For many of us, the reasons we focused on achieving our Ph.D. may be clear cut--we are destined for greatness in the academic arena. For others, it was just the path of least resistance and allowed the continuation of the “student lifestyle” in a comfortable research field.
Report abuse
As postdocs, we toiled away our early 20s in graduate school working 50+ hours a week in research labs and teaching as a necessary rite of passage on the career path to academia. We justified our meager stipends, long hours, and general dissatisfaction in life with the promise of a brighter, better-paying future as principle investigators. Over-worked and under-paid, we were motivated by expectation. We were confident that in the not-so-distant future, our passion for scientific inquiry and contribution to a community of knowledge would culminate in a position worthy of our training.
I assume that many of you reading blogs on Bio Careers are recent grads or grads-to-be, and are scanning trade journals and websites looking for that plum position.
I am excited to serve as a guest blogger for Bio Careers. Please allow me to introduce myself - my name is Meghan Mott, and I am a postdoctoral fellow at NIH. I work in the Laboratory of Molecular Physiology at the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Our lab uses zebrafish to model synapse development and function. Specifically, I study the role of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors at the neuromuscular junction.
I came to a critical juncture in my career in 1969. I was pre-med for the first three years of my undergrad studies at Tufts where the environment was toxic and cut throat. Though I never saw such things, it was rumored that students sabotaged each other’s experiments. In physical chemistry, some students supposedly went so far as ordering the chemical product they were expected to produce in the lab, and adding it to their product, to artificially enhance the yield of their experiments.
We’ve all heard that question before. Even if one just answers “out,” not wanting to get into the details, it’s good to have a destination in mind. Some of you will have guessed that this is really a metaphor for life after grad school. Want another one? I saw a cartoon in the New Yorker magazine with a self-proclaimed prophet standing on a sidewalk and holding a sign reading “the end is near.” A man in a business suit is asking him “Yes, but what are your goals?”
While I am a very practical and logical person (well, aren’t all scientists?!). There is one area where I am a little quirky. There are certain experiments where I am very superstitious, and I will always adhere to it so I don’t jinx the whole thing!
I found this graphic on Simon Kemp’s Google + page recently and it is fantastic. He calls it “career planning in 60 seconds” and I think he is right. You can easily place your current job on the Venn diagram and figure out what tweaks you need to get to the #WIN. I’m happy to report that my current status is in the #WIN category….
Done with the bench…or do you just need a change of scenery instead?
Facing deadlines and having to meet them starts early in life – mostly in school and mostly not that difficult to deal with because they are pretty ordinary. Besides, you and all your buddies are dealing with pretty much the same ones. No problems for years. Go to class, do the assignments, study for exams (yes, all-nighters do work), use some “common sense” and you’ll get through.
