Random Musings!

It’s been sometime into my Ph.D. – a roller coaster of emotions – last of the phrases that could sum up my journey. Before I delve more into it, the pandemic toppled my health, like any other, and found it incredibly difficult getting back to normalcy. Although, I tend to stray away from repenting on that, and perhaps wearing it like armor helped me to move forward. On the other hand, during the pandemic, I researched more on why people started the concept of a Ph.D. and what it takes to be a Ph.D. student. As far as my understanding goes, it’s a framework designed to study the observations that were made, and obtain a structure while understanding nature’s play. In fact, I also thought more about the expansion – The Doctorate of Philosophy, and that gave me a profound sense of a gap. The framework has been quite instrumental in amassing your thoughts and connecting the dots with the observations. The gap that haunts me - the advent of peer-reviewed journals, tenure tracks, and things that gave us a sense of insecurity has adulterated or overshadowed the joys that define it. 

Much like any other curious kid, I started my Ph.D. with hopes to enhance my creativity, hone my skills, and contribute something meaningful to the domain. At the same time – be mindful to enjoy those observations. I tried to the best of my abilities to read papers, conceive ideas, and build a vision. Sometime later, I was challenged to develop an idea for a prestigious grant, which can potentially cover my tuition. Though, I went on a reading spree and culminated my thoughts, but, whenever I searched about an idea that I conceived, either there was a paper or a group actively working on it. Therefore, my search was stunted and came to the conclusion that the original or creative idea may not be stimulated just from papers. It clung in my dreams and zoned out all throughout the day.  I thought it takes time and realized that most Nobel laureates, after having worked on projects and papers, have developed the impeccable ability to generate ideas. Loitering for some days – a potential ‘Eureka’ moment – started searching for old classics. The intuition to conceptualize them based on the keywords had sequentially opened doors for me. For eg., the problem statement was based on protein movements – reading books on geometry, opened a gate to read more on maths, and further actuated me to narrow it down to electronics. Much like the cinematic universe, I built cross-over ideas from subjects ranging from biology to maths. Though the ideas were not concrete enough, the process enabled me to squeeze out the creative juice. Having the license to think out of the blue, defines its beauty.

 

Given the time I spent on my Ph.D., engineering inner self coupled with academics had a synergistic effect on me. It has become clearer to invest more time to understand the weakness and how you deal with it. Even though, my strengths have always had a positive impact on me, working a way out of my shortcomings is definitely the one to be cherished. A quote from Marie Curie strongly resonates with my current mindset – “There’s nothing to be feared, it has to be only understood.” A strong will to re-orient my mindset toward understanding the process than activating the panic mode bolstered my confidence. Above all, spending time away from home, made me think – the farther you live away from home, the more you care about your family.