This story begins from its end. Or somewhere in the middle.
It starts with the end of a PhD, with long months spent trying to understand my next move. What was I doing? Where was I going?
So many doubts. Among all of them, one thing was sure: my PhD was not going to define me.
“Despite the social pressure, in your heart those three letters do not mean higher pay and recognition. They mean resilience, resources and adaptability. You do not have a two-way choice; you have a huge number of possibilities ahead of you.
Those three letters can be wherever you want them to be. And that’s just beautiful and inspiring. But it is also the scary bit, isn’t it?“
Do not get me wrong, I do love showing my title off (take a look at my wedding cake below), but I am not looking for a massive salary or a high position. I am looking for something that makes me sleep at night.
“It is ok if what I desire, more than anything, for this title to do, is giving back to the community where I grew up.“
And how did that go?
After 6 months spent looking for jobs, preparing and sending CVs, tailoring cover letters, I was pretty much exhausted.
That made me doubt every single choice I had made in life.
Did I throw 4 years away with my PhD?
Did I really need it for any of those jobs?
Maybe I didn’t. But you know what?
I am now doing a job I love, where I can give something back. Something that has not much to do with the core of my PhD and with its technical aspects. But it has a lot to do with myself, my energy and my self-respect.
Did I know two years ago, this was gonna happen?
Did I know it one year ago?
I had no clues. Absolutely no clues.
And, thinking about it, when I began my PhD, I only saw two possible job outcomes: industry or academia.
On the contrary, my actual job in editorial, which may seem out of the blue, is the end of a journey that started almost 4 years ago.
This PhD will bring me places. I just don’t know which ones.
What I would like to do on this account in the next weeks/months is looking at that same journey with the eyes of today, knowing what I know now and being able to look for the right clues:
The skills we gained while studying for our degree, the network we built, the pain and suffering we endured.
And finally, where can this bring us?
RosAnsia 
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