So.
I have one year left to contemplate the future of myself and my family. In precisely 11 months from now, I will be in possession of two undergraduate degrees, both Bachelors of Science. My first is in Anthropology, a social science, a less marketable and highly competitive field. Archaeology is wicked fun and fascinating, but very difficult to make a living at, without an advanced degree. Subsequently, I decided to bring my cultivate my former minor into a second degree, and am now an aspiring Geologist. Fun, challenging classes in real science (and much math), with a lot more promise upon graduation. My grades are great, my relationships with my professors are quite positive, and I have glowing references from them. I have done field work for two of them, and independent/structured research for my advisor. I am in the throes of an Honors Thesis at this very moment.
This summer, I secured a most promising internship with an environmental geology firm that contracts to the Feds. The work is outdoors, interesting, stable, relevant...the folks here are all long-timers (some over 3 decades!). It's a wonderful opportunity, if it turns into full-time regular employment after graduation.
My prospects for graduate school are the best they have ever been. There is currently a professor at a research institution who is waiting for my application to supplement my reference letters and vita, and he was wowed from the start by my SOP. He speaks as if I am already in, he is carving out a place for me in his research group, and has insisted I address him by first name only. This would be a funded PhD program that would be functionally a job. Conduct research, teach classes, write my dissertation, get paid. Great deal if you can get it.
So. It may seem obvious at this point that it would be difficult for both options to coexist. Not impossible, as the employer has a satellite facility near the graduate school. But the likelihood of getting on, even as an intern for several more years, may not be as easy as all that.
Much more importantly, I am a family man. My family and I have lived in the same house for 10 years, and have invested a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, as the saying goes. The house is the only home my children have ever known. At my age and stage in life, I crave stability, and my family deserves it. Finding myself in sudden upheaval after many years in a stable job is the impetus for my return to school, in an effort to shift gears, change careers, and be more keepable by anyone I could coerce into hiring me.
Given the premises that family comes first, and that stability is highly important for my family, it would behoove me to pursue full time regular employment with the company where I currently intern, upon graduation. Stay here, work locally, keep the house and all it's unfinished projects, and be the rock my children need when they grow up.
right?
Despite the great rapport I've built rapidly with Professor FirstName, and the realm of opportunities that await a PhD in Geosciences (a field where a PhD is actually very employable in the private sector, unlike most other fields), the best decision for the family and all our futures is the slow and steady bird in the hand, the job I have, not the job I don't have and may never get. That's my point of view.
Here's the wrinkle. The internship may NOT evolve into full time regular work after graduation. There will be an opening due to retirement between now and then, but probably in 6 months, not 11, and it will very likely be filled before I am available.
My best hope with this company appears to be a return as an intern upon graduation, at the same pay I currently earn, which is good, but not great, and not nearly enough to cover the student loan payments that will become due once I finish school. Said unbenefitted internship may last until another opening comes up, which could be years.
stress, worry, anxiety. Suddenly, neither option looks palatable.
More updates on this situation as they become available.
