How lucky am I ?

[Dave Minchang]

There’s a time for every PhD student to find an advisor. The department chair loves helping us in that endeavor. He has a presentation on how to choose an advisor, and the main idea is that you should look for three things:

1. The person

2. The topic

3. The money

In the best-case scenario, you can get two out of three. You must prioritize and choose what matters most to you. For example, you might get a topic you like with a funded project, but your advisor is going to be a bad human being. Alternatively, you could have a great advisor working on an exciting topic, but there is going to be no funding for your research. I was lucky. I found the perfect advisor for me. I like him; he is a true gentleman who works in a groundbreaking field and has made seminal contributions to it. Additionally, he is the professor who brings the largest amounts of money to the department. Naturally, everyone wants to work with him, but he only takes the best of the best into his lab.

He told me, given my proven track record of publications and scholarships and my related work experience: “I want you.” I was honored. How lucky am I? I got a 20 hours contract, the maximum I’m legally allowed to work as an international student, but everyone knows you can’t complete a PhD if you only work 20 hours per week.

For the past three years, I have been navigating courses, teaching duties, and research. I found myself withdrawing from human interactions because I’m constantly thinking about my research from the moment I wake up until I go to bed. The pay is below the cost of living for a mid-sized city, and I still must pay part of my tuition. I managed to get by. Thankfully, the university is great at financial advising, and they helped me realize that I can only afford to eat twice a day or live in a different state. You know what I chose. In the end, it was an easy decision because most of the time I don’t have the time or energy to make food or eat. But that doesn’t matter. I love the topic, I love the person, and I’m getting paid to do it.

The last time I met with my advisor, he said, with the calmest voice he could find:

“I can barely justify paying your salary. You are getting paid to complete your PhD, and you have shown minimal progress. Most people in the world pay to go to school, but you are getting paid to get educated. Did you realize how lucky you are?”

And yes, I’m still thinking to myself: How lucky I am to be getting paid for doing a job.