Work done for free, at night and weekends, unsatisfactory social guarantees with a salary near the minimum wage – this is your everyday life when you’re pursuing a doctoral degree. Completing the normal duration of the studies seems rather like a miracle. True, if you look out, you can do so among shiny-eyed colleagues while discovering something new for all the world to use. But it doesn’t always turn out that way.
A major portion of all the scientific work in the world is done by doctoral students (students who have decided to follow through toward a doctoral degree after graduating with a master’s degree) and postdoctoral researchers (a researcher who spends some time in some academic institution abroad to become more scientifically well-rounded). These people are young and vigorous, full of enthusiasm, productive, all the while ready to spend long (night) hours in labs, as well as volunteer as lecturers. Throughout all this, they don’t know for certain if their scientific career will even launch after they have their doctoral degree or the postdoctoral research period has ended.
Going through doctoral studies and getting the degree doesn’t mean that these are the smartest young geniuses we have here in Estonia; a doctoral degree is not some epic final accord of a great amount of research activity and an outstanding career as a scientist. It’s more like the firing of a starting pistol in a situation where the runner finishing last always drops out when each round is over.
