Bluebird of happiness

I definitely agree that getting out and having a point of comparison help to put the PhD experience into context. Thinking about where I was professionally when I wrote this, I was in my first grown-up job, working for an MD, and it was becoming super apparent that his training was incredibly different from mine. I learned more about that in years to come, when I spent a bit of time doing data work for the academic support staff at our med school. Gosh, I realized, this degree program seems less independent and self-driven than an American BA program! In some ways it is more like a very hardcore high school!

I do still think it’s surprising for PhD students to have *no* insight into the structurelessness of their world, though. I remember that it was frustrating for me even when I was in it.