Self-help

Oh, you know, it’s that time in your life when you’re wondering what you’re supposed to do with your life. It’s not that I hate my job as a graduate student, it is that I feel like I definitely don’t want to do this for the rest of my life. And then the inevitable question becomes: “Well, what DO you want to do?” To which the immediate answer is: “I really don’t know.”

I’ve always been a really good student. Straight A’s with a B thrown in for variety, mostly. The only classes I ever did poorly in where Math and Physics. You think you should pick your career based on your strengths, but what if you are decently good at a lot of things?

My best testing area was always Verbal, with especially good marks in reading comprehension. I have always felt like an English major trying to pass as a scientist. Imposter syndrome is apparently quite common among graduate students. So why even bother with science?

PROS
1. I love the people. Biologists are strange, smart, and often hilarious. I spent a lot of my life feeling really weird compared to everyone else, and here I feel amongst my own kind.

2. I love learning about weird-ass stuff that I’ve never heard about before. Understanding how the world works and all the amazing feats microscopic organisms can accomplish that we can’t. Working in science is to be handed a black box, and then try to figure out what is going on inside the box just by asking questions. But this is also what can drive me crazy about it sometimes.

3. I do also love the prestige. That I am not doing something mundane. That every day I am surrounded by brilliant people, famous people.

CONS
1. What I don’t love about the job is the feeling that I can’t make any progress. That I am adrift in a project that will never let me go. The feeling that I am running in place and not getting anywhere.

2. I also often feel like I don’t have enough questions. I’m curious, but not curious enough? I get tired of thinking of the same project day in and day out. I thought I’d love getting to this stage, but it actually exhausts me, because I have thought so much about it that I can see all the flaws in the project. All the ways it’s going to go wrong and be worth none of my time. The science is satisfying when it works, but soul crushing when it doesn’t. Like I don’t have the intellectual stamina for it.

3. Finally, I return to the imposter syndrome. I love putting together visuals and writing protocols and journal entries. I feel like I don’t get to create much here. Don’t feel that creative.

Have you made it through my rambling this far? Excellent. I’m trying to figure out what makes me happy, at least at work. So I got out “Do What You Are” from the local library, to figure out what the heck I am. I swiftly had to come to terms with the fact that I classify as an introvert. Compared to my grad student demographic, I’m decently social. Middle-of-the-road I’d say.
But I fall nicely into the “introvert” pattern. I like to think before acting. I take awhile to genuinely warm up to someone, and I usually keep a very small circle of true friends. My brother is a lot like this, but then my dad and sister are very extroverted. They make friends everywhere, they know everyone . . . I’ve always envied that. I always went after supporting roles in the plays, because they were stranger and less competed-for, and let me do my own thing. Ach, this is more rambling.

I’m an “INFP” Which is Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling, and Perception.

http://linus.highpoint.edu/~bblatchl/infp.html

I’m not sure this gets me anywhere just yet, but the description IS dead-on. . .