Ongoing Struggles: Nothing Lasts Forever – Part Two
April 2019 — A year and a half had passed since completing my Master’s degree in Geology at Copenhagen University, and still no job in sight. I had applied locally and abroad, sent out countless CVs, and heard nothing but silence. Near the end of my patience, I was ready to give up on geology altogether and follow the path so many of my classmates had taken: switching into IT. Then, in the span of just one week, everything changed — five job offers arrived after eighteen months of nothing.
This was one of the great crossroads of my life: the moment that closed my chapter in Denmark and opened the next big phase of my journey.
A Few Weeks Earlier
It was just another ordinary day, the kind that usually gets lost in memory. Late March, 2019. Then, on Facebook, something unusual caught my eye: a post in the EUGEN (European Geoscience Network) group.
Remember EUGEN? The student-run network that organized annual summer geology camps? After the great time I’d had at EUGEN Austria the year before, I had joined their Facebook group. And half a year later, that decision proved unexpectedly valuable.
A fellow “Eugeneer,” Adrien — someone I’d never met — shared an opportunity: his supervisor in Quebec, Canada was looking for PhD candidates. I thought, why not? It was worth a shot, though I didn’t expect much after so many applications that had gone nowhere.
To my surprise, just a few days later I heard back. Professor Lucie Mathieu was not only interested but eager to set up an interview. The conversation went very well, but questions remained: tuition fees, grant coverage, and whether the stipend would be enough to live on. It wasn’t a done deal yet — but it was the most promising lead I’d had in months.
Exploring Every Possibility
As I continued to look into the tuition situation in Quebec, I never stopped pursuing other paths. If there was one thing I had learned since graduating, it was that nothing was certain until the deal was signed. Among those other paths were two more PhD applications — one in Dublin, Ireland, and one at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. I also stayed in touch with my former supervisor from my 2018 internship at GEUS, hoping that one day, if a lab-tech role opened, he might have me in mind.
None of this was new. I had been applying since 2017, endlessly sending CVs into the void. The only fresh tactic I tried came after a job-seeking course suggested I reach out directly on LinkedIn. Late that March, I gave it a shot, writing to an executive at Boliden, the Swedish mining company, to ask about summer fieldwork.
The Week Everything Changed
Up until mid-March 2019 — until that Canadian PhD interview — I had not received so much as a single interview invitation. Then, suddenly, everything flipped.
The financial uncertainties in Quebec were resolved: tuition would be minimal, and the PhD stipend more than enough to cover living costs. Professor Julien Allaz at ETH invited me first to a Skype call and then to Zurich for the final stage of selection, expenses paid. Tonny Thomsen from GEUS reached out with a one-year lab technician offer. Peter Svensson from Boliden called me to offer a summer job in Sweden after my speculative LinkedIn message. Even the Dublin professor wrote to express interest — though by then, overwhelmed with concrete options, I politely declined.
It was absolutely surreal. After nearly two years of silence, within a single week in April, everything was happening at once. I was ecstatic, but also frustrated and confused. Why now? Why all at once, after so long?
That week remains one of the most surreal of my life — the week I went from feeling invisible to standing at a crossroads of extraordinary opportunities. I knew whichever path I chose would shape not only the next few years, but the course of my life. And I wasn’t going to make that choice lightly.
Choices… So Many Choices
So many choices indeed. I had to pause and collect my thoughts. The spring days were warm and golden that year, and I spent as much time as I could cycling through the city streets. In the back of my mind I knew it would likely be my last spring in Denmark.
The lab-tech position at GEUS was a solid opportunity, but it was only a one-year contract — hardly the stable future I was searching for. The Swedish mining job was tempting too: a real foot in the door of the exploration industry. Yet, it was only a summer contract, nothing permanent.
I couldn’t help reflecting on how much I would miss this place. Copenhagen had become my city — the city that gave me my first real chance to prove myself. And prove myself I did. My new apartment, right in the heart of town, felt like home again, especially living with two close friends. The sunsets from my window were spectacular and the apartment vibe was top. Well… except for that time when our ceiling sprung a leak and the landlord’s “solution” was to jam in a couple of metal rods and suspend two buckets in the middle of our living room. Still, the laughter, the company, and those views made it one of my happiest homes.
But choices had to be made. The path forward was narrowing. It would come down to one of the two PhD offers: Switzerland or Canada. Not an easy choice by any stretch.