so...what's next?!
life after the ph.d.
Welcome to my newest blog, On Sabbatical! Whether or not you have followed my writing throughout the years, I invite you to join me on this new, year-long journey towards rest, creativity, and play.
Where I’ve been
If you don’t know me, allow me to briefly introduce myself and provide some background context for this blog. I recently graduated from Harvard (after 6 long years!) with my Ph.D. in Neuroscience:
About a year ago, I got married and moved to Okinawa, Japan with my husband, who is a Navy dentist. My Ph.D. advisor was gracious and understanding enough to let me spend the last year wrapping up my research and writing my thesis from Japan (thanks, Sam!).
About eight months ago, I started experiencing a severe flare-up of my lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease that causes body-wide inflammation, excruciating joint pain, and debilitating fatigue. There were days where I would wake up tired even though I had slept 10 hours, and in so much pain that I couldn’t get dressed. If finishing a Ph.D. wasn’t already hard enough, doing it while chronically ill made it almost impossible. My advisor asked me multiple times whether I wanted to push my defense date back, but after almost 6 years of working towards this degree, I was determined to just finish. I spent the last few months of my Ph.D. with my head down, writing my thesis from home and in hospital waiting rooms. It was a lonely, stressful, and overwhelming experience.
Around the same time that I got sick, I learned that my mom’s cancer had returned after five years of her being in remission. It was hard to be halfway across the world (my family lives in the US) while she went through the same surgeries and treatments all over again. Yet, in a strange way, I almost felt comforted by the fact that my mom and I were suffering in parallel. Though we were half a world apart, I think our shared resilience and faith carried us through this hard and painful season.
By the sheer grace of God, I somehow finished my thesis, flew back to the states, and successfully defended on April 30, 2024. That day felt like pure magic, surrounded by family, friends, and colleagues who were all an integral part of my academic journey.
After finishing treatment, my mom became cancer-free again. And I started some new lupus treatments that significantly improved my condition.
And so that brings us to today. A question that I’ve gotten a lot since graduating is “so…what’s next for you?!”
The answer: After what felt like a whirlwind of a year, and as the title of this blog suggests, I’m taking a much needed, year-long sabbatical.
For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Exodus 20:11
The term “sabbatical” originated from the Judeo-Christian creation story, in which God created the world in six days, and rested on the seventh. Traditionally in academia, a sabbatical is granted every seventh year, giving professors a year off from teaching to focus on new research directions, travel, and writing. Recently, the term has been adopted by other industries to describe a period of deliberate unemployment (or extended paid leave) for personal reflection and exploration. Though I’m not yet a professor, I thought it was fitting to call this adult gap year a “sabbatical,” given that it’s my seventh year of being an academic :)
Where I’m now
I’m now back in Okinawa, as my husband is still stationed here for one more year. For the first time in my life, there are no predefined goals for me to strive for, besides fully recovering from this lupus flare. It’s a strange feeling. In the first month after my defense, I was still in Boston, busying myself with friends and lingering around my favorite places in the city before I moved away for good. Things are quieter here in Japan, and so I’m curious to see how I make use of my newfound free time and freedom.1
Perhaps it’s a bit ironic, but one of the first things I decided to do in this sabbatical is teach (lol). I know that most professors are more than happy to escape this duty during a sabbatical, but I have always found teaching to be deeply invigorating and rewarding. At the start of July, I started teaching a 5-week course on decision making for UCSD summer school (remotely). Despite it being virtual, the class has been incredibly interactive, and the students are wonderful. I’ve been using this course to experiment with some interesting pedagogical ideas (such as “ungrading”) that depart from how traditional college courses are run. If that’s something you’re interested in, keep your eyes peeled for a future blog post where I reflect on how it went :)
Designing a course from scratch is a LOT of work (if you’ve done it before, you know what I mean), so I’ve been spending the last few weeks glued to my desk from 8am to 10pm working on class prep and developing assignments. While intense and time-consuming, teaching has always been one of those things that makes me feel alive and at peace with myself, and so in a paradoxical way, it has been the perfect start to a sabbatical centered on rest and creativity.
Where I’m going
And so this marks the beginning of a year of reflection, exploration, and creative pursuits. I’m hoping to fill my days with reading, writing, learning, and creating, and will use this blog as a space to reflect on the process. So if you are interested in following along with my thoughts and contemplations this year, I invite you to subscribe to On Sabbatical :) Posts will likely cover anything from life, love, faith, science, AI, education, and more, with occasional poetry sprinkled throughout.
If you made it this far, thank you so much for reading and for joining me on this unscripted adventure!
With love,
Lucy
While in Okinawa, I’m still maintaining my affiliation with OIST as a TSVP Visiting Scholar. While I’m not yet sure what my academic pursuits will look like this year, I’m fairly certain that it’s only a matter of time before I’m consumed again by a research question :)