How I became a Book Person after my Master's Thesis

I am not writing to set a bad example. All my childhood my parents tried to make me a book person. Both of my parents are educated and they read on regular basis. I just didn't like letters and reading. I strongly (and still) preferred numbers over letters. I was also okay reading for classes, I loved doing homework and it was part of the process, I believed.

In Turkey, to go to university everyone has to take a public exam. This exam included Turkish (reading), maths, science in beginner level (for high school) and depending on what major you want to choose you have to take another exam which includes all material, in my case it was 4 years worth of maths and science. However, to do overall well, I needed a decent reading grade. That year while I was preparing for the exam, I was reading minimum 15 minutes a day. I did better than I thought and got into my dream degree program, civil engineering.

Civil engineering program didn't involve too much reading and I read only books of my interest (not sure how many a year though). Even though I got involved in research during my undergrad, I don't remember having to read too much. I was only given material that I directly needed to use and understand. When it came to masters, things changed. Guess what was my advisors first comment on my research topic? Go through the literature and find a gap, use keyworks X,Y and Z. TA-DAA, yes I spent almost a year 90% just reading for my thesis proposal. At the end of a year, it helped me so much that I could write my thesis in less than 3 months.

Since then I really appreciate how further reading has taken me. I am still not a book worm, but I do read everyday even if it is only for 10 minutes. I don't think there is too much to worry when you don't like reading, since you don't really know what you are missing. But once you "have" to read, things change in a way that nothing can stop you from reading. And my personal advise is "write as much as you read or read as much as you write".