In pursuit of a PhD and figuring things along the way
A couple months ago, while measuring some samples with an oscilloscope, I witnessed a never-seen-before phenomenon.
As is completely obvious, the results were undoubtedly a part of some bigger picture.
Is this a signal from the universe? Some kind of a message?
Is that you, Batman?
So today, I came across this very inspirational post and decided to hold onto it. It was a good reminder that discovering you are wrong is still science (if attempted scientifically).
(Source).
Lately, I’ve been interfacing with the glove box a lot, which is next to inevitable in my field of study.
If you have never seen or heard of a glove box before, I have got an exclusive, self-explanatory diagram of it to show. But like all things science, this story is not as simple as that.
If your glove box is big, in a looming sort of way, it can be quite intimidating at first. And it can seem so… fancy to be working in a glove box then. Like you had to qualify for it. Well, with more experience, you find out that the basic qualifications you need are: 1) having a piece of work that you need to do in a glove box; and 2) appropriate height (as in, tallness of a scientist) relative to the glove box (but let’s be real here, the second criterion doesn’t really exist – stand on a chair if you must).
Plus, having to wear thick big gloves of the “glove” box, it becomes plain clumsy to work in it. And my excuse of “I-am-still-new-to-working-in-the-glove-box” expired a long time ago (which I actually whined about for quite some time compared to normal, not-so-fussy people).
So now I have had to accept that I AM fully responsible for whatever clumsiness I commit – which makes me not-such-a-big-fan of the bumbling person who works in the glove box and cannot even pick up a bottle without first dropping it a couple of times.
The “person” who works in the glove box? Pfft! That’s not me! She is Qudsia Forcephands (secret note: that’s the name for my alter ego for when I have to work in the glove box). She had to be really pushed to start working in there and she kept complaining about how she was still new to working in the glove box even when it was her sixth time! (it’s UNBELIEVABLE what some people will say so they will not have to work, it’s really sad).
But I think, with time (and with MUCH encouragement and suggestions from me), Forcephands is learning the tricks of the trade and she has become waaay better at navigating inside the glove box now. And, as the name might give you an idea, she is now quite adept at using forceps almost as if they were extensions of her hands (or gloves of the glove box).
Forcephands is still somewhat lazy and I often have to give her pep-talks, and even now, she keeps dropping everything in the glove box (are all those forceps inside the glove box there for nothing? Tut tut). But what can you do, some people will just remain at their level no matter how much you try. She has, though, become quite independent at working in the glove box now and, I have to admit, I am somewhat proud of her.
(But I still don’t completely trust her).
In one of our group meetings, a professor raised a very interesting question for us to think over: Why you are doing what you are doing and what is the importance of your work?
In research, this comes up a lot, especially when you are writing grants or research papers, or when you are presenting at conferences. At these times, you are expected to communicate the impact of your work and your motivation to get a doctoral degree (same stuff is supposed to work for both, pfft – after all, why would anyone be motivated to work on something if it wasn’t making an impact on the society and the world).
This time, when the question got popped all of a sudden, I was baffled.
I mean, I know why I am getting a PhD and why it is important (or at least I think I do). In fact, on better days, I have been known to drone on and on about why I am doing what I am doing. On regular days, however, I just trust that when we chose to enter this catastrophe, we had a very logical reason for it (even if we can’t remember it right now) and we were extremely passionate and excited about this new chapter.
Just as right now, when I am trying to pen it down in hopes that it’ll clear my own vision, I am completely clueless. But I do remember it was for some very selfish reason that I decided to take this path.
One of the reasons is probably that I want to continue in academia and nobody is going to let me in if I don’t have a PhD (a very self-centered point).
Of course, I would also like to have my own research group and students that I can squeeze scientists out of (I can only hope for the poor souls and myself).
Another (very selfish) reason that I can think of is the training that a PhD can offer. If I get through to the other side, I would expect myself to be quite good at doing some things, be more mentally tough, and to have grown considerably on personal and professional levels.
So I do think about this and I am completely aware that I should have a well-prepped answer for this for a time like when-a-professor-may-suddenly-throw-this-question-at-me. I should have a very good idea about the impact my work is making.
But on regular days, I don’t worry about it too much. I think that impact is over-rated for regular-day science. But then again, are we all not making an impact every day (positive or negative)? Don’t we all ruin or make someone’s day depending on how we interact with them? And when you are working interdisciplinarily, with all these other people, every little bit of science not only has an impact on your own work but also on the work of the people around you.
And more on a scientific level, wouldn’t I end up making some kind of impact anyway if I end up completing my degree? Even if I was planning on not making any? It may be very small, but it would have added something to the knowledge of the world.
But aside from all this glorious philosophical ranting, I do realize I need to have a well-prepared answer for difficult times (but then aren’t all humans selfish by nature and whatever we are doing, isn’t it all self-serving in some way?).
Right, yes, we need to focus on writing down a good response to this one that we can pull out of our hat in times of need (but then again…
Sometimes, things go wrong in your life that, no matter how much you try, you just cannot hide them.
Especially if you work with smelly chemicals in your lab.
You spill one of those and your biggest wish would be to bury the evidence of your clumsiness. It’s all well. You clean up, no big damages. No one saw you. It should be fine. Only if it was this simple.
The smell of the chemical will not let it be so. It haunts you and follows you around everywhere you go.
And people start asking questions. Questions that should not have been raised in the first place, that are best left unanswered.
And then, you have to admit that yes, it is you. This is something that you have done. And it is definitely you who smells like that chemical.
But in this adversity lies a masked opportunity. An opportunity to develop your own line of perfumes that smell like chemicals in your lab. Then you can wear them all the time and get the people in your lab accustomed to those smells.
So that next time, they won’t even know (plus you generate revenue. Win-win.)
When you are a foreigner exploring a new culture, there is no shortage of stuff to wonder about. Something will keep coming your way throughout your stay.
And so it has been many times when I (and my fellow foreigners) have wondered about Finland being the happiest country in the world, time and again.
This journey of discovery is to each their own. You can search it on the internet and easily find articles analyzing what the reasons are for it. But when you are living in Finland, that is just not enough, is it? You will notice your surroundings, think about this, discuss it with others, and try to find out why in the world is it so (because those articles on the internet, what do they know about it).
And in my personal journey-of-discovery, I think I may have come upon at least one profound, contributing factor.
Finland is basically a happy country. By default. In other parts of the world, people become happy if something happens, but in Finland, you can be happy if something doesn’t happen. Like slipping and falling on ice. This has to be one of the biggest factors. Like you went to work, walked the full some-150-meters distance of it, didn’t slip and fall down, and now you can be happy about it. In fact, now you can be happy about it everyday (seeing as the ice doesn’t seem to be going anywhere any time soon).
Tasks as mundane as getting groceries suddenly become feats of accomplishment (because, you guessed it, you didn’t slip and fall during the entire time you were out). And of course, this also gives rise to a sense of camaraderie with your fellow pedestrians, especially if you see someone slip a little and stumble. Then you can root for them to please-not-fall (and be happy for them when they have regained their balance).
Looking at it statistically, it is far more likely that you will have more days when you wouldn’t slip and fall compared to the few days when you, inevitably, will do. So more happy days. At least in this time of the year.
And if you can be happy in this slushy, icy time of the year, that should probably count.
Wait, haven’t I written about this before?
Seems like I have… But l appear to have the phrase stuck in my head.
Never mind, I’m a changed person now, so anything I write today (on the same topic) cannot be the same as what I might have written four (and something) moons ago.
So I shall write on this again.
And today, now eight (and something) moons into my PhD, I expect myself to have grown somewhat in my scientific capabilities. So we shall talk about culture shock the scientific way, the “graph” way (excuse my English, but I am a foreigner, so I can apparently do whatever I feel like without feeling as bad about it).
And well, the graph-way is the right way, or it becomes so once you start falling in love with this kind of data representation, which is inevitable if you science (again, I am a foreigner, and “science” feels more like a verb to me these days).
But anyway, back to the graph:
Of course this is a very generalized curve, and just one “dip” in the experience is untrue for quite some people – this graph should be a lot more “noisy” if you’d plot a real one. Although this would differ from person to person, and how different of a culture you are moving into.
Also, the graph doesn’t really show your “mastery” level at your home country (or town). But from the text available on the internet, it is apparent that you almost never reach the same level of mastery in your new culture that you had in your old culture (which makes sense if you think about it).
This always makes me wonder… Does this mean that, even after you have adjusted and adapted, you are technically still in a state of culture shock, and will probably remain there throughout your stay?
That I find scary. And a little unrealistic to mention if a discussion about culture shock comes up in, say, two years from today. What do I do then? Do I say I am still in culture shock, if this particular question comes up? (Although I would estimate that to be a highly unlikely scenario, but everything has a first time, doesn’t it?)
But having grown comfortable with the idea of culture shock, and the (somewhat embarrassing) fact that I am still in there somewhere (although now probably in an overall better part of the curve), and being there for perhaps as long as I am in Finland, I have also realized the good this will do to my self-esteem…
So if I am not as good as I am hoping to become… heck, I am just in the wrong country!
It’s a very good thing to practice optimism in life. Optimism can keep you going in the face of challenges, and absurd optimism can keep you going despite past failed experiences and your knowledge of all odds being against you.
But in general, optimism is healthy, and I have been thinking about practicing more of this optimistic approach to life in general.
Except when it comes to my lab work. There, I don’t see how optimism helps me.
Because lab work, well, you can never be too sure about lab work.
And, as past experiments have shown, 95% of experiments don’t usually work the way you want them to (and if you are optimizing some procedure or recipe, the success rate can be quite close to zero).
In principle, I could be optimistic about my experiments before I start them, that may be this is THE time they will work.
But being a scientist, how can you just ignore the evidence of your low success rate of past experiments? How can you disregard all that data?
The thing is, it is easy to be optimistic and hard to be a realistic pessimist. It’s also called “the planning fallacy”, which describes how we, humans, are optimistic about our abilities and predict we can do things much faster and smarter than we actually are able to.
And I have been subject to this planning fallacy numerous times. Dozens of times I have thought I could do my part in group assignments well in time, or that I could surely submit a work update to my supervisor by the end of a week. Or that by July, I’d surely be at a stage where I’d be making my own Perovskite solar cell devices (didn’t happen, just so you know).
90% of the times, though, I have found myself not even close to meeting those deadlines.
So with the lab work, I have no choice but to opt for pessimism as my approach-of-choice to go about it. That despite every strategy that I develop to get my next solution not-cloudy, is probably not going to work, because:
1) It didn’t work the last time, when I very well thought that may be this in THE time it will work.
2) If it, by some tiny amount of chance, does work, and the cloudiness from my solutions clear up, well then, that is exactly how I’d prefer it, wouldn’t I?
So, in the long run, pessimism in the lab is a better option. If it doesn’t work, you are not disappointed, because you knew it wouldn’t work.
And if it does work, you can be twice more happy compared to if you thought that may be this in THE time it will work.
P. S. However, of course, there is a catch. If all of a sudden, everything starts going right in the lab, well, that’s enough ground to include skepticism in your mix of pessimism.
