Yesterday morning, I heard from one of my university friends that 4 of my friends who are all in various stages of their careers, and none of them are happy.
One of them is slogging in PhD and already knows he doesn't want to be in academia any more. Well, he has started looking into what kinds of careers might make him happy.
Another seems to be doing good in academics and is almost near-finish. Surprise of surprises, he fears about finishing (what I am going to do after?). He has no first-author papers. He wants to find a postdoc position, preferably locally since he has a family (his wife is at school), and continue to work on something related to his thesis work.
Yet another just graduated. Has no first-author papers, his advisor hasn't published in all last 3 years. but this guy is all cocky and thinks that Nobel prize is not far away. Already sent more than 20 resumes. Hasn't heard from anyone yet - that's a different story.
One is a tenured professor (one of my seniors) who is losing funding and talking seriously about shutting her lab down. She has a few more months to publish some papers and apply for more grants, but it's crunch time now and she's struggling to deal with the pressure, and her anger. She wants to go back to Bangalore (her native place) and start a company! May be it will work because her husband is a software engineer and can easily find an opening in Bangalore.
And then I remember my other University friends who all have stable government jobs back in Hyderabad. Almost all of them want to come over here! For what? I don't know. I also don't know whether I should encourage or discourage! I did neither. I don't have it in me to tell them that they are too "old" now to venture into new things!
One thing I started believing in more and more: PhD degree by itself doesn't have magical powers.
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