In the midst of 2020 when life took me to the darkest place I’ve ever been, I went blindly looking for resources online for help (but at the same time disbelieving anything could really help me), a sentence struck me: “In order to feel better you have to want to feel better.” I know it because I’ve been through it myself, and I’ve heard it countless times, thanks to all those who trusted me with their stories. The consequence is almost everyone, junior or senior, accomplished or not, lives with some measure of anxiety, fatigue, demoralization, and loss of meaning. Some want to move up, some to move in, but all in all, they want to move forward and find it hard, for reasons we all know so well by now: the societally misconstrued promises, overly reductive credit attribution, archaic mentorship structure in academia, as well as the extreme competitiveness of a game (scientific publishing and hiring) never designed for a scale seen today. Their definitions of “making it” can be vastly different, their paths to research and positions in life can be all over the map, and the authentic need behind such a desire can be anywhere from pragmatic to idealistic: some want to learn something new and exciting, some want a real breakthrough after years of grinding some want to make connections in the seemingly shiny AI circle, some find the circle they finally make it in foreign and alienating some want publications in prestigious venues to gain recognition, renew or maintain reputation, graduate or be promoted, while some want publications of any sort to learn the game some want a strong validation to keep pursuing their chosen path, and yet some, only a vague sign whether a path is worth choosing at all. In a year, I received and answered roughly two hundred emails from people of divergent walks of life, sharing a seemingly universal pain: finding it hard to “make it” in ML research.
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