Now that I'm approaching the end of my Master's studies, I have a choice to make: either pursue an academic career and obtain a Ph.D. or attempt to find work (which would probably be for the government, a continuation of what I'm doing now).
Perhaps a bit of background is needed. After completing a bachelor in Business Tech, I have decided to start from scratch and pursue a Masters in Sustainable Energy Policy. Luckily (or unluckily), I had the opportunity to take part in the co-op program, where I landed a job at Crown Indigenous Relations Canada, in the department of sustainable energy.
Obviously the expectations of what student work would be in an office were low (remember the 9-5 agony post), but what I didn't account for was how quickly I would get to know the ins and outs of my team's operation. So I did what any reasonable business tech major would do: I found inefficiencies and mapped out a better solution. Little did I know that governmental bodies and the bureaucracy in general are pretty risk-averse and even more change-averse. My projects to revamp their database, create a new user interface and clean up their project list were quickly tossed aside and replaced with work more suitable to my degree (and my contract) - policy analysis. For those that don't know, policy analysis for co-op students is a fancy term for drafting emails, data entry, filling out forms and taking minutes during a meeting. You know, the type of stuff a monkey with a college degree in liberal arts can do. After only 3 weeks, it became clear to me that I do not belong in the policy world (at least not on the entry-level). At this point I think I would even prefer an entry-level IT job, the type where you walk around and plug in computers and fix printers to sitting in this dusty office that I share with 2 other students. At least I would be walking around and actually helping people.
So what's the problem? You don't like this office work, go do option 1. Sure, that's a great idea. There is a problem though, most scientists and researchers have a passion. A problem that they want to solve. A mission statement or at least a high level of interest in a matter to allows them to pursue a single topic for 5 years of a Ph.D. I do not have such a passion and quite frankly I never did. This would certainly explain why I changed degrees numerous times during my undergrad and why I decided to pursue a Masters in a completely unrelated field. When I look at my sister who is currently doing a Ph.D. I can see that she practically lives in the lab. Even when she comes to visit, most of the talking she does is about her lab, her work - her passion. In my attempt to find an equally strong passion for something, I've hit a brick wall. Sure, there are numerous things that I find interesting: languages, computer ethics, economics... But these are all surface interests that I have no trouble abandoning just as quickly as I pick them up. Every time I think I found a research topic, I start reading articles and I just give up.
This lack of passion makes me think I would do better in the sphere of public service (not as a co-op student, Gott forbid). I have been told that public servants are able to hop from one department to another. If that's true, that could be quite interesting. However, if I settle for such a career, I will be forever pursued by a feeling of inadequacy. I will become Mr. K., the guy who chickened out of Actuarial Math, Agricultural Economics, getting a Ph.D. and numerous other endeavors that I have never completed due to a lack of passion (persistence?). I hear the Canadian Security Intelligence services are hiring recent IT graduates...
Perhaps a bit of background is needed. After completing a bachelor in Business Tech, I have decided to start from scratch and pursue a Masters in Sustainable Energy Policy. Luckily (or unluckily), I had the opportunity to take part in the co-op program, where I landed a job at Crown Indigenous Relations Canada, in the department of sustainable energy.
Obviously the expectations of what student work would be in an office were low (remember the 9-5 agony post), but what I didn't account for was how quickly I would get to know the ins and outs of my team's operation. So I did what any reasonable business tech major would do: I found inefficiencies and mapped out a better solution. Little did I know that governmental bodies and the bureaucracy in general are pretty risk-averse and even more change-averse. My projects to revamp their database, create a new user interface and clean up their project list were quickly tossed aside and replaced with work more suitable to my degree (and my contract) - policy analysis. For those that don't know, policy analysis for co-op students is a fancy term for drafting emails, data entry, filling out forms and taking minutes during a meeting. You know, the type of stuff a monkey with a college degree in liberal arts can do. After only 3 weeks, it became clear to me that I do not belong in the policy world (at least not on the entry-level). At this point I think I would even prefer an entry-level IT job, the type where you walk around and plug in computers and fix printers to sitting in this dusty office that I share with 2 other students. At least I would be walking around and actually helping people.
So what's the problem? You don't like this office work, go do option 1. Sure, that's a great idea. There is a problem though, most scientists and researchers have a passion. A problem that they want to solve. A mission statement or at least a high level of interest in a matter to allows them to pursue a single topic for 5 years of a Ph.D. I do not have such a passion and quite frankly I never did. This would certainly explain why I changed degrees numerous times during my undergrad and why I decided to pursue a Masters in a completely unrelated field. When I look at my sister who is currently doing a Ph.D. I can see that she practically lives in the lab. Even when she comes to visit, most of the talking she does is about her lab, her work - her passion. In my attempt to find an equally strong passion for something, I've hit a brick wall. Sure, there are numerous things that I find interesting: languages, computer ethics, economics... But these are all surface interests that I have no trouble abandoning just as quickly as I pick them up. Every time I think I found a research topic, I start reading articles and I just give up.
This lack of passion makes me think I would do better in the sphere of public service (not as a co-op student, Gott forbid). I have been told that public servants are able to hop from one department to another. If that's true, that could be quite interesting. However, if I settle for such a career, I will be forever pursued by a feeling of inadequacy. I will become Mr. K., the guy who chickened out of Actuarial Math, Agricultural Economics, getting a Ph.D. and numerous other endeavors that I have never completed due to a lack of passion (persistence?). I hear the Canadian Security Intelligence services are hiring recent IT graduates...
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