Leaving academia after Master's thesis
One of the hardest parts of my Master’s experience wasn’t the research itself. It was constantly feeling put down by the very person who was supposed to guide me.
I was repeatedly told I was “slow,” made to feel inadequate, and often left feeling like my effort was never enough no matter how much work I did. Over time, that kind of environment starts affecting your confidence more than people realize.
What hurts is that students don’t enter graduate school knowing everything. The whole point is to learn. Guidance is supposed to build people up, not make them question their worth every step of the way.
There’s also something deeply ironic about academia sometimes. Early on, advisors may feel like they are “supporting” students financially through assistantships or projects. But eventually, students become the ones generating results, building systems, writing papers, collecting data, training models, and helping bring in publications, recognition, and funding.
At some point I realized:
I was not just “being supported.”
I was contributing real value.
Despite the constant criticism, I still pushed through:
- long nights debugging and training models
- field data collection
- building AI and geospatial systems from scratch
- writing, rewriting, and defending my work
This experience taught me an important lesson:
Never let someone’s position of authority convince you that you are incapable.
Sometimes people project pressure downward instead of mentoring properly. And sometimes surviving the environment itself becomes a bigger achievement than the degree.