I now compartmentalize. I realized it last week on the train and it took me by surprise. My husband has always been able to compartmentalize and I have never understood it. In fact, I used to find it incredibly annoying. How could anyone just shut one whole aspect of their life down in a moment? I couldn't understand how a person could live without all their messiness from one situation bleeding onto all their messiness of another.
Then, standing on the train, I realized that I had simply stopped worrying about my research residency (even though a project that I'm working on gave me fits all day while I was there and I certainly hadn't really fixed it by the time I left), that I was only focused on reading this one chapter of my stats text during my commute, and that when I stepped off the train I would no longer focus on the stats text and would instead focus on dinner. It was as if one concern simply vanished in the presence of another. NOTHING was moving into the mental space of anything else. It was shocking. And also a little like being reborn. I suddenly felt able to cope with the chaos that the PhD program forces upon a person.
So, I get it. It is a coping mechanism and perhaps even a survival mechanism: if one can't compartmentalize in a PhD program then one's brain surely explodes. Or, at least, that is my explanation for this newly acquired, and still slightly freakish, skill.
I am changing as a person, and that change is slow and incremental, but I notice it in sudden moments of insight that feel like discoveries.
Hello! I kinda need help, and I realize that it might not make much sense. I wrote on your blog earlier, when I was applying to PhD schools. Well, I got into all my top choices: MN, UPenn, and UCSF. Now I have got to choose. What are the top 2 things that made you choose the school where you are at now? Everybody talks about a match and a fit. I know that it's important, but financial aspect is important for me, too. Now I have 30 days to decide. :)
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! Congratulations! I am so excited for you!
ReplyDeleteYou are asking the most important questions before you decide.
Now that I'm in my second year and publishing and applying for additional funding, I realize (more than I ever could have when I was choosing where to go) how very important this decision was.
The top two factors in my choice were resources and funding.
When I say 'resources,' I mean the match. I can not stress how important it is that you will have both mentorship and experts in (or at least close to) your topic area. It never stops being important. Good mentors help you network: they introduce you to the right people at the right conferences; they help you publish in your area before you graduate so that you build your CV; they are important for your future funding: predoctoral and postdoctoral funding is dependent on the quality of your match in some situations.
Of course the funding is important. But, the reality is that the PhD program involves learning to make do on a lot less. I haven't been this strapped for cash ever before in my adult life. But, it is pain with a purpose.
The match must come first. There are funding options out there, and a good program helps you find them. The money can be found, the match can't be created if it never existed.
Good luck!!!!! And congratulations again!!!
Thank you! I ended up choosing UPenn... I'm really excited and nervous that I just committed another 4 years of my life to education. :) But I'm loving it.
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