VigNaattru

A common question that most people- friends, family and acquaintances - shoot at PhD students is   “ How long would you keep studying?” How one responds back depends on how quick-witted and thick-skinned one is. One could reply “ Well, technically I am not studying- I am a scholar and I just do research which is no way different from a regular job” . Of course, one would be laughing within   oneself, though keeping a straight face, while saying this! Else, one could earn some bits of sympathy by lamenting back how PhD seems to be an endless journey, how you uncertain or clueless he/she is as to when it will, eventually, end. Worse, one might even confess that you are more uncertain on the job prospects once it ends, than about getting PhD itself! A PhD looks tantalizingly promising for many aspirants- at least for the fact that they would get a cool new prefix to their names and get public rights to brag their (presumed) expertise in their field. Other way aroun...

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...