365

27 - The Choice

Not too long ago, I asked a person why she chose to be a physicist. In return, she asked me why I chose to pursue a Ph.D. degree. I did not forget this question. However, finding the reasons behind our certain choices in life sometimes demands a surprising amount of time, even though the choices themselves came naturally. 

I wish I can offer an elevated answer like my physicist. However, you will find my story here much more ... pedestrian. 

In the summer at the end of my junior year of undergrad studies, I had to make many life changing decisions. One of them was what I would like to do after graduation. For your context, I was much younger, much more arrogant, and perhaps less wise. I could not stand the idea of slaving in a company as a software engineer, working overnight on some projects from a foreign client. Instead, I found standing on a stage and delivering lectures to students much more charming. So, my supervisor told me that I must do a Ph.D.; and without a second thought, I chose to place myself on this path.

That's how I started. 

There are other reasons. One of them is anger. I still remember that day, two years since when I decided to pursue a Ph.D. and professorship. I was working as a full-time teaching assistant in old university. On that Monday, I delivered a lecture in place of my supervisor. The turnover was great. The lecture hall was filled. For some reasons, students always seemed to enjoy my lectures. At lunchtime, I was in a bubbly happy mood. And then another professor in my school told me I could not deliver lectures any more. "But they were well received", I protested. "The university does not care. You don't have a Ph.D. It's that simple", I was told. On that day, I swore that I will get my degree one day, to earn my right to teach.

Another reason that I can remember comes from a coffee talk with my physics professor several weeks after my graduation. He told me that anyone with a functioning brain and a yearning for bettering should pursue a Ph.D. degree. I asked, half jokingly, whether we should do that for the future of human kind. "No", he chuckled. After a bit of silence, he told me that we pursue a Ph.D. degree for a much more selfish reason: our own growth. He told me that isolation in the pursuit of a Ph.D. degree would make one think and reconsider many aspect of one's life. As a result, one would emerge from the Ph.D. program as a different, perhaps better, person. Needless to say, I thought that years of finding brown dwarfs messed up my professor (He is brilliant, though. From what I heard, he is a well-known astrophysicist).

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Years later, I realised that my physics professor made more sense than what I thought. Risking being pretentious and overly romanticising, I still have to agree that making that random choice to pursue a Ph.D., due to a random comment of my supervisor, was actually one of the better decisions in my life. This random choice took me to a different continent. It made me face my darkest fears and reconsider my core values. It removed my shackles. This random choice brought interesting people into my life. 

Life demands our decisions all the time. Sometimes, gut feeling is all that we have to make a decision. It's hard to justify our choice. It's impossible to know how things would turn out. I believe that what we need is holding on tenaciously and believing in ourselves, even when we can't. Because somehow, somewhere, little cogs of the intricate machine called the Universe are turning to place you exactly there - right place at the right time. And then when you look back, all of that mess suddenly makes much more sense.  

Well, something like that. What do I know. After all, I am just a broke Ph.D. candidate =)).