whoamiWell, considering the only people reading this are either PJ or one of my 28ish
classmates that I've known for at least a year each, I'm gonna skim through the
redundant...
LUG. Teek. Star Wars. Grad School.
Yep, that sums me up pretty nicely.
If you made it this far, go away. This doesn't matter. It's just for me.
I want to be a professor. I'm really only adding this because I had an epiphany over
Winter Break. Before, it was hard for me to nail down exactly why I want to be a
professor. I proclaimed, "I love TAing! I love tutoring!" and "I want to do my own
research!", but those were just fillers, with some truth. You know, when you're asked to explain
something you either can't or don't want to, so you say the average/typical response
instead of the real reason? Well, over break I realized that there's a big
difference between achievement and fulfillment. I've always known the words are
different, don't critique me, but their actual differences never struck me until
break. I'm not going to graduate school for achievement. I don't want to be a
professor for achievement. I want it all for fulfillment. When I worked at
IBM Research in 2015, I loved the work and I loved the people and I woke up
everyday at 6am excited for the day. I never had a chance to be all introspective
and brooding. However, the next summer was a lot different. In fact, it was the
opposite. I got a lot of work done on side projects at least! Anyways, it gave me
the chance to be introspective and brooding, which let me realize I didn't like the
work. Compared to the summer before, the work was more development than research,
and that played a major part. But at the same time, I has just come off the high
of TAing Unix and starting LUG. Even though I'm not nearly the best at either of
those, they still offered me some sort of contentment that I couldn't find
in my work. I did chalk it up to just being too much D and not enough
R from R&D, but I now know that it just wasn't fulfilling work, and I have the desire
to stay in academia because it's fulfilling. I think I have the opportunity
to achieve a lot in industry, just like all of my peers, but I just can't do it.
I have no passion, which depletes me of energy. All last semester I felt like I was
so behind my classmates because everyone was interviewing and getting jobs and
it seemed like I was falling behind. I was nervous to be taking the risk of going
to grad school. But I think now, I am finally content with that risk. I had to let
the achievement go. I'm not saying obtaining a PhD or becoming a professor is not
an achievement, or even a small feat for that matter, but I had come to feel like it
was the lesser path to take when compared to software development. And I'm pretty
happy, because I've always strived for achievement. In high school, that's all I cared
about. Achievement is what kept me from transferring out of Notre Dame my sophomore
year- I was hungry for a diploma with a name like Notre Dame on it. So for me to
be able to be completely satisfied with a decision to not strive for achievement,
it's a big deal. /end rant