Today, I attended the defense talk of a fellow PhD student. Of course, after 5 years of grad school, this activity is fairly routine. Friends and colleagues defend all of the time. However, over the past few months, I have witnessed the departure of several students to which I have grown very close. These are students that I consider my peers, intellectual equals, and partners on the journey through this difficult PhD process. In a sense I feel like we are all frauds. Are we really trained well enough to venture out onto our own? Are the new students as impressed with us as we were of the senior students when we entered the program? Almost certainly, they think we are “old.” haha. That perspective has changed as well….
I remember those first few thesis talks I attended. The work seemed so substantial. The sheer volume of data struck me as impressive. I thought that these newly minted PhDs were so far beyond my abilities – I had a long way to go before I would be ready to take that step. How do you even get from the “fresh out of undergrad, wet behind the ears” mentality to the other side? It is a place where you are confident and ready to take on the world of independent research, out from under the protective wings of you advisor (and his funding).
Now, as prepare the outline of my own dissertation, I am struck by the volumes of data tucked away in my own notebooks. It is easy to forget how far your project has come when you are used to looking at it through the constraints of a brief research presentation or committee report. Over time, I took for granted all of the groundwork that was laid in order to get that one pretty figure I have proudly displayed to my audiences. Strangely, I have found experiments that I completely forgot about – some of them are quite useful for putting the pieces of my scientific “story” together. Others slap me in the face with secret shame – Was I really that naive to think this experiment would lead somewhere? Did I honestly think this would ever work? I am taking this as a sign that I really have evolved into a more mature scientist. I remember reading a similar
post by Anna in which she admits that, upon looking through her own stack of research notebooks, she concludes that in the her first few years in lab she was an ” idiot”, so I doubt I am alone in this experience. Now, I wonder if I will feel this way throughout my entire career. Does this still happen to the most successful senior scientists?
At the start of my PhD I joined the lab of a new faculty member, enticed by the exciting direction of his work. Admittedly, I enjoyed the one on one attention that I received in those early days. Now, he has a larger lab, and I am working more independently. I feel eager to move on to even more independence. However, during my time in his lab, I have watched him evolve as a scientist and mentor. You really can grow that much even after you land your coveted tenure track position. It seems that this evolution never stops. You are never “trained.” You can always be better, smarter, more prepared for the next challenge.
I am beginning to accept that no matter in what stage of career I am residing, I will never reach point B. Now that I think about it, where did point A even start? I used to think Year 1 of grad school to earning the PhD degree was the journey. How naive I was then… point A started with my parents’ encouragement to love learning and point B is not a destination you can reach. It is only the beginning, a new point A in the limitless continuum of trips from point A to point B.