Thinking too much?
Had this interesting observation recently.When I tell Americans that I am on scholarship and I have to go back to Singapore to work after I am done with graduate school, a lot of them will make this comment:
'This is good! At least you have a job waiting for you, not like us...'
I have to agree that yes at least I do not have to worry about finding my first job etc (which is a headache I know), but I also have to point out that this is not necessarily a good thing. Why is it not necessarily a good thing, well, there are too many reasons that I can think of and usually I will not elaborate too much, other than talking briefly about the restrictions that our contracts have on us.
Seriously, if I am an American at this stage, I wouldn't have to think and talk so much about various career related issues with so many people. It would be pretty straightforward (though I won't say simple) - continue doing what I am doing, apply for summer internships, study for MCAT, apply to as many MD/PhD programmes in the US as possible, and hopefully I can get into one.
Of course you can argue it the other way round - basically if I follow faithfully the path that is laid nicely in front of me I shouldn't have any trouble at all as well. It is just that, as I think back, a path chosen when I was just out of high school and was relatively ill-informed on various things cannot be the best path that I could have chosen for myself. Thus, what I am trying to do now is to maximise whatever I can get from the path that I am supposed to follow, and make use of it to the best of my advantage.
Actually I shouldn't be thinking about too many things too much. So what if Singapore's model of research funding is not sustainable? So what if it is simply unrealistic to expect us to start our own companies after 5 years working as a post-doc? It is not as if we can do anything about it at our level; why bother (Singaporean mindset)- unless we can find a group of dedicated individuals within the scientific community to become active in policy-making.
Sigh sometimes I don't know why I actually think so much. These thoughts don't actually help me a lot but sure they do make me worry about my future (and worrying is always unnecessary, because usually nothing positive comes out of it).
Anyway, I have (finally) settled my classes for this semester.
1. Developmental Biology
2. AIDS
3. Landmarks in Biochemical Research
4. Microbiology
5. Concept of the Patient in Anthropology
6. How Electricity Changed the World: A Cultural History
plus research.
This semester is packed with a lot of material dealing with the social aspects of medicine, and my biology classes are quite diverse - no choice, because these 300-level classes don't go as deep as I would want them to (if they are of similar topics, they tend to repeat stuff) and I couldn't get myself into the 600-level classes. I'll make sure that I have a fair share of that next year.
School has started! My finals will end on 14 May, which is almost the last day...
Labels: Random, Studies and Career
