Catch-22

Man, this blog needs a new look. Also, researching my future is really hard. My brain doesn't let me think about it for long before it curls up like a dog's tail between its legs. I think my brain is protecting my balls from being kicked on the path to one of the many possible futures available to me.

The grad students I have talked to and worked with all seem to be living a very complex lifestyle. They don't really apply for a traditional job, interview, train, work 40 hours 5 days a week and get paid hourly. Instead, they apply multiples times to numerous funding agencies with a proposal to research their ideas. If they are starting from scratch on a project they need to have an entire experimental design, time line, budget, a short literature review supporting the need for funding of the proposed idea, and a personal statement.

Sometimes a grad student can get that money and they work something like 60 hours 7 days a week. As the project nears an end, you better have something worth publishing and presenting at a conference or two. And, you better have more ideas for more research projects so you can start the whole process over again in a couple of years. You've got to keep the money rolling in way in advance. It would seem that it's best to start general.

Oh, and you also have the burden of graduate level classes, with all of their accouterments.

The only jobs that I sense a future in are in teaching, government land management, or private environmental consulting. But, the prerequisite to get any reasonable position for any of the three is to complete graduate school...Catch-22.