The other day my GradAdvisor said to me, regarding the exciting functional experiments I'd gotten working, "You are now the world expert on [this stuff.]"
When you start graduate school, you think it will be a thrilling moment when you realize that you are the world's expert on X.
But in fact it is a tiny bit depressing. If I am the world expert at X, and to be perfectly honest the amount I know about X could fit into a sake cup, world expertise is not what it's been cracked up to be. Not to mention, if a dolt like me is the world expert, this is a sad commentary on scientific affairs.
Of course, I imagine that as I progress in my career, the scope of X (where X is the things I know more about than anyone else) will broaden. I just hope that as X broadens, I grow more pleased, rather than more horrified, with the idea that I am the Expert.
15 years ago
10 comments:
We all feel that way a surprising amount of the time. Have you read http://2postdocswalkintoabar.blogspot.com/2009/03/fear-of-being-un-masked.html?
I'd say that oftentimes, the more you know about something, the more familiar you are with what isn't known. And you know with great intimacy how tenuous are the underpinnings of what you "know."
It's an uncomfortable feeling for me, but one way to look at it is that this helps us keep our jobs!
And besides, since there has to be an expert, why not you?
And then there's that old adage about academics:
As we progress from undergraduate student to graduate student to postdoc to faculty we know more and more about less and less until we know absolutely everything there is to know about nothing.
I was going to say, I used to have to explain getting my Ph.D. to my mom as "knowing almost everything about almost nothing". Seems Odyssey knows the same thing. :)
It's not depressing, it's progress, and evidence that there are plenty of Ph.D.s left to be had!
Of course, I imagine that as I progress in my career, the scope of X (where X is the things I know more about than anyone else) will broaden.
Nope. At the end of your post-doc you will achieve the peak scope of X.
As a PI, you will continue to increase the number of things you know a lot about, but you will cease increasing the number of things about which you know more than anyone. This is because trainees, not PIs, are the ones who know more than anyone in the world about the specific things they are working on.
This cracked me up.
I couldn't believe how horrified I was when I realized that I knew more about my grad project than my grad advisor. It was like the whole point of grad school suddenly came into focus and my immediate reaction was "shit shit shit".
Oh geez! This terrifies me - so true! I recently had a moment in which I felt just as SM described. It was somewhat vindicating after so many years of feeling like a total dumbass and then the "Oh shit!" moment hit me like a ton of bricks. When this sort of thing happens I try to remind myself to take a deep breath...and then pretend like it never happened so I can continue on in my previous state of blissful irresponsibility and ignorance.
Yes, it's the stomach-churning fear that you are now working without a safety net, because if you're wrong....there's no one to call you on it. Ugggggh.
Odyssey, yes, it's related to impostor syndrome, and yet slightly different--I am acknowledging that in fact, I do know a lot about one or two things--it just seems so damn inadequate. It's what Nat says, that now I know how ignorant we really are about X--because the world is as ignorant as I am.
CPP, I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse.
LOOOOL
This post reminded me of when I was freaking out the day before my Prelim exam (I had to write a mock NIH grant about something completely unrelated to my PhD work) and my advisor was trying to cheer me up by telling me "Relax, you're the expert here. You know more about this stuff than me or any other member of your committee"
I did not relax. I instead almost said the F word in front of said advisor.
And as for being an expert on my PhD work.. that is a sad thing indeed, considering I feel like an idiot almost every single day
It's funny to see how people react to this kind of realization. These comments are hilarious.
Personally, my feeling was "Yeah, but nobody CARES about X. Therefore it is unimportant if I am the world expert on X."
No pressure there!
I also agree with Nat Blair. It is more important to think about what is not known, so really what you are most expert on is knowing what's known and what's not.
And I'm with CPP on this one, too.
and btw, you never really have a safety net in research. Did you really think the other "experts" were right about everything that came before your research?
That's the beauty of what we do. There really is no right answer, there's just the answer we have right now. And we have to keep asking if any of it is true at all.
That's what keeps us in business- not knowing!
Post a Comment