PhD Program & Re-igniting a special interest

Post Reply New Topic

Hi all,

I'm pretty new here and am just coming to realize that I'm probably an aspie (it explains all of my childhood and a fair amount of my past). And well, I had a question about re-igniting a special interest. When I've been over a special interest in the past I've just moved on and it hasn't been a big deal.

But, I'm in my 4th year of a grad program and picked my topic based on my then current special interest and now, I've reached a point where I feel like it's useless to continue studying this area and don't really want to learn to research because I just want to teach, but I'm committed to finishing the PhD program and writing a dissertation.

Does anyone have any recommendations on how to get that fire back or at least get enough of it back that I don't just avoid the research altogether?

What I would do is to look at the literature and see what new aspects to the research project might interest you. This may spark your mind into going a slightly different route than what you initially thought you would go with it. One thing about research is that you have to be adaptable to changes. Not everything will fit perfectly so you may have to find different routes to get it done. In my PhD career, I worked on three different projects that failed to produce the expected results before I designed (and researched) the one that worked. Such is the life of a researcher...