After four years of graduate study, two master’s degrees, successive collaborations and research grants, honors, publications in indexed journals, external internships, courses and presentations, I was denied the funding needed to complete my doctoral thesis for the second time Is. I’m not going to try again. It’s not worth a life of exhausting scientific output, doing thesis without remuneration, knocking on a door that doesn’t open. Every time I am denied a pre-doctoral contract, the professor gives me a dose of patience, telling me I will have more options to get it next year once I have accumulated more qualifications and experience. But my time, my money and my strength are over.
My friends and most of my professional colleagues encouraged me to pursue what university meant for me, while they slowly drifted out of research careers. I watched them enjoy themselves while I tortured myself daily to get the best results. I have thought that I can make better use not of the school year, but of my professional career, without having to expect again in the next call. I have started looking for a job.
The research grant that I have been lucky enough to receive was incompatible with an employment contract registered with Social Security, which made me financially dependent on my mother while trying to give private classes to get out of trouble. Committed to The decision not to become a university employee prompted me to put some things into perspective: A few months before he passed away, my maternal grandfather asked me if I had found a job yet.
My cousin, only a year older than me, had managed to get mortgaged in the town, and dropped out at 16 instead. Most of the youth and teenagers in La Mancha that I grew up with worked as farmers or in the family business (from a young age, illegally, without contributions) to earn their wages. My cousin could read like me, because he did not lack intelligence, but he had a less passive way of adapting to economic reality than I did.
I replied to my grandfather that they still pay 400 Euros a month for me to continue at the university, and that next year, perhaps, they would offer me the pre-doctoral contract that I wanted. When I told him the conditions, he told me that it would not help me to stay in the city. At that time I did not agree with him because of my obsession to continue my studies. Now, instead of, yes.
They say that applying for the scholarship again does not harm me. But I waste my time, my will and my enthusiasm. I feel sorry for my teachers, who put so much trust in me. I didn’t want to disappoint you, but continuing to struggle to become a doctoral student has lost its meaning
“Business” was the word that determined my field of study early on. But since I cannot continue my research, I feel that my studies in philosophy so far done will not be of much use, at least from a scientific and academic point of view, which was my only interest. Although I don’t regret taking them, due to circumstances I have to admit that the narrative of furthering my business has made me suffer while seeking only one option for personal fulfillment. Cool, they should have taken the safe route, but there’s no turning back now. I fulfilled my desire and ambition not to remain superficial and now I do not know what the future holds for me. I arrived in a city full of illusions. After facing so many obstacles in my training, I have lost all faith in the academy. It is time to step aside, resign and make room for capable people like me who still maintain their enthusiasm.
After so many years of work, and efforts of my dear teachers to support me, I have decided to invest my youth in other options. Now that I still have time, I can redirect my future work. I myself thought that if I could not complete my studies then nothing was worth it; I prioritized them over everything else. Although these have been the best years of my life, there are many valuable options beyond college.
They tell me that applying for the scholarship again has nothing to do with me. But I waste my time, my will and my enthusiasm. I’m sorry for both myself and my teachers who put so much trust in my ability until the very end. I didn’t want to disappoint you, but it has lost its meaning for me to keep fighting to become a doctoral student. There are more urgent and urgent matters than this. I am fortunate to have come here despite adverse circumstances.
Looking back, I would have liked to have made this decision much earlier so as not to be under the pressure of always getting the best qualification. I know that the cultural backpack with which I entered my degree was emptier than that of many of my colleagues, and that it weighed more heavily during the first years than my desire to learn. I tried not to let the constant atmosphere of competition among co-workers eager to stand out from the rest enter my conscience, knowing that I was participating in that diabolical game.
I expected to get this option for social promotion from university, but it turns out that most studious young researchers who don’t get jobs find themselves adapting to a strange and alien world of work when they are over thirty. get inspired to.
But what pains me the most is to think that all the efforts on my part to gain a complete understanding of the discipline I love the most have fallen on deaf ears. I see my colleagues who have been forced to give up research due to lack of funding. Not being able to bear the cost, our talent has been left out. Hopefully, soon those of us who read books in the library until the wee hours of the morning will have access to the resources we need to turn our ideas into life, expression, and reality.
When I saw my mother working hard so that I could live in Madrid, I felt that studying was not a right, but a whim, but I hoped that it would pay off one day. I expected to get this option for social advancement from university, but it turns out that most studious young researchers who don’t get jobs find themselves having to adapt to a strange and alien world of work when they are over thirty. inspire to.
I have long dreamed of doing a beautiful thesis. I know now that over-romanticizing the devotion to study has its perils. To become a professor in university has ceased to sound suggestive to me. Doctors who manage to stay afloat when they do not have endogamous support to interior face associate or assistant contracts whose salaries are insufficient to cover expenses and, ultimately, salaries that are far from those jobs. are not very different in that they require very little time. Spending on studies
These were my fears, and I have decided that the advantages of the university are clearly insufficient. Research contracts now seem to serve as a sieve that restricts access to science to those who have few resources to study it. But I don’t have to tie myself down, I can find a position with better remuneration, less risk and less personal sacrifice. The world outside academia seems less rigid and regulated to me. I have seen other generations and I have learned from their mistakes. I undertake not to repeat them.
