And I'm supposed to do this for a living?

I am taking a mid-work break to vent (and procrastinate). I have been working on a proposal now for some time, and have come across the following problems (some perceived, some real). For the sake of being specifically vague (can you be vaguely specific?), let's create a variable x and make an assumption that x = my current research. Let's further make an interesting (entirely fantastical) substitution and say x = animal hybrid breeding.

Now back to my proposal problems:

1. My research area is chock full of over-zealous scientists.
Lab A is working on monkey-rabbit breeding, Lab B is trying to get the same genetics down but maybe with hamster instead of rabbit ears grafted on, Lab C is trying to weld bananas to rabbits and call them "monkey-esque".

You get the picture.

My research interests are in dog-monkey hybrids because, let's face it, dogs could only become cooler as pets if they have prehensile tails.

My worry: That the general field of animal hybrid breeding is too crowded for a new player, especially one who isn't willing to sharpen her elbows.

2. I have brain block.
I wrote one paragraph, was super proud of myself, and then sat there for another hour, just staring at my screen and piles of data.

My worry: Being a professor is 90% about writing, especially proposals. How am I supposed to do this for a living if I can't even do it when there's not the added pressure of needing to support my graduate students


So with all of this worrying, and thoughts of failure, what do you think happened?

Fate interceded. Or rather I chose to interpret it that way.

I passed a doodle on a wall (no kidding) that had the following words, boldly but simply inscribed in awkward handwriting, and underlined twice:

"Work hard today."

Gods of academia, thy will be done. I won't give up, no matter how poorly phrased and ill-constructed this current first draft is!
I will think hard,
dream hard,
and maybe even write.

To you - my biggest fan

I was informed today that I actually have a non-anonymous follower of my blog. (Surprising someone would have to tell me this. Not so web savvy are we?) This instantly lit up my day after hours of poring over journal articles to the point of mind-numbing exhaustion. Funny how little things get us going. For all I know 'muddled grad' clicked on 'follow' by accident and will never again visit my blog to hear how my postdoctoral travails are going. For all I know 'muddled grad' is one of my labmates, intent on posting clever retorts to my flailing attempts at societal commentary.

But I digress.

The real point here is thank you. Yes, YOU, muddled grad, for being muddled enough to care to follow a muddled postdoc. For you, I include tonight's tidbit:

According to recent statistics from the NSF, women make up two-thirds of psychologists, less than half of biological and life scientists, a quarter of mathematical and computer scientists, and just one-tenth of engineers.

Bottom line: hang in there and we may just be able to scooch those numbers up.

The ultimate mediator

There was a CNN article today called "Obama, professor, officer sit down over brews". (If you don't know that this involves a potentially racial incident between a cop and a black Harvard professor... well, kindly remove your head from the sand.)

Where was Obama when I needed a sit-down with my advisor? Ah, so many troubles could be averted if the President of the US would just have a beer and mediate.

Not In my Head

I am applying for my first NIH grant soon, and am quite nervous about it. From what I've heard, it's a bit like trying to get into an exclusive club, except I don't think I'm wearing the right club attire, and I'm not cool enough to know the bouncer at the door. We shall see if this impression is all in my head. Wish me luck!

This also reminds me that "grant writing" is a seriously under-addressed topic in graduate school. I think more faculty members should make a concerted effort to include their students in the process, especially those students who express an interest in academic careers.

My middle school teacher drives a porsche

Interesting NY Times article (Elissa Gootman, "Value of $125,000-a-year teachers") today about a charter school experiment in which engaging, outstanding teachers were hand-picked to be part of an 8-teacher "dream team", working with students who were lottery-chosen with a preference towards underachieving students. The idea of the experiment is to address questions about the role of a good teacher in the classroom, and whether massive salary increases will encourage recruitment and retention of these individuals.

What makes an "engaging, outstanding" teacher? Well, engagement is measured by the ability to command student respect and also entice their immersion in the learning process (there are other formal pedagogical definitions out there if you're interested). The teachers are also stand-out in terms of their backgrounds... a Harvard graduate, a previous coach of the LA Lakers, etc. I believe they're also all current educators and were observed in the classroom as part of the hiring process.

My only remark is that, while I realize how difficult such a program would be to implement on a national scale, I think it's a terrific idea. We need innovative approaches to get us out of our over-burdened, bureaucratic ways. It reminds me of an Obama call to reward innovative solutions to pressing social problems (whitehouse.gov/issues/service). If we did pay a little more attention to improving something as key to our social foundation as education, we would stand to benefit significantly. You've heard it before- lower crime, more innovation leading to more and better jobs, more civil engagement. There's even a study called "The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools" (McKinsey) that found if the US were to close the gap between our educational achievement levels and those of the top-performers (Finland, Korea), our 2008 GDP could have been $1.3-2.3 trillion higher. Yes, trillion. That's a 9-16% increase.

Reading about this topic (an oldie, but a goodie), you see that one (of the many) factors involved in our wealthy nation's lack of K-12 excellence is the "social status" attributed to teaching. Teaching is not considered a prestigious position the way law or medicine is. Studies have found that beyond the lack of financial incentive, people who have a natural gift and inclination towards teaching will pass this up for more socially prestigious roles. I know many people personally who have PhDs from top schools, love teaching, but would consider it just a "fall back" profession. I even remember my high school English teacher specifically saying - "never go into teaching! It should be a fall-back profession." This coming from a man who was very successful and innovative in the classroom.

Who knows what would happen if we starting treating professions with respect merited by their long-term contribution to society (what could be more impactful than shaping future generations?). For example, a teacher being considered a profession of great honor as opposed to, say, a lawyer or investment banker (no offense to my friends in those professions!). We would also need more training and investment in teaching so that it really would be seen as a highly skilled job.

None for you

An ambitious, talented, narrowly focused postdoc I work with, let's call him High-horse (HH), recently took it upon himself to give me some generous advice. Knowing I was interested in applying for postdoctoral fellowships to support my work next year, HH told me not to bother. He said they're very hard to get, and I shouldn't count on it. I wanted to point out that HH had managed to acquire just such a fellowship. But I suppose all these fellowships must be limited to postdocs named HH who are brimming with condescending advice.

Yes, I still plan on applying.

Oscillation and Deprecation

FAEP (see my blog list) recently posted about oscillating between feeling on top of the world and overwhelmed in her assistant professorship. I remember feeling the same swings in graduate school, and I used to tell myself that it meant I was exactly in the right place. I think being in a stimulating environment is worth the trade-off in self-confidence from time to time (or else maybe I'm just a sucker for punishment). Otherwise why would I keep running back to just such an environment despite the lack of $$? This is in contrast to my experiences in industry where at times I felt so bored I would literally start counting down the days until my internship was over (this was after I had already bugged every manager into giving me extra projects to keep me busy). [In general, it seemed that the size of the company scales proportionally with the time workers spend just browsing the web and their personal email. I suppose that's what happens when you have so many levels of bureaucracy that everything slows to an over-engineered trickle of progress.]

On another note, I'm not sure I've heard any men (even incompetent ones) express the lack of self-confidence that seems to plague so many of the talented women I know. A friend of mine told me about a woman she admires who has an MD from Harvard Med School, a PhD from MIT, successfully leads an amazing research program, and still is self-deprecating. Another accomplished woman I know, a full professor at a top MRU, called herself a loser once for what she considered a publication rate that wasn't good enough. I was thinking, man, if you're a loser, the rest of us might as well quit and go home!! Humility is a wonderful trait but it has limits. I wonder if there's something to be said for women needing to be able to show confidence more often, even if they're just faking it for the sake of all of those who look up to them.

That being said, I often share my past insecurities with young students when they seem to need it. I think it helps them relate to me, and builds them up. Maybe the moral here is to be more aware of how we present our insecurities to the world (eg, yes when it helps students, no when it's presenting your research to a room full of faculty).