Planning

I spent all weekend working on my paper. I tend to have music going while I work at home. At the end of the day, I rarely remember everything I've listened to; it's all just a jumble and I never really pick anything which much deliberation. Saturday, I had a song by Cannibal Ox on. It's a song about Vast Aire's beginnings as a breakdancer. And, while it's not the point of the song, Vast says something in the midst of his description that struck me hard, though I've been a Can-O fan since about 2002:

"While you plan, death is what happens."

I've been spending more time than usual these past few months trying to figure out what life is all about. I wanted to understand who I am, what having a Ph.D. would be like, what the real world without a Ph.D. would be like, when Rita and I would have kids, what the housing market will be like in a few years, etc. before deciding on whether to leave grad school. I guess that the decision to leave grad school was me understanding the sentiment that Vast expresses above: I could spend my whole life getting everything in order and maybe live a few decades actually believing that I had figured it out, but it's likely that whatever I figure out will be wrong and I would be wasting my time by not doing what I know in my heart I want to do.

Now that it's been a few weeks, I've realized a big reason that I was afraid to leave grad school: resume fears! Two resume fears, actually. 1) Could I actually move on to something that isn't pure science given the fact that I've been gearing my whole life (on paper, anyway) toward grad school admissions? I have no real-world experience. I've done two REUs (Research Experience for Undergraduates, like a summer internship, but at a university lab), and I went straight into grad school from undergrad. I've been training myself to be a scientist and nothing else. 2) A sabbatical would probably be necessary; how could I explain a jobless gap in my resume? Would I look like a quitter to potential employers when I explained that I didn't do engineering for a few months while trying to find a job I really enjoyed?

You see what I was doing there? I was trying to figure everything out and have plans for everything. Don't get me wrong; it's great to have contingency plans. But these were questions I couldn't do much about. As Vast might say, I was doing two things: planning and dying.

Here's the thought process that ultimately helped me decide: I wasn't happy at grad school and, if I wanted to be happy later in life, I had to find a better career now. And, though finding the better career might involve a few months of doing something temporary and unfulfilling, it certainly wouldn't kill me. And as for concerns about how employers would view my leaving grad school, so far I've told them the truth and they've all respected my reasoning.

For the record, this is a lesson that I'm pretty sure every T.V. show ever has tried to teach its viewers. When you finally realize something that people have been telling you for so long, it makes you wonder how knowledge ever gets transfered between people. Some things you just have to learn for yourself, I guess.