Is academia for me ???

[Anka]

Dear graduate fellows,

I am close to finishing my masters program. I have started evaluating myself .I am extremely depress as I feel like I haven't achieve anything.

The following things are some of the things that make me feel a complete FAILURE in graduate school.

1. My first mistake was that I opted a topic that was completely different from my advisor's research. So most of the time in my graduate research I was on my own.

2. My advisor was super sweet but he was extremely busy most of time. In 3 years, we only had may be 7 face to face meetings. During my time he had three other positions and he also got very sick during my second semester. I refrain from sending her email during his sick leave and asking anything about research opportunity. During my time, two other student in our lab change the supervisors however, I stayed with my supervisor. I was very reserve and hesitant at that time. But now I think I should I have taken the step to change the supervisor in the beginning.

3. I never gain any GRA experience because I am very awkward and social anxious person. I have been to at least 10 interviews for different positions during my graduate school but I was only able to secure 1 marker position throughout 3 years of my masters degree. I have been to psychological counseling for two years before and during my graduate program but it was not helpful at all

4. I took three years to finish my masters program.

5. I got A and A + in all courses but my grades was lower than class average for most of courses as I can see on my grad transcript.

6. I never publish or presented anything may be this is not expected by masters student..don't know.

7. Throughout my graduate program, I was not able to secure ANY kind of funding from ANY source. I survived on government student loans but luckily I am not in debt because I got some bursaries which is different from grant.

8. I was never able to establish any good professional relationship with MOST of professors. So, I don't  think I can ask anyone a reference for employment. I rarely participated in any class discussion. One of the reason which I recently find out that I have Central Auditory Processing disorder and mild hearing loss. It was very difficult for me to follow the conversations.

Am I failure ? Is academia for not person like me ? I am thinking of applying for PhD after working for few years. Should I think about PhD ? If I wanted to do PhD where should I start improving myself ?

 

 

 

 

Edited January 1, 2017 by Anka

[.letmeinplz//]

I don't think you are a failure, you just need to understand the weaknesses you have and how to improve upon them (or cover them up with your strengths). If you are set on working a few years first you should get at least 2 professors from your MS to agree to write you LoRs now for when the time for PhD apps comes (your third can be from work). If you are doing a thesis try to get a paper published from your work, a publication will really help during PhD apps since that is basically your job during a PhD. Everyone has a different path to take. So don't think that because you aren't exactly like what you think is the norm it precludes you from PhD-level grad school.

[Anka]

Thank you for your kind words.

I was one of the youngest student in the masters program and I guess also a very immature one. I think this was also one of my weakness.

I am applying for jobs and I might apply for PhD depending on the circumstances.