- #1
Percival
- 3
- 1
Hello!
I need to ask for help in understanding my own behaviour towards physics so that I can either set some proper long term goals in the area, or alternatively move on to something else. I hope that by sharing my experience I might be able to get some feedback that would help me make sense of my own motivations...
The (odd) situation is that I a stubbornly unable to let go of studying physics. I graduated ~25 years ago with a multi-sciences degree from a top university; without really knowing what to do I went into business and now I run my own professional firm and have a happy family life. It's been successful. But I've never felt 100% satisfied intellectually since I finished full time education.
As I look back at the last decade I'm amazed at how much of my free time I have been devoting to physics, without ever really realizing what I was doing. I've build a radio telescope, written sophisticated software for astro-imaging and taught myself quite a lot of electronics. For three years I hired and worked with a physics tutor on a weekly basis to cover the best areas of 2nd/3rd year undergraduate physics, doing a significant number of problems in the process. Now I either find fresh topics to study under my own direction or revise what I studied before. Amazon grows rich as my library of hardback physics books builds!
I have at the back of my mind the idea of applying for a masters and then perhaps an experimentally based PhD at some point. It would be a few years until I have time, but there seem to be many encouraging success stories along the same lines.
What I can't quite understand is why I am doing all this? I entertain no illusions about becoming an academic in some magical second career, the research I read about in Nature strikes me as specialized into very narrow fields of interest, and frankly I'd much rather carry on earning a living doing what I am doing than start again at the bottom of another highly competitive career ladder. Despite all this, physics keeps sucking me back in week after week and month after month and I spend hours and hours studying and working...
As I mentioned at the start of the post I'd really prefer to set some long term goals and focus myself towards them to get up to the next level, or just give up and get over it and open a new door somewhere else. To do that I somehow need to understand my own motivations more exactly.
Help very much appreciated with any ideas as to what the diagnosis of my condition might be... :-)
I need to ask for help in understanding my own behaviour towards physics so that I can either set some proper long term goals in the area, or alternatively move on to something else. I hope that by sharing my experience I might be able to get some feedback that would help me make sense of my own motivations...
The (odd) situation is that I a stubbornly unable to let go of studying physics. I graduated ~25 years ago with a multi-sciences degree from a top university; without really knowing what to do I went into business and now I run my own professional firm and have a happy family life. It's been successful. But I've never felt 100% satisfied intellectually since I finished full time education.
As I look back at the last decade I'm amazed at how much of my free time I have been devoting to physics, without ever really realizing what I was doing. I've build a radio telescope, written sophisticated software for astro-imaging and taught myself quite a lot of electronics. For three years I hired and worked with a physics tutor on a weekly basis to cover the best areas of 2nd/3rd year undergraduate physics, doing a significant number of problems in the process. Now I either find fresh topics to study under my own direction or revise what I studied before. Amazon grows rich as my library of hardback physics books builds!
I have at the back of my mind the idea of applying for a masters and then perhaps an experimentally based PhD at some point. It would be a few years until I have time, but there seem to be many encouraging success stories along the same lines.
What I can't quite understand is why I am doing all this? I entertain no illusions about becoming an academic in some magical second career, the research I read about in Nature strikes me as specialized into very narrow fields of interest, and frankly I'd much rather carry on earning a living doing what I am doing than start again at the bottom of another highly competitive career ladder. Despite all this, physics keeps sucking me back in week after week and month after month and I spend hours and hours studying and working...
As I mentioned at the start of the post I'd really prefer to set some long term goals and focus myself towards them to get up to the next level, or just give up and get over it and open a new door somewhere else. To do that I somehow need to understand my own motivations more exactly.
Help very much appreciated with any ideas as to what the diagnosis of my condition might be... :-)