Wow, this school thing is hard.

As I enter my third month of my PhD program, I am finding each day brings me a new challenge. Unlike my previous educational experiences, I can no longer blow off projects until the last minute. Rather, more often than not, I feel like I am barely treading water, even though school is now my only “job.” I don’t know if this speaks more strongly to the easiness of my previous educational pursuits or the difficulty of a rigorous PhD program, but the level of work required has been quite a surprise. Maybe I was just naive to expect myself to have a normal social life with plenty of time to read books for pleasure and pursue other pleasures like road trips (and, um, World of Warcraft). Instead, I am working on a conference paper at 1am on a Saturday night, with the realization that I have gone out a total of two nights in almost three months.

Don’t get me wrong. This has been an amazing experience thus far, and I feel far more intellectually stimulated than I have ever been before. But, as I am coming to learn, adjusting to the life of a doctoral student is neither quick nor easy. (If it was, there would probably be a lot more PhDs out there.) Whereas you may have previously been the top dog among your friends or colleagues, you realize upon beginning your doctoral education that you really don’t know that much, certainly not as much as you thought you knew. Furthermore, you must learn to accept the fact that you will never accomplish everything you set out to do; however, you cannot waste time worrying about that or else you’ll fall ever further behind.

Most of all, my experience over the last three months has been a — at times painful — experience in humility. I have a lot to learn, which is why I’ll be spending the next four to five years trying to take in as much as possible. I am lucky in that I am surrounded by some of the best and brightest researchers in the field. At the same time, their brilliance makes me all the more aware of my lack of knowledge.

I guess it’s for the best. After all, people always tell me I’m too cocky.