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Jordan comments on Open Thread: February 2010 - Less Wrong
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I think everyone in grad school has these moments, sometimes for prolonged stints. In the math world they seem to be suggestively correlated with making progress on research =p
Personally though, even when everything is going well in research, I still feel the same nagging sensation that I should either be out making butt-loads of cash or helping humanity (or helping humanity by donating butt-loads of cash).
Reasons I've stuck it out so far:
That said, I'm still not sold on it. I took 6 months off last year to try and found my own company. I'm still moonlighting it, and hoping I can get it to the point where I know it will fly or not before having to commit to a post doc position.
I'm not particularly terrified of mediocrity as long as it's not unsafe mediocrity. The cubicle doesn't appeal to me, but, say, I think I could be a pretty happy house spouse. As for meeting intelligent people, sure, they're around in academia, but I'm more interested in meeting smart people who I'd have some inclination to interact with socially, and the Internet seems, in practice, to be better for that. And I'm not setting my own schedule - I'm still doing my own coursework, and would have a couple more semesters of that to go even assuming a best case scenario.
House spouse doesn't have to be a mediocre life. In fact.. it could more or less be the best 'job' ever. It's like a tenured professorship where you actually get to study and research whatever you want!
Huh. I hadn't though of it before, but I'm going to have to add house spouse to my list of acceptable future paths.
Any job involving a cubicle doesn't have to be mediocre either. Anyway, being a house spouse requires being a spouse, to someone willing to stand in the "breadwinner" role, so I can't just up and do that by myself.