Hello! Its time for the next PhD Wednesdays! This post just barely made it, but its here. Its been a big couple of weeks for me, a committee meeting, having family in town, traveling, getting baptized (yay!), needless to say I have been on a bit of an emotional roller coaster. So this post is sufficiently emotional but its something I think all of us can relate to.
The biggest lesson I have learned during grad school is about identity and knowing who you are. Not designing experiments, writing papers, or teaching students. Its not even about the hard work, perseverance, or creativity you need to carry you through. The PhD is an odd experience because you are a student, employee, expert, novice, mentor and mentee all at the same time. Most of the time you're just figuring out when to be what, and how. On top of that research is full of failure, experiments don't work, hypotheses are wrong, reagents go missing, collaborators are unavailable, and there is always this nagging feeling that you're doing it all wrong. Many days and I look around and ask myself do I really belong here? I am I good enough? Why can't I be better, faster, smarter, more productive?
