One of my most persistent doubts is whether I'm actually good enough to be (and remain) in academia... being in academia, after all, does mean that every day you're surrounded with brilliant minds with brilliant ideas and with brilliant papers published in brilliant journals. But in those moments, I'd do well to think of what a senior professor once told me; "you don't have to be the smartest to cut it in academia, you just have to be really interested in something".
Another serious doubt is whether I'll get a job once I'm done. I'm capable of doing loads of stuff, I know that - if anything, I can go back to my old job of being a court clerk, I could live off such a salary - but it's the doubt of whether I'll find anything that can keep my interest for forty years. I do want to be an instructor, after all. But I don't have to find my dream job straight out of grad school - I should just try to get any job in my field (which ranges from pure law enforcement to government to academia, after all) and then as soon as a job closer to my dream opens up, move into that. I'll worry about my retirement fund being scattered and all over the place later - I'll have study debts to clear up first, then.
Currently I also wonder whether I'll fit in with the English locals. I don't mean townies, though I'm sure the people of Leicester are wonderful, but I mean with the English students. But while in Oxford, Kristy assured me that I seemed so well at ease there, and more people have told me that England is a place I'll like even for extended periods of time. Well. We'll see, won't we?
Another serious doubt is whether I'll get a job once I'm done. I'm capable of doing loads of stuff, I know that - if anything, I can go back to my old job of being a court clerk, I could live off such a salary - but it's the doubt of whether I'll find anything that can keep my interest for forty years. I do want to be an instructor, after all. But I don't have to find my dream job straight out of grad school - I should just try to get any job in my field (which ranges from pure law enforcement to government to academia, after all) and then as soon as a job closer to my dream opens up, move into that. I'll worry about my retirement fund being scattered and all over the place later - I'll have study debts to clear up first, then.
Currently I also wonder whether I'll fit in with the English locals. I don't mean townies, though I'm sure the people of Leicester are wonderful, but I mean with the English students. But while in Oxford, Kristy assured me that I seemed so well at ease there, and more people have told me that England is a place I'll like even for extended periods of time. Well. We'll see, won't we?
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