I'm lost... What to do after PhD??? - (Dec/17/2004 )

Hello

I'm 24, I live in Belgium, I graduated last year and I'm currently in my second PhD year (I'm suppose to be done after 4 years).
The thing is, as time goes by I'm starting to realize I don't feel like doing research that much and I'm asking myself, "am I on the wrong path???".

You see, I hear so many people saying that one should choose between research and family (love, whatever) life and all that stuff, and even if I admire very much people making that choice, it's making me want to run away (and fast!), because I'd like to have a family life, I'd like to raise my kids myself, I'd like to keep on doing sport... Besides, I'd hate having to go abroad for months, which everyone around me thinks I should do and can't even imagine I wouldn't want to. Hey I'm like that, I don't see the point of finding the love of your life (which I luckily did 6 years ago ) and leave without him for months! To make it short, there are some (apparently unavoidable) sacrifices I'm not willing to make.

So my question is : knowing that I won't do any postdoc, that I'm certainely not the 12-hours-working-a-day person, should I be a good girl and finish the job so that everyone can call me doctor,and then what are the job options for a PhD owner?? Or should I stop right away and find some hum-drum classical 38 hours a week job (as a technician or something)?

Of course I really can't speak about this with my boss (who is very proud of having come close to divorce three times in his carreer because of never being home), and I don't know anyone else I could speak about this with...

Please help me!! If I keep on like this I'm soon gonna have to go on prozac or something!!

Thanks in advance

Lost Julie

PS: I'm not freaking out because I can't get results, I actually have quite good ones...(and that's maybe the worse part of the story)

In my personal opinion, whatever you do, don't give up! Finish the job, do the research. If I were to drop what you are doing I would feel that those years of life would be a waste. When you're done, you can use your knowledge to incorporate things you like with the field you specialize in. (Doctor hating medicine and loving computers made a clinical application program that all doctors use).
But then again, I"m not speaking from experience. Hopefully some members of this board can give their experienced opinion.

Good luck to you!

BigO

Hi Julie!

Maybe it is easier in my country, but anyway, to have an PhD makes it easiet to get a job in the industry, and not an 80 hours a week job, but a fairly ordinary one. I would stick to it, finish and then look for a job outside academia.
I am still not sure if I will stay in academia (if there is a post doc when i finishes) but the PhD will anyhow give me better opportunities.
I allready have kids, so I only have to find the time to see them. That's OK because I only have 32 hours weeks (well on paper...still they do not tend to become too long) and then I have 3½ years to make it instead of 3 years (after master graduation). When I have kids I do not have to go abroad, but I am thinking of a little trip around six weeks or so, and then make my husbond take vacation after three weeks and come visit with the kids. But I am still contemplating that.
Stick at it, and leave when you have your degree Then you can laugh at your boss and his silly; might get a divorse because of my job, comments
Regards Carina

Hello Julie

Life is not all bed of roses but it does not have to be all bad for a PhD either.

I help senior year PhDs and post-docs find positions as Consultants worldwide. The search for a single perfect job usually ends in frustration. It does not have to be that way. I have seen that PhDs are just perfect as Consultants where they take on advisory roles. If this is true for the Business world, why not for the biological sciences? Science is nothing but business anyway as your lab chief tries to sell a research story to get a grant or a group leader tries to justify and sell his own importance in a pharmaceutical company.

Just don't give up- but don't plod along either. There is nothing wrong in wanting to make money and being dedicated scientifically at the same time. The two wishes don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Email me at : frustrated@mad.scientist.com or send me a letter at TheFallGuy, 5701 S Broadway, Littleton, CO 80121.