About

This blog is mostly about going back to grad school, full-time grad school, PhD-type grad school, as a nearly-40-year-old with a wife, a kid, and a mortgage. I don't know what that's like yet, but I'll tell you as I find out.

Why am I doing this? Well, I talked about part of it here: I work in bioscience, and my colleagues don't treat me the way they would if I had a PhD. That kind of thing is part of it. I've been in science for nearly a decade now, and I've been called "Doctor" more times than I can count, by people who just assume. I plan to work in science for a long time, and I've discovered over the last nine years that that kind of thing is just going to keep bugging me.

But that would be a lousy set of reasons to stop making money and devote vast chunks of my life to getting a degree. I have much more reasonable-sounding reasons, too: I can't, without a PhD, really guide my own research. I can't write my own grants. Also, I don't know as much as I want to about my field, and I learn best in an academic setting. If I really want to do this kind of work at the highest level I'm capable of, I need more training.

All of those things -- both of those types of reasons -- are true, and they're why I'm doing this. I'm also doing it because I can. I have the luxury of living lean for a while, pursuing my academic interests. I wouldn't be doing it if I were living hand to mouth, and I recognize that I'm very lucky to have the opportunity.

The opportunity to do something as crazy as going back for a PhD, now, having gotten my first mortgage when most of my classmates were in the sixth grade.