I have kicked around the idea of pursuing a PhD for years now and have spent countless hours researching in-person, online, domestic, and international programs that would best match a candidate that does not want to give up his full-time job in dedication to academia.
Moreover, when I have floated this interest to peers, usually friends who hold advanced degrees themselves, they very reasonably think I’m crazy. But without fail I get asked why and what I would use it for?
My answers have varied from person to person, but now that I’ve reflected on this many times over, I’d like to finally compile those reasons into a post to help solidify my earnest feelings on this.
I want my children to have big dreams early in life.
I am a second-generation Asian American man whose parents’ only wish for me was to earn my Bachelor’s degree. They were never overbearing tiger parents that wanted me to be a nurse or engineer. In fact, they didn’t have much helpful advice for me growing up. Though my mother was educated, having earned her Bachelor’s in education in the Philippines, it may have been her insecurities as a foreigner that limited any encouragement of being bold or standing out.
My father on the other hand had to give up college when my parents got pregnant with me. In fact, my dad also had registered hours in flight school and dreamt of becoming a pilot, however that proved to be costly. My dad had his own very unique experiences, having immigrated to the United States when he was 12. He grew up as a migrant worker, picking strawberries alongside of Caesar Chavez. My family owned a market and he drove produce up and down the California coast. They also owned a Chinese restaurant. Though my dad was brilliantly street smart, his limited education also meant a very limited perspective on the things I could do.
So succeed or fail, I want to be able to draw as many opportunities to rise as I can and use that as a benchmark to live up to. Both my wife and I have Masters degrees now, both having made the spontaneous decision to pursue one when we lived in Philadelphia. Well here’s me being spontaneous again.I want the life experience to pass on to my kids.
I’d like to elaborate a bit more off #1 here. My sister and I went to solid schools. Private schools growing up in fact. However, I wouldn’t say I was academically inclined in my youth, nor did I understand the nuances of FAFSA or consider ways I needed to stand out to colleges whether it be through academic achievements or extra curriculars. I was about as average of a student as it got and while I wasn’t drop-out material, I was lazy and unfocused. While I did have friends, family, and mentors to bounce ideas off of, I just wish I had a bit more guidance at the nuclear family level.
Though my kids are currently 2 and a half and 7 months, I look forward to nurturing their imaginations and curious inclinations. Now that my wife and I have lived it, I’m almost envious of the advantages my kids will have as they begin their journey as young scholars.I used to be an avid creative writer and I miss expressing deep, analytical thought in written form.
I’m not sure what happened here, but I believe I stopped writing sometime in 2009 when I decided to withdraw from Santa Clara University and move to San Diego to eventually transfer into the University of California system.
But I wrote a lot. I wrote poems, I drew comics, I wrote heavily reflected thoughts about my faith (when I was a practicing Catholic) and my thoughts about love and relationships. I may have stopped writing because I was trying hard to play catch up with my accelerated thrust into adulthood, living in a new city, without the immediate security of his parents, with unlimited freedoms to do as I wanted.
In short, miss analyzing things and finding ways to thoughtfully articulate that to others.I’m actually quite passionate about the idea of Social Good, so much so that I want to be a thought leader in this space.
I worked at Facebook from 2016 to 2021, first as a contractor and then as a full-time employee. I was initially brought on as an intelligence analyst for the Global Security team, directly overseeing the Safety Check tool which asks users if they are safe during a natural disaster or violent incident. While the tool now is way more automated, at its core human analysts conduct the behind-the-scenes due diligence, determining impact, setting up the targeting, and monitoring the launch.
Through this work I oversaw Safety Check operations for some of the most tragic events in recent history. From the Hoboken train crash, to the Christchurch terror attack, Hurricane Maria, to the Las Vegas shooting. At the same time, I also had a constant reassurance in humanity in the outpouring generous global support I saw in recovery efforts through another feature called Community Help.
Needless to say, I was awestruck with the tool’s global impact and the visibility this program got internally. However, Safety Check was not a Global Security product, but a tool developed and maintained by the Social Good (now Social Impact) team. Specifically, it was a hackathon brainchild of one of Facebook’s most notoriously beast engineers. But this was my gateway exposure to the concept of ‘social good’ which happened to intersect uniquely with global security.
I have since pondered how great it would be if other powerhouse companies dedicated themselves to some sort of Social Good mission. What would their incentives be? Could it provide a social media company with a different subset of user data or create better engagement metrics? Would it be a good way to raise a company’s image? Would the company tap into a talent pool that otherwise would have never considered them? Could it boost the morale of a workforce to the point attrition rates take a significant dive?
Social Good is a concept still in its infancy and I want to be at the forefront of those discussions. I think it’s a noble effort that, if embraced more widely, could probably make society a far better place to live. PhD or not, researching this space will be invaluable to me, my children, and will maybe make a difference in how organizations view their footprint in the world.