Leaving for Lava

Watch out, volcanology.  The lava lady is BACK.

I'm assuming what I'll be announcing here will be common knowledge to you, the reader, as I'm assuming 99.9999% of my audience here is friends on Facebook, aside from those 8 people in Ukraine.  But for those of you who missed my announcement (or who live in Ukraine), I have decided that I will not be continuing my PhD at the Colorado School of Mines, and will instead be looking for another school at which to complete my PhD.

I wanted to write here about my experiences in making this decision (and the coming transition period) because when I finally found myself ready to move on, I found a whole lot of information about leaving a PhD entirely, and nothing about simply moving to a different PhD program.  So while I am by no means a professional guidance counselor type and am learning this "on the job", as it were, I thought I might chronicle my experiences here in this more public forum so that my story might serve as a resource for others facing this decision and transition.

So, why am I leaving?

There are many factors, but the most important is that I finally came to realize that I just wasn't all that interested in the research I was doing, and the kind of research the department specializes in, generally speaking.  The Mines geophysics department does all kinds of crazy cool things with geophysics methodology, working pure freaking magic with data like you wouldn't believe!  But the catch, for me at least, is that all this focus on methodology means that there's less focus on the geological problems we're trying to solve with geophysics.  And eventually, it dawned on me, that's a really essential part of why I love geophysics!  While I will salivate over some Fourier finesse or an insightful inversion, what really puts a fire in my heart is the answer at the end of the geophysical analysis, or, in many cases, the next question.  Is that a magma chamber I see?  Is it connected to this other one? WHY???  In the end, I want to be the person asking those questions, and using geophysics as my magic wand to help solve them.

I came to this realization in stages.  First, it was the culture shock of going from 6 years living in the very pro-environment Pacific Northwest to a very industry focused school, and trying very hard to get interested and excited about industry issues.... and just not.  It felt increasingly like I was one of millions trying to carve out a tiny slice of a very huge and mostly-eaten pie.

Then, it was noticing where my brain went when I would zone out in classes.  Everything ended up in volcanology.  Every new method I heard about, I wanted to apply to some problem in volcanology.  I just could not stop thinking about volcanoes, and lava, and magma, and volatiles, and pressure, and... you get the picture.  Industry problems were just not something I could see myself working on.  It would have to be something related to volcanology.

I tried figuring out a PhD thesis topic that would involve research that I could easily apply to volcanology, as an attempt to placate my volcano-obsessed brain.  However, it was quickly obvious my ideas weren't really going anywhere, and it still felt like something was missing.

Still, even though I was feeling increasingly uneasy about whether I was in the right place, I stayed on.  Part of this was the heavy course load I endured for the first three terms.  I wanted to see if my fourth term, during which I was taking only two very minimal courses and finally focusing on research, would be an improvement.  I didn't want to leave just because it was hard.  More importantly, at that point I had only "push" factors - factors suggesting I was in the wrong place, but nothing to suggest there might be a better place elsewhere.  Without something pulling me away, I couldn't be sure that my thoughts about leaving were simply stress from the PhD that might eventually pass as I adjusted.

Finally, just before spring break, two events happened that gave me my "pull" factors.

On Thursday that week, the speaker for our department seminar happened to be a professor who specialized in InSAR, and had done work on volcano deformation.  This particular scientist was someone who had actually been on my radar for some time, as she had also worked with gravity in the past, and I had actually briefly spoken with her about doing a master's several years prior. Before the talk, out of curiosity, I started looking up some of her more recent papers, and was instantly intrigued.  Here was someone studying the earth system I was clearly addicted to, and she used really amazing math and geophysics to reach some really interesting conclusions!

With these thoughts swirling in the back of my mind, the next morning I gave a Q&A session for a group of students about being a volcanologist.  The Q&A session the following morning was another eye-opener.  In talking to the students about the work I had done in volcanology, I realized how much I missed it, how much I missed doing work that was that...well... awesome.  Doing something I really felt passionate about.

I started thinking about which of the department seminars really had me on the edge of my seat.  And when I thought about it, it was always the talks where the focus was on solving some problem in the natural world, be it analyzing the seismic signals of glaciers, detecting volcano inflation, or simulating erosion due to landslides.  It wasn't the talks that were more in line with what the department specialized in, the talks about industry problems, or fine-tuning seismic imaging, or improving inversion algorithms.

I had been operating under the thought that, hey, I'll do this PhD at an industry-focused school, learn all the cool tools people use in the industry, and then sneak back into volcanology with my new-found geophysical goodies.  But I started thinking, seriously, was it worth it to me to do a full PhD on stuff that wasn't really what I wanted to do, at the end of the day?  Did it make sense to do a PhD I wasn't really passionate about, in the hope that at the end, I'd be able to break back into a field I would have been out of for likely over 5 years?

What the department seminar from the InSAR specialist had shown me was that I could achieve both of my goals at once - I could do really cool fun math intensive geophysics, AND study volcanoes.  Suddenly, whereas before I had only push factors, the nagging feeling that I didn't belong, not being very excited about the research opportunities available to me, now I had my pull factor, something enticing me to think again about what I might do beyond Mines.

With both push and pull factors, I made my decision - Mines was simply not the right place.  It was a bittersweet realization.  Bitter, because I am not the sort of person to leave things half done, and I knew I would genuinely miss the amazing people at Mines.  Sweet, because it was such a relief to have finally made the decision, and to finally allow myself to think about science that really fired me up!

Of course, then I had to figure out how to break the news to everyone, most importantly, my advisers. I ended up writing several drafts of what I would say or send in an email, and had people close to me review my writing.  I wanted to explain my decision clearly without seeming dismissive of Mines, because even though I had decided to leave, I didn't think any less of Mines, it just wasn't the right place for me.

I ended up delivering my decision to my advisers by email, not my first choice (the circumstances ended up forcing my hand), but at least that way I was able to choose exactly what I wanted to say.  I immediately followed this with an email to my friends at Mines, followed by a Facebook post, because I was very worried about what people would think, and I wanted everyone to know my decision, and my reasons, from me first, and not on the grapevine where my reasons might get distorted.

 I was very afraid of the condemnation of my peers - afraid people would think I had just given up, that things had gotten too hard and I had failed.  I was astonished by the incredibly positive response I got instead!  I heard from a few friends who had made similar decisions, and found themselves very much the better for it.  Several of my friends applauded me for having the strength to follow my dreams.  Many of them even used the word "brave".

And I guess I did have to be brave.  I was definitely playing all the pump-up music I had when I was driving up to Mines to deliver the news to my advisers*, and I was pretty dang scared to come back to campus the next week**.  But at the same time there was such relief from feeling that I was no longer lying to myself or the people around me that it made the fear conquerable.

*Who ended up being out of the office when I got there, hence delivering the news by email - there were some deadlines coming up that kind of forced my hand that way.

**Which ended up being delayed by a very nasty resurgent case of strep throat, as Murphy's Law is still in full control of the universe.

I of course don't know if there are people saying nasty things behind my back - there probably are, humans are humans.  I learned a valuable lesson, though, and that is that people in our society do actually respect the idea of someone following their dreams.  I know we like to pass around optimistic cartoons and such praising the idea of pursuing goals outside the beaten track, but I kind of assumed that this was just a thing we say to be nice, and that what people really think is different.  Again, don't know if people are saying one thing and thinking another, but the sheer volume and consistency of the positive response I received kind of makes me think it might be real.  Every now and then, humans can surprise us - for the better.

So I'll offer this advice to anyone contemplating a similar move:

1. Think about your push and pull factors.  Why do you want to leave?  Is there a somewhere you can see yourself leaving to?
2. Take care to communicate your intentions clearly and civilly.  Be honest, but be nice - the world can be a pretty small place, and it's always better to keep allies than to make enemies.
3. Give people the benefit of the doubt - the people in your life will understand and support you, just give them the chance.

So what am I doing now?  Well, I'm finishing up my term at Mines, and when I'm done with that I'll be working full time at my currently part time job, while I figure out PhD Take 2.  At the moment I've got a huge spreadsheet going (because I LOVE me some spreadsheets) with potential new advisers, their institutions, their research, etc. and plans to make some sort of spectacularly complicated rating system that I'll probably end up ignoring in the end.  I'll attempt to post updates here, and talk a little bit more about the process of figuring out what comes next.

In the meantime, I'll be dealing with the flood of repressed volcano love, which may end up being channeled into some slightly less dark lyrics for this very awesome attempt at a volcano-themed version of one of my favorite songs:

Currently questioning the wisdom of ending a post about not burning bridges with a song about burning, well, everything.... oh well.

Next posts:
      2. Redesigning my Research
      3. Professorial Processing
      4. Knowledgeably Narrowing
      5. Coming to Conclusions