Donnerstag, 30. Januar 2014

what am i doing?

I like biology. Somewhat understanding the inner workings of living organisms is pretty cool. I like how I know that antibiotics won't treat a viral infection or that our adaptive immune system is a miracle. However, I could well live without knowing that USP15 promotes RIG-I mediated antiviral signaling by deubiquitylating TRIM25. Unfortunately, the duty to care very deeply about just that, is how I currently earn a living.

Being a Phd student in biology can be great. You work autonomously and essentially expand the boundaries of human knowledge with your own clever ideas. What it boils down to is months spent day and night in the lab only to be greeted by the frustration and eventual desperation of another failed experiment you cannot explain to your supervisor. This is science, this is normal. But to deal with this you not only need excellent psychological constitution but also a strong dedication and passion for what you are trying to achieve. For example to determine if a seemingly insignificant, protein of highly redundant function really does change the state of another protein you've never heard of. In fruitflies. Some people can be passionate about this, but they are few and I am not one of them.

I want to spend my life doing something I am passionate about. If I can't be passionate about my job, I at least want it to be easy and give me the maximum amount of time to do things that I am passionate about. As you can see, this is where the Phd fails. No passion, hard, no time. But I am not ready to settle for an easy job just yet. I want to do something completely different, something I believe I am truly passionate about and I will try my hardest to achieve my goal. I want to be a professional software developer.

I am in a unique situation, I have six months of spare time. I will be unemployed starting March 1st with no followup job. For the following three months I will work for 450 Euros a month, in a 15 h/week job that I have yet to find. The remaining three months, I will recieve around 550 Euros unemployment money. In these 6 months, I want to dedicate every day to becoming an employable programmer. This blog will document my journey.




Keine Kommentare:

Kommentar veröffentlichen