journals

As I formatted and tidied up the graphs and tables of my academic paper, I felt an immense sense of accomplishment. Beneath this self congratulatory mood was actually a tinge sense of loss. The whole idea of research and pursuit of academia got lost in my hurry to graduate. I sort of have discovered a formula to writing papers. Also, the good thing about research in computational fields is that large amount of simulation results can be churned out in a matter of minutes. Does your computer has 8 cores? heh. mine does.

Back to the problem at hand. If my 2 papers were to be accepted for publication, should I try to negotiate for an early release? Knowing my prof, chances are pretty slim. Should I then write a third paper in the mean time? I toyed with that idea for a while.. I am not so sure if I want to work so hard for a Masters. If I were to churn out a third paper, I might as well do a fourth one and graduate with a Ph.d. At this rate, perhaps I could be conferred in 3 years. Not too bad if you look at it, since I win back a year of the 2 which I lost while serving National Service. There are other concerns though. Firstly, this would be a Ph.d conferred by NUS.Secondly, would I want to do research for the rest of my life?

A friend once told me,"If you do not have a heart for it, then don't do it. Academic should be a genuine pursuit for knowledge. You on the other hand plan to go into computational finance and come up with mathematically sound financial models that cannot stand the test of market irrationality."

Much that I would like to tell him that mathematical models are meant to be used as a spring board for improvements. Researchers will not stop at mathematical models. They will continue to extend their theoretical work into a working model, do out of sample testing and etc. But deep down inside I know and feel that..

I should just quickly graduate with my Masters.