Not the answer I was looking for

..,but that doesn't make it wrong.

I talked with my Set Theory prof before class today about where I was going (or, rather, how I was having trouble finding my way) with my research. He asked some insightful questions and offered a realistic, but rather bleak, view of my prospects.

Much of it wasn't news to me. I already knew that teaching positions (at least, of the full-time, tenure-track variety) are getting extremely difficult to find, much less land. I already knew that coming into the academic game at this late age basically disqualified me from any position where the usual path would include further research (probably as a post-doc) along the way. I already knew the UMSL's faculty was somewhat limited. I already knew that keeping my day job made the task that much harder.

But, I have to say he made no attempt to put a smiley face on any of those things. I recall that when I was teaching undergrads, I always tried to give them the unvarnished truth rather than encourage them down a road that was more bumpy than they perceived. Some of them didn't like that much, but most of them appreciated the honesty.

One thing is clear: if even the faculty thinks I'm basically on my own in this research, I am very definitely on my own. I'm pretty sure I can finish the PhD. Whether it will be worth anything is entirely up to me.

On the upside, he did have some suggestions on how I could take things more upon myself. That, of course, is the answer I was looking for; I just didn't expect quite so much pessimism surrounding it. I'll write about the way forward another day after I've had time to synthesize it a bit more.