this is not what i wanted to do

[ultranos]

I don't know how to start this. This isn't how I thought this week would go. This isn't how I wanted it to go. I'm like a lot of people right now.

I don't know how to start this, but I'll try.

Hi.

It's been awhile, hasn't it? I'm more active over on Tumblr these days, but...I think I needed to come back here. I'm sorry it's been so long.

So this week happened. That election happened. The atmosphere around here, up in the deep-blue parts of deep-blue Massachusetts, I can only describe it as "oppressive". Everything seems muted. The statements from the university are the same ones they send out when someone dies. It's surreal.

I can't really say too much. I keep flitting back and forth between despair and white-hot rage.

I'm already losing things. I knew Wednesday that I'm going to have to quit my PhD after getting the Masters in the spring. No funding, funding uncertainty, and the stark knowledge that I need to be able to afford to drag my parents and brother out here, where it's safer, in case the worst happens. I can't do that while in school.

I don't know what I'm going to do. It's still a gaping wound to know that I woke up one day with options and a future, and when I woke up the next those were gone. Every time I think I might be able to talk about it, put some distance between it, I just end up feeling raw all over again.

It's so cold and painful to know that the people who share blood with you don't actually give a shit about you, and that they're fine with throwing your dreams and future and safety in the trash. I don't know if I'll ever be able to talk to them again. I might have stopped caring.

I'll pick myself up again. I'm going to be too angry, too spiteful to stay down.

Comments

[abyssinia]

*hugs* I'm so sorry. Everyone I know (well, almost everyone) is in states of shock right now. The mood in my department/field is certainly grim (environmental science is almost definitely first on the chopping block since both the Republicans in congress and Trump want it gone) and the department has felt like a ghost town this past week.

I thought when you started the PhD program you had a funding guarantee for a while. Did that change? I know there's a lot of well-reasoned terror in the science community right now about the future of our jobs and scientific research in America, but no existing funding has been taken away and we don't actually know exactly what cuts will happen.

I wish I could say it was going to be okay. But I have absolutely no idea. I'm definitely still feel shellshocked and lost.

[ultranos]

I hear you on the environmental sciences. My housemate's job is basically predicated on the idea that the government believes climate change is a thing. So that's great. (His form of gallows humor at the moment is that maybe if they misspell the name of the department they won't realize it exists.)

As for my situation it's...complicated. I have a fully-funded fellowship that lasts 2 years. I'm in my 2nd year of it, which means I absolutely have enough to finish the Masters. I still need to pass quals for the PhD.

But I had the conversation with my advisor and he told me that he doesn't have extra funding at the moment. That might be somewhat normal, but he also said he didn't know now if he could get it in the future. There's just too much uncertainty that he felt it wouldn't be responsible to tell me to ignore it. And because of when my funding runs out, I now absolutely need to finish by the spring graduation date. I just don't have the time to finish the Masters thesis, finish the credit load, and study for quals. So all of this and the fact I'd be at a perfect eject point and that we have no idea what the funding priority queue looks like? It's a mess.

(There are also personal and filial reasons I have to do it. Parents are retired in a state that apparently hates their profession (education) and one in the Rust Belt that flipped red. I quite frankly can't afford to be on a student stipend.)

[abyssinia]

That makes sense, and I'm so so sorry it's happened that way (for some reason I thought you had more than 2 years of guaranteed funding when you started, but it's been a while).

Man, I remember the days when the state we were both born in hugely respected education and was proud to have such an amazing University system. And was also brought to be just about the epicenter of Unions in America. *sigh*

The tiny bit of good spin I can give you is that you *are* going to earn the Masters and that is going to open up job opportunities and the field your in is not as intensely on the chopping block. Graduate schools aren't going away and the PhD will still be there in the future, if you decide you want it. I know that's cold, cold comfort. I also highly respect your advisor for being honest with you and not ignoring the future situation.

*hugs so much*

[ultranos]

I remember when that state used to actually live up to its motto of "Forward".

*sigh*

Yeah, my field is such that there's always going to be need of us. I admit I still have the distaste that the leading employers are still oil companies and the DoD, but I might to choke that down. (There's an idea I've been playing with, that I'm going to need help chasing down, but I'm considering the prospects of running howling on rage and fury into the non-profit advocacy and policy sector. Assuming I can find a group that wants engineers who are not CompSci.)

And yeah, my advisor is the best. It was a very, very bleak conversation, and he even said he wished he could lie to me, but we both saw the writing on the wall.