It’s 28th of January 2026 today, 5:00 AM IST. I’s been 8 months since I began my break after graduation. Throughout this period, I mostly focused on stitching my academics together inorder to prepare for grad school in mathematics instead of physics. I have been self-studying algebra and analysis. I also proposed a CV for my PhD/Master’s applications. This included major revamp/manifestion of my various works. In November 2025, I decided to apply for the AGQ-CDT which was due on December 19th 2025. Over that period, I talked to two academics and had interesting perturbations towards making a solid attempt at the application. In particular, the conversations lead me to understand and naturally appreciate practicalities more intellectually rather than a pressure to conform.
A quiet confidence in ones skill-set, especially when they are reasonably tuned brings a huge advantage to the table. It was this confidence and a material manifestion (like notes, articles, talks e.t.c) that I was looking forward to achieve before my applications. It was important especially because of my lack of any prior work experience. I had to bring my clarity and experience in mathematical physics to the table, which were my huge selling points - on top of the master’s training.
This CV proposal is quite an important milestone in my path ahead. I was able to see my strengths and weaknesses better and brought more confidence and also a vision to life. Afterall, these were the hard reflections of the work I have been putting since so many months(years). After the AGQ-CDT application, I sought to bring those works alive. I relentlessly worked for a week on Geometry of gauge fields as an attempt to make my 2024 QFT II reading project formal and tangible. And then, things changed…
Mid-late December also marked a very bitter phase in my life. I think after I worked so hard for a week on Guage field geometry, there was a suerposition of personal and scholarly crisis. I was able to dissect my scholarship narrative, and question the future scope. I will not attempt to describe the period between December 27’25 - January 20’26 in words, but only hint towards the states/directions/doubts amongst which I was superposed.
- How is scholarship (going to) rewarding me?
- It's been 7 months. Is it not convincing enough already that my academic efforts can't be short term? That my scholarship efforts are not practical for sustaining myself?
- Am I giving up on academia too soon?
- What are potential ways to sustain my life other than academia?
- Workaway voluntary.
- Art.
- Simple life.
- ...
Things I learned from my commitment to academia in the last 8 months:
I care about scholarship (perhaps any work) beyond it’s immmediate pracitical/social beneifts of pay. It is also true that my experiences lead me to this situation where I am not able to convert my scholarly interests into a sustainable practice immediately.
Although, it was a right decision, and productive one to stay at home (at the level of the privilege I have) all these months, I need to now start moving and interacting with other moving parts of this world which align with my values. Unfortunately such an alignment in academia has not been found yet, and I thus am looking forward to other aligning the other basic and lively subset of values. Workaway is one such space.
Art and Science are always going to be together in any work I do. And fundamentally, I learn that I have the mindset of an artist. And it is this mindset that is going to allow me to break from the chains of conformity - from the pressure to conform, and the stress associated to not being able to conform.
With this viz. an artistic mindset, choosing long-term scholarship, sustaining life independently, and wokring with my available skill-set, vision; I propose the following new phase. The phase of art x pay x science.
I would like to now work on the other domain of interests I have, the creative digital front. It’s no surprise, I have been interested in these ares since more than a decade now, and I have been working on them at some level throughtout. From C, fusion 360, inkscape, premiere pro, after effects, to HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I am finally going to spend quality time with honing my creative web development skills where my artistic interests, and scientific tastes will nicely collide.
Scholarship is inherently hard to sutain my life on because the feedback is slower, and the pay is not simple. While creative web dev is more straightforward tham scholarship, and with a vision I already have (content for another blog) I think it can help me sustain for a while or even beyond.
There are many inspiring opportunities in this field that I note. For now, I try to upskill. Will take it to socials after some grounded work. Again, this should be more tangible than scholarship, but neverthless this begins another tiny experiment and local purpose in the words of Anne-Laure Le Cunff from her tiny experiments :). This post is ashort foray into the analysis gone into why I am pasuing the PACT I of academics and moving to PACT II. But these are not really independent and in a short-term, this is for sustaining a life and on a long-term this will hopefully pave way to inter-disciplinary art-sci narrative!
Cheers,
Shubhang.