Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Fuck. My Life!
When I first started doing research in the fall term of my sophomore year, I had these grand expectations that I would spend my entire undergraduate research career in that same lab. However, several weeks into this experience, I began to loathe the people with whom I worked, and going to the lab was a terrifying and psychologically draining experience for me. I did not feel that I was truly involved in the project, as I was merely running gels and PCR's for other researchers in the lab, though I did have to kill a bunch of mice and slice their brains apart. Although I enjoyed the technical parts of the lab, I wasn't extremely passionate about what I was doing. Adding that to my social experience in the lab, I made the decision that research wasn't really for me, but I decided to pursue a different aspect of neuroscientific research--one that combined my fascination with the human brain with my love of linguistics. As I become more involved in the lab and accept new responsibilities, I'm realizing that I enjoy what I'm doing a great deal. I still want to be a doctor, but now I have the option of becoming and MD/PHD to consider. Aside from the financial and logistic problems I'd have to work out regarding my other plans in life, I'm a little worried that I would be spending my entire life in the lab instead of treating patients. If the time were divided evenly, there would be no dilemma here. Of course the information session for students interested in this option is being held at a time when I have class. Things can never be easy, can they? I'm sort of rambling, but when something upsets the balance in my head--a balance created this time by my own certainty in what I plan to accomplish after graduating from Pitt--it takes a while for me to be alright again. Actually, I'm not really okay until I have it figured out again. Even if the final decision is rendered oxymoronic by adjoining the modifier "temporary", my mind will be able to focus on other things while processing the decision in the background. I'd really like some help with this one.
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MD and PhD don't have to go right next to each other like that, necessarily. i'm thinking about something similar, and have been for a while. yeah, i think i want to get my eventual PhD, but i want to stop after my Master's and practice for a few years first. not only do i think this will give me the perfect opportunity to determine whether i really want to return to research or if i just want to continue working clinically, but i think that my clinical experience will make me a better researcher, because i'll have practical knowledge, not just theoretical, to draw upon. i see no reason why you can't do this with medicine. or, if you finish med school and realize that's no longer what you want to do at that time, go straight into a PhD program. it needn't be a matter of if, so much, as when.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you set up a meeting with whomever is running the info session? Explain your interests and concerns to them. You're not the first person to face these decisions and you won't be the last. Why not get some advice from people who deal with these questions all the time?
ReplyDeleteKae's comment about work experience between degrees is also quite relevant and worthy of consideration.