The question of what to do after my PhD isn't looming over me yet, but I can see it on the horizon. Today, a friend asked me I planned to apply to a prestigious post-doc in Florence. I told her I had considered it, but dropped the idea because I couldn't find any faculty member whose research interests matched mine and could mentor me. It turned out she knew of a faculty member who works in the same broad research area as me. I am not right up her alley, but close enough to at least explore a mentorship.
The thought created a bit of a flutter in my head. By all accounts, Florence is gorgeous, the post-doc is very prestigious and it would be great to be a part of a scholar community, which I have sorely missed during my PhD. I like Bristol, but I haven't been able to build much of a social life here. With my closest friend due to leave soon, my social life is likely to become non-existent. That doesn't really bother me so much--I have a PhD to finish and a pandemic to survive. But, it doesn't change the fact that there is nothing holding me here. Many of the major changes in my life have come about as a result of me running away from something or some place, rather than running towards something specific. I jumped into journalism to get away from engineering, and I decided to do a Master's degree to get away from India and journalism. My PhD is something I actively chose to pursue, and I will be eternally grateful that it worked out in my chosen field and chosen supervisor. being clear about what you don't want is possibly as useful as being clear about what you want. But, wanting to run aay from something is not a good reason to run towards something specific. As today wore on, the Florence idea began to lose its lustre, not least because I don't want to divert my energies from my PhD towards the post-doc application. I don't know what to do, so I will sleep on it and see how I feel tomrorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment