Why did I quit my job and started a PhD

When I decided to quit my job for pursuing a Ph.D. degree, most of my family and friends were perplexed. I was newly married, doing well at work, and nearing the end of my 20-something. What on earth did I want to start all over in a foreign country?

There were, and continue to be many reasons to make the decision. At that time, I told them that I just wanted to pick up my dream to do a PhD. The other part of the story, on the other hand, was about my curiosity about change and learning.

After three years of staying as an engineer in the industry, I realized that it’s not quite the career I had imagined. So was my husband. We reasoned that once we settled in, it’d be more challenging to make the move. So there we went - time to venture into uncharted terrain.

It comes as no surprise that it's a shock.

So many of my life experiences and perspectives have shifted.

I wish I had invested in a speech coach earlier so that my foreigner life would have been easier. I wish I could accept that the research project was doom not working and I could make peace with it. I wish I had learned the programming language earlier to make my data sorting easier. I wish… wish…

But I’m only one person and it’s quite impossible for me to know ALL of them in the first place, right?

I recalled in the old days (so distant memory back in around 2009), one visiting professor I met trying to convince us that pursuing a Ph.D. was a good career choice. “Why not do a Ph.D.?” he suggested, “I feel like I’m learning something new every day and it is exciting!” I didn’t believe it at the time and dismissed it as nonsense.

But I do now. I’m glad that I made the move for the reason of just being curious about trying something new.