The last year of having been a member of the research community has taught me a lot about the attitude of being a researcher. It has been a great change from the causal going undergrad life where the law of diminishing returns was well understood. If you can spend 1 hour to get 8 out of 10 in an assignment and need to give 2 hours to get 10/10, then there is no contest. Take the first option anytime.
But things work differently in research. You have to be very accurate with what you present as your result, for people are literally hovering around as vultures to find any dead meat. But then this also, keeps you competitive and on your toes.
Another aspect, is that you take infinite trouble to go through each step of your reasoning. For you now know, sometimes by experience, that even a small logical error can have big big repurcussions.
While this attitude is commendable, I sometimes worry if it is practical. For in real life, you do not usually have the luxury of lots of time to go through each step carefully. You have to make decisions on less than sufficient knowledge. And take risks. Perhaps, I am concerned, that I am losing this ability while I am gaining the researcher's patience and stick-to-itivness.
The only solution that I can think of, is to take some side project in another topic where apply your old undergrad fundaes. But then that is easier said than done!
Addendum: A few hours after writing, I feel a bit stupid, because I dont think that my research skills are so developed that I can actually critique this mindset. But still, I am leaving this post as it is because this is a flaw that I believe exists and I suspected about this even in my undergrad days and mys suspicions are only getting stronger.
Overall, I guess it would be better to have the researcher mindset because there are tons of problems in life where you do have lots of time to analyze most of the decisions and then act. But in some activities, like in volatile business trading, socializing etc, the time available is pretty less.
But things work differently in research. You have to be very accurate with what you present as your result, for people are literally hovering around as vultures to find any dead meat. But then this also, keeps you competitive and on your toes.
Another aspect, is that you take infinite trouble to go through each step of your reasoning. For you now know, sometimes by experience, that even a small logical error can have big big repurcussions.
While this attitude is commendable, I sometimes worry if it is practical. For in real life, you do not usually have the luxury of lots of time to go through each step carefully. You have to make decisions on less than sufficient knowledge. And take risks. Perhaps, I am concerned, that I am losing this ability while I am gaining the researcher's patience and stick-to-itivness.
The only solution that I can think of, is to take some side project in another topic where apply your old undergrad fundaes. But then that is easier said than done!
Addendum: A few hours after writing, I feel a bit stupid, because I dont think that my research skills are so developed that I can actually critique this mindset. But still, I am leaving this post as it is because this is a flaw that I believe exists and I suspected about this even in my undergrad days and mys suspicions are only getting stronger.
Overall, I guess it would be better to have the researcher mindset because there are tons of problems in life where you do have lots of time to analyze most of the decisions and then act. But in some activities, like in volatile business trading, socializing etc, the time available is pretty less.
