I was just talking with a professor who I want to be on my committee. I'm way behind on this committee thing, since one of my members dropped off last spring. I haven't gotten around to getting another member until now. But I've also been re-vamping my thesis.
Anyway, I had a lot of great things to say about my project, which is one reason I think maybe you shouldn't have to choose all members of your committee so early. I have a much better idea now of who'se expertise I might be able to use. So I think that I can use this woman because she is a biogeographer and she's studied modern climate in Grand Teton National Park where I'm working. As we were talking about my project and possibilities for research, she emphasized something that I don't usually think about. She said that my ideas for pulling lots of things together sounded super interesting to her, but more importantly it sounded like I was interested. She said it is great to have a thesis that you like and that you can get excited about. That way you actually work on it, and you can be interested in the outcome.
I know that some people probably keep this in mind most of the time. Especially those working on PhD's. Who could do a PhD without being interested? But right now I'm surrounded by uninterested people. The other grad student who actually has cores working in my lab is completely "over" her project. She's just in the data collection phase and she has so much data to collect that she hates it. She's forgotten about the big picture.
And I think I had forgotten a little bit too. Sitting around collecting data all the time isn't really that great. I got super excited when I saw my raw charcoal data graphed because I think it shows something really cool. That kind of got me excited again. And thinking about adding a couple facets to my project also gets me excited. I'm not particularly a fan of pollen analysis. That is pretty mundane to me. Sure, you can find out a bunch of cool stuff about past climate and how vegetation has changed over the past few thousands of years or more, but it's not my bag. I'm much more interested in my charcoal questions, and also the possibilities of thinking about how local climate controls the low-elevation lakes, and how people affected the whole landscape. I like variety, and this brings several things into my thesis for a nice variety. But I think I had forgotten that I have to make this project something I like. Even if it is just until it's done and I graduate, I have to like something out of it.
1 comment:
That's a really good insight. I'm glad you can remember to step back and see the big picture and remind yourself why you're doing what you do. I'm a Ph.D. student, and I can tell you that there are days (weeks, months) when all it feels like is a job. I go to school, sit at a computer in a windowless cubicle, make graphs in excel and read journal articles. And I wait for Fridays. But then I get the opportunity to tell somebody new (a prospective student, a community member, anybody) about what I am doing and why it's interesting, and I get excited all over again. Anyways, that's what works for me.
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