Tasks

During graduate school my work fell into one of a few categories, experiment design, data analysis, data collection, writing, reading articles. That’s about everything. The ratio depended on what stage I was at; lots of reading during prelim times, lots of design & writing during the dissertation. Probably the most writing I’d ever done.

Since then it hasn’t really let up. I came into a pretty good postdoc situation. I have RAs doing a lot of work for me, that frees up focus on design, data analysis, and writing. Lots and lots of writing. Looking at my task list for this week it reads:
1. Writing: for that grant you’re applying for
2. Writing: to finally publish your dissertation work¹
3. Writing: more edits on that short paper you advisor swore we’d get out 6 months ago
4. Writing: that other paper
5. Writing: that other other paper
6. Writing: kinda hoping the reviews on that paper we sent out don’t come back yet because that would mean more writing.

Soon that will be joined with the various writing needed for job applications. My writing has never been amazing but has steadily improved. Now the crucial skill is working on getting from “here is my submitted manuscript” to “here is my accepted manuscript”. Things like handling crazy reviewer requests and hornery co-authors.

This is what happens when you step away from the bench into a semi-supervisory but not quite a PI role. More top-down stuff, less grunt work. I knew this would happen My graduate school profs always noted that things change after graduate school². I suppose I could talk about this not being what I got into science for, because it isn’t, but neither was the grunt work. I guess I’m at least happy that I’m learning new skills.

1. Even if you are so sick of it you might vomit on your computer
2. So enjoy the easy part while you can, was the gist of it.

No read policy

“Worry about that which you cannot control waste energy, and creates it’s own problems”

I don’t look at other people’s CVs any more. It’s a no win situation. The best possible outcome is neutral. It is likely that something the person’s CV will make me feel bad about mine, depressed about my job prospects, suspicious of authorship gerrymandering¹, incensed that a paper with such a silly title got into a good journal, etc.

Thus I no longer peruse the CVs of up coming speakers, researchers I just met at a conference, and so on.

1. I have seen one CV I suspected was heavily gerrymandered, in the sense than the authorships were more arranged than earned. I’ve seen plenty of CVs that I’d describe impossibly good. This particular CV was orders of magnitude better than those. Imagine something like 8 first authored Science papers during the first year of graduate school.

Departmental Fundamentals

My field of study, let’s call it Bashirology, is a very common field. Virtually every major university has a department, one way or another. There’s a bit of variation in the focus of the subfields, but I would be more or less at home in the vast majority of Bashirology departments. Then there’s the applied version of the department. Maybe slightly less common, but many universities also have some group along those lines. In theory my research can be framed to fit in with the applied department. Looking at jobs in applied departments is a possibility for this fall. It would certainly increase the number of jobs to apply for, and thus my odds¹.

Thing is, as much as I believe the applications are important, that’s not really what I want to do. I fear I’d find myself intellectually isolated, cut off from all the interesting ideas that first drew me to Bashirology. The few people I know who were trained in Bashirology departments but end up in the applied department don’t sound enthusiastic about the change in scenery. “It’s…different” is the most common description, and that certainly fits with my interdisciplinary experiences².

Though perhaps when I see the paucity of jobs in Bashirology departments I will reconsider and widen my search. Maybe I would enjoy such a position more than I realize³.

1. I hear those jobs are less competitive. I have no idea if that is true.

2. Much more on this later.

3. Maybe not.