Neutron-Witch
Member
- Apr 6, 2025
- 23
I'm attending a good university, studying the subject I've been interested in for years. I have good grades, I'm even getting some research experience in. I should be happy about this, I know people who've devoted years of effort to get here. Yet all I feel is dread, like I'm paving my way to a prison of my own making with my own blood, sweat, and tears (and exorbitant tuition, I'm never paying this debt off).
The field I want to go into is dead. The best job I can really hope for is as a struggling researcher that will be lucky to pay off their student loans. Everyone I've talked to has told me that if I'm not passionate about the subject, I shouldn't go into it. I've been deluding myself into believing that I have passion, that I can make myself excited about toiling away with nothing to show for it, but it's becoming harder to ignore the fact that this career would be a soul-sucking hell. From what research experience I've had, and from what I've seen of the lives of researchers in the field, there is nothing fulfilling to look forward to, and I am not nearly intelligent enough to do anything of purpose. There's nothing at all to look forward to.
Truthfully, I've never really wanted this. I went to college because that's the thing you're supposed to do after graduating, I went with this field because I sort of like the idea of it, everything has been either inertia or being guided by my parents along the "right path". And as much as I hate the prospect of making this shit my life, I hate every other career option more, so there's nothing I can escape to. I'm just stuck on this path, lying to myself that I'm chasing a dream, when really there are no lofty dreams and aspirations and I'm just banking on killing myself sometime before graduation before having to make an actual fucking decision for once in my life.
The field I want to go into is dead. The best job I can really hope for is as a struggling researcher that will be lucky to pay off their student loans. Everyone I've talked to has told me that if I'm not passionate about the subject, I shouldn't go into it. I've been deluding myself into believing that I have passion, that I can make myself excited about toiling away with nothing to show for it, but it's becoming harder to ignore the fact that this career would be a soul-sucking hell. From what research experience I've had, and from what I've seen of the lives of researchers in the field, there is nothing fulfilling to look forward to, and I am not nearly intelligent enough to do anything of purpose. There's nothing at all to look forward to.
Truthfully, I've never really wanted this. I went to college because that's the thing you're supposed to do after graduating, I went with this field because I sort of like the idea of it, everything has been either inertia or being guided by my parents along the "right path". And as much as I hate the prospect of making this shit my life, I hate every other career option more, so there's nothing I can escape to. I'm just stuck on this path, lying to myself that I'm chasing a dream, when really there are no lofty dreams and aspirations and I'm just banking on killing myself sometime before graduation before having to make an actual fucking decision for once in my life.
