#like i enrolled in a phd program. was 'sponsored' so to speak by a prof. had a placement in a lab. had funding and everything.

[bright-and-burning]

im sorry, you are 22 and were already a phd candidate??

LOL this got long sorry!!! u get my evil academic origin story anon congrats

yeah! i wanted to be a professor for a while (like, most of high school, and then my freshman year of college i became disillusioned abt my original field choice but by junior year i had stumbled into a new field i was passionate abt and decided teaching was the dream again) so in my senior year of college i applied to a bunch of cs phd programs

idk how other fields/countries work but basically like if you apply and you dont have a masters already it just takes longer (5 years on average instead of ~4 or something)! and a lot of the programs i applied to preferred that you didnt have a masters already. so it's less impressive maybe than it sounds on paper?

i also wanna say i was one of three ppl from my friend group going straight into phds after graduating (not even counting my med school hopeful friends. or regular masters friends) so i also feel like it's not that uncommon?? maybe covid made it more common. i also went to a like ~high end~ research uni full of nerds. and was in with the nerd athletes (distance runners) so im like biased

i spent the fall semester of senior year applying to grad school, and the spring semester getting my heart broken by grad school decisions LOL

i got into one program but it was literally like. top 5 in the country for what i wanted to do. so i accepted, bc i made my undergrad decision based on prestige and that worked out like absurdly well for me lol. and then i had a mental breakdown the weekend of graduation and realized i didnt want to grind out a phd in a field that doesnt treat ppl like me (queer women w learning disabilities from lower class backgrounds... lmfao....) kindly for like no money in the middle of nowhere far from anyone i know + love when i could (in theory) get a well-paying job (or at least more survivable than 30k/year) and find satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment from things like. spending time with my friends. traveling. having money for my hobbies. etc etc.

so i dropped out like right on the deadline for signing up for classes/seminar/research groups. and then they kept me on the email list anyways so i was tormented for a few months by what couldve been which was Great for feeling secure in this life changing choice i made more or less on an emotional whim that deviated from a life plan i had had since i was 15

and then i spent 6 months unemployed bc the tech world is imploding . LOL . but i have a job offer now for something that's really meaningful to me that'll allow me to use my skills to help people AND it'll pay me more than double what my phd stipend was. so alls well that ends well or something