Choice

With Easter weekend upon us, I realize that I’ve been keeping this blog for almost a year now. My first entry came after a trip I took with friends to Moab, Utah last Easter. That has got me thinking. Last year at this time I was a PhD student in Reno. The research didn’t excite me. The department was small, noncohesive, and struggling. The classes offered were few and not of interest to me. I was living in a small, very brown, very smelly one room apartment. I knew that the path I was on was neither making me happy in the present, nor leading my career in the direction I wanted it to go. To put it lightly, I wasn’t exactly thrilled with my situation.

I made changes. I got out of Reno. That was easier said than done of course. In my personal life I consider myself pretty spontaneous, but in my professional life I generally insist on having a well developed plan before making any changes. I needed a fall back plan. I couldn’t get my head around the idea of leaving a PhD program where I had a full tuition scholarship unless I had an offer at least as good elsewhere. Luckily I stumbled upon just that. Quite by accident, I found a University near LA that had people working in the vein of research that I am involved with. I applied, and they offered me full tuition, and a nice stipend. That was my out. When the Spring semester in Reno was finished, I packed up my smelly little apartment and moved back to San Diego to await the new school year.

As my time away from Reno accumulated, I began to realize something. This new offer was good, yes. But was it really what I wanted, or was it just the excuse to get out of Reno? I wanted my choice of a doctoral program to be just that, a choice. To me, it didn’t seem like a choice if the decision was between this one doctoral program, and nothing else. I’m pretty sure that’s how I ended up in Reno in the first place.

I began to look around for other opportunities. More than knowing what I wanted in a university, I knew what I didn’t want. Regarding academics, I knew I didn’t want to study in a department of civil and environmental engineering. Traditional civil and environmental departments tend to be focused on drinking and wastewater treatment, and these are two areas that do not interest me. My MS degree came from such a department, and though my experience was good, towards the end I had exhausted the limited list of classes that pertained to my interests. The department at Reno was also this type of program, and classes and research opportunities were even more limited in scope than where I did my MS.

More evolved environmental engineering departments today are lumped in with chemical engineering as that discipline has significantly more in common with environmental engineering than does bridge building or road design. These departments tend to have more to offer in the way of classes, and their students aren’t as railroaded into public works type projects. This is the type of department that my fall back school had, so I was moving in the right direction.

I also knew I wanted to go back to some of my earlier research roots with microbiology. Whatever program I decided on would have to have a strong research base in environmental microbiology and environmental genetics.

Outside of academics, I had criteria for schools as well. These were also best stated in terms of thing I didn’t want. I didn’t want to be somewhere where I’d have to drive hundreds of miles to get away from it all. When I chose to do my MS in Utah this was my primary motivation and I was very pleased with how it worked out. I’m not a partier. I’m not a fan of bars or clubs. I don’t spend my free time at the mall or getting my hair done or going to the theatre or sitting in from of the TV. I like the outdoors. I enjoy hiking and running and backpacking. When my thesis work was getting to my head in Utah, it was really easy to just hop in the car and drive 30 miles into a canyon to find solitude and peace and regroup my brain cells so I could get back to work. My brain and my body need that.

Taking all these things into consideration, I found a few more schools to apply for based on the type of research I want to do, the type of department I want to be in, and the area the school was located. More specifically, I started by trying to think of places I’d want to spend the next four years, and then seeing if there was any school in those areas that met my other criteria. With the help of my former MS advisor, I found a few. I’m seriously considering four in all, two of which have given me offers so far. One school is flying me in for a 2 night visit next week and I’m pretty excited because this school is head and shoulders above the others in terms of its academic reputation.

Who knows, maybe by this time next week I’ll have made a decision. All I know is that it feels good to have a real choice to make this time around. Especially when all of the options look so good.