Obtaining a doctorate can be a lonely endeavor. You’re generally given a project that you work on by yourself. It’s not always a team thing, and if you can’t figure it out: tough luck. Graduate school really teaches you how to do your research and truly understand what is happening in a very focused area. Did I want to go to graduate school? It was kind of whatever to be honest. My dad has a doctorate (even though my mom’s the smart one). My grandparents presumably have doctorates. I don’t think I was necessarily trying to be like my dad or my family, but I sensed from an early age that I had some abilities and I genuinely wanted to be educated. I naturally just gravitated toward the “why’s” and questioned a lot of things around me. I didn’t really give a sh*t about the “how’s”.
For instance, I remember in my high school English class, I proposed that the family structure was going to change in the future for this one class project. This was around 2005. Did I really believe in that presentation when I was proposing it? Not really, it was just a presentation, and it just made sense to me. I wasn’t really passionate about the message. Yet, in retrospect, I think it struck a chord with some of the more politically-inclined students in the class, and I think my English teacher saw it as a favorable thing. She went to UC Berkeley. I probably ended up getting bullied for that presentation. At least I got the A.
The Ivory Tower 
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