Masters? Surely not the Masters of our fate…
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The summer of 2017 was passing by fast and I was nearing the September deadline for submitting my Masters thesis. There was always the option to request an extension like most other students were doing, but I wanted to make a point of finishing mine in time. Another one of those little prideful quirks of mine. So the pressure was on.
I had no more time for fun cycling trips, or friendly night outs. I had also quit my Danish language classes earlier in the year and my part-time job early summer. This was the moment to fully devote my attention to my research and future.
I was in full crunch mode. By that point in my work, I had processed all the data that I gathered from my Icelandic rocks and I had a fairly solid narrative in mind to present my interpretations. Without going into details, I can say that some of the data was aligning with the existing narrative well, but a few oddball data points were sticking out and I made it my mission to try and find a good hypothesis to address them.
After weeks of brain storming, now well into my thesis writing period, I had a “Eureka” moment to explain the outliers in my dataset. It was of course a very rough around the edges idea, but with help from my supervisors, I managed to stitch together a cohesive and plausible explanation.
Why am I writing about all this? Well, just to point out that amidst the long and hard working days in the summer of 2017, I was highly excited and was thoroughly enjoying my research work. So much so, that I began seriously pondering continuing down the academic path after my Masters.
The call back to Iceland
During the later months of the summer I kept thinking back to the years of career stagnation after graduating in Romania. I was not about to let that happen again. So while working on the final parts of my thesis, I tentatively began to search for a PhD project. Mainly in the Nordic countries. In a surprisingly short time, I found a perfect PhD opportunity for myself at the University of Iceland. Why perfect? Because it was literally the continuation of my current research. Same specialization, same area, and focus-wise it was the next logical step with regards to the work I had done. I immediately applied.
Soon enough I got a positive reply and they invited me to an online interview and opportunity to present my Masters work. After the smooth presentation, I got one of the best reactions you could get. They asked me if I was doing a Masters there, or a PhD, since the workload was so vast. Suffice to say, they were very impressed, and I was extremely excited. It felt like a beautiful next step of my story… From Romania to Denmark, to Iceland, and beyond!
Unfortunately, that was not to be my story. As eager as they were to hire me on the spot, there was a little problem. They needed me to have already graduated from my Masters and they couldn’t wait until after September. I even told them that I could try rushing my thesis out in the hopes of graduating sooner, but it was still not enough. They needed someone to start within the next few weeks.
It was such a blow to be so close, just to see the opportunity of a lifetime slip away… However, the experience had given me an unbelievable confidence boost. If I got this close to getting a PhD while I wasn’t even finished with my Masters, afterwards was going to be a cakewalk, surely, I thought.
Judgment day
On a beautiful sunny day at the end of summer 2017, in the dark depths of the students office at KU, a grand Master thesis was born. Forged in the fires of Iceland and molded in the underground labs of the Geocenter, this unholy manuscript of geological power was ready to be submitted for review, and unleashed upon the world at large.
I think I had about two weeks before my thesis defense. It was nice to relax and take a breath for a change. On some days I’d cycle around Copenhagen daydreaming about where fate would take me after this.
Iceland? Norway? Sweden? Switzerland? something more exotic like New Zealand perhaps? or would I just remain in Denmark and embrace the hygge for the rest of my life? If before I felt I could see my path laid out before me with relative certainty, now things were unclear… Hidden by a fog of uncertainty. But it was exciting!
In no time, the day of my thesis defense was upon me. I held my presentation in front of a small room of colleagues, friends and professors. When in previous years I had presentation anxiety, this time I was as solid as a rock. Pun intended. But seriously, after the months I had spent meticulously combing through my data, reading literature and writing my thesis, I could easily talk about my work in my sleep.
After the presentation, I remained in the examination room with just my supervisors and an external examiner. It was “grilling” time. The three of them fired a plethora of questions at me. We sat and discussed various interesting points of my work. Some critiques, but for the most part, a lot of positive feedback. After a sweat-inducing two and a half hours of grilling, I came out of the room… medium-rare!
The verdict
After a few minutes of deliberating, they called me back in to give me their final thoughts and verdict. There could have been a few improvements made here and there, but overall it was a very good manuscript and considering all the work I put into it over the past year, they gave me the top mark! I almost fell out of my seat! I was hoping for a high mark, but this?? Top grade on a Masters thesis from one of Europe’s most prestigious Universities? I did not see that coming.
As opposed to Anakin Skywalker, I was granted the rank of Master with flying colors!
My supervisor also presented me with the results of some fresh isotope analysis he had done on my outlier samples. This was not part of my thesis, but more of a curiosity side-study to check my hypothesis. The data confirmed my assumptions! Without saying a word, Paul Martin just gave me a proud look with a big grin on his face that just filled me with pride and joy. It was the cherry on top of the cake for me.
What followed was an afternoon of celebration with friends and colleagues. For the Danes, it was customary for family members to attend the graduate celebration, but for me in that moment, they, my friends and colleagues were my family.
We had cake and drinks and blasted “We are the champions” by Queen on the speakers in the class room. That feeling of relief and elation was something else… Something magical. A feeling that lasted for days to come.
Aftermath
My supervisor and I had plans to submit my work to a scientific journal after some needed refinement. This, I thought, would also boost my chances to land a PhD. Two weeks we said. It will take us two weeks. Five years later… our hard work got published. It was no fault of either of us, but between his busy schedule and my job searching, it took painfully long… Even after so many years though, it felt good seeing my heavily frankensteined work finally get published.
Back in the fall of 2017 though, I was more actively looking for the next career opportunity. As the weeks and months passed by, I would slowly broaden my search. One of the main countries I was eyeing had become New Zealand. Mostly thanks to a Kiwi professor we had at KU and a Kiwi girl I met and got close to the year before – I can hear you groaning and rolling your eyes, reader! The point is that it was thanks to them that I began thoroughly researching New Zealand and discovered the spectacular beauty of that country. From afar, of course.
I got in contact with a few professors from Auckland and Otago and there was clear interests on both sides. However, the New Zealand PhD application process was not in my favor. As opposed to Europe, the professors there only had funding for the research itself and not for the candidate’s salary/grant. Doctorate wages in New Zealand are given out as scholarships by government institutions. This leads to a very rigid point-based system where candidates with the best overall grades from undergrad and post-grad get offered the grants.
My high level research and top-grade thesis didn’t even count in that bureaucratic systems eyes. Suffice to say, my overall average grades were not good enough, frustrating both me and the professors alike.
The grind begins anew
As 2017 rolled into 2018, my frustration was growing by the day. There I was once more in the same situation as before… Jobless, uncertain, with hopes and dreams slowly eroding away. Ever widening my search parameters. Not limiting myself anymore to certain countries, or academic paths.
In early 2018, I managed to get a four month internship at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland through the help of my examiner, who happened to work at GEUS. Each time, something like this would happen, I’d start wondering if this was a sign. A sign that I was on the right path and this was the door opening towards my glorious future. Trying to find abstract justification for why certain things in the past hadn’t worked out. It was all in the plan! Right? Right?? All my past excitement about the unknown was slowly turning into dread.
The sad reality was that in Denmark and Europe in general there just weren’t many jobs in my career. With a dwindling oil and gas industry and an almost absent mining industry, all that was left for geologists to do was work in the civil sector, meaning you had to be fluent in the local language, or go down the academic path and risk getting caught in an endless loop of study and poorly payed research jobs. And as much time as I spent learning Danish, I was still far from a work-level fluency.
The year 2018 was shaping up to a very uncertain and turbulent year. But not one without its moments of crazy fun and adventure!
