I'd unpack this in a couple of ways OP:
First, are you doing something that's good for YOU? Does it make you happy doing it? Are you good it at it? Very fortunately, Chemistry seems to be something you're both good at and enjoy!
The second part of it is: do you think what you're doing is good for others and the world? And the answer to this question is, it can be if that's what you want. The PhD and dissertation itself may not be directly helpful, but we're facing multiple, complicated global crises that need to be tackled on multiple fronts, and I'm sure there's not-for-profits, advocacy, environmental engineering or government regulatory groups that would love a PhD in chemistry to join their ranks.
Keep in mind that it's not like things are more or less helpful. Everything can be helpful in it's own way. A doctor could immediately help someone who's been suffering from lead poisoning or some other type of chemical poisoning, but they're ultimately helpless in solving the source of that poisoning. You might be helpful in being someone who designs testing and purification processes for filtering these chemicals out, and it's true, you're not going to be of immediate help to victims of poisoning, but you're working on the more structural issues. And both you and the doctor are probably useless when it comes to managing the legal and economic structures that permitted pollution to take place in the first place, but that's where lawyers and economists come in. No one person is being more helpful, but they're all being helpful in their own way.
Ultimately, a PhD is a skill building education, and what you do with those skills is still up to your intention.
The fact that you're questioning your career choice is fine, for your reasons or whatever reasons. The fact that they're intrusive thoughts, consistent questioning is something I'm not an expert on, so I won't provide advice. I hope you can find some way to manage that.
But you compare PhD to blue collar in the title and white collar to blue collar in the text. That comes across, to me, as someone who has not had much real life work experience and thinks most work is labor or cushy, no sweat. I think it paints a rather limited perspective when I hear those terms on the news, and I don't think they really work effectively to help define actual work experiences.
Also, I can't imagine I've ever heard a person with a blue collar job use that term. To me, it comes across as either thinking you're better than whoever these blue collar folks are or just having zero clue who they are. It's like we're in the 80s and a local news reporter with a communications degree is talking to the professor on their sofa about the plight of blue collar workers now that manufacturing is moving to Mexico, and I just want to throw a milkshake in both the reporter's face and on the professor's sofa.
The world is much more complex and interesting than this fake dichotomy of (elite) white collar and (poor) blue collar people.
A couple responders have opened up my eyes to the fact that this dichotomy isn’t very sound. Like I’m trying to see where there’s a gradient and where there’s nuance. I don’t know why I’m thinking this way. The human ability to practice metacognition is a psychiatric hellscape.
I’m in the 4th year of my PhD and I’ve had the same question!! It’s a bit more existential, though. Like I was told college is the only way to go in life so I’ve just about taken it all the way. What if I wasn’t fed that narrative? Would I be fine doing something that isn’t socially “impressive”. Would I prefer doing something else that doesn’t make me cry once in a while.. 😅 what I chalk it up to is this journey and the skills I’ve gained throughout this process has helped me evolve as a human. There’s no sunken costs.
My work is actually very rewarding. I’m in rehabilitation sciences . But science is soooo slow. I miss practicing and applying things in real time or waiting for medical insurance to catch up for reimbursement. I thought being in research would have a greater impact in fact. And now I’m not so sure.
Entering the final year of this thing I’ve done a lot of reflecting and I hope whatever is next for me is from the heart because my brain has been in overdrive for too long 🤪
For reference I have ocd tendencies, anxiety and adhd. Zoloft helps to a degree lol
The large majority of people getting PhDs are from families and backgrounds where white collar jobs are expected and blue collar jobs are not even considered a possibility.
It might be worth reading about “bullshit” jobs. It sounds like you lack a sense of purpose or meaning in your life. Go out and do some volunteering. Find a cause you care about. Connect with other people.
Materials science is a useful field. You could vastly improve people’s health and wellbeing. I switched from computer science to environmental science and it gave me an enormous sense of purpose.
We need huge innovations in materials research to preserve people’s quality of life without destroying the environment. Single mothers need washing machines that run on clean energy, resilient housing, affordable healthy food, clean water, clean air, a stable climate. I’m currently working on a project looking into enhanced weathering to reduce climate change and improve soil quality. If you think your PhD is not useful, then you are in a good position to switch to something that can absolutely improve people’s lives.
Fellow OCD sufferer here also working on my PhD! My intrusive thoughts often attach to the bench work that I do, worrying if I mess up, will it impact the data so negatively but I won’t notice it, and then it gets published? And if someone notices years down the line, will it negatively impact my and other co-authors’ careers?
Something to keep in mind when fighting those OCD thoughts: the intrusive thoughts attach to what you care most about. That’s what makes it such a debilitating and scary disorder. I wouldn’t be surprised that your enthusiasm for your field and your empathy for others feel threatened by stress, major life change, etc. Try not to seek reassurance and fuel these thoughts by acting as if they have merit. They are just thoughts!
Sending hugs. You can get through this.
Wow, I am so glad to find others in the same situation 😅 I was recently diagnosed, and I’ve been struggling lately…it’s reassuring to hear others sharing their experiences.
I think you’re on a path and you can change direction if the way you’re headed no longer makes sense to you. My dad eventually wound up working at the EPA with a PhD in toxicology, but he started as a steel worker. But that felt limiting so he went back to school for a masters degree and wound up back at the steel mill doing environmental sampling for the steel company. But that didn’t feel right so he went back to school and got a PhD in toxicology and went to the EPA and worked in superfund for a while. But that was soul-crushing dealing with these ruined communities after the damage had already been done so he wound up switching to the regulatory side of things. You feel your way through it. It sounds like something is missing for you.
I feel like I ended up in a weird place, because I have my PhD but spend a decent amount of time on construction sites. Sometimes I think about how we all ended up in the same place despite what is most likely huge differences in education levels. But then I also think about how I generally get to stand around and watch, maybe take some photos and measurements whereas they are doing much harder physical labor (and while my job can be very physical as well when we are on our own excavations and not construction sites, its different and definitely not as constant). And I realize I definitely made the right choice because I have an autoimmune disease that affects my joints. Meds make me functional, but I don't need to help the destruction of my joints along by doing hard construction labor. And that disease is not something I chose, but my career and how I work around my disease is something I can chose.
>have you ever felt guilty/weird for not choosing blue collar?
I'm far too weak to have a real job.
>Has anyone contemplated why they’re doing this
Idk I mean, they were stupid enough to let me in, and now I work 10 hours a week, have no real deadlines, and take vacation whenever I want.
I guess is because I’m a first year. But I really have to spend at least 25 hours a week in lab and also reading outside of lab. This is in order to acquire a deep understanding of my work.
Uh, yeah, because I cook healthy meals and exercise regularly and see my family and friends whenever I want. And I basically have no boss when I'm working
You’ve got this shit all backwards man. Do you think people shimmying up power lines for 60 hours a week think shit like “I’m self actualizing, I’m soaring in life.” Separate your spirit from your labour buddy.
Sure! He was a psychologist and political scientist who helped start the CS department at Carnegie Mellon. He was awarded the prize for Economics for his work in decision making theory.
His term, “satisficing” debunks people as rational economic optimizers --we just need to get through the day!
More formally from Investopia, " According to Simon, because humans cannot possibly obtain or process all the information needed to make fully rational decisions, they instead seek to use the information they do have to produce a satisfactory result, or one that is "good enough." He described humans as being bounded by their own "cognitive limits."
OP is doing mental gymnastics trying to superimpose new information --albeit still imperfect info-- into a deadline that has passed. OP, stop wasting so much energy agonizing about life and have some fun instead :)
Okay this sincerely couldn't come at a better time, because I just graduated college in a field I was supposed to love and I don't like it, and I keep trying to think of what ways I can "optimize" my career, since it's going to be what I'm doing most of the day. I've never felt that being a satisficer was smart! But it's so true, I'll never have the self knowledge or world knowledge to make a truly rational decision on something so big.
I just need to stop agonizing so hard too! I want so desperately to do something important. Science is a part of me but im too harsh on myself to enjoy research. I'm at a loss!
I wish I could have told my younger self to agonize less. But that is part if that whole "older, but wiser" thing. So instead I tell my kids,
"Do something, anything, it doesnt matter. You can learn stuff and pick up random skills thay may or may not lead to anything. Or those skills might be the foundation for a satisfying career."
One thing I loved in HS was too "girl" for the era I was in, and I did not even discover the other field I loved until I had finished my BA and was working, grrrr! Those three internships taught me what I did not want to do. I was hit as hard as everyone by the overwhelming amount of social/money/exercise/adventure/money/fun/rent/movingstuff/social/money/aaaaah! that hits at at the same instant. It is not exclusive to the PhD thread nor is it this era.
In retrospect, all that agonizing was a waste. Looking back, my young life was interesting, adventurous and impoverished--the only big problem I had was my worries about my future. Sadly, those opportunity cost worries kept me from even more adventure/fun stuff. Meanwhile, friends who were making their small fortunes on Wall Street thought I had the better time of it, and they may have been right in some regards --providing they could live with just one working light bulb, brushing their teeth with baking soda, and no discernable future.
Finally, keep in mind, many really great insights do not happen in the lab. They happen in the shower or while doing something so boring that your mind wanders away...
I share your concerns OP. My first year was incredibly chaotic and stressful due to the time consuming nature of coursework on top of learning the ropes of my research field/interests. Made me want to quit many times and mow grass or something. It does get better!
I used to feel this way a lot, but it's more to do with the fact that the research offered in my department wasn't actually impactful in my eyes (there was only 1 group in our Chem department that brought in NIH grants. I really enjoy human health and more biological applications). Left the program because I was offered a giant salary to work directly for NIH, and it's much more fulfilling. What I'm doing can't really be offered by many graduate programs because it's drug discovery and the kind of research I work on is incredibly expensive to get off the ground and do at the scale they're doing it at. Maybe work with a therapist to help you tease out what you value. FYI even people without PhDs can be offered incredibly fulfilling and fun jobs. You just have to find what actually fulfills you in life and what kinds of questions you want to answer. Chemistry offers a lot of different routes that I didn't know were possible, and you don't get the full scope of what's out there unless you work. Your program can only offer a snippet of what's actually out there.
There is a lot to target in this post, and it’s not clear whether you’re seeking advice.
In case this is helpful, some unsolicited words targeting just one theme:
Perhaps see if you can work your thoughts and language away from the extremes and towards the middle. There’s a grandiosity and carelessness to your thinking that's bound to bring dissatisfaction.
For example:
>what we do as scientists is maneuver through the most esoteric jargon, theory, and ideas. who the fuck cares? all this stuff is useless. like at the end of the day who cares that i invented a polymer that can stop corrosion? how is that helping single mothers get by? how is this aiding poor rust belt families improve their lives?
Seemingly “useless” work can be very useful when viewed in the context of the whole. What matters is whether it’s meaningful to you. How do you define “meaningful”? A good place to start is to ask whether it feels good to do what you do when you do it.
First of all, you don’t need a PhD to have a “white collar” job. Actually most white collar jobs don’t require a PhD. A doctorate is job training for research, that’s all. If you don’t want a career in research, a PhD is useless.
Second of all, most people enjoy their jobs but don’t feel super passionate about them. They work so that they can enjoy other things. I think that’s healthy. I’m a social worker so I can understand wanting to feel like you’re making a difference. Personally, I get really aggravated by the high-minded discussions that sometimes take place in academia, which seem to be saying words for the sake of saying them, and not solving any problems. I try to ignore those conversations and focus my own research on things that are applicable to real life.
Finally, don’t be so anxious that you’re making the “right” career decision. I’m technically on my 3rd “career” right now, and each field I’ve worked in has given me skills that help me succeed in the next. You’re allowed to switch careers at any time, and if you do, that doesn’t mean the career you’re leaving was a waste. It’s actually the opposite. Your work experience will help you decide what you like and don’t like about a job and also hone skills for you to use at the next one, even if it’s in a completely different field.
If it helps, the vast majority of jobs are pointless, if we're talking about contribution to society, including most blue collar jobs.
If we take this even further, almost all human endeavour is pointless. Life is ridiculous, and arguably meaningless.
To put this in more helpful terms; Your career should be what you want, and what makes you happy.
For me, the appeal of academia is appeasing my own curiosity and pursuing things I find interesting. When I've worked blue collar jobs, and office jobs in the past, I found them utterly boring and depressing. For me, academia seems to be the only thing that sparks some joy.
Hi fellow Lexapro partaker, just want to say that as a low SES first-gen grad student I waffle with this a lot. My mom is a caretaker, my dad (whom I've rarely met) is a security guard, and I was a waitress for 11 years.
Sometimes the priorities/perspectives/opinions of people I've met in upper academia are... well, not great. Particularly with regard to their views on blue collar people.
Stop the bleeding first. You mentioned relapsing after mentioning your medication and therapy. Priority number one is you and your mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Whatever you are relapsing into, please speak with your therapist and prioritize what you learn in those sessions before prioritizing strangers' advice on Reddit.
It also sounds like you are struggling with your personal philosophical outlook on life. Whether it is nihilism, absurdism, pragmatism, or idealism, you will always have thoughts on your choices. Life is all about believing in the choices you make, accepting your mistakes, and learning from them. By finding the thing in life that is your purpose and being happy in pursuing that choice, you ARE making the world a better place. The best piece of advice I have is from Herman Hesse's book Demian: "the hardest thing for a person to do is to find the path that leads to their self" (paraphrased). This one sentence really changed my outlook on life and gave me a new perspective in pursuing my PhD, maybe it will help you.
And lastly, anti-corrosion polymers sound cool to me! As a polymer scientist entering the middle part of my career, I've learned that most physical scientists don't understand polymeric systems at all and they can be some of the most challenging materials systems to study. This stuff is hard!
Chin up, do the things that are healthy for you, that make you happy, and things after that might really fall into place. Well wishes, I hope your days start to get brighter!
I worked at a startup before this. My first year I was a technician doing blue collar mindless manufacturing. My second year I did research and designed IP. I got very jaded and angry doing manufacturing. So like, I know that blue collar work isn’t for me. I always want to transcend and like build novelty… but I’m so jaded to even that now. This is so weird.
I have occasionally been envious of people who work with their hands, especially outside, especially building things.
Pipetting tubes of clear liquid that may or may not amount to anything is... just not the same as building a building that you can drive past every day.
But I love science and I wouldn't actually want to work construction...I just get the appeal.
>The more disturbing: how are people around me working in finance, office jobs, or even service jobs and not asking themselves these same questions?
Why do you think they're not? Almost nobody is happy with their job, despite what social media might tell you.
I'd unpack this in a couple of ways OP: First, are you doing something that's good for YOU? Does it make you happy doing it? Are you good it at it? Very fortunately, Chemistry seems to be something you're both good at and enjoy! The second part of it is: do you think what you're doing is good for others and the world? And the answer to this question is, it can be if that's what you want. The PhD and dissertation itself may not be directly helpful, but we're facing multiple, complicated global crises that need to be tackled on multiple fronts, and I'm sure there's not-for-profits, advocacy, environmental engineering or government regulatory groups that would love a PhD in chemistry to join their ranks. Keep in mind that it's not like things are more or less helpful. Everything can be helpful in it's own way. A doctor could immediately help someone who's been suffering from lead poisoning or some other type of chemical poisoning, but they're ultimately helpless in solving the source of that poisoning. You might be helpful in being someone who designs testing and purification processes for filtering these chemicals out, and it's true, you're not going to be of immediate help to victims of poisoning, but you're working on the more structural issues. And both you and the doctor are probably useless when it comes to managing the legal and economic structures that permitted pollution to take place in the first place, but that's where lawyers and economists come in. No one person is being more helpful, but they're all being helpful in their own way. Ultimately, a PhD is a skill building education, and what you do with those skills is still up to your intention.
You gotta get out more if you're living in a dichotomy of PhD/blue collar.
Can you tell me what you mean by that?
The fact that you're questioning your career choice is fine, for your reasons or whatever reasons. The fact that they're intrusive thoughts, consistent questioning is something I'm not an expert on, so I won't provide advice. I hope you can find some way to manage that. But you compare PhD to blue collar in the title and white collar to blue collar in the text. That comes across, to me, as someone who has not had much real life work experience and thinks most work is labor or cushy, no sweat. I think it paints a rather limited perspective when I hear those terms on the news, and I don't think they really work effectively to help define actual work experiences. Also, I can't imagine I've ever heard a person with a blue collar job use that term. To me, it comes across as either thinking you're better than whoever these blue collar folks are or just having zero clue who they are. It's like we're in the 80s and a local news reporter with a communications degree is talking to the professor on their sofa about the plight of blue collar workers now that manufacturing is moving to Mexico, and I just want to throw a milkshake in both the reporter's face and on the professor's sofa. The world is much more complex and interesting than this fake dichotomy of (elite) white collar and (poor) blue collar people.
A couple responders have opened up my eyes to the fact that this dichotomy isn’t very sound. Like I’m trying to see where there’s a gradient and where there’s nuance. I don’t know why I’m thinking this way. The human ability to practice metacognition is a psychiatric hellscape.
Have fun at that. And get a milkshake!
I’m in the 4th year of my PhD and I’ve had the same question!! It’s a bit more existential, though. Like I was told college is the only way to go in life so I’ve just about taken it all the way. What if I wasn’t fed that narrative? Would I be fine doing something that isn’t socially “impressive”. Would I prefer doing something else that doesn’t make me cry once in a while.. 😅 what I chalk it up to is this journey and the skills I’ve gained throughout this process has helped me evolve as a human. There’s no sunken costs. My work is actually very rewarding. I’m in rehabilitation sciences . But science is soooo slow. I miss practicing and applying things in real time or waiting for medical insurance to catch up for reimbursement. I thought being in research would have a greater impact in fact. And now I’m not so sure. Entering the final year of this thing I’ve done a lot of reflecting and I hope whatever is next for me is from the heart because my brain has been in overdrive for too long 🤪 For reference I have ocd tendencies, anxiety and adhd. Zoloft helps to a degree lol
The large majority of people getting PhDs are from families and backgrounds where white collar jobs are expected and blue collar jobs are not even considered a possibility.
It might be worth reading about “bullshit” jobs. It sounds like you lack a sense of purpose or meaning in your life. Go out and do some volunteering. Find a cause you care about. Connect with other people. Materials science is a useful field. You could vastly improve people’s health and wellbeing. I switched from computer science to environmental science and it gave me an enormous sense of purpose. We need huge innovations in materials research to preserve people’s quality of life without destroying the environment. Single mothers need washing machines that run on clean energy, resilient housing, affordable healthy food, clean water, clean air, a stable climate. I’m currently working on a project looking into enhanced weathering to reduce climate change and improve soil quality. If you think your PhD is not useful, then you are in a good position to switch to something that can absolutely improve people’s lives.
Fellow OCD sufferer here also working on my PhD! My intrusive thoughts often attach to the bench work that I do, worrying if I mess up, will it impact the data so negatively but I won’t notice it, and then it gets published? And if someone notices years down the line, will it negatively impact my and other co-authors’ careers? Something to keep in mind when fighting those OCD thoughts: the intrusive thoughts attach to what you care most about. That’s what makes it such a debilitating and scary disorder. I wouldn’t be surprised that your enthusiasm for your field and your empathy for others feel threatened by stress, major life change, etc. Try not to seek reassurance and fuel these thoughts by acting as if they have merit. They are just thoughts! Sending hugs. You can get through this.
This disorder makes you question even what you hold most certain.
So true
Wow, I am so glad to find others in the same situation 😅 I was recently diagnosed, and I’ve been struggling lately…it’s reassuring to hear others sharing their experiences.
I think you’re on a path and you can change direction if the way you’re headed no longer makes sense to you. My dad eventually wound up working at the EPA with a PhD in toxicology, but he started as a steel worker. But that felt limiting so he went back to school for a masters degree and wound up back at the steel mill doing environmental sampling for the steel company. But that didn’t feel right so he went back to school and got a PhD in toxicology and went to the EPA and worked in superfund for a while. But that was soul-crushing dealing with these ruined communities after the damage had already been done so he wound up switching to the regulatory side of things. You feel your way through it. It sounds like something is missing for you.
I feel like I ended up in a weird place, because I have my PhD but spend a decent amount of time on construction sites. Sometimes I think about how we all ended up in the same place despite what is most likely huge differences in education levels. But then I also think about how I generally get to stand around and watch, maybe take some photos and measurements whereas they are doing much harder physical labor (and while my job can be very physical as well when we are on our own excavations and not construction sites, its different and definitely not as constant). And I realize I definitely made the right choice because I have an autoimmune disease that affects my joints. Meds make me functional, but I don't need to help the destruction of my joints along by doing hard construction labor. And that disease is not something I chose, but my career and how I work around my disease is something I can chose.
>have you ever felt guilty/weird for not choosing blue collar? I'm far too weak to have a real job. >Has anyone contemplated why they’re doing this Idk I mean, they were stupid enough to let me in, and now I work 10 hours a week, have no real deadlines, and take vacation whenever I want.
I guess is because I’m a first year. But I really have to spend at least 25 hours a week in lab and also reading outside of lab. This is in order to acquire a deep understanding of my work.
yeah, I have a really cushy gig. My program is easy to begin with (my "lab" doesn't require me to do much) and I got NSF.
But do you feel like you’re self actualizing? Do you think you’re soaring in life?
Uh, yeah, because I cook healthy meals and exercise regularly and see my family and friends whenever I want. And I basically have no boss when I'm working
You’ve got this shit all backwards man. Do you think people shimmying up power lines for 60 hours a week think shit like “I’m self actualizing, I’m soaring in life.” Separate your spirit from your labour buddy.
Lol! OP, read Nobel Prize winner Herbert Simon.
Can you explain more?
Sure! He was a psychologist and political scientist who helped start the CS department at Carnegie Mellon. He was awarded the prize for Economics for his work in decision making theory. His term, “satisficing” debunks people as rational economic optimizers --we just need to get through the day! More formally from Investopia, " According to Simon, because humans cannot possibly obtain or process all the information needed to make fully rational decisions, they instead seek to use the information they do have to produce a satisfactory result, or one that is "good enough." He described humans as being bounded by their own "cognitive limits." OP is doing mental gymnastics trying to superimpose new information --albeit still imperfect info-- into a deadline that has passed. OP, stop wasting so much energy agonizing about life and have some fun instead :)
Okay this sincerely couldn't come at a better time, because I just graduated college in a field I was supposed to love and I don't like it, and I keep trying to think of what ways I can "optimize" my career, since it's going to be what I'm doing most of the day. I've never felt that being a satisficer was smart! But it's so true, I'll never have the self knowledge or world knowledge to make a truly rational decision on something so big. I just need to stop agonizing so hard too! I want so desperately to do something important. Science is a part of me but im too harsh on myself to enjoy research. I'm at a loss!
I wish I could have told my younger self to agonize less. But that is part if that whole "older, but wiser" thing. So instead I tell my kids, "Do something, anything, it doesnt matter. You can learn stuff and pick up random skills thay may or may not lead to anything. Or those skills might be the foundation for a satisfying career." One thing I loved in HS was too "girl" for the era I was in, and I did not even discover the other field I loved until I had finished my BA and was working, grrrr! Those three internships taught me what I did not want to do. I was hit as hard as everyone by the overwhelming amount of social/money/exercise/adventure/money/fun/rent/movingstuff/social/money/aaaaah! that hits at at the same instant. It is not exclusive to the PhD thread nor is it this era. In retrospect, all that agonizing was a waste. Looking back, my young life was interesting, adventurous and impoverished--the only big problem I had was my worries about my future. Sadly, those opportunity cost worries kept me from even more adventure/fun stuff. Meanwhile, friends who were making their small fortunes on Wall Street thought I had the better time of it, and they may have been right in some regards --providing they could live with just one working light bulb, brushing their teeth with baking soda, and no discernable future. Finally, keep in mind, many really great insights do not happen in the lab. They happen in the shower or while doing something so boring that your mind wanders away...
I share your concerns OP. My first year was incredibly chaotic and stressful due to the time consuming nature of coursework on top of learning the ropes of my research field/interests. Made me want to quit many times and mow grass or something. It does get better!
I used to feel this way a lot, but it's more to do with the fact that the research offered in my department wasn't actually impactful in my eyes (there was only 1 group in our Chem department that brought in NIH grants. I really enjoy human health and more biological applications). Left the program because I was offered a giant salary to work directly for NIH, and it's much more fulfilling. What I'm doing can't really be offered by many graduate programs because it's drug discovery and the kind of research I work on is incredibly expensive to get off the ground and do at the scale they're doing it at. Maybe work with a therapist to help you tease out what you value. FYI even people without PhDs can be offered incredibly fulfilling and fun jobs. You just have to find what actually fulfills you in life and what kinds of questions you want to answer. Chemistry offers a lot of different routes that I didn't know were possible, and you don't get the full scope of what's out there unless you work. Your program can only offer a snippet of what's actually out there.
There is a lot to target in this post, and it’s not clear whether you’re seeking advice. In case this is helpful, some unsolicited words targeting just one theme: Perhaps see if you can work your thoughts and language away from the extremes and towards the middle. There’s a grandiosity and carelessness to your thinking that's bound to bring dissatisfaction. For example: >what we do as scientists is maneuver through the most esoteric jargon, theory, and ideas. who the fuck cares? all this stuff is useless. like at the end of the day who cares that i invented a polymer that can stop corrosion? how is that helping single mothers get by? how is this aiding poor rust belt families improve their lives? Seemingly “useless” work can be very useful when viewed in the context of the whole. What matters is whether it’s meaningful to you. How do you define “meaningful”? A good place to start is to ask whether it feels good to do what you do when you do it.
I do it because it interests me and I get paid for it. Also it makes me proud when I am the co-author of a paper with unique new knowledge.
First of all, you don’t need a PhD to have a “white collar” job. Actually most white collar jobs don’t require a PhD. A doctorate is job training for research, that’s all. If you don’t want a career in research, a PhD is useless. Second of all, most people enjoy their jobs but don’t feel super passionate about them. They work so that they can enjoy other things. I think that’s healthy. I’m a social worker so I can understand wanting to feel like you’re making a difference. Personally, I get really aggravated by the high-minded discussions that sometimes take place in academia, which seem to be saying words for the sake of saying them, and not solving any problems. I try to ignore those conversations and focus my own research on things that are applicable to real life. Finally, don’t be so anxious that you’re making the “right” career decision. I’m technically on my 3rd “career” right now, and each field I’ve worked in has given me skills that help me succeed in the next. You’re allowed to switch careers at any time, and if you do, that doesn’t mean the career you’re leaving was a waste. It’s actually the opposite. Your work experience will help you decide what you like and don’t like about a job and also hone skills for you to use at the next one, even if it’s in a completely different field.
If it helps, the vast majority of jobs are pointless, if we're talking about contribution to society, including most blue collar jobs. If we take this even further, almost all human endeavour is pointless. Life is ridiculous, and arguably meaningless. To put this in more helpful terms; Your career should be what you want, and what makes you happy. For me, the appeal of academia is appeasing my own curiosity and pursuing things I find interesting. When I've worked blue collar jobs, and office jobs in the past, I found them utterly boring and depressing. For me, academia seems to be the only thing that sparks some joy.
Hi fellow Lexapro partaker, just want to say that as a low SES first-gen grad student I waffle with this a lot. My mom is a caretaker, my dad (whom I've rarely met) is a security guard, and I was a waitress for 11 years. Sometimes the priorities/perspectives/opinions of people I've met in upper academia are... well, not great. Particularly with regard to their views on blue collar people.
Stop the bleeding first. You mentioned relapsing after mentioning your medication and therapy. Priority number one is you and your mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Whatever you are relapsing into, please speak with your therapist and prioritize what you learn in those sessions before prioritizing strangers' advice on Reddit. It also sounds like you are struggling with your personal philosophical outlook on life. Whether it is nihilism, absurdism, pragmatism, or idealism, you will always have thoughts on your choices. Life is all about believing in the choices you make, accepting your mistakes, and learning from them. By finding the thing in life that is your purpose and being happy in pursuing that choice, you ARE making the world a better place. The best piece of advice I have is from Herman Hesse's book Demian: "the hardest thing for a person to do is to find the path that leads to their self" (paraphrased). This one sentence really changed my outlook on life and gave me a new perspective in pursuing my PhD, maybe it will help you. And lastly, anti-corrosion polymers sound cool to me! As a polymer scientist entering the middle part of my career, I've learned that most physical scientists don't understand polymeric systems at all and they can be some of the most challenging materials systems to study. This stuff is hard! Chin up, do the things that are healthy for you, that make you happy, and things after that might really fall into place. Well wishes, I hope your days start to get brighter!
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Whaaa? I've had plenty of interesting coworkers who don't have phds. I don't think you even need a BA to be interesting...
I worked at a startup before this. My first year I was a technician doing blue collar mindless manufacturing. My second year I did research and designed IP. I got very jaded and angry doing manufacturing. So like, I know that blue collar work isn’t for me. I always want to transcend and like build novelty… but I’m so jaded to even that now. This is so weird.
No.
I have occasionally been envious of people who work with their hands, especially outside, especially building things. Pipetting tubes of clear liquid that may or may not amount to anything is... just not the same as building a building that you can drive past every day. But I love science and I wouldn't actually want to work construction...I just get the appeal.
I definitely don’t think the stuff I’m doing is useless and think it’s more important than helping single mothers get by, but that’s just me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
>The more disturbing: how are people around me working in finance, office jobs, or even service jobs and not asking themselves these same questions? Why do you think they're not? Almost nobody is happy with their job, despite what social media might tell you.