this is your last chance to try. There are essays to write, letters of recommendation to secure, and a bunch of administrative hoops to jump through for each university. Not only this, but you really should be investigating these programs and the people involved in them. This plus a full-time job is a very full plate, and this is the real reason why I haven’t posted anything.
This time I ended up getting offers from 6/8 programs that I applied to, and many of them were top programs at excellent universities. It turned out that I did in fact have a competitive application, but there are some specific things you need to do to game the system a bit. I learned those things very, very well. I have many things to say on this topic, and I’ll share them if anyone is interested.
After physically visiting each program and interviewing an enormous number of faculty and students we decided on a program that we are really happy with. The visits resulted in about 2 straight months of working for 2/3 of the week at my job and then traveling the final 1/3. And now I know that I never want to travel for a job!
The choice was heavily influenced by location, and it happens to be that the research is world-class as well, though you would never think so if I told you the university. It’s not all about a name. We essentially had a choice between a university with prestige but in a location where we would be absolutely miserable, or a good university with groundbreaking research and in a location where we would be truly happy. We chose happiness over prestige.
There is this idea that if we just make this next sacrifice and suffer through this next bit of difficulty then we will get what we want. But we will always feel that way. When does the sacrifice end? When will you choose happiness? Will you sacrifice your whole life and look back and regret never being happy? And what if your assumption about how the world works is wrong? What if the sacrifice you’re making doesn’t actually get you where you want to go? Are you sure you know how everything works? I found that I tell myself stories about how things work and I’m mostly wrong.
I’m proud of what I achieved in my undergraduate degree: a high GPA, several years of original research experience, papers, conference talks, etc. I’m not proud of how I did it. I sacrificed my and my family's mental and physical well-being for some future payoff because I believed in the true meritocracy…
I won’t be doing that again. I choose happiness today.
I’ll have quite a bit more head space now that this transition period is coming to a close. I’ll be posting here more. I need a place to flesh out and refine my ideas, and I want to gather a group of people who are interested in talking about them. I’m excited to hear any thoughts you have, and I hope we can continue this conversation in the near future.