😅 Jho, go away.
I don't want to admit that I agree with you. But I do. I WANTED to do the PhD... And now 🤣. It's a lot of research for only 5 people to read it, and I don't even have a dog so 4.
My only up side it that I published from the PhD while doing the PhD. This made it more rewarding. But at the end of two years, I have a lot of structuring and editing to do.
And we do all this for? The Dr infront of the name? I had a discussion with my boss a while back. He concluded that we do the PhD to deepen out thoughts, to showcase lateral thinking, to make connections within our mind, to teach ourselves to see the world in a different light. For him it has nothing to do with the topic, the actual research or the field of research. It's a journey on which we open up our own understanding of the world around us and ourselves. In the end research is basically us seeing something and wondering WHY? or HOW?, and then we jump to figure it out. The PhD journey helps shape the brain to pick up on the why and how and force us to look at things differently.
Is it worth it? I don't know yet 😅🤣. But you'll make it to the end, and I believe the 5 people who will read it will be proud 😎.
Same here. I have two pending papers at the moment. Both got that beautiful remark "publish with minor changes" and I hope to see them soon. But I am also working on countless seminars and more papers so hopefully it will be worth the effort.
And that is the sad thing right, we do it for the sake of doing it almost? The end product is not why we do it, we do it for all the reasons you listed, basically then to change the way we think about things.
But luckily, I have to say, I got it lucky, or I got handed a PhD student's dream: an unexplored region in the field with almost nothing published in it. I think there is one article published on the topic and one in pre-print. And then my two articles if or when they get published. On the one hand, a new field is scary because you have nothing to fall back onto, but on the other hand, it is so nice to produce something without real restrictions because nothing has been said and done in the field.
In the end, we do it for ourselves I would argue. We do it because we love the field and want to see it grow. Or something cheesy like that.
I'm excited for you about the articles! And yes, you got the dream 🤣. You are opening up a new field for other researchers.
Good luck, soon you'll look back on this journey and be thankful for it.
!LUV
That’s what I’m hoping yes!! So much potential in the field, but few even know of its existence. Sad but true. So if all plans out, I am basically just opening the door, not necessarily being the leader.