Where does the future lie

I never imagined I would go this far when I accepted the master program offer four years ago. Back then, I wasn’t sure where my future lies. And now, I am still not clear about my future. Over past years, especially since December 2021, I have been struggling with work, school, and research. I have been questioning myself, when everything would end and how would everything end.

I talked with Dr. Turk last night, which is tremendously helpful. Like my major professors, he serves as an crucial mentor in my life. I guess a more accurate word to describe him and my advisers would be “贵人”. They all have been making significant changes to my life, in a wonderful way. I refer myself as a degenerate random variable, and my mentors expanded my support and transformed me to a somewhat Normal-like variable. Yihui also mentioned everyone is Normal, not truncated Normal. So everyone would experience some negative and also positive. This is very encouraging and delightful. I feel much better after my life becomes more normal instead of being trapped at a negative value. I have been feeling lost as my graduate study approaches the fifth year. I feel a little isolated from statistics community after the pandemic and especially after I started my intern. I met great manager, great team, great co-workers, but I feel disconnected from statistics. Dr. Turk suggested an ideal career involves 5 important perspectives which are autonomy, impact, mastery, connection and interest. This helped me establish my tentative career goal immediately, which gives me the chance to take a break.

I also received help from my former senior schoolmate at CSU. He talked a lot about his experience as statistician with me and suggested me not to worry too much about job but focus on school first. This is a wonderful and wise advise. I think I may lack of focus on the “right” thing for now. Besides, it is always lovely to talk with senior schoolmates, they helped me a lot.

The question is where does the future lie? I really do not have any answer. Like Dr. Turk said, it is always an adventure and it will also turn out fine. One thing I know for sure is I want to be involved in health, drug or biology related industries, demonstrate the great value of Statistics and utilize Statistics as a tool to help researchers solve real problems. I know I am not an experienced learder to make great difference, but I think I have figured out what my passion is and what I want to do in the future. Whether I can make it or not, it does not matter that much now. Keep working hard, like climbing, keep climbing up.