Lessons Academic Research Taught Me: 2 Years in Academia — Was It Worth It?

This surely is one of the hardest careers to pursue

Photo by on

Did you ever have those moments where you really disliked something, only to fall completely in love with it later.

That was my journey with academic research.

I entered academia not out of passion but necessity. My degree and career aspirations depended on it. A few months in, it became a means of survival; it paid the bills. I spent over 12 months doing unpaid research for my degree. But now, as my time in cancer research comes to an end, all I can say is: I’ve grown to love it deeply.

What Even Is Academic Research?

For those reading this who don’t know what research is like, let me paint a picture.

It’s a world full of curious, passionate people, called researchers, who dedicate their days to studying and investigating a single topic in-depth. For me, that topic was cancer.

You learn every day. You also fail every day. These are people working hard so that years from now, their experiments and data can lead to life-saving treatments. Just like cancer was once incurable, and now many people can be treated successfully if caught early, research makes that…