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Showing posts from February, 2017

Is Passion the P in PhD?

If you have 'passion' for something, it means you haven't really pushed yourself hard enough to see its dark side. You haven't tasted failure. You think you're good at something, so you really like it. You like the feeling of being good at something. That's 'passion'. Doing a PhD makes you taste failure. A lot of it. You realize that you aren't actually good at said area. You realize that you are actually really, really bad at it. No matter how much 'passion' you thought you had, one day you are going to clutch at your hair and (with genuine passion this time) cry out "I HATE THIS." The 'passion' that you thought you had now reveals itself to be the biggest lie you were ever told (by yourself). 'Passion' is not an indicator of whether you should do a PhD. It is an indicator of how much you are wallowed in your comfort zone. It is an indicator of how flat you are about to fall on your face. You sho...