Poor fit or uninterested in research?

[neuropsych76]

I know I just made another similar post on here, but I'm curious on your thoughts on my predicament from a slightly different angle.

 

When I was an undergrad, I LOVED research. I did as much of it as I could and I definitely thought I wanted to do it for a career. Now, halfway through grad school, I really am starting to resent it. It seems so tedious and uninteresting. I'm not knocking research, I know it is extremely important, but somehow I really lost interest in it. Perhaps having more responsibilities and understanding how it actually works has kind of killed the luster for me.

 

My question is, have any of you gone through the same thing? I know burn out happens, lack of fit can be problematic, and a host of other things can make a grad student not enjoy research. However, I'm worried that I honestly do not find research interesting anymore. I'm not interested at all in what my lab is doing now, but I don't know if I'd be happy doing ANY kind of cognitive neuroscience research. I think I'd much rather enjoy communicating science to the general public or students than actually doing it.

 

Do you guys have any advice on how to tell if my lack of interest is due to a poor fit or overall lack of interest? Like I said in my other post, I'd really like to teach at the college level, but some research wouldn't be so bad. My dream is to teach at a small school, write popular science books, and give talks about science to the lay community. I still love science, but I'd rather be a consumer than producer and I know that is extremely problematic.

[neuropsych76]

After reading through some forums some more, I believe I am in a 'slump' due to a lack of motivation. 

Basically, how do you guys stay motivated? Like, if your research isn't directly helping people, what drives you? I heard that some people simply get angry at other scholarly work and want to help advance the field. But honestly, that doesn't motivate me either. I'm worried that if I can't see how my work is helping anyone, I feel like I'm wasting my time.

[Lisa44201]

It does sound like you're hitting a wall. If you dreaded it with every fiber of your being, that would suggest poor research fit. 

 

My research doesn't directly help people (psychopathy! and stats!), so I've never felt.... I don't know; let down by my research line, maybe? I'm not going to develop a therapy for Alzheimer's, or a new behavioral technique for autism; that's just not what I do. I do it because it's interesting, really interesting, I'm reading a lot of books on the subject in my spare time because I find it fascinating, and my former lab would all go out for drinks and I'd end up arguing some mathematical minutia with my former mentor while writing formulas on a bar napkin; in short, this is fun for me. My research may not be in one of the helping areas, but that doesn't mean it's not important.

[biotechie]

For me, I have a genuine interest in solving a problem, and I have to remind myself that even negative results do eventually make an impact. What helps me to stay motivated is that when I do get into a slump like this, I get all of my data and group it together. I take a look at what I have to try and see if it is showing anything obvious. I try to look at it different ways. I brush up on the new literature to see if there are any leads that can help me out (and pray that I'm not scooped). If I feel lost and that it is going nowhere, I see if my PI has time to talk with me.

 

It really may be as simple as taking a day or two to go back to your primary hypotheses and figure out again how your project links back to helping people.

 

If you're still feeling this way after going all through what you've got and talking to your PI, you need to evaluate your project to see if it can yield viable results and what type of impact they will have. This latter part needs to be talked over with your PI as well. Maybe you will find that the part of the project you're working on is one that you just don't like and that you have to get through it to the part you're passionate about. There was one part of my masters project that was neuro in nature, and I hated it... I didn't even want to go to the lab, but I had to get through that part to get back to my tissue culture and mouse work, which I loved and were more obvious to me in perspective to why I felt my research was important.

 

I also encourage you to go talk to someone about how you're feeling. Your PI might be able to help you, but it may help you to talk to someone outside of the lab. Your ombudsman can point you to the right kind of person to talk to, and usually they're really awesome people. It is important for you to go talk to someone before you decide to do anything drastic like drop your program.

[neuropsych76]

Thank you both for your replies! I'm envious of your passion for your respected areas and I simply do not have that. Like I mentioned in my other post, I feel like my problem is that I'm naturally attracted to depth, not breadth. As an undergrad, I was involved in tons of different projects and it was really cool. There is no ONE area that really interests me. I just like neuroscience in general. I know this is pretty opposite compared to most scientists, but that's just how my brain is wired.

My solution to this is to focus on methodology and not focus too much on any one area. I am primarily interested in teaching anyway so I'd be motivated to develop skills to train future scientists as well as communicate good science to the general public. Hopefully that works out!

Edited November 7, 2013 by neuropsych76

[juilletmercredi]

How I stay motivated is getting out of the lab and doing what it is I love to do.

 

You and I seem to have similar interests and personalities: we both like methodology, and we both like communicating science to others.  Your dreams seem similar to mine as well!  I do like being a producer of research, but at a smaller scale than would be expected of me at an R1.  And I would rather communicate to the general public about healthcare science than to other scientist in my field.

 

So to give myself a more well-rounded experience, here are the things I've done:

 

-Worked as a hall director for residential life (this was somewhat unrelated to science, but I did get to interact with undergrads on a regular basis, advise them, and get experience in the student affairs side of education).

-Judged the New York City Science & Engineering Fair

-Joined the women in science group at my campus, which sponsors fun sciency stuff including a day to get middle school girls interested in science

-Taught a summer program in my field for two years, designed to get undergraduates excited about my research

-Served on advanced grad student panels giving advice and mentorship to less advanced students in the department

-Had a corporate internship one summer, to decide whether I really wanted to leave academia and work in a corporate environment (I liked it, and it let me know that I could leave academia.  I'm going to try to make it work first, but I know that there's a whole other world out there that I would enjoy in case I get tired or bored).

-Statistical consulting, which I really love.  It gives me the opportunity to help other people with their science, learn about other areas of science and teach people statistics.

-I currently work in an empirical research lab, that helps undergraduates use scientific data and quantitative reasoning in their classwork and research.

 

I also have a grad student in my cohort who just published her first book about popular science and is currently working on a second one - she published the first book shortly after she finished her PhD here.  She's also written for several magazines and newspapers, including the New Yorker, the Times and the Boston Globe.  I've had other friends in grad school write for HuffPo, the Times, Science Mag, the Chronicle...one dude from my department is currently a professor at a top 5 school in my field, but while he was here he wrote a regular column for the Huffington Post.  If you want to write about popular science, DO IT!  Don't wait until you've graduated to do so.  Start off freelancing - contact news outlets and see if they would be interested.  You could make a little side money and do what you really love!

 

P.S.: I hit a wall in my 3rd year, too.  You kind of have to work through it a little; it takes a while to find your passion.  Once I started balancing out my science work with other stuff (related to science, but more public) I felt much happier.

 

P.P.S: I hear you on the methodology thing, but even as a methodologist you need to develop a substantive area.  It doesn't have to be one that you devote your entire life to, though; you just need to pick something that you could conceivably work within for the next 4-10 years (depending on whether you can make a shift in a postdoc).  Like you, I have broad interests; I have settled within an area that I actually care a whole lot about and am passionate about, but there are other things I could work on that are also "oooh, shiny."  Once you get tenure you can do whatever you want, but it may behoove you to develop a substantive area or two that you can work within to publish.  As silly as it is in academia, you at least initially need to be "known for" something.

 

Also, you may want to aim at mid-ranked to less-well-known SLACs, comprehensive universities and baccalaureate colleges.  The reason I suggest that is because the top SLACs often have 2/2 or 3/2 teaching loads because they expect you to be doing research - maybe not quantity, but quality.  If you go to a comprehensive master's university or a more mid-ranked SLAC, though, the teaching load will be heavier (3/3 to 4/4) and the research expectations will be lower, which will free you to focus primarily on teaching if you want.  The downside, of course, is that you will have less time for writing that popular book on cognitive neuroscience and less time for communicating science outside of the university.  So you have to decide what your priorities are and use that to help you select the kind of job you want.  Now is the perfect time to start thinking about it.

[neuropsych76]

I PMed you juilletmercredi, thank you!!