The saddest post ever

I am a charming, engaging individual. I enjoy giving seminars. I'm animated and engaged with the audience. I get by on charm relatively often. I understand that. I entered graduate school and joined a lab with no prior experience relevant to any of the fields of study involved in that lab. I'm on my second round of interviews for a position I'm not really qualified for. I'm the face of my department, both in the interactive involvement sense as well as the literal "face on the department pamphlet" sense. I enjoy it. I'm good at it. I like PR. I'm analytical and strategic, and I like to be involved. I'm not here just to get a degree and run off. I abide by the campsite rule, and I genuinely want to make my department a better place to be for incoming and current faculty and students. I want to see my department grow and succeed. And I have worked hard to contribute to that.

That said, I have spent many years being taught that this is wrong. I am not, in fact, here for any of these things. These things are, I assume, a waste of my time. I am here to do a job, and that job is to get a degree and get out.

The re-occurring theme of my graduate experience is that my thesis committee does not think I am serious enough. Now, that hasn't been brought up since my prelim, but the bossman seems to think it will be an issue at the defense. In fact, he has begun telling other, uninvolved people that it will be an issue at the defense. Combined with my experience as a graduate student of the bossman, these are the things I have learned (outside of technical, scientific facts):

1. Science is a career, it should not be fun.
2. Whether or not you enjoy your work is irrelevant.
3. You should never, under any circumstances, be excited about new findings or results in your data.


To appease these items, I will not be submitting an acknowledgements or dedications page of my thesis. I also will not have a "thank you to friends and family for putting up with me" slide during my oral presentation. There will be no ice breakers at the beginning of the presentation about the fact that the only room I could schedule is in the bowels of some unknown building halfway to another zip code. There will be no chuckles about repeating experiments, no segments on data trends I thought were really fascinating. There will be no congratulatory thrills after the seminar. No cookies, no coffee. I will wear a business suit, no makeup, and sensible, neutral shoes. There are no celebratory events planned after the defense. Even if I receive a pass, there will be work that needs to be finished; additional revisions to the thesis, additional revisions to the recently submitted manuscript, and potentially any other stipulations that my committee feels necessary. I will not be getting paid after the defense, but there will be work to do, and I will do it.



Remember, science is not fun. It is not exciting. You are here to do a job. Complete the job and leave.