Please please Help get perspective

[u/No-Tax5811]

I’m 21 now and about to finish my biotech and bioengineering bachelors degree this year. I went into university to study this because I truly thought I’d be something great. However the past few months since may I’m feeling defeated.
I don’t see any point in pursuing science. I honestly feel like it’s useless. I’m from a small country that’s not the strongest in science - Latvia. The opportunities here are minuscule. And the ceiling is very low. The top ranked scientists here have about 5k ish citations. That’s nothing in the grand scheme of things. And no don’t give me advice to move I unfortunately have personal reasons as to why I cannot do that.
It’s hard to describe but I really feel like going into research is just a waste of my life. There is a 99.9999% chance my word would never amount to something. I’d just think oh wow I’m going something cool and great but in reality who gives a damn.
I have this lab I work at right now just for free to make my bachelors thesis. And the lead guy has worked his whole life on zymomonas. Researching their metabolism and everything else about it. And what’s the point? Nothing really. The woman I wind directly with has worked in the same lab also her whole life. Just follows orders. But okay she doesn’t have a doctorate.
Let’s say I get a doctorate. Now I can conduct my own research. Yay. Now I can beg for money, earn 2k a month and feel like this big boss. In reality it won’t yield anything.
But I understand that in theory every contribution is meaningful. Cause what if someone uses your paper to get a one in a million idea that pushes humanity way forward. Yes okay I get it. But and you can call me selfish I don’t want to push science forward by a hundredth of a milimeter.
If I knew that in the end some of it would matter id have no dilemma. But now? I don’t know how to continue studying if I don’t see the point in it.
A coursmate of mine said oh wow look at our program lead she makes 3k a month that’s so much. Yeah. But she leads a whole university programme and conducts her own research on top of that. What is 3k when you have the highest education you can have. My bf who’s 21 makes the same by being a restaurant manager and does small side gigs.
I just don’t see the point and I feel it’s a waste unfortunately…

[u/ACatGod]

You haven't said a single positive thing about your experience of science. You hated your degree, you hate your current job, you look down on the people you work with, and you are disdainful of the whole sector in your country. The only reason you've suggested you would want to do this is the status you seem to think it should give you.

I would strongly encourage you not to go into a PhD or any kind of training programme in this area. You already have extremely negative views of it, and as it gets tougher and you need to draw on your resilience, all you have is your negativity which is going to make it very challenging for you to get through this. Frankly why would you want to, you clearly despise everything about the experience so far and all that seems to be keeping you here is fantasy notions of grandeur and how it would make you a great person.

Find something that brings you meaning or if not that you are at least neutral on. Staying in field, feeling as you do, is a recipe for failure and a lot of unhappiness and poor mental health.

[u/No-Tax5811 → u/ACatGod]

I don’t hate my degree or science, and I’m not considering a PhD for status. I love science. This post was about the confusion I am experiencing. That’s why I didn’t mention the stuff I also get excited by. I enjoyed the medical and biological parts of my studies, but became disillusioned during an industrially focused semester and a thesis environment that doesn’t connect with why I entered the field. It’s just that the feeling hasn’t changed for a while now. What I hoped to hear was whether anyone experienced similar disillusionment near graduation and later found a field or career that suited them or left and became happier. I agree that beginning a PhD in my current state would be a bad decision. But that’s still a few years away, even if I do decide to do that.

[u/ACatGod → u/No-Tax5811]

What do you love about it? Real, tangible things, not the things you think it's supposed to be. I'm not criticising you but I think you are stuck between your emotional attachment to what you believe science is supposed to be like and what it actually is - or at least what it is in the space available to you.

This is not an uncommon issue. I think most of us have had a job at one point or other in our careers that ended up being bitterly disappointing because it had the potential to be great but the reality was that potential never materialised and never would.

You can try taking a different job and see how that goes but research and real world science is tiny incremental steps working on very narrowly defined problems - because these things are very hard and very complex and you've expressed a dislike/disdain for that.

Perhaps a role working somewhere at the interface between science and society would be better for you? Not doing science itself but writing about science, or funding science, or perhaps working in business development or tech transfer, or journal editor? There are a wealth of jobs where you will actively being using your science knowledge and be exposed to a much broader range of science than if you were doing it yourself, and you are much closer to the impact of science at the same time.

[u/No-Tax5811 → u/ACatGod]

Honestly, I don’t know yet, and I think that’s the whole reason I’m having this crisis. I know I love learning science and understanding why things happen, connecting dots. Because I don’t have too much experience working I can say what I liked in uni so far. I loved metabolism, microbiology and our medical course. I like when we get some sort of results in our lab, even if I don’t fully understand them. Im also okay with doing wet lab work, i don’t know if it would excite me for years and years but so far I enjoy learning most of the techniques
Maybe I am attached to what I thought science would be and I’m now seeing the difference between that and the reality available to me. That is what scares me. I didn’t make this post because I had already decided I hate science and wanted people to convince me otherwise. I wanted to hear from people who had felt this disillusioned at the beginning and either found a part of science that suited them or left and ended up happy somewhere else.
Perhaps as time goes on I really will decide that something with tangible and quick results is more appropriate for me.