Rational Decisions About Academia

The very intelligent and determined Biochem Belle recently posted a link to Jo Handelsman's depressing study on gender bias among scientists.  (The results are the latest in a long series showing the same thing.  I have a scientist friend with a gender-ambiguous name - in fact, he's married to a woman with the same gender-ambiguous name - and some of his recent grant reviewers were distinctly more disparaging in particular ways when they thought he was a woman.)

When I was a young, new, stupid, naive grad student, I didn't know what challenges were going to come my way specifically because I am female.  I surely learned a lot over the years.  In fact, I have already expressed exactly how I felt about it:

Academia tells me that I should stay and make sacrifices for the greater good. I should see the barriers in front of me, and they should be overcome by the force of my desire to be professorial. I should compare what I want to what I can have in academia, and give up what I want. I should see the price of motherhood in academia and elsewhere, and pay it.

And furthermore, apparently, I should have put up with my competence being judged less, and with still being offered less salary, so that I and other women could change this system from the inside.  In other words, I should endure personal misery, from which I would gain nothing, so that in future, people I didn't even know can benefit.

If women want to be professors, run research labs - that's great.  If they are willing to put up with climbing an extra-steep hill, much steeper than their male counterparts, then it's their hill to trudge up.  Then, the justification is not future-benefit-for-others, it's that that person really wants a certain thing and is working for it.  Fantastic!  Go for it, female-scientist colleagues!  Kick some ass for me.

But women also make rational decisions to go into careers where the uphill is more equal, where salaries are more equitable, and where people have children when and how they want without their bosses publicly wondering if they're really committed to their careers.  At Snooty U, only one female professor in my department had any children- one child, the year she went up for tenure.  ONE.

Do you want to guess how many male professors waited for tenure?

Industry has problems.  Industry has glass ceilings.  Women probably still earn lower salaries on average, are penalized for female-ness, and definitely run against sexist bullshit. Nowhere is perfect.  However, in academia, where the turnover is so low and the old-white-guy quotient is so high and the governance on faculty is so weak, I think the opportunities are greater for all these conditions to approach their maxima.

I liked working at Bicycle Company for many reasons, but this was the biggest: I never noticed anybody giving me a hard time for my female-ness.  I stood in rooms full of male engineers, all of whom had ten times the technical knowledge I did, and I told them what to do, and they listened, because by God, I was in charge.  I had a baby because I damn well felt like it, and got a $5000 raise and a $1000 bonus that year.  If there was a price for motherhood, it was the same price anyone would pay for being physically absent from work for eighteen weeks - not a surcharge.

Staying in academia may be an act of love for one's work, but my love wasn't sufficient.  It is a rational choice to leave, too.

Transitions, Part 5: In Which I Become An Ambivalent Housewife

There I was, with a fancy job in Big Industry. The first few months, in which I learned to build a bicycle starting with ore and a furnace, were a little tough, but eventually, I got better at it.

I was older than a lot of the employees, and a lot more professional: I never got upset in public, I never said anything rude to the clients, and I always tried to find a diplomatic way to let others save face. I also knew the most important people-managing skill: To get people to do what you want, make it the easiest thing to do.

I was really good at my job. Within eight months of finishing my training, I was in charge of a team. I was working on a big new bicycle design. Important people called me and asked me what to do. I was calm and efficient and effective and well-paid.

At the same time, it was hard. To work in such an intense place all day, then come home and try to have something left for my husband after baby dinner and baby bath and baby nursing and baby lunch packing and dishes and laundry and cleaning.* The baby got sick all the time, at daycare. He got so sick he went to the hospital for three days.

I thought my spouse and I were going to kill each other.** I thought it couldn't go on. There was a part of me that just wanted to... give up and take an easier path for a while.

Next: Hard In A Different Way.

*My spousal unit does the dishes and the cleaning, mainly. So it went both ways, in the no-energy department.
**Although, between the house renovations and the in-laws visiting, we may kill one another anyways.

Transitions, Part 4: Hire Me, I'm Not Qualified, But I'm Smart!!

So there I was, bored as anything, thinking that maybe a job would be nice.

I applied to all the biotech companies in the area. One offered me $40,000 for a full-time job and told me that all their staff had done postdocs (WHERE? South Florida Tech and Motorcycle School??) and the maximum salary was $45,000. I laughed in their faces and hung up.

I applied for a part-time editing job for which I was exquisitely well qualified, prepared to accept a ludicrously low salary. They had decided whom to hire before they advertised (bastards).

I applied for a writing job at Big Bicycle Company. "We don't pay the writers that much," they said, "but how about being a Bicycle Repair Specialist?"

"I know nothing about Bicycle Repair," I said.

"Oh, well, we'll teach you," they said.

What the hell.

Next time: Screw Working, Housewifery Here I Come!

Transitions: Sidebar

Say it, sisters.

Science PhD and postdoc training is not all it's cracked up to be:

For the great majority, becoming a scientist now entails a penurious decade or more of graduate school and postdoc positions before joining the multitude vainly vying for the few available faculty-level openings. Earning a doctorate now consumes an average of about seven years. In many fields, up to five more years as a postdoc now constitute... the “terminal de facto credential” required for faculty-level posts... Nearly every faculty member with a research grant... now uses postdocs to do the bench work for the project. Paid out of the grant, these highly skilled employees might earn $40,000 a year for 60 or more hours a week in the lab. A lucky few will eventually land faculty posts, but even most of those won’t get traditional permanent spots with the potential of tenure protection.

Also known as a Ponzi scheme:

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent [academic] operation that [pays peanuts and makes people work ridiculous hours] to separate [scientists] from their own [time, blood, sweat, and tears], rather than [returning] any actual profit earned. The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering returns other investments cannot guarantee... The perpetuation of the returns... requires an ever-increasing flow of [PhD students] to keep the scheme going. The system is destined to collapse because the earnings, if any, are less than the payments to investors.

And it hurts whenever you leave it, anyways, even if you know all this:

I think Science-with-a-capital-S was just a pretty different place when all of the current faculty were coming up through the ranks. There were some reasonable expectations for employment in science when you were done. For current postdocs, it's such a different atmosphere. Not only are there not enough academic jobs to go around, but leaving academia is usually a pretty ego-shattering experience.

(I don't regret leaving. And I'm not distressed about leaving in any way. But I *do* think it's a Ponzi scheme. The number of PhDs and postdocs greatly exceeds the number of faculty openings; most PhDs and postdocs are 'groomed' for academia; someone with an R1 requires >>1 grad student/postdoc. Ponzi scheme.)

Transitions, Part 3: Exit Strategy to Pregnant With A Side Of What Now?

Science editing! It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I looked at science editing jobs. By now I was married, and had a spouse to consider. They were all in [places we didn't want to live]. Also, like college teaching jobs, the journals all wanted a postdoc first. Because clearly writing and editing experience would be useless to a journal editor.* When you think about it, that explains A LOT....

I slowly (and then more rapidly) came to the end of my patience. I was no longer learning anything useful in my PhD work, except how to tell people to piss off in ever more creative and forceful ways, and how to avoid being mugged. Every time I talked about an exit plan, Advisor said "We'll see."

I told my advisor that I was leaving. Also that I was pregnant. And it went over surprisingly well, demonstrating that, occasionally, doing whatever the hell you want pays off. I wandered off to Cold State, because the spouse had a postdoc there. (He still harbors fond hopes of academic jobs. Also, his grad lab was much less awful than mine.)

I sat around for a few months recovering from the flashbacks and the panic attacks and the depression. I got 5 months pregnant.

I got really, really, really bored.

Next: From Here To Industry In 5,000 Easy Steps

*Favorite quote, from an editor at Nature: "Well, Nature usually requires a postdoc. But Science doesn't..."

Transitions, Part 2: Academia to Oh, Hey, Job Skills

Academia! There are very few other professions where one is paid peanuts to work 60-hour weeks for ten years (scientists) or six-to-eight-to-adjunct years (everyone else), all for a one-in-three chance of a poorly-paid job.

Look, if you want to be an academic, or love research, or don't mind academia, good for you. Really, I mean it. Academia isn't all bad. But most PhDs, even in science, will not end up in academia. My experience was, in academia, they train as if everyone will be an academic. When one then finds it undesirable or impossible, it can be a devastating transition.

**********

Back to our regularly scheduled angst recap!

After a few years of tears, depression, unreproducable results, being scooped- you get the idea- I decided that I loved science, but academia and I needed a trial separation.

My advisor was not keen on us doing anything but science-80-hours-a-week. So I didn't tell the advisor, who was never satisfied, no matter how hard I worked. Fine! Let's work less. Advisor thought I was never in lab enough. Great, let's be there less. I might as well do something else- useful to me.* After all, if there's no pleasing some people, why try?

I volunteered at the local middle school, helping kids do creative science projects. I judged the science fairs, and sat on the floor, talking to kindergarteners about pennies and barometers. I did science demos in the inner city. I took classes on science ed (one of which was spectacularly good). I thought about being a high school teacher.

I looked at my home state's requirements. I'd have to get a Master's degree at my own expense- all the teaching I had done was clearly useless, you see- and then be paid roughly $30,000. With my PhD. Um, what? I should... work really hard to do something underappreciated, for peanuts? Er, too late.

I started working with a small journal. I worked really damn hard. I eventually became editor-in-chief. I directed several major projects, including putting100 years of archives online. I was quite good at it. I liked it. How about a science editing job? That's like science research! Only with less academia!

Next: Oh, That's A Funny Idea. Ha. Ha.


*If I get any more comments to the effect that I should have been a good little robot and worked harder, I WILL DELETE THEM. I know how damn hard I worked, and it would never have been enough.

My advisor once said to SuperStar Postdoc** "Oh, SuperStar, you used to work so hard". Because SSP was only working 70 hours a week at that point. I am not kidding.

**(6 papers in 3 years, 15 job interviews, 6 job offers, ended up in That City With Wind at FancyPants U, $900,000 startup money, thankyouvery much)

Transitions, Part 1: Academia to Let Me OUT

Every so often, I hear a sweet young thing say something like this:

I just love [French/Psychiatry/Science/Research]! I really want to go to grad school, because it will be wonderful to learn all about [thing] in that atmosphere of pure scholarship. And then I can be a professor!

And then I either roll around on the floor hysterically laughing, or am overcome by a strong desire to slap them.

Here's the thing about grad school: it does not exist for you, the student. It exists to extract usefulness from you, the student, and in return, you may receive some educational experiences. It is not a charity. It is only marginally a non-profit. Altrusim does not, generally, enter into the equation. (I know, I know, shocking.) For this reason and many others, grad school often cures one's abiding love of [thing].

If you are reading this and are thinking of leaving academia, be assured, there is nothing wrong with you. You need not feel guilty for "not loving it enough". If grad school were a relationship, it would usually be an abusive one.

A lot of people, including me, go to grad school from college because they have romantic visions of becoming professors. The rough facts are that in general, this will not happen. Overall odds for entering students in any discipline (including the sciences) are one in three for obtaining a tenure-track faculty job.* But this isn't about the odds. This is about how much it hurts to give up the dream.

When I started, I thought I loved science enough to overcome any obstacle. What I learned was that I didn't. Some of the nonsense would occur any profession; some was specific to academia; a great deal was a product of Snooty U's poisonous atmosphere, incompetent administration, and vague-to-nonexistent policies, also known as "The rules are what we say they are."

Like most grad students who leave academia, I thought there was something wrong with me. If only I worked hard enough, did enough, cared enough, surely I could make my dreams come true. And if I didn't want the dream any more, I must be lazy, incompetent, and an apathetic failure.

Next: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb.

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[I am leaving for Virginia tomorrow morning to visit: my mother, my father, my sister, the dog, my friend C, C's two daughters, my friend A, A's daughter, and anyone else who crosses my path. So, I shall have to leave you in suspense. See you the 12th!]

*****

*This is probably a little skewed in the sciences/math/engineering/etc because the job prospects outside academia are often quite appealing. So maybe a lot of scientists aren't looking for t-t jobs.