I'm too excitable and I want to learn everything - help me

[InquilineKea]

I'm so unfocused. I think EVERYTHING is so interesting. And whenever I commit to something, I ALWAYS find something even more exciting. like this

"hm I want to do astro. OMG MATH BIO SEEMS MORE INTERESTING

"hm I think I want to do math bio. no, OMG, NEUROBIOLOGY SEEMS MORE INTERESTING"

"hm I think I want to do neuro. no, OMG, ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES SEEMS MORE INTERESTING".

"hm i want to do atmospheric sciences. no, OMG, ASTROPHYSICS IS MORE INTERESTING"

"hm, i want to do astrophysics. no, OMG, THEORETICAL ECOLOGY IS MORE INTERESTING".

truth is, I've always found ALL of them more interesting. I just find them MORE interesting when I'm not even studying them. =/ I want to learn everything in science. And I always end up reading journal articles in fields that I'm not working on. Yesterday, to satisfy some morbid curiosity of mine, I read A LOT of research articles about the survival rates of gunshot wounds to the head (and what factors correlated with them). =/ And then I read HUGE numbers of research articles about amphetamine neurotoxicity. All saved as pdfs. And then I read pdfs of animal attack rates and their correlations (what types of animals are most likely to attack humans?) Or cetacean interspecific interactions. Or avian intelligence. Seriously, I love ALL the pdfs here:

http://www.biosci.un...nel/diamond.htm

And then I love reading Nick Yee's MMORPG pdfs too:

http://www.nickyee.c...x-daedalus.html

And then I love reading all the pdfs that come out of the NOAA. And then atmospheric evolution. And then HUGE amounts of social science (especially demographics). And then cardiac arrhythmias. And then anything that comes out of http://www.gnxp.com.

My course load is very erratic. I regret majoring in math, but I did it at first because I thought it was important for everything. Yes, it is, but stat and applied math are really what's important, not pure math. in reality, almost no one uses real analysis or abstract algebra. I tried majoring in math at first, but I was never interested in it because I was always reading the pdfs of some other field.

I know that phds require a focus on something. And I'd much rather have a PhD than a perpetual cycle of low-wage jobs (which is the likely alternative for someone like me). I love learning, after all. I'm just horrible at focusing.

Edited January 10, 2011 by InquilineKea

[Alyanumbers]

... Welcome to the club.

[Archaeo_Anon]

Maybe you should try looking into less traditional science-related careers that would allow you to focus on multiple subject areas (something like Science Writing, perhaps? I'm not in the natural sciences, so I'm not totally sure what options are out there...still--there must be something).

I had a similar conundrum when trying to pick a regional focus for my applications (and having a regional focus is absolutely essential to be admitted to archaeology graduate programs) because I'd studied many parts of the world during my undergrad and couldn't honestly say I found any one of them head and shoulders more interesting than the others--I liked them all! So I ended up picking the one that I had the most coursework and field experience in as my focus, but made my actual research direction a methodological one so in the future I'd have the opportunity to apply it to projects anywhere I wanted to.

Sometimes the best way to get yourself focused for grad studies is to remind yourself that you'll still have the opportunity to do other things in the future, and make sure you keep yourself from getting too pigeonholed in your research so the options are always open. At least, that's what worked for me.

[Zouzax]

haha this is great. I constantly go back and forth between linguistics and neuroscience. And in Linguistics, just like you, I want to study EVERYTHING. Unfortunately, you need a more focused answer than 'everything' when they ask you what you plan to research for your Ph.D. But seriously, if I could, I wouldve written just that. In fact, now that I think about it, my answer to the research goals question probably wasn't too focused, because how do you narrow down 'everything' effectively?

In terms of your problem, I think time will tell. Youll start to realize which of these fields are just hobbies and which ones you think you could seriously pursue as a career. I would research an example Ph.D program for each field, see what classes are required, what research is being conducted, what job opportunities there are, etc. Maybe that'll help you narrow down your list a little bit.

[TheDude]

Curiosity is good!

[MoJingly]

Piet Hein says it's good in a situation like this to toss a coin.

A PSYCHOLOGICAL TIP

Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,

and you're hampered by not having any,

the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,

is simply by spinning a penny.

No -- not so that chance shall decide the affair

while you're passively standing there moping;

but the moment the penny is up in the air,

you suddenly know what you're hoping.

Edited January 10, 2011 by MoJingly

[Eigen]

I had similar problems. I could have been happy in any of the biological or physical sciences, math, engineering.... Medicine.. And I had the background to go to grad school in any of them.

I ended up settling on chemistry because it allows me the widest range of options- I can, in the course of my work, do everything from molecular modeling and biophysics to cell biology.

I second picking something that's pretty open ended, and a lot of that depends on the group you want to go into as well- some are more finely focused than others, pick one that has a multidisciplinary approach.

[Zouzax]

Piet Hein says it's good in a situation like this to toss a coin.

A PSYCHOLOGICAL TIP

Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,

and you're hampered by not having any,

the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,

is simply by spinning a penny.

No -- not so that chance shall decide the affair

while you're passively standing there moping;

but the moment the penny is up in the air,

you suddenly know what you're hoping.

Thanks for this MoJingly -- its actually great advice

[Tufnel]

No matter what institutional academia attempts to tell you, I think it is healthy to have a range of intellectual interests. And they aren't terribly broad, they only seem so compared to the degree of focus that's expected of contemporary scholars.

I have similarly broad interests. I found an area of social science that allows me to incorporate several different fields, including the occasional lab science. I like to read physics and bio journals sometimes.

I think that kind of breadth is good. Disciplines can be too insular and are sometimes guilty of groupthink. Being aware of, if not entirely literate in, different areas of research will only make you more creative and pluralistic. Political science is notorious for borrowing from other disciplines and many great strides were made because of those efforts.

Bring back the renaissance (wo)man.

[waddle]

I want to learn everything

Be careful what you wish for, lest you end up like Irina Spalko:

I'd much rather have a PhD than a perpetual cycle of low-wage jobs (which is the likely alternative for someone like me).

B-b-but isn't the whole point of a Ph.D. to get into a perpetual cycle of low-wage jobs?

[InquilineKea]

Hahaha thanks for all the replies, everyone! Yeah, science writing would actually be exciting. I'd actually like to see if there's a community of science writers somewhere - well - I guess the blogosphere, but the authors are always so busy with other comments.

And yeah, a broad interdisciplinary major is always good too. But so few of them exist.

B-b-but isn't the whole point of a Ph.D. to get into a perpetual cycle of low-wage jobs?

Heh, but at least they'd be interesting low-wage jobs. As opposed to what I'd get as an alternative. I would definitely NOT want to repeat a prison-like environment ever since I quit grade school. No, not at all.

==

And anyways, I hope someone will find this funny:

http://www.citeulike.org/user/InquilineKea

(hahaha I am so unfocused)