A students aren't quitters

The always-insightful Dean Dad has a recently posted on hiring practices in academia.  I particularly liked this paragraph on why aspiring academics fight so hard and long for super-rare jobs that may not even be that awesome:

I’m convinced that one reason some people won’t let themselves let go of the dream, despite years of external signals suggesting that they should, is a sense that it would reflect a personal moral failing. They’ve identified so completely with the ‘meritocracy’ myth that they feel a real need to redeem themselves within it. It’s more than the money; other fields often pay more. Instead, they see the status of “tenured professor” as a sort of validation of everything they’ve done. Leaving the academy would be admitting defeat and accepting failure; lifelong “A” students, as a breed, aren’t very good at that. It’s not what they do.

Like many of you, I've often wondered why it's so hard for people who are miserable to give up the ghost and try for a different sort of job.  I particularly wonder about really unhappy grad students since they are early enough in their careers to take a different path. I think Dean Dad hit the nail right on the head. I don't really even have anything to add here. 

The answer

I really dislike this completely empty advice: "publish, publish, publish".  In almost any conversation about career issues, someone is bound to say it or something similar.  Isn't publishing critical for success for almost any research career?  

Publish, publish, publish?  Oh, so that's the key to solving my two-body problem?  If only I had known sooner.  You mean that's all I have to do to be competitive for funding and jobs?  No problem!  I'll get right on it.

While I'm at it, I think I'll eat less and move more.  Oh, and I can buy low and sell high, too.  Life is so simple!

Craving legitimacy

I am just dying to be done with grad school, to the point where I'm irrationally reluctant to make contingency plans for next semester. It's been a source of mild conflict with EGM, I think because I couldn't really articulate why I'm being so weird. But I think I've finally figured it out.

Academic Advisor, who never ever lets a student suffer through university-related financial issues, has wisely counseled me to keep all my options open. Thus, I'm trying to sort out exactly how to plan defense-related events to maximize my flexibility. If I defend at the right time, I won't have to register for spring, and I will have met the requirements of a PhD so I can take a job. But, I won't technically be graduated, so I would be able to register and get a TA (or more of my external fellowship if they'll give it to me) if I don't have a job yet, or if I want to hang around until EGM is ready to move in late spring. Makes sense, but is causing my anxiety.

I have been saving money like crazy for the past year or so to pay for a big trip to Far Off Land or to fund a period of unemployment. I am so desperate to be OUT OF GRADUATE SCHOOL that I almost don't even want the option of continuing next semester, even as a cushion. EGM can't understand this -- why would I want to live off savings if I don't have to? He's right - it's totally irrational. But I think it has to do with the desire to feel entitled to my pay and to feel legitimate at my institution.

Earning my income

I feel like I should feel guilty or ashamed for my funding. That other people don't get as much, or that I'm keeping another student from getting funded because I'm taking too long. I know that no one else thinks this, but I feel like they do. That I'm lucky I have anything at all so I should just be happy with it. I understand that many people share this sentiment in this economy, but that doesn't make me feel less this way.

I want to get paid a regular salary with real benefits and a 401(k) and all the rest of it. I want to feel like I earn my money, that I'm getting a paycheck because I did a job I was hired to do. I want to be in the HR system for heaven's sake.

Legitimacy

I had the experience recently of being told that under no circumstances should I make it look like I am employed the institution where I do my research. That stung a little, since I spend nearly every day there and they fund all my work. They don't pay for my time, however, which makes me kind of second-class there, a ghost worker. For instance, I'm not listed on the department's webpage. Thankfully, the people I directly work with dont' have this attitude, but still. It's like this to a lesser extent at the university too, where grad students aren't like real students but also aren't employees.

I'm tired of being caught in the place between a student and an employee. I'm tired of not knowing what to write for "occupation" on surveys. I'm tired of feeling illegitimate, that I don't deserve my (paltry) salary or that I'm not really part of my institution. I'm also sick of having all the responsibilities of being an employee, like training, but not getting the full benefits in return.

Also, I want a BREAK. More on this in another post.

Conferencing alone

Do you think it's better to attend a meeting on your own or with people from your lab? I see pros and cons to both situations.

Going with labmates can be great, particularly if they are good about introducing you to people they know. It's nice to have a guaranteed meal companion, someone to chat with during breaks, or to talk to when you get saturated and can't pretend to look at posters anymore. Beyond making a meeting experience less awkward, being with someone who knows people can certainly help you break into the conference cliques or get you introduced to potential collaborators. Tagging along with the Right Person can turn a so-so meeting into a career path-altering experience.

On the other hand, sometimes it's good to be on your own. Going with a colleague who does a poor job of introducing you to the people they know is infinitely frustrating and makes you think you'd be better off on your own. Moreover, when you're alone at a meeting you meet people because you have to. Because it's easier to stay in your comfort zone with labmates than it is to meet new people, labmates can inhibit networking. Being with friends can not only keep you from branching out, it can keep other people from approaching you if your group seems tight and intimidating.

The best case is when promoting your colleagues blends seamlessly with your own networking. It's poor form to ditch your labmates, but the point of conferences is to network and discuss science with the wider community. The balance depends on the personalities and experience of the players, of course, and I'm starting to think it takes some finesse to achieve.

Post-docs and the Shit Economy

It seems to me that my anticipated graduation in August 2009 could not be more poorly timed. We all know that the economy is tanking and I fear post-docs will not be spared a hit. I think this will manifest in two ways.

First, I think there will be fewer positions available in the coming months. Universities are initiating hiring freezes, which means that people currently in post-docs will not be vacating them for faculty jobs. On top of that, poor funding rates mean that there may be fewer new post-doc positions created.

It's actually the latter that has me agitated and brings me to point number two. If established scientists aren't as successful at obtaining funding, then where will money for post-docs come from? I imagine that a larger proportion of new post-doc positions will be funded from start up packages. And that means that instead of getting a mentor who has decades of experience with a large network of contacts, you get one who is maybe two years ahead of you on the career path. In fact, I know of one case where someone wanted to do a second post-doc and was offered a position in a new hire's lab. Applicant and mentor got their Ph.Ds the same year. What's the point of doing a post-doc in that situation?

Physioprof wrote an excellent post at On Becoming a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess about how to find and get a post-doc. The merits of early-career vs. senior faculty advisors have been argued at length; Phsyioprof is something of an advocate for early career mentors and I can see his points. But I wonder if physiology post-doc positions tend to last longer so that new faculty have been out of grad school for longer than people in my field typically have when they start faculty jobs. Frankly, I think I prefer someone at least mid-career for a post-doc mentor (although my opinion of young vs old for PhD advisors is more flexible). I want someone with lots of experience to teach me how to write big grants, manage a lab, navigate funding agency politics, and share their network. I may not have a choice in the matter and I'm sure a successful post-doc could happen with a junior faculty mentor. But do you see where I'm coming from? Have I offended any junior faculty readers I might have?

Motivation survey results

Now that a full week has passed since I posted this hastily composed work motivation survey, it's time to check out the responses. As it happens, I chose a question format that is somewhat difficult to interpret, especially with small number of responses. Thus, I simply noted the average rating for each response. The smaller the number, the more importance people assigned to the response, on average. Unfortunately, since it didn't occur to me to offer the same number of responses for each question, it's a little hard to compare the average ratings across questions (a possible average rating for Q4 could be 6 whereas the highest average rating for a response to Q3 is only 4) so I divided the average rating by the number of possible responses when I wanted to make generalizations among questions (not shown) .

So what might we have learned from this exercise? You may remember that the initial dialog centered on fear of scoopage. I now feel comfortable saying that fear of being scooped is not the primary work motivation for most people. Interestingly, the ranking of "love of science" increased (smaller numbers mean higher rank) after tenure (although the sample size decreased). It appears that, before tenure, both students and faculty find their primary motivation in the sheer volume of work they feel they must accomplish to reach the next career milestone. Still, love of science ranked pretty high. In contrast, prestige great enough to warrant the throwing of little pickles by a thousand naked women was not an important driver of overtime work. Go figure. The value people place on the opinions of their colleagues stays pretty constant until tenure, when it plummets. Ditto for bosses.

Social scientists certainly have a handy tool with their skills at designing surveys. There were clearly plenty of weaknesses with this one, notably the omission of a question directed at post docs, as Sciencemama pointed out. Sorry post docs. I had intended the thing to be just one question, but I got sucked in by the shininess of SurveyMonkey. Then I forgot you.


Okay, so here's the summary of the responses. The average rating follows each response.

Question 1. What is your primary motivation for working >40 hours per week?
32 responses

I'm worried I'll get scooped 3.96
I need to work a ton of hours to have the output necessary to get a job/tenure 2.25
My boss/advisor will disapprove if I don't 2.78
My colleagues will disapprove if I don't 3.66
For the love of scientific inquiry, what else? 2.16

Question 2. For grad students: If you feel obligated to work long hours, why?
19 responses

My advisor will think poorly of me if I don't 2.84
Other students will think poorly of me if I don't 3.79
I think it's necessary in order to amass enough work to graduate in a reasonable time 2.11
I want grad school to be as short as possible -- the ore hours I work each week, the fewer weeks I have to spend in this hell hole 3.06
I just love science! The more time I can spend with science, the happier I am! 2.95

Question 3. For non-tenured faculty: If you feel obligated to work long hours in order to achieve tenure, why?
7 responses

It's not possible to accomplish everything necessary for tenure in 40 hours/week. 1.50
My department chair/review committee will think I'm a slacker 2.29
My colleagues will think poorly of me, which will be apparent in my letters 3.00
Who care about tenure? I do it for the love, you insignificant, whiny student! 2.17

Question 4. For tenured faculty or non-tenure track real job people: why do you work so much?
5 responses

To be competitive for funding 2.40
For the prestige! I see myself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at me*. 5.60
For the love of science. duh. 1.60
Because all these over anxious students are always hounding me to read their papers and teach their courses and write their recommendations. wah, wah, wah. 3.75
To keep my boss happy. 4.20
To keep myself marketable in case I want to change jobs. 2.60


This line comes from the 1985 classic Real Genius, known to some as "The Popcorn Movie".

What really motivates you?

Yesterday's poll precipitated such great comments that I decided to delve a little deeper into what motivates people to work so damn much. Obviously it's not just because of the threat of being scooped. So, a new poll. This time I made it in Survey Monkey because the one from yesterday got all jacked up and I can't see the results. Survey Monkey is much easier and more flexible, however, so I wrote four questions - one that's general and three that are targeted by job description. Sorry that you have to click to another page. Please come back here to make comments, especially if you think I provided sucky responses.

Click Here to take survey

What if you couldn't be scooped?

Would you still work so much?

One insight I've gained through reading blogs is that the ferocity of competition in a field like mine is very different from say, the biomedical sciences. Jobs and fellowships are really competitive, but publications aren't by comparison. I'd say it's extremely rare to be scooped, largely because the nature of our field research means people have a pretty good sense of what others are doing. If you know someone else is working on a particular problem in a particular system, you don't pursue that question. It's a waste of resources.

I think this reduces some of the urgency for publishing results. I'm dying to get my paper submitted, but it's not because I'm worried someone else might publish the same thing first. I wonder if this is what allows me to get away with working a reasonable number of hours (for now, at least).

So, for those of you in really competitive fields, do you think you would work fewer hours if you weren't afraid of getting scooped? For those of you who aren't so worried about the distinctiveness of your research, feel free to speculate.

What should an intern do?

We've got lots of interns this summer. We're required to give them each a meaningful project to which they can make a significant contribution. It can be a piece of something larger, but it has to make sense as a project. At the end of the summer, the students have to give a presentation about their work which creates some accountability for project selection on our part.


We really like to create mutual benefit with these internships. The students aren't free, so we want to get some actual necessary labor out of them. On the other hand, we want to turn them on to our branch of science. Most undergrads aren't exposed to the work we do, even in the broadest sense, so we feel it's really important to show them some cool stuff to make their experience good.

But. Research isn't fun most all of the time. There are many, many boring/tedious/difficult/lame things that need to be done and we need the interns to do some of them. I sometimes feel bad when we assign really boring tasks to interns, but Awesome Technician always reminds me that we all have to do crappy stuff sometimes (see sidebar counter).

It gets tricky to design a good experience for undergraduate research participants. We want to get a bunch of work done while exposing people to the things we find so exciting and at the same time, not create unrealistic expectations for their futures should they decide to pursue research careers. I have seen several bloggers (but now I can't remember which ones) write about how they had a cool undergrad research experience but were then somewhat disillusioned by the bullshit when they got to grad school. I can see how it happens, since it's pretty easy to shelter an intern from the bullshit for 10 weeks and an internship can have a huge impact on a student's career choices.

So: handling interns is tricky. Our ethical consideration is usually we can't have them just wash dishes. But maybe there is also an ethical issue with making an internship too good for the intern. Wouldn't want to give anyone false hope, now would we?

Selecting a lab

As a follow-up to these posts, I thought I'd write a little about how students in my field typically find and join labs. I am pretty sure my experience is generally representative of my discipline, but there may be departments that do it differently.

It’s very difficult to get accepted to grad school in my field without having an advisor who has agreed to take you on. Typically, students go straight into a lab; they do not join the department as a student at large*. When the faculty are debating who to accept, you must have an advocate in the department who will commit to mentoring you. This means that 1-8 months before applications are due, you have to start emailing faculty whose research interests are similar to yours. After determining that you have mutual interests, it’s good to ask if the professor has space for students in the coming year, if they have funding, what new projects the lab might be initiating, etc. It can take a lot of searching to find a lab that has everything you want in a location you can tolerate.

Often, after the applications have been reviewed but before offers are made, promising prospective students are invited to visit/interview on the university or lab's dime. This might be a group event where all prospectives visit at once, or students might be invited individually by a professor. This is the time to make sure the student and advisor make a good match -- they are interviewing each other. In the best visits, the prospective gets time to talk privately with current students to learn what life in the lab/department in really like. Often, the visitor stays with one of the current students, so they get a chance to ask lots of candid questions. Although as Mad Hatter pointed out, labs that don't value "fit" so much may not provide one-on-one time with each member of the lab. Unfortunately, some students, especially internationals, are unable to make a visit for a variety of reasons. For students who can't visit (international or not) or who visit but don't get a chance to talk privately with current students, it's a good idea to contact current and former students to make sure the advisor's style is one that you can cope with.

I don't know of any departments in my field that do rotations. The department I'm in is rather small, so the faculty are so different that I wouldn’t want to work with any other than my advisor (if for some reason during the first 1-4 years I had had to leave my lab, I think I would have changed schools before I would have changed advisors. At this point, I would stay to finish up no matter what). Larger departments might have people with enough overlap that there are more options for students. People do change labs if there is a big problem, but it’s rare.

There are clear advantages to this system. The most obvious is that it can help ensure equitable distribution of students among labs, favoring new faculty if necessary, since students just aren't accepted if there isn't space in the lab they want. For example, I've heard that there can be more students wanting into a lab than the professor can handle after the students are already in the program. I imagine this must sort of typical for departments that do rotations. Personally, I think I'd be upset if were in a department for a year and then couldn't get into the lab I wanted. Of course, it's also not good for faculty to get swamped with students as Ianqui described. Another advantage of this system is that students can be sure they will work in a research area that matches their interests. On the other hand, this system is less flexible than other models. Student and advisor may meet only briefly, if at all, before committing to 4-6 years together. If the student turns out to be a poor match for a lab, they may have few alternatives but to leave the department.

I'm pretty happy with the system my discipline uses, but since I haven't experienced any others, I can't make a balanced comparison. I bet that the advantages I see might not be so important in fields where students research is less tightly associated with faculty research, or where there is more overlap in faculty interests.

If anyone reading this is considering grad school ecogeoscienceology and has questions about finding a lab/department, feel free to email me.we

*Since students join labs and not departments, the fame and quality of the professor is more important than the quality of the department.

Intellectual independence

Conventional wisdom* asserts that a student pursuing a master’s degree should be given a research project that’s ready to go. The questions should be developed, the field site identified, and the funding in place before the student arrives to begin work. These students have to complete lots of coursework and research in a short period of time, so they can’t fool around with harebrained thesis ideas. On the other hand, Ph.D. students are expected to develop their own project.

As I’ve progressed through grad school, I’ve noticed that there are many Ph.D. students who are unprepared to put together a project from scratch. The only people who are really capable of designing a new project in a timely way either have a master’s degree or worked in their discipline before starting grad school. Otherwise, students may flounder because they don’t have a deep enough understanding of the literature or the relevant experience to know what the pertinent research questions are.

I did have work experience (but no master’s) and still I came into an established project. I think the research has proceeded in different way than if I hadn’t been involved, but the fundamental idea was Research Advisor’s. In addition to the advantages of having the core ideas already worked out by an expert, I also had funding. I have heard of faculty who make incoming Ph.D. students rewrite funded proposals, tweaking them with their own ideas, in order to “take ownership” of the project. I think this is a waste of time. In my field, students usually have to write a research proposal to achieve candidacy. This exercise was very challenging and beneficial for me, even though I didn’t conceive the original project. By the time I defended the proposal, I had reworked it into something pretty different than Advisor had at the outset. But I couldn't have done that right off the bat.

It seems to be getting more common for students to embark on a Ph.D. straight from undergrad. I see the appeal for the students, since a Ph.D. doesn’t necessarily go faster after a master’s, and for the faculty, who get better trained staff with lower turnover. Still, I think this trend is a little disturbing because many students coming right from undergrad are overwhelmed by the independence of grad school. It’s not that they are incapable of doing the work, but that they don’t have the necessary experience to initiate it. In my opinion, people starting a Ph.D. right from university should either join an established project to which they can contribute something new or vital, or they should be given a small project to get them started. I think it’s not right for faculty to take on inexperienced students without giving them something to start with. They are, after all, students.

*This whole post comes from my experience with how things work in eco-, geo-, and/or ecogeoscience.

Committee meeting: done

I had a committee meeting yesterday. My department didn't require annual committee meetings until this year. In the past, the committee would only meet together twice: once at the student's prelim exam and once at her defense. I guess a few "uncomfortable" defenses made the department decide it needed to be like other decent programs and require annual progress meetings.

I guess because the annual meeting was an unknown entity, I got super anxious about it. I knew it wasn't supposed to be a big deal so I'm not sure why I was so worried. I guess I thought they would tear apart the work I had done so far or not approve the changes I wanted to make to one of the chapters. Also, I felt very disorganized and irresponsible because I hadn't fully checked out the room arrangements. I was right to be worried about that because the room had a speaker phone with no speaker* and an expired calling card (one of my committee members had to participate by phone).

The phone stuff eventually worked out and the meeting went fine. Thank goodness for Research Advisor, who just the day before had passed a paper to me that covered exactly what I needed to substantiate the revisions I wanted. After two hours (!) of discussion, we agreed on a much reduced version of a chapter I proposed two years ago at my prelims and they nodded approval at the data I have so far for the other chapters. I even received some very positive feedback from my outside committee member (delivered in restrained and measured verbiage) that made me feel really good. He told Research Advisor he thinks I am "a winner". Can't beat that.


*Me to Academic Advisor in a most shrill voice, "I don't deserve a Ph.D. if I can't even set up a meeting room with a phone that works!" How melodramatic of me.

Research is like a slot machine

Ecogeoman recently compared working as a scientist to a gambling addiction. He has a point.

Funding rates are crappy. He applied for 10-12 small grants in the last several months hoping but never expecting to be successful. Lo and behold, he actually won two of them and he is on cloud nine. He mused that this taste of success is enough to keep him going...for a while.

It’s like gambling at a casino. The slot machine has to pay out just frequently enough to keep your interest so you’ll continue to put the money in. In science, you have to get enough grants funded to keep you wanting to try for the next one.

We hypothesized that people who make it in research are ones who can sustain longest on intermittent success. Alternatively, the most successful people probably enjoy more frequent success. We think maybe that’s not so much the case. Instead, we think that there’s selection for people who can coast on glory for longer, thereby getting more done before they are overcome with the depression of failure. There's clearly a positive feedback.

Vacations

Several bloggers have discussed the dilemmas surrounding students’ requests for vacation time, like whether or not the advisor should be consulted, if the time must be "made up", etc. I have two week-long trips planned for this summer and felt compelled to run my plans by both advisors, though not necessarily ask for permission. Research Advisor didn’t seem especially interested and said fine. I must have had an apologetic look on my face when I talked to Academic Advisor today because he said, “why are making that face? Why do you feel bad about taking time off?” How great is that? He’s right, I shouldn’t feel bad.

That brings me to a thought I’ve had for a while: why do scientists feel like we need to justify their vacations? Why do we have to rationalize our fun?

I’ve noticed that people will say they need to take time off in order to be a better scientist. Vacations “recharge the batteries” so one can return to work in super production mode. Time off during evenings or weekends will “refresh creativity” and “clear one’s head”. These things are all true. But is the only reason we take vacations so that we can be better workers? Why don’t we take vacations just because it’s fun or to spend quality time with our families? I don’t feel like my whole point of living is to be a better scientist. There are lots of things that contribute to making me a good person and member of my community besides my work.

I get so sick of the notion that if I’m serious about my career, then the core of my identity should be as a scientist and that everything I do should be to fortify my worth as a worker. I think that’s bullshit. I’m glad that my advisors don’t seem to have that attitude.

I think I should be able to take a vacation just because I want to. If it happens to make me a better scientist, all the better.

Student vs Employee Part 2: Work Hours

One of the perks of an academic job is the flexible schedule. That creates ambiguity for students, who may not know the expectations for grad student time. It seems that many advisors are reluctant to directly address the questions: how should a grad student define her/his work schedule? How much work is expected? Do they get vacation time? Sick days? Comp time?

Typically, if you have a job at an organization as large as a university, the HR department controls your compensation, including schedule and fringe benefits (at least I think that’s how it works since I’ve never had a regular job!). But grad students fall through the cracks and it can be confusing.

As I’ve said before, I spend most of my time at a place outside the university, so I work among people who have regular 40-hour work weeks. I feel like an ass if I’m not there approximately when they are even though my status and compensation are totally different. So I work 40 hours/week plus some weekends and figure I’ve done my duty*. I figure I can take 2-3 weeks vacation each year (including the winter holiday break but not the holidays themselves) and if I want more than that, I need to make up the time by working nights and weekends. Actually, I probably work enough beyond my regular 40 hours to make up at least part of those 2-3 weeks without tracking it. I do not log sick days, but I don’t take many of those.

It’s different in a university setting because people are off doing all sorts of things that make them absent from the office/lab. Students are teaching or taking classes, faculty are teaching or in meetings. This makes it easy for people to breeze in and out with little accountability for their time. I have no doubt that many academics work an obscene number of hours. But I also suspect that many students (and faculty for that matter) would be surprised by how little they work if they actually clocked their time spent really working.

The tricky thing is that students don’t really have to work any set number of hours. Their TA or RA is probably for 50% time, which is pretty unclear since they are obviously expected to work more than that. Nobody tells incoming students how much they should work, so some treat it like undergrad, showing up for class and doing everything else at home. Others, like me, treat it like a job, which may inhibit their progress. And of course, work hours are a central source of conflict in many student – advisor relationships.

Just one more thing that new academics are stuck learning for themselves. How many problems could be prevented or solved by just telling people what they need to know?

*This is largely to deal with guilt about not working all hours, i.e. if I work hard during normal hours, any extra time is bonus.

Anything but a professor

Today I told Research Advisor that I don't want to be a professor. I have decided that I want nothing to do with academia long term.

I started grad school after working as a technician for a couple of years after college. Seeing that having only a bachelor's degree will get you little more than a dead-end job in research, I thought, "what do I need to do to keep doing this?" Then I enrolled in a Ph.D. program.

I have never been interested in teaching. When I started grad school, my ideal was to get a job with as much research and as little teaching as possible. But the more I learn about academia and the more I learn about myself, I realize that academia is not for me. The positions with the highest proportion of research are generally the most prestigious and competitive. Given my 40-hours-a-week-is-enough attitude, I don't think I'd be the best match for those jobs.

More than that, though, I've realized that I dislike the culture of a university -- the heirarchy, the competition, the inconsistent priorities. Facutly are pulled in a dozen directions at once, with so many people relying on them for urgent issues. I don't want to teach, but I also don't want to write upteen recommendation letters or read students' crappy first drafts, or explain the same concepts over and over. Yes, I appreciate that someone is doing that for me. But it doesn't mean that I want to do it. Frankly, I don't even want to mentor grad students.

There are several government agencies that have research facilities where I could work. Of course, those research-only positions are not easy to get. Soft money isn't so attractive, either.

I'm beginning to realize that I'd rather do something else with my science skills than do research as a professor. Management and consulting are appealing. I'm glad to be thinking about this now so I can keep my eyes open for alternative jobs because they are difficult to envision. When academia is almost the only path offered to Ph.Ds, it takes some thinking outside the box to find something else. However, I very much want to do a post doc because I want to learn something new and experience a different lab. I think a braoder skill-set would be beneficial for any kind of science job.

A few minutes after we finsihed our conversation, I asked Research Advisor if she thought less of me for saying I don't aspire to be a professor. She does not and pointed out that many people start PhDs with no intention of doing research. She said if it's okay for them to want to teach from the outset, it's fine for me to want to not teach. She's great.

Don't spare me

Some things are hard to learn in grad school. The things we are trained to do during grad school, specifically research, are not the only responsibilities we are likely to have in the jobs we get after grad school. The most general observation I can offer is that I work mostly in the lab while my advisors work mostly at their desks. We are clearly not doing the same things.

The most obvious way to learn about all the administrative work that goes into running a lab is to ask one's advisor. But it doesn't always work. Once when I asked about funding, I was told I "didn't need to worry about it". I think my advisor was feeling stressed about the level of funding he had and how to distribute it. It irritated me though, because how are students supposed to learn things like how to manage a lab's finances when no one will disscuss it because they don't want to disclose any worries?

This is a rather isolated example, as Academic Advisor really explains a lot of what goes in the department, the politics of our field, etc. Certainly Research Advisor seems to tell me pretty much anything (everything?), but it's a little different with her because I'm the only student in her lab, so there isn't such a structured hierarchy. They both encourage me to go to meetings, introduce me to visiting scientists, discuss proposal ideas, and whatever else. Overall, my advisors rock. But I know that most students struggle with this stuff, perhaps not even knowing what they're missing. It must be especially difficult for students in really big labs with famous advisors who travel frequently. But the trade-off is the association they get with a flashy name.

Mrswhatsit has a couple of really great posts on this topic.

On one hand, I appreciate being sheltered from the nasty or not-fun parts of science. On the other, I want to learn how to deal with it all. At the very least, I want to know what I'm getting into. I want to be ableto make an informed decision about what kind of carrer to try for when it's time to apply for jobs.

Infrastructure

Every scientist should get a full time technician. When hired as a professor or staff scientist, one expects an office and lab space. I believe that a professional technician should be part of the package. They should carry value as part of the organization's infrastructure.

More good science would get done if there were reliable and competent hands in the lab that don’t need to be retrained every 4-5 years (like grad students) , every 2-3 years (like staff funded by specific grants) or every 4-5 months (like seasonal interns). Having a technician who earns a living wage with fringe benefits would stay long enough to build institutional memory for the lab that would ease transition between students, prevent instrument problems that stem from multiple, poorly trained users, and provide leadership.

Even better, if professional technician positions paid adequately and were well respected, it would provide alternative science jobs. I know many people who really like bench or field work and they see that having only a bachelor’s or master’s degree will likely keep them cycling through short-term jobs tied to funding cycles. No 401(k). No maternity leave or paid vacation. Lousy hourly wage. Who wants to stay in that long term? Who can afford to? So people either enroll in a PhD program or find a job away from the bench. What a shame. I suspect that that is how many people end up in high pressure, high responsibility jobs that they dislike because really what they wanted was to actually do the nuts and bolts work of science, not write proposals all the time.

Struggling with ambition

I was just out for beers with some science friends and initiated a conversation inspired by Female Science Professor's recent posts on ambition. One friend is a post doc who is applying for jobs and is rather down about it. He also really, really likes beer. Scientists will often say that they are lucky because their hobby is their job, but for this person, science is his job and beer is his hobby. So I asked if he thought he would be happier working as a beer buyer or opening his own bar. After some consideration, his answer was an emphatic yes. However, he said he would never actually pursue that type of job because he would feel too guilty leaving science. He felt he owed it to his PhD and post doc advisors to stay in science. Then he added up all the money taxpayers had spent educating him via stipends, fellowships, and research funds and said he owed it to America to be a scientist. I countered that the publications he generated during his PhD fulfilled his obligation and that he had made no long term commitment for the money he had received (unlike say, an M.D. who agrees to work in rural areas in exchange for med school tuition). He was unconvinced.

Even more interesting, when I described FSP's post about ambition and the narrow definition of success for PhDs, this guy agreed that he felt that his ambition of teaching at a small university was not so respected. He said that he would feel successful if he "reached" just one student. When asked how he would know he had reached someone, he said that the best evidence would be if they chose a career like his. So it's just like the faculty at R1s! Everybody wants their students to be just like them. This guy wants to be like the professor who most influenced him at the small university he attended and his dream is to influence another student in the same way.

One important point I'd like to make is that these issues of ambition and such affect men in science too. My male scientist friends suffer from imposter complexes and feel like they are no good sometimes, just like us women. It's the lucky few who can escape the negativity and pressure.

The happy scientist?

I thought I would write about why I titled my new blog The Happy Scientist. Inspiration for it came from conversations with friends, especially my boyfriend, and from other blogs, good recent examples of which are posts like this and this and the comments in this.

One of my interests in sciencey blogs is that I want to explore what makes a happy scientist, particularly one who is female. Many people appear to love their research but not love their jobs. Some will say they love their jobs, but I wonder if they actually do. Yes, they like a flexible schedule (60 hour work weeks), investigating interesting hypotheses (no gratification for months on end), and independence (not getting a decent paying job until age 35). It seems that everyone really wants to love her science job because she loves science so much, but it’s hard. Of course there are many exceptions.

Since I became aware of how things work in academia/government labs, I have felt that I am joining the system, therefore it is partly mine. That means that I can take part in shaping the trajectory of how it changes, namely making it more inclusive to women and other underrepresented groups. Recently though, I'm starting to think that maybe I'd be happier if I took my PhD (when I get it) and did something else. I really enjoy research. I like asking questions and exploring answers. In particular, I like knowing how the world works. Nature is so elegant. But the system for doing Science is not and I'm starting to wonder if I can change it enough to be happy in that system. All along I have envisioned myself working at a government lab or university doing research. Lately, however, I have given some thought to something a little more applied. There are some cool consulting kinds of things that could be done with the expertise I have. That is appealing because it would be solving real problems in real time and it might be easier to have a family with such a job. The thought of not doing research is a little sad though. I have been operating under the assumption that eventually, I will become a leader in the research community I've been courting for the last seven years. It's unsatisfying to let that drop. And it makes me feel like I’d be giving up. There’s that guilt again!

This little self exploration was stimulated by some set backs in my research (it’s so damn hard to finish anything) and by me thinking about why I want to blog. I’m sure I’ll change my tune soon enough, but it’s good to talk out one’s negative feelings from time to time. Then hopefully they don’t take over.