I’m done with my PhD!

Nearly 5 years ago, I stepped out of my degree program, bachelors in hand and a mask on my face (it was deep into Covid). Now, the years have flown by, and I can finally look back to see just how much I’ve done, both in my research and personal life.

When I was drowning in work over the course of my PhD, I rarely had time to take stock of my progress. Instead, I was consistently focused on whether I was making steady progress towards my research and my other obligations such as teaching, communicating research to the public and mentoring students. It is so easy to get tunnel vision as a graduate student – money and grants come tight and there is strong pressure to finish everything before the grants expire. There is also equally strong pressure for us to finish on time so that we can stop getting paid peanuts and start embarking on our actual careers as researchers…

<shudders at the face of unemployment>

Taking stock of the past

Now that I am done-and-dusted, how did I feel about my PhD experience?

I would say doing a PhD was probably one of the most unique and eye-opening experiences anyone could ever have, especially if your field is in something non-mainstream. I have got to travel to many exotic locations for conferences and fieldwork (and post-conference holidays!). I got to meet up with a diverse range of ecologists and like-minded colleagues. I mentored undergraduates and shared my technical expertise with academics and external stakeholders. I engaged in long, intellectually stimulating discussions with some of the brightest minds on earth. I exchanged jokes and banter with other graduate students who are equally accustomed to the woes of research. None of these experiences I regret having.

At the same time, it was not all sunshine and roses. I got infections and ailments from my fieldwork dealing with soils. My supervisor, while a capable researcher, did not manage the administrative parts of her job nor pulled in sufficient grant money to keep our lab going (we eventually disbanded and I changed supervisors). There was so much administrative crap thrown to us that made little sense, yet ate so much of my time (not my faculty’s fault, but the university). My lab mates and I were forced to pick up the debris of incompetent lab technicians who turned our lab upside-down. I encountered picky, unconstructive criticism from reviewers, and reviewed many papers with substandard research (yes, I was that Reviewer 2 occasionally). Even getting the permits for our fieldwork was such a hassle, gatekept by stubborn, close-minded people in power who knew barely anything about ecology or fieldwork. Looking back at my list of complaints, I would say my negative experiences in my PhD boiled down to horrible people in positions of power pulling shenanigans and making life needlessly hard throughout my research journey.

Somehow, all the typical woes of research life such as non-significant results and failed lab experiments didn’t seem to irk me all that much. I chalk my immunity to these things up to my faith which helped me realize that my self-worth as a person was not tied to my research outputs, nor the number of publications I secured. But the obstacles that really irked me were the ones dealing with people – especially the ones that made life in academia so much harder than it needed to be, either out of sheer ignorance or incompetence.

The research woes are behind me, for now. But the future looms a different problem – a problem I did not truly understand until now.

Postdoctoral research life is bleak

It is an open secret that academics are generally paid peanuts compared to industry. While I was mentally prepared that I was never going to be rich as an academic, years of encountering administrators, bureaucracy and managers inside and outside academia has led me to conclude one fact – scientists are just not respected for their skills and expertise anymore, even if the public and the media claims otherwise.

World leaders slashing funding to research grants. Companies rejecting postdocs because they are “overqualified”. Politicians regularly ignore scientific advice about the climate, health and other pressing issues. In my home country, most of the park managers granting access to field sites and research funding into local ecology were never trained in ecology, nor have any desire to share their ecological data, even for their own projects. What’s the point of doing all these research then?

I don’t study what I study for the sake of it. I chose the path of an academic because I find it intellectually satisfying to figure out ecological truths and principles that underlie the rich natural world that we live in, and I want to use this knowledge to change the way we manage our environment. I want to see my knowledge and skills translated into better ways to restore forests, model natural carbon budgets and manage agricultural communities. But I can’t do any of those if governments and rich stakeholders never prioritized these areas in the first place and remain content with planting trees that die the next year, contributing ceaselessly to global warming or maximizing crop yield without concern for soil degradation. In where I live, this doesn’t only mean that there is a lack of funding in my research field; it also means that there is a lack of industry jobs that have any interest in forests, soils or agriculture. Again, people remain the obstacle – people with money and power, yet with a grossly misinformed view of the natural world.

Maybe for other ecologists elsewhere, your story may be more optimistic. In places like Europe or Australia, there appears to be many good opportunities to contribute to the environmental scene and potentially make a difference to environmental management while making a decent living. Whatever your choice, continue to persist in what you do as the world desperately needs more ecologists to make sense of the natural world and the ways we should pursue to protect, conserve and restore the biodiversity and ecosystems we care about.

PhD final review

Final verdict – three stars. Interesting and enriching experience; cannot recommend.

In these times, I think it makes little sense for anyone to do a PhD in the natural sciences. Ask any suffering graduate student and he/she will tell you that interest or ambition alone won’t cut it. Nor will the prospect of nailing a tenured position. Definitely not prestige (see above).

Do it only because you have a clear vision of what you want to do, and whether a PhD is truly necessary for that path. Also consider whether you are willing to move after your PhD to pursue your research interests, if necessary. Personally, I envisioned myself as a lecturer in environmental studies or ecology, or as an ecological consultant* contributing to the most pressing ecological issues faced by society today. Alas, none of these exist where I live, so I am forced to make difficult choices on where to work, all while considering my partner’s wants and the other areas of my personal life. It isn’t easy.

*Not the same as an environmental consultant!

I don’t feel bitter that I did my PhD in ecology at all. Rather, I am disheartened at how governments and the average layman looks at ecological issues with apathy and treats the numerous scientists studying the natural world with disdain (or even outright contempt at times). As we get closer and closer to 2050, maybe the public’s view will change in the light of more heatwaves, floods, biodiversity collapse and climate hazards.

Maybe.