My academic advisor gave me the best piece of advice, regarding starting your PhD, that I have heard thus far: “Do not take this the wrong way, but completing your PhD is not about intellectual strength, it has much more to do with consistency. Can you work on something, everyday, without any breaks, for the next five to ten years?”
This is the mother of commitments; working on something, everyday, for almost (and quite possibly) a decade? Wow, but why can’t I? Why should I choose to whimper, shake and run away from such a great opportunity to challenge my mind, discipline myself and add value to my life?
Has society taught me that this isn’t for me? Has my gender? Has the colour of my skin? Everyone fears failure when thinking about pursuing their doctorate program, but for some, the stakes are higher and more jagged than for others.
So many people talk about the extremely negative experience they had while pursuing their doctorates; some of them completed, many of them did not. There are so many statistics on the subject, but one stated that every year about 50% of grad students drop out of their…
