I am just putting the finishing touches on my presentation for tomorrow. I am a phD student and our program has a seminar every Friday where students, faculty, and guest speakers give lectures on various topics. The audience includes everyone involved with my program: the students, the faculty, the chair of the department and sometimes the dean of the school.
Tomorrow is my turn.
I just feel kind of weird when I am in the room with all of these people, like somehow I don’t belong there. Don’t get me wrong, I am smarter than about 90% of the people in the room. I just don’t feel like one of them though. Some of these people are world renowned researchers…..I still think farts are funny….They are just so formal and I feel like everything that they do or say has an ulterior motive. They are all out to get each other. I feel like I have to put on this costume and pretend when I in the room with these people.
Is this just something that I have created? Do other people feel this way? Does this mean that I am not in the right place?
For the most part, I love what I do. When I am in my own lab, brainstorming with my advisor about new and current projects, I feel electric. There are definitely some days, though that I want to run out of there and not look back. Of course, I have been told by more than one person that there are always going to be things that you don’t like about a job (I consider being a phD student to be like having a job).
I just feel like I don’t belong sometimes. Not that I don’t have the capability, but just that I don’t fit in...
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I'm a real attorney, and it still amuses me that (1) people pay for my advice and (2) people actually follow my advice and (3) I sometimes get paid to teach 60 year old lawyers some things. I think everyone feels the sense of "I don't belong" until, oh, 15 years into the profession.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there aren't too many ulterior motives in my area. Everyone is pretty up-front with what they want!
Good luck on your presentation :)
Allison
I'm not a professional anything, no Phd, no degrees..nothing I can say that I am excellent doing. It's always something that has stressed me out since I began working years ago. I'm 43 and I have literally NO IDEA what I want to do with my life. I envy people that have a career with a goal and an actual purpose...I float around from job to job, never really staying more than 3 years at any given company and I have to say as stressful as it is looking for work, I actually enjoy doing something different every so often. Maybe that's what I'm good at...lol not being great at anything.. :)
ReplyDeleteif this has nothing to do with what you posted I'm sorry, I just put that out there...
A. - Good to know I am not the only one feeling this way. The presentation went great! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteKimber - Let's just hope that I have chosen the right career path! Sometimes I still feel like I need to figure out what I want to do when I grow up.