I am reading a chapter from Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferris (almost) every day. Though the book elicits a separate post, I stumbled upon a gem that I would like to share since it touches on the essence of what research is and how it is different from everything else I have done before in my studies.
The quote mentioned in the chapter about Jerzy Gregorek (refer to the podcast episode/transcripts here) is implanted into the Polish world champion weightlifter and poetry writer by a professor during his fire protection engineering studies:
Up to today, you studied hard and repeated what the world told you. Our purpose in the next four years is to teach you how to think yourself. If we succeed, you will create something this world has never seen before, but if we do not, you will just be stuck copying others and repeating. Take my words seriously, study hard, but also open your imagination. One day you will be designing a new world, and I hope it will be better than the one we live in.
The serendipity of life is that if I had not told you it was about fire protection engineering, you could not possibly notice that it is not a quote about what a Ph.D. should be about. First, it pinpoints that embarking on a Ph.D. is something we could not be well-prepared for, since our studies mostly condition us to repeat back what we are told. Of course, the chance is high that most readers started research projects besides the core study subjects, but an undergraduate degree is not about improving creativty. It provides the vocabulary to be fluent in your profession, which unquestionably must come first.
How I distinguish research from the everyday professional experience is that patterns are present for the latter. Of course, you will need to adapt to new situations; of course, you must be flexible. But at least you know where to start. For me, research is a different endeavor: I will never forget the first research project I did (to be fair, it was mostly an engineering project with some research aspects). I was clueless about what to do; I could not even generalize some concepts from my studies to the real world. It was an eye-opening but extremely embarrassing experience, and a hell of a helpful one — I wrote about the takeaways here.
Thus, the essence is creating a new world, conjuring up non-existent hypotheses, theories, concepts, and devices. This thrills me every day and bugs me even if I should decompress and relax.
Since this is entirely different from the well-trodden path of formal education we experience before a Ph.D.; it requires a new mindset. Most importantly, it does not mean that the same people who are drawn to and will excel at it were valedictorians. In my studies, I had some incredibly talented classmates who I am sure will be exceptional engineers but who admittedly are not into research. I am not about to decide the nature vs. nurture debate — the answer might be both, as New York Times bestseller author David Epstein elucidates in his exceptional masterpiece of writing, The Sports Gene.
I am sure that the driven top-performers will do their best to adapt to this new setting, but I also want to encourage those who might not do that well during their studies, since research requires a different skill set to thrive: to open up your mind and to question your beliefs and practices. To think, instead of falling into the coziness of the known.