I'm in my early-mid 30s and finished my PhD in chemistry last year and am currently in a postdoc, but the problem is that I can only feel shame.
I started in chemistry because I liked it and school/grad school kept me out of homelessness during collapse of the housing market and the fallout years afterward. I always told myself that if I just powered through it and got to the end that there would be some decent job with a decent salary, but at this point I doubt it. To be fair though, I haven't actually started looking for jobs, so there may actually be money and happiness for me in the industry, but I'm afraid that I might make $75k starting with absolutely no job security and no upward mobility.
I'm considering two options:
1) Abandon science before I get any older, and wander over to a coding boot camp or something like that, with my tail between my legs which might get me skills to make good money if I combine them with my PhD.
2) Suicide. I love my family and don't want to put them through the pain of losing a son/brother to suicide, but if I don't pull some miracle at this age, I'll never make enough money to afford to raise a family or do anything enjoyable, making the rest of my life essentially pointless and making suicide a rational alternative.
I hate that I can only feel shame after working so hard for so many years, but maybe I'm just catastrophizing. Has anybody here made that switch and is happy with it?
I started in chemistry because I liked it and school/grad school kept me out of homelessness during collapse of the housing market and the fallout years afterward. I always told myself that if I just powered through it and got to the end that there would be some decent job with a decent salary, but at this point I doubt it. To be fair though, I haven't actually started looking for jobs, so there may actually be money and happiness for me in the industry, but I'm afraid that I might make $75k starting with absolutely no job security and no upward mobility.
I'm considering two options:
1) Abandon science before I get any older, and wander over to a coding boot camp or something like that, with my tail between my legs which might get me skills to make good money if I combine them with my PhD.
2) Suicide. I love my family and don't want to put them through the pain of losing a son/brother to suicide, but if I don't pull some miracle at this age, I'll never make enough money to afford to raise a family or do anything enjoyable, making the rest of my life essentially pointless and making suicide a rational alternative.
I hate that I can only feel shame after working so hard for so many years, but maybe I'm just catastrophizing. Has anybody here made that switch and is happy with it?
