Interest and Attitude

I was reading someone’s statement of purpose (the clichéd bullshit you write for the PhD committee, marketing yourself as the best thing that happened to humanity since Einstein) with a somewhat sardonic expression. I did the same thing 6 years ago, and again 2 years ago, but when you are sitting at the other end reading stuff, you see through certain things downright. The person wrote, “I am really interested to know this and that”. Perhaps yes. However, I have realized that interest is not what will sustain you through your PhD life. It is attitude that is going to sustain you.

Don’t get me wrong, you cannot be not interested in something, and still study it. However, interest plays a very basic, introductory, and minuscule role to sustain your academic life. Let us put it this way. In the process of doing research, there are many innovative ideas you think of. That is why it is called a PhD. However, sustaining the travails of a PhD life on a daily basis is not possible with interest alone. You don’t keep thinking of new ideas everyday for 5 years straight. 

It is here that attitude comes into play. Many of us live with the misconception that doing a PhD means sitting in plush offices and thinking of innovative ideas. That just happens for 1% of the time. What then? What do I do with my ideas? How do I execute it? 

What I do in my day-to-day life is not innovative research. What I do every day is mundane work, that might lead to or that might be a product of an innovative idea. Every day, I do stuff like getting printouts, making photocopies, taking lecture notes in class, making presentations, editing papers for spelling and language errors, grading exams of undergraduates, replying to emails, learning to use new statistical software, and digging out research papers for literature reviews. I go to the gym to keep myself fit and thinking. I buy groceries and cook to feed myself. I figure out maps and make decisions about the mode of transport to take that will get me to the department quickest. I travel and attend conferences and listen to stalwarts share their ideas. I organize team meetings and document the meeting minutes. I do homework and assignments, with data that belongs to someone else. I learn new skills like organizing conference calls and making posters. I solve analytical puzzles to sharpen my brains. I establish good relationship with my peers to see how they do their research. I write blogs to be free flowing in my thoughts. I talk to school administrators, network, communicate, write institutional board review protocols, and make up questionnaires. I learn to think of intelligent research questions. 

All this is a part of my PhD process, little steps that will hopefully earn me a degree someday. But is this innovative or interesting work? No, all this is very mundane work, no different from what an office secretary would do. The difference is, I am my own secretary, managing my own academic life. That innovative spark of an idea I got 4 months ago was a brief moment of eureka. But in order to materialize that innovative idea into a tangible research product or publication, I have to go through all these mundane things I just discussed. I need the tools to help me think in the right way, for which I take classes and often piggyback on my advisor’s knowledge. Sustaining this and still remaining focused has nothing to do with interest. It is all about the attitude to work hard. PhD needs interest as a trigger, as a starting point, as much as that match that lights the fire. But attitude is that oxygen that sustains the fire through years. 

And do you think my advisor is sitting in his plush office and thinking of new ideas with an interest all the time? He is a stalwart in the field, with an Ivy League degree and all that. He is bright, successful, tenured, and often awe-inspiring. Yet he doesn’t spend his time sitting in his office thinking. What he does is mundane work like writing grants and proposals, making phone calls, giving lectures and presentations, bringing in the money home so that we can do the research and get paid, and of course advising and motivating brain dead people like me. And it is not interest that sustains us. It is the attitude to keep going. 

If a simpler analogy works, let us say doing a PhD is like learning to make an innovative dish that no one has cooked before. But to be able to do that, we must decide on the ingredients first, and then start with tilling the soil, growing the crops, picking the crops, milking the cow, making the curd, extracting the oil, culturing the fish, growing the spices, cutting, chopping, grinding, and take the other mundane steps that leads to the finished product for food.

If you came into a PhD program with the expectation that your interest will sustain you through the bumpy ride, chances are more that you will end up frustrated and go back to what you did before this. However, if you come with the right expectation that for the next few years, you are going to work your ass off doing all the mundane things that eventually lead to innovative work, it is more likely that you will actually enjoy the ride. So come prepared not only with the interest, but with the attitude to hang in there and keep working hard.

If you know of a person who is planning to start a PhD and might benefit from this perspective (which is all mine), do share this writing.

sunshine