Idea Generation and Critical Analysis
This is one of the reasons I went private. So that I could write and confess stuff like this:
After 5+ years of graduate school, I feel like I became proficient at coming up with ideas and figuring out which questions to ask. Organic chemistry, mechanism, probing how it would work, and how to get it to work, based on ligands and electronics. By the end of graduate school, I could figure out the next direction to go without much input from my advisor, and I could analyze the outcome and then get another idea from there.
Also, I some practice coming up with proposals since I had to write one as a requisite for graduating. It was a cool proposal and I liked it. I could figure out what to do because I had generally worked in that same area. I knew how to think about the directions to go and what to do.
One of the problems with switching fields, even so little as a switch from homogeneous to heterogeneous catalysis, is that sometimes I feel at a loss to find my direction. So today, when I got to a point where I was really excited about picking a pathway and getting the specifics written out and finishing a proposal by the end of the week, but then ran my idea by our "local expert" who has studied materials similar to what I am proposing, I found that I am reduced to almost nothing of my confidence in those first two paragraphs written above.*
The thing is, is that I am very creative, and a good thinker, but sometimes I just need a question asked to help move me in the direction of where to find the answers. Thanks to that one good question by a revered expert in the field, that I could only answer with, I don't know, even though I knew where to find the answers, did leave me with a feeling that there is still a lot to be figured out, I just have so much to do that I am not feeling up to doing it tonight.
So, I figured I'd complain a little, to the crowd who is gunning for me to meet and accomplish my goals, and tell you all, gosh, scientific proposing is difficult. And there is so much more for me to learn! It is so very true what they say, in that, once you learn things, you begin to know how much you don't know. I don't know so many things!
And, on I go. I think I can write and research again. I just needed a little reflective break.
*The one good thing from the exchange was, that he did say, that what I was proposing is a really good problem to try to solve. He just asked how I was making the analogy, and that was what I was having a hard time trying to figure out how to do. So, this was a really good exchange after all.
After 5+ years of graduate school, I feel like I became proficient at coming up with ideas and figuring out which questions to ask. Organic chemistry, mechanism, probing how it would work, and how to get it to work, based on ligands and electronics. By the end of graduate school, I could figure out the next direction to go without much input from my advisor, and I could analyze the outcome and then get another idea from there.
Also, I some practice coming up with proposals since I had to write one as a requisite for graduating. It was a cool proposal and I liked it. I could figure out what to do because I had generally worked in that same area. I knew how to think about the directions to go and what to do.
One of the problems with switching fields, even so little as a switch from homogeneous to heterogeneous catalysis, is that sometimes I feel at a loss to find my direction. So today, when I got to a point where I was really excited about picking a pathway and getting the specifics written out and finishing a proposal by the end of the week, but then ran my idea by our "local expert" who has studied materials similar to what I am proposing, I found that I am reduced to almost nothing of my confidence in those first two paragraphs written above.*
The thing is, is that I am very creative, and a good thinker, but sometimes I just need a question asked to help move me in the direction of where to find the answers. Thanks to that one good question by a revered expert in the field, that I could only answer with, I don't know, even though I knew where to find the answers, did leave me with a feeling that there is still a lot to be figured out, I just have so much to do that I am not feeling up to doing it tonight.
So, I figured I'd complain a little, to the crowd who is gunning for me to meet and accomplish my goals, and tell you all, gosh, scientific proposing is difficult. And there is so much more for me to learn! It is so very true what they say, in that, once you learn things, you begin to know how much you don't know. I don't know so many things!
And, on I go. I think I can write and research again. I just needed a little reflective break.
*The one good thing from the exchange was, that he did say, that what I was proposing is a really good problem to try to solve. He just asked how I was making the analogy, and that was what I was having a hard time trying to figure out how to do. So, this was a really good exchange after all.
Comments
Also, I'll throw in my plug for the Midwest. Indianapolis is great (Plainfield especially!) and we love good neighbors. But we'll probably be gone in under three years... Good luck in the job search!