Second thoughts
I got a call from QoH on Sunday and he wanted to discuss about my internship. There are quite a few legal and logistical hurdles to me continuing on this internship. We were basically hashing out strategies to circumvent them for majority of the time. Somewhere in the conversation, he mentioned that I could also consider returning to the lab and working on my other projects.
I am not sure if I had mentioned this before, but the field I am interning in right now is not my core expertise. I had always wanted to work in this new area, so QoH found out a way for me to do just that. As you know things havent been going that great with it. I have very little to show for a year’s work, and as a result I have been mostly depressed and frustrated.
This afternoon I got an SOS from my lab. One of our core sponsors is planning a visit to our lab next week to evaluate the sensor we are developing for them. This sensor was my brain child and I had spearheaded the group for about 2 years. When I got this internship, I handed it over another grad student in the group, who happens to be my protege’. Long story short, they tested the new sensor over the last weekend and couldnt get it to work. QoH did his bit of fiddling around and couldnt find why it was not responding. As a last ditch attempt they called me. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but it took me less than 2 hours to figure out the problem. It felt REALLY good. I was back in my own elements. I was calling all the shots and my team was working like well oiled machine. I felt proud of the group I had put together. I was beaming in the glory of being the Wizz kid. I really missed that. I know its egoistic thing, but thats what drives me.
I am starting to wonder if I should move back to my old field. I have pretty good grip on it. 90% of my publications are in this field. I have a semi-decent recogonition in this community. However, this is not a hot area. If I choose to be in academia after graduation, I will have a difficult time finding funds and projects.
Is past success a guarentee of future ones? Conversely, is my current failure in the new field an indication that I should get out as soon as I can? I am confused.
1 Comment
Other Links to this Post
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
By compassioNAT, June 1, 2005 @ 7:49 am
For both questions, my answer is No.
Your present success sets the path for you..but you need to keep pushing your envelope and meet new expectations for you to enjoy continued success. infact, once you’ve succeeded, expectations for you to perform is raised.
Likewise, failure in your current field does always mean its not cut out for you. sometimes,it just takes some time to settle and figure things out.
Personally, I think passion is your best guide. Choose what you enjoy doing…and you’ll be motivated to perform.