The Gap and Answering Why.

I’m officially in career transition mode. Looking for what’s next. Trying not to say yes too quickly or chase things that don’t suit me very well. Ideally something that will lead to making more money than one does as an academic.

I was out for a walk the other day and an elderly woman was walking the opposite way down the street looking lost. She asked me if I knew where Mascoma Street was. It’s the street I live on, and only two blocks across the town green from where we were talking. The town I live in is not large either. It seemed remarkable anyone could be lost. But there we were. I talked with her as we walked over to the street and she told me how she was recently retired living here after being a nurse around the country, and in England.

It’s made me think about what I’ve done with my time, and whether I’d get easily lost in 25 more years. Some how there’s still more I feel I want to do. To persist in making a living and hopefully thriving.

There’s no more academia– at least no more planned bench science in my immediate future. There’s continuing to build my skills as a writer and editor (doing some freelance gigs just now to do just that as well as continuing to blog and guest posting wherever I can).

Of course there are questions. Do I have something great to say? Eh. Maybe. Do I just like sharing knowledge. That is certainly true. If I got to spend my career taking in knowledge and communicating it back out to audiences I still haven’t defined very well, then great.

I’ve spent my career as a plant scientist. That’s where I’ve started. Science is amazing and talking about the natural world and how we learn about it is inspiring. I express my enthusiasm for science writing that really resonates with me and hope one day I can produce that for others.

I’m not exactly young anymore and am technically in mid-career. A lot of things that would make sense for anyone younger, going back to school, applying for internships, and fellowships just don’t fit that well, especially as I’m not eligible for many of them.

I’m left with a lot of self-training and still worried I’m a person that falls into the gap where no real career exists. I’m still too much of a scientist to be a popular science writer, but too much of a popular science writer to appeal to a scientific audience. And I haven’t been the most organized about finding an audience— or many other things either. Asking and connecting are still challenging.

I have a PhD and lots of postdoc/lab experience and yet do feel like I don’t have experience in anything else (OK, writing, editing, some basic graphic design, and can research like a pro). Another gap. Despite the online writing and engagement I’ve done. Or is it half-engagement, me just talking at the void?

I’ve networked better than I have ever in my life and don’t have a grand strategy that will get everything to work out perfectly. Despite focusing on better connecting, it’s something that’s still a work in progress. I still didn’t get this advice from Ideas on Fire soon enough.

I let go in some ways and hold on tight in others and the result is…confused.

I’ve written probably hundreds of thousands of words, if not millions the last seven years. Do they add up to anything? I don’t know.

Several years ago, I was so depressed I didn’t want to go on. I did. Why?

I. Don’t. Know. I’m stubborn and like to work? Maybe?

It was in many ways more about other people than myself— I didn’t want to let them down. Why do I want to go on now? I have a cat to take care of. Still have friends and family and colleagues I like working with (currently all through the interwebs). There’s still a sense I want to get really good at something– I don’t think that it was bench science for me. What it is exactly, I’m really not sure. The best at knowing all the things? Is that it? Working at becoming a great writer (that feels further off than ever lately)?

I find writing satisfying even though it is also hard. I’m not one to insert myself in lightning rod topics, but do advocate for the quieter way of being. Basically, few things are as great or as bad as they seem— and so my message is often “yes, it’s complicated and less interesting than you may have first thought”.

I  like brining the obscure slightly more to light, as most research isn’t widely reported on and is somewhat inaccessible either due to paywalls or jargon. I love diving into the archives of journals and digging out past papers and seeing where their work has led, even if it’s a small contribution. Those matter too.

However, none of this is a real career plan. Other than the idea of the world I’d like to occupy of words, letters, and communication, it’s hard to make a solid plan. I want to live someplace new. I want a personal life. I want to work.

I guess I’ll keep on taking steps, making lots of missteps, and hopefully falling forward in a somewhat mindful way.

Self Talk, Introversion, and Getting it all to Work Out.

I’m still searching for my next job.

There’s been some progress, but becoming a full time science writer still feels like a remote goal. Even becoming a medical writer.

Learning the craft of editing has been good. It’s one of those things that the more I do it, the more I like it. However, liking something doesn’t mean that it’s a way to make a living. However, through the writing I have done, and the editing I have gotten to do, the feeling I get is that I am helping the best version of a piece to emerge. And I really like bringing things to people’s attention they may not have learned about otherwise. I like curating..

However, being a shy introvert in the world of job searching and interviewing and constantly asking/networking/information interviewing gets exhausting.

The joke I’ve made over the years about this blog is that it will tell you what not to do in life, showing you the example not to follow.

My self-talk has been brutal lately. The steps I’m supposed to take are murky, at best. It’s not that people haven’t been friendly or nice, they have. I’m working to build my new career and have been for awhile.

This is my resume:

I am almost convinced anyone else could take it and land a job quickly. I’m not suggesting you steal my identity, but it’s just that I’ve been trying to break out of being a postdoc for years and haven’t been able to do so and it’s starting to feel like it’s me. Separable from my resume. My resume can get a job. I can’t (feel free to offer my resume a job…it works cheap, I assure you…I’m more expensive).

I’ve completed projects, started writing, guest written a lot (even asked to write things lately!), learned some of the art of tweeting conferences live and digital marketing…and yet can also feel I know nothing at the same time. Have I honed a craft? Writing? Editing? The art of Twitter? Is that even a thing? Is there enough substance behind what I’d done? Do I need to certify myself in coding and better formalize my scientific training somehow? Go back to school?

I’ll keep networking, and applying, but the pace at which I go seems like it’s too slow. I want a job where whoever I report to (yes, I’m assuming I’ll start at the bottom somewhere) will let me know what they need, when updates are due, what progress needs to be made by what time, and a deadline. Then let me get to work. I can do that.

The opportunities that work tend to have grown out of what I’ve done before. I just hope growing a full time job (or a combination of jobs that add up to a full time job) materializes out of my experiences.

Being serious.

A lot on my mind lately. Figuring out my career and life foremost among them.

I’ve been guest writing more. I had a post at the Research Whisperer a few weeks ago that seemed to do well about building a portfolio career and using that to try to transition into a new job. Partly gaining experience.

I did some guest science writing too, both for UK based websites/publications. One was a collaboration with my PI, and then other was for the UK Plant Sciences Federation on flowering time. I even emailed a flowering time scientist to get some quotes. That is pushing my comfort zone.

People have been passing job ads and opportunities along to as well, which is incredible and part of why I am so grateful to platforms like Twitter. Which brings me to the #seriousacademic hashtag after The Guardian posted a short piece from a grad student that could not see the value of social media and how it distracted from the real world in front of people as well as taking away focus from actual academic research.  

As much as I love Twitter, I never tell anyone they have to be on it. I also legitimize most uses of the platform…I suggest people start out just by listening in/following things they are interested in and checking in once in awhile. Finding things serendipitously can be great sometimes. And if you feel like responding/joining a discussion, then great.

My community is almost entirely online…I would love to have a more consistent real world community of people I see regularly, but that is part of why I need a new job in a new place, something new. I tried being a serious academic. After years of trying, I’ve concluded I’d rather be a serious something else– ideally in the writing/editing world where I can draw on my scientific skills as well.  

Twitter has been great for me to get my blog(s) out to the world…for those interested in plant science and my writing about mental health here. My goal has been to be a one person broader impact for the plant science community– Twitter is my way of giving back and it has fed back into my science in great ways too. I consider it education/outreach, though I also am writing about things I find interesting or am curious about. I’ve made genuine personal and professional connections because of Twitter. I hope I’ve contributed something and not just taken away.

I’d tell the “serious academic” grad student that building a network takes time, and if it’s all an in real life/email chain of networking and that works for them, then awesome. No social media needed. However, I think social media has made me a better scientist. It’s instilled a love of learning that I had lost. It’s opened my eyes to some things, like inclusion/diversity. I really want to learn new things and do better science, and live up to the amazing things I hear about people doing on Twitter every day.

Something that becomes more possible when you take your ideas seriously and have a community  as a backdrop to accomplish your goal. 

I try to be a supportive ear and celebrator of successes and pitch in when opportunities arise to do something specific that I can do (organizing a conference panel for instance). Or being a digital media coordinator for the conference I attend most years. Trying to stay on top of Twitter activity at a >1,000 person conference is hard, and I do think is valuable as a record of the conference. Twitter is a good way for me to take notes and to listen to a talk as well, but there is definitely a balance to be struck with attention and tweeting– however, Twitter really shines as a 6th sense at conferences and as a networking tool. More people visit posters that presenters tweet about.

That said, lately, I’ve felt really exhausted. Everything seems to take gargantuan effort and little feels light anymore. Some of that is taking on more ambitious projects, and trying to make things better than I’ve done before. Some, though, I fear is feeling burned out with all the extracurricular things I’ve been doing to try and figure out what’s next. Maybe I’m doing it all wrong? It’s hard for me to know.

Last, Serious academic reminded me of this essay by Sarah Cooper on Medium about why taking your ideas seriously is important. Like her, I didn’t take my ideas seriously for years. Starting my blogs, engaging on Twitter, discussing real things there, has gotten me to take my ideas seriously. However, I don’t take myself too seriously and do have fun on Twitter too. Twitter is great for having fun– that is part of how serious communities are built.

Twitter has gotten me connected to people and I’m not sure that would have happened in real life in the last few years. It has, in many ways, saved my life. Are there plenty of people that can live without it? I’m sure there are. Even I need breaks sometimes. And having built my community online that has translated into the real world in many ways and I feel a lot better taking those social media breaks.

 

Brakes.

What is the purpose of Brakes?

The intuitive answer is so we can slow down and stop.

Less intuitive is that brakes let us go fast. The better the braking system, or the more trust in it, the faster it’s possible to go (credit to Sarah K. Peck for this idea).

While literal brakes operate this way in cars and other vehicles, permitting slowing down and going fast, the brakes in brains don’t work the same way.

I’ve been thinking about brakes in my life and how I might ease off of them to go fast- possibly achieve flight, basically thrive– career-wise and personally.

I wrote two articles about mental health in the last month. One for Bitesize Bio and one for the The National Postdoc Association Newsletter that will be out sometime this summer. It’s what I’ve written about for years here, and it is good to see that I can write for platforms that get a wider readership than a personal blog.

I’ve maintained my writing on The Quiet Branches as best I can with one of my more ambitious posts published last week. And doing it has lead to opportunities for me, and I really like doing it still, though my feeling is research is still a challenge. I read other science bloggers/writers and am constantly impressed- and I’m not comparing myself to the best/most successful science writers I know of- Ed Yong, Carl Zimmer, and Jennifer Ouelette, for instance. I still haven’t joined the NASW. Or the Genetics Society of America, or many of the several other professional societies I might be a member of.

There are deadlines I have made at work, a conference I attended, The AAAS meeting, where I networked like a pro and even got a decent opportunity out of it for a new job, that may or may not pan out. I’ve had people send me job ads that might be of interest to me as well and I’ve applied to some of them even. Despite the last few weeks where I’ve felt pretty worn down and burnt out, this has been a year of accomplishment in many ways.

There’s a direction I’d like to take my career in- away from the lab bench and in the world of science communication, publishing, editing…the more I learn about that world, the more fascinated I get. It’s incredible that they are all a key part of translating raw results into final reports, write ups, releases, and popular articles, videos, and books for audiences beyond other scientists (though it’s for them too– who likes science….scientists– well, OK, we at least sometimes like science…OK, perhaps not even sometimes, but we do it because we believe strongly in studying the natural world to understand it and ideally make it a better place).

I just finished attending Beyond the Professoriate (#beyondprof) where there’s a lot of good advice for those PhDs and other academics seeking to make it out into the world beyond academia and broadening the career ideas/paths that PhD holders might take. And trying to get the idea into our heads that we have skills that are in demand out in the world if only we could speak the language of the employers that want them.

All of the above are mostly good things and here’s where the brakes come in. The brakes in my brain are keeping me going slow, from punching the accelerator. It’s like my parking brake is stuck in the engaged position.

I am slowly learning to speak the language of editors, science writers, and communicators/public information officers/digital communications professionals. I still have a long way to go I feel (but thanks to two opportunities this year, I’ve had the pleasure of working with an editor). Though I write my blog, I feel like it could be better. There are content marketing and design elements I’d like to implement, but haven’t. My blog is due for a redesign. I could track my numbers better, but still have an academic philosophy about that- namely that numbers aren’t the most important metric– does my writing resonate with one person and their day is better for having read it? Does it spur some new project whether I’m involved or not? Is it evergreen and there if someone wants to refer to it (i.e. is it an archive for someone to stumble across)?

I want to start trying to record audio clips talking about each new post as a way to play around with podcasting as a medium. I love podcasts, though I know it’s not a career unto itself for most people (in that way content creation is like many careers these days it seems- the middle is getting hollowed out and you are either poor and in the masses or lucky/good/fortunate enough to make it into the elite of the profession). I think about doing it. I have the tools to experiment…and yet…nope, haven’t done it.

It’s been a slow process and one that I seem to have the brake in place for. I’m trying to learn new skills. I’ve adopted R and tried to figure out how I can take advantage of some of the massive amounts of data available out in the world, but haven’t made much headway there yet– finding a hypothesis to test isn’t exactly easy. But I can do and more or less understand what an ANOVA is in R and plot some data, so that is good.

I have tried learning more about Illustrator, Photoshop, and other digital tools that I just really like (& can use and figure things out in, it’s just something I’d like to get better with). And yet, the brakes are there too. Time is limited. I’m exhausted at the end of the day and learning new things just doesn’t happen as often as I think it needs to. Again, it feels like the brakes are there.

In my personal life, well, I haven’t really been trying much…I’ve been focused on networking and trying to figure out what’s next for me in life– or perhaps more fundamental than that…figuring out how to network most effectively still.

Until I figure out where I’ll be living and what I’m doing, it’s really hard to create any sort of dating life. Of course, this is another instance where the brake in my brain feel strongly applied. I know most postdocs are married, have families, date, meet significant others, even in the face of career transitions and other life backdrops. but my brakes are firmly in place to not explore that part of life until my career is more figured out (of course the question is, when will that be- more and more the answer is seeming like “never”, so may as well start trying now, right?).

I had the honor of curating the @realscientists Twitter account in March. And as a social media experience, it was intense and immersive. One of the things I started that really took off was #AcademicSelfCare, which echoes some of the things in the mental health articles I wrote about how academics seem to take terrible care of themselves.

I try to take time to take care of myself, but that has been harder and harder to do lately it seems. Injury and pain keep me from running far, time to join and make it to a gym are scarce, sleep has been elusive, and making decisions and moving forward rather seem more difficult. Cleaning, organizing life, focusing on the present, eating well…have gotten elusive as I try to spend all my time getting to what’s next, with my parking brake in place.

It’s spending a lot of my time in deciding rather than in doing– analysis paralysis? Distraction from real things? Some of this comes down to perfectionism, anxiety, depression, and the latter especially can feel like a weight that slows me down too often still (another form of braking- just weigh it down). Will I ever feel like I’ve “arrived”?

Am I still moving in a direction and not drifting? I don’t know. Some of the issue is that I’ve been doing the things I have been doing and haven’t had much chance to step back and think much. Enforcing reflection time would be a good thing, and something I need to do more often. And perhaps say “no” more.

There’s more to say, and yet I am also self-conscious about going on and on…

 

ineluctable.

I recently learned the word inelcutable.

It has the same latin root as reluctant. Luctari, or “to struggle”.

The word means unavoidable or inescapable. The inelcutable sunrise.

I heard it on an NPR radio show ‘A Way With Words’ all about language. and the way it was described, when I heard it, really struck me. I was tired and it was 6:30am when I heard it, so the first thing I had to do was to figure out what the word was. I didn’t get it at first, but luckily in this era of podcasts, I found the episode and the word a few days later.

It brought up for me the frustrations I’m having being a postdoc, trying to figure out how to have a career beyond it and just the sense that for me,  it seems that a lack of change is ineluctable.

I’ve been working to manage depression and do other things to improve life. Be present. Meditate. Exercise. Learn new things via the growth mindset. Take risks. Get out of my comfort zone. I have done a lot of these things and maybe I need to do it more, or better, or differently, but not much has changed. And that’s frustrating. I am still trying, but it still feels like outward change is simply not possible.

I am writing more. I am engaged in several fun side projects and I am trying to learn some new things too. And I think I’m networking.

There was a discussion on Twitter yesterday about how academics rely too much on external validation, don’t act on our own intuition, and are risk averse/not resilient.

The first two are true of me, certainly. I have tried to cultivate my own internal sense of intuition and to trust myself more, but still have a long way to go and may need to be out of academia to really instill that in myself. Risk aversion is still true of me…except when I’m talking openly about depression on the internet (which may not be a real risk, just plain stupid…seems to be a fine line). I live in fear of becoming someone obsolete, just eking by…which I kind of do now, but it feels better than that. I do live rather minimally, but aspire to more.

Resilience is something I think I may actually have. I (so far) have successfully been managing depression and slowly coming back to life from having stalled a few years ago. I still feel grey and not vital, with an internal drive for life, experiences, enjoyment, etc. but one reason I’m anxious for change is so that maybe a new place will spark that in me again (I know, I’ll always be carrying my own brain, which may be problematic).

I still think academia is not the best place for good mental health (unless you’ve made tenure, perhaps). And leaving may be the best thing for my soul. I don’t want to ever feel the ineluctable conclusion is figuring out how to remove myself from the gene pool. And I still feel too close to that thinking. And that is scary to me. And while I hope I’m alone in thinking that about myself, I’m sure there are other academics that may be thinking along similar lines and that is why I write this blog. We’re not alone.

Despite frustration. I still am not giving up. I don’t know why. I do have some people that still care about me, for one, and I still feel like I can be useful…somewhere. Maybe a connection I make, maybe something I write, taking a chance. I think I’m willing to do the work. I just also need to pair it with a life as well. I hope that that is an ineluctable outcome.

 

 

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Network.

I attended the Innovation to Venture (I2V) one day conference at the University of Vermont today. It’s an event designed for networking, but also to highlight successful startups, technology licensing, and patents awarded to UVM students and faculty.

I was there to mostly observe and see just what the world of venture capitla, start-ups, entrepreneurship, and tech transfer are like. It felt alien in a lot of ways. It is also true that it often takes a team of people to bring a product to market. And a lot of luck sometimes.

Everyone I interacted with was friendly. I got to sit at the round table with a chief scientific officer and keynote speaker who waited 15 years to really see her vision for a company become reality (Aratana pharma– PETX on NASDAQ; a company making medicines for pets/animals, now a big market; and potentially, I imagine drugs developed for pets can translate into human medicines at times too).

It’s a world of work that I am utterly not familiar with. She consulted for years, ran clinical trials and did licensing contracts to bring technology from one market into another. Hearing about all of this still seems abstract to me. I have a hard time exactly concretely seeing what the work is like. Finding people to execute all of the proper steps is what is mostly sounded like.

I also sat at a table talking about pitching and pitch decks…basically how do you introduce your product to market. I got put on the spot to give an elevator pitch and I did for my science blog and what I’d be asking for (not money in this case…yet…just subscribers to my still hypothetical email newsletter). It was OK, but something I am really not used to doing. And of course, I ran up against my nemesis as an introvert: enthusiasm that seems brash, loud, falsely enthusiastic, very salesly.

It’s OK to sell things, but it’s not natural for me to do it in that loud way. If enthusiasm and flare are the way to sell things, I may be in trouble. It’s not that I’d be any less passionate about what I pitch, but I’d just prefer to do it in a quieter way, if possible.

And of course, the secret to networking is just connecting, asking, being curious, and of course preparing as much as possible. I didn’t have the chance to really prepare for this event. I am still glad I went to meet the vibrant community of Vermont entrepreneurs, inventors, tech transferrers. Burlington is a really pleasant kind of city too.

I don’t know if there’s a place for me in that world. I might be able to help in the tech transfer process, I suppose. I still feel like writing about or telling/teaching the stories of the people in the room suits my skills and interests better (not a humble brag about how I’m a great writer/storyteller). Or maybe even helping people manage their lives more effectively.

I’ll keep exploring and hopefully land in a place that works for me. Where I can grow, learn, and do more, and hopefully have a life too.

 

 

 

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The answer to life, the universe, and everything (not really).

I’ve been quiet here lately. But I’ve had things going on. Go check out my other blog The Quiet Branches where I write about plant science each week– it’s been a fun project. Then it has also been a crazy few months in the lab trying to meet several deadlines. And I’ve been taking more online classes. One in learning R and statistics…it’s only going OK on that front. The time it takes to concentrate and truly internalize everything is probably more than I actually have, but I think I am picking up a few things at least. 

I need a career and to feel like I have a life. It’s been really hard to sense that I do have a life even though I know the mere passage of time that I am aware of is life.

I realize I’m not entitled to anything. I am grateful for what I have. This is a call for more humanity out there. It may be there. I just can’t detect it because of where I am or maybe I have faulty sensors. I find it sometimes though.

I’ve been thinking a lot about work and how I really want to carve out a space to not make it all of who I am anymore. In fact, it cannot be all that I am anymore. That will kill me. I am more than my work.

Setting that boundary is difficult and doesn’t seem all that acceptable in the world of work today. Companies/employers are not your friend. And will basically take whatever they can get from you of value. And they don’t care what your life is outside of work so long as it doesn’t interfere with your work.

I’m sure I’m not the first to notice the blurred lines of work and life in modern times. And it seems like there is little slack for life events these days as a lot of us try to do as much as possible to prove our worth. At Tenure She Wrote, @SciTriGrrl wrote a post a few weeks ago about time management and carving out time for people that priorities at work that are truly important.

Prioritize until it hurts is something I’ve heard entrepreneurs say.

Hustle.

Everything will be OK…unless something goes wrong.

Perhaps it’s possible to work through that fever.

The science must go on.

In the entertainment/creative/pro-sports industries, they work sick all the time I hear. Unless you really can’t get out of bed, your’e at work. At least in those industries, they have brief periods of intensity and then they’re off for a time until the next job comes along and it’s intense again for a period of time. I’m not sure science is quite like that.

 

If you can’t get out of bed due to illness for a day or two…maybe you’re not cut out for being in that industry.

Now let’s say it’s not the flu, but depression or other mental illness that you’re working to manage. Or imagine a sick kiddo and need to stay home with them. I fear the mantra of “you only have value if you work” is the only acceptable way to have value in today’s world (at least in the US). It’s OK until some challenging thing happens and knocks you out of the game, no matter how resilient a person you are.

It’s like species being able to adapt to climate change. Some species undoubtedly will be fine and adapt quickly enough to the rate of change.

Others. Not so much.

Internal value doesn’t matter. The fact that I am enriching myself by reading ,writing, learning stats/R/coding at some level despite the fact that I’ll never likely be a master of any of it, trying to socialize more, being a decent person, helping friends do things. I hope these things are valuable. But fear they’re not. In and of themselves, they don’t produce money and therefore are not valuable.

I am exploring career options beyond academia and it’s really jarring to deal with the fact I feel like I’m basically killing all the training I have and starting completely over again. I know I’ll bring something of what I’ve learned to whatever I go on to do, but worry it’s not enough, never will be, and that basically ,I am useless. I really try not to think that way because obviously it leads nowhere good. At the least, it makes me beat myself up. At worst…

It is a hard mental habit to break.

I have to find evidence to reject the null hypothesis that I am not lifeless.

If the goal is to prove your’e so valuable and in demand that you never have to worry about anything ever, do you get to take breaks? Ask for help? Or is asking for help saying you can’t do things on your own, acknowledging humanity, and there’s just not room for that in the world. Humanity is not valuable.

Except that it is, of course. Why are we working except to keep humanity going. Even for-profit industry has a component of providing a service to the world.

Look like your’e interested, but not too interested, you don’t want to seem desperate, but also not completely aloof either. Where’s the right line? When do you cross it?

All the above thoughts indicates that I probably need to socialize more with close friends. Vacation. Something restorative I haven’t had in quite awhile. Being human in front of another human, not a robot.

I want a pub trivia team to go out with and have fun. And I haven’t been able to build one so far. But it will be a part of my life some how. Until then, I have Good Job, Brain at least.

What is it I do that no one else can? I freely admit my struggles on the internet…that I’m human. I don’t think I’m alone or remarkable for that. I hope I’m not alone in my thoughts. I have learned to manage my depression, which is not nothing, but again, I don’t think anyone actually cares about that.

I can write a lot of words.

I can listen. I can synthesize ideas, edit writing, and think about the bigger picture as well as sweat details. Perhaps sweating details way too much. I think things through and am deliberate (which I honestly do not feel is of any value in the fast-paced world of today).

I can take a lot of punishment and push myself hard when needed, but certainly need recovery time too. I’m human. I’m sorry if that’s an inconvenience for the world.

Just where do I fit? What exactly do I need to get there?

I’m in the science-verse (but note, not at the center):

The science verse is big. I hear there is something beyond it, but it’s a horizon that doesn’t feel open to me right now. Is there an invisible black hole holding me in the science-verse? So much within it I haven’t explored either.

What is beyond? I am trying to see and navigate that way. I just hope I can land there, realize there’s some slack in the line where I can work hard, but have a life outside too (my cat demands it…and having time to do taxes is important too). Heck, even staying somewhere in the vast science-verse would be OK with me. I just feel my value lies not at the bench, but in helping others do great work.

 

 

 

 

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Placing.

I was reading Terry McGlynn’s two-year anniversary post of his Small Pond Science blog and like him, I have found blogging to be a rewarding experience and how it’s enabled me to reach more people and given me opportunities I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

He’s done a lot of good work. And it’s another in a cavalcade of people I can point to that have done good work in many aspects of their careers & lives. Twitter has really opened up my eyes to the wide world of people doing good things. I am trying to be one of them. Maybe I am in some small ways, but to my mind still not meaningful ways. I will still celebrate and point to others who I think are doing good/clever work before ever saying that I am.

I am trying to get going now after having stopped for years due to depression, anxiety, and other poor mental habits that mired me in quicksand relative to the rest of the world. Now, I am getting my voice into the world more and trying to contribute usefully to society and hopefully further knowledge or at least spread it further. Or perhaps connect two dots for someone, introduce two people that go on to do great things, etc. And I hope I can be a good friend, significant other, possibly parent someday too. Someday soon, I hope.

I am trying to finish a lot of things this year and start others, namely a new career, somehow, some way. I don’t know how to place myself though, or sell myself that well. “Hey, I’m that open-about-myself-on-the-internet-guy…”.

In an era of tight budgets everywhere and a world where employees seem to be viewed more as liabilities than assets (gotta make the share-holder rich above all else, right?), it’s obviously important to show that you’d add value to a team or a company. I wish I could translate my value into monetary terms…just simply say “yeah, I can bring in $200k in new revenue to the company each year if you hire me” (yes, I chose an arbitrary number). I have no credible way to really make that claim from my current position though. I don’t want to say that I can’t do that, but I don’t have a track record of saying that either.

Maybe I bring a new perspective? As an individual, maybe that’s true, but then there’s the issue that I am a white male looking for a job. In theory, I know this means all the doors are open to me. However, because I believe there are issues with diversity and bias everywhere, it is truly not a fair playing field. I am aware that I do not add diversity to nearly anywhere that would take me in any industry (perhaps there’s hope at the individual company level even if STEM industries & related fields are white male dominated as a whole).

In a tight job market, any job I get is literally taking an opportunity away from someone else (esp. true in academia, I think). Of course, I do need a job still…stay-at-home single person is not currently a thing, unless you’re independently wealthy. I don’t know how big an issue to make of this, except to say that it’s something I don’t have a good answer to, but feel is a real issue. I know no one is asking me to step back and not compete (just to help change the culture with the long-term goal of achieving parity, I guess?), but can I be pro-diversity and also take a job in a field that has issues with diversity? I don’t know. It’s not really credible for me to say “yeah, I can affect change from the inside” (you know who’d do that better…a member of a group that faces societal biases). This isn’t to say, “woe is me”, but it is something I think a lot about.

I founded a Science blog. And I enjoy writing it. (check it out here). that’s probably the only self-promotion I’ll do in this post. and of course, it’s just one of many science blogs out there. One that’s devoted to plants, which is maybe a bit more rare in the scicomm world, but still…yet another science blog.

I am slowly networking and writing more, trying to put a lot of energy into communicating more effectively…hopefully with some success. I am trying to upgrade my skill set, etc. I am willing to learn, but then, that doesn’t seem to really be that valued a thing in today’s economy. Who isn’t willing to learn? To look like an idiot doing so, and come out the other side more humble, but having learned something new?

I like being able to take my time and think things through, explore something deeply. That is almost certainly not valued in today’s world. Fast. That is what matters. Not circumspection & dotting i’s, crossing t’s. Those things only seem to matter after something goes wrong.

Maybe I’m empathetic and listen more because of my experiences with mental illness, but then I also feel pretty tone deaf to too many things in the world too.

I feel more confident that there’s a place for me out there somewhere, but whether I can identify it and attain it is still really a murky process for me.

More to come, I’m sure.

 

 

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Daring Greatly/comfort zones.

The NPR show “On Being” re-ran their interview with Brene Brown.

For those not familiar with her work, it’s all about vulnerability, shame, and trying to live in a more whole-hearted way, or those that don’t ever question whether they are ‘enough’.

Her work, along with a few others that hit similar themes really does resonate with me. And it’s been not small part of better managing depression. And her work is not ‘just be positive, and things will work out’…it’s perfectly possible that anything anyone tries will not actually work or go well.

I was listening to the interview this morning and wondering if I’ve truly been pushing myself to “Dare Greatly” the last few years, or have I only really put myself on the line in small ways, ways that don’t really matter, that are harmless to me. Have I been vulnerable? On one level, I suppose so. Because of this blog, I have been open about dealing with depression. On other things, not so much. I still seem to have a really hard time exposing myself to the world (though I am a little better than I once was, for sure). I don’t know that I really show love to people I care about or have feelings for all that well; I still tend to hide that (with some exceptions for really close friends of mine). I haven’t been able to really stick myself out there professionally either, though I did a little bit more of that last year perhaps.

It’s a mixed bag, but it’s a question I keep asking myself. Do I feel like enough? Deep down, I still don’t. It’s still negotiable whether I am worthy or not in my head. And that is a problem. It does make it harder to extend myself, to develop more. I’m not sure how to get there. And I’m open to suggestions.

 

 

 

 

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Career planning.

Biochem Belle has been chronicling her career path from academia to ‘not academia’ in a series of blog posts. Part 3 is particularly about the transition point, one that sounds like it took awhile to get to. Dr. 24 hours also wrote about figuring out a career by a sort of ‘faking it til you make it’ approach that kind of runs anathema to academia. He wonders why academics have can’t just do that.

This is on my mind…as a pre-transition phase academic, still trying to figure out what direction works for me…not just careerwise, but in life.

Why do academics have such trouble transitioning? Training? Lack of skills? I don’t quite think it’s either of those things. There’s a mindset that gets cultivated in academia. Some of it is due to a narrow devotion to a task and being in a culture that sends the message that the tenure track is THE path, nothing else. But that is starting to fade away as awareness spreads about the problems in academia and the fact that the tenure track is a minority employer of PhDs now.

I can’t speak for everyone else, but the academic mindset in me has given me a narrow set of operating parameters. There’s a need for evidence that we’re more flexible that isn’t well demonstrated, even if it’s true. I’m a blogger…so I guess I have that going for me as ‘flexibility’ goes. There are altruistic reasons people get into academia. It’s knowledge generation, it’s solving puzzles and answering questions, it’s doing something for the long-term. While industry and companies in the private sector might have some of those things, the sense I have is they’re all about a short term gain. There’s nothing wrong with that necessarily, it’s just that many academics are geared to be the shoulders of the giant that future researchers will rest upon. It’s a different mindset. And some academics may fear the ‘fast pace’ they hear about in the private sector– the fear being that deep thought does not occur in those places (it probably does on some level, but decisions are made with far less than complete info).

There’s also the mindset that career searching, networking, and other experiments like it aren’t very hypothesis driven. I think there’s a generation of scientists (me among them) that really think the only acceptable kind of work is hypothesis driven. Observational studies are a joke and anything open ended, the ‘fishing expedition’ (aka mutant screens), are bad. Of course, good science can come out of all of these things and all have their limitations/advantages, but the hypothesis driven questions currently reign supreme. And career searches and transitions, dating, the stuff of life may have testable hypotheses, but are far from well controlled experiments. We’re taught to take some risks with experiments, but even then there’s a need for proper controls, clean environments, etc. We’re taught to try to control for any chaos to measure what we need to measure. We want elegant experiments (think Pasteur’s flask experiment), but those aren’t easy to do with personal exploration or life.

Of course, scientists are also people…and I know I’ve been in my own particular ‘work is my life’ bubble for so long that it’s hard to know if I’m a complete freak/weirdo. Most scientists I know have significant others, some have kids, and they get their science done. Those ‘normal’ people do seem more able to handle transition. I think there’s a sense with PhDs and postdocs that we need permission to do anything from PIs, committees, or other mentors guiding our work. While that is true in other professions as well, the power differential between postdocs and PIs is (or seems to be) greater than that between most boss/employee relationships.

And last, every academic I have met has some degree of obsessiveness about them. A perfectionist (in the bad sense) streak that can induce analysis paralysis and make taking action, especially different and uncertain actions, harder to take. Too many academics probably have the so-called fixed mindset (as opposed to the much healthier growth mindset).

 

I don’t fully know what holds me back, and I am moving again. Learning, trying new things (still in this experimental phase, I feel), but still pre-occupied with science. There’s also the ‘how do you know when you’re done?’ in academia…there’s always more that can be dug into (including in this post, I’m sure).

I think there’s an Einstein quote that says something like ‘you can’t get to a new place with thinking that got you where you are now’…so the challenge for the new career path seeking academic is partly one of trying to think differently about a lot of things. And that isn’t easy, but is possible. We are creative, intelligent, sometimes funny, and odd thinkers. Thinking differently and changing our minds is what we’re trained to do.

 

 

 

 

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