Rasika Bhalerao (she/her), FY21 Communications Coordinator, PhD candidate at NYU
This opinionated blog post is for people like me: I am now a rising fifth-year PhD candidate. I have wanted this degree for a long time, I have generally enjoyed grad school so far, and I will make sure to finish.
In my department, Computer Science and Engineering, it sounds like refusing more lucrative options in order to pursue the career we choose is an almost universal experience. I don’t think it is unique to my department. If I say “that person who graduated with a bachelors degree around the same time as you and who now runs a company / bought a house,” I’m sure you can think of someone. (If you run a company in grad school… congratulations. Email us and I’ll write you a spotlight.)
The GradSWE community also likely has women (or people of all genders) who are made to feel inadequate or “behind” by well-meaning family and friends, or just by society. Some are told they need to find spouses. Some are told they need to pay more attention to the children they have. To be completely clear, I support everybody’s choices in making the decision of whom / when / whether to marry, their choices involving children, and the level of involvement they choose to have in a career. This is only for those who need to hear it:
There have been several thousand generations of human history. In many cases, today’s women and minorities are the first to have the opportunities their ancestors dreamed of. That’s quite a responsibility. (And, of course, this privilege is incomplete and not evenly distributed, and we must always expand our advocacy efforts.) If you were looking for perspective to back up your confidence in your own choices, I hope it helps to know that you have all of history cheering you on.
If you want to complain to me (I don’t mind, I miss human contact lol) about being “behind” or being jealous of people who have other goals, I have to ask you: Do you wish you had their job? Do you wish you were married to their spouse? (If you actually do prefer that, then I support your decision in whichever next steps you choose.) If you prefer what you chose, then great!
I believe in you to choose what is right for you, just like you did when you originally chose grad school.
Sunk cost fallacy aside, I don’t know what else would be different if I had made a different choice years ago. The circumstances that would have led to me not choosing a PhD might have meant I didn’t like TAing, or that I studied something else. I wouldn’t have found my research areas, and I wouldn’t have found communities like GradSWE.
This opinionated blog post is for people like me: I am now a rising fifth-year PhD candidate. I have wanted this degree for a long time, I have generally enjoyed grad school so far, and I will make sure to finish.
In my department, Computer Science and Engineering, it sounds like refusing more lucrative options in order to pursue the career we choose is an almost universal experience. I don’t think it is unique to my department. If I say “that person who graduated with a bachelors degree around the same time as you and who now runs a company / bought a house,” I’m sure you can think of someone. (If you run a company in grad school… congratulations. Email us and I’ll write you a spotlight.)
The GradSWE community also likely has women (or people of all genders) who are made to feel inadequate or “behind” by well-meaning family and friends, or just by society. Some are told they need to find spouses. Some are told they need to pay more attention to the children they have. To be completely clear, I support everybody’s choices in making the decision of whom / when / whether to marry, their choices involving children, and the level of involvement they choose to have in a career. This is only for those who need to hear it:
There have been several thousand generations of human history. In many cases, today’s women and minorities are the first to have the opportunities their ancestors dreamed of. That’s quite a responsibility. (And, of course, this privilege is incomplete and not evenly distributed, and we must always expand our advocacy efforts.) If you were looking for perspective to back up your confidence in your own choices, I hope it helps to know that you have all of history cheering you on.
If you want to complain to me (I don’t mind, I miss human contact lol) about being “behind” or being jealous of people who have other goals, I have to ask you: Do you wish you had their job? Do you wish you were married to their spouse? (If you actually do prefer that, then I support your decision in whichever next steps you choose.) If you prefer what you chose, then great!
I believe in you to choose what is right for you, just like you did when you originally chose grad school.
Sunk cost fallacy aside, I don’t know what else would be different if I had made a different choice years ago. The circumstances that would have led to me not choosing a PhD might have meant I didn’t like TAing, or that I studied something else. I wouldn’t have found my research areas, and I wouldn’t have found communities like GradSWE.
