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Comparing Notes (more story-gathering)
Aug. 9th, 2012 01:35 pmYesterday, I had dinner with two of the grad students who started grad school with me at ASU. We've kind of drifted in and out of contact over the last several years, as they finished before I did (I think I was the very last of my cohort) and went on to various different things.
One of them spent a year at another university working on some preliminary stuff that was supposedly in preparation for a grant that would give him several additional years of funding. When the year ran out, nothing much came of the work, and he actually returned to ASU to do postdoctoral work with his graduate advisor. He has a bit more time before that clock runs out, but of course he's looking around now. And scratching his head and doubting whether he'll ever get anything out of that full year's worth of effort.
The other has been working for a governmental organization in Virginia, as part of an agreement she made to get funding for her dissertation research. She's obligated to work there for a year, but says she will most likely stick around for an additional two years to gain status that will make her eligible for a range of government jobs. It sounds like a reasonably interesting situation, although the three of us talked about how much we appreciated being treated as free agents at ASU; holding someone to a structured work schedule does not necessarily lead to higher productivity. She also encounters a number of "bean counters," which is contrary to how we have been taught to think about our scientific contributions.
I've also spent some time with several people from my Organization for Tropical Studies Tropical Field Ecology course. One has a faculty job, which isn't especially surprising given his research focus and circumstances - I haven't talked to him all that much. Another has a full-time teaching job, which she loves, and a kid. She's attending the meeting purely as a spectator (the same is true of my friend with the government job), which seems a bit odd on the one hand but it's great that they're here on the other hand. One of our course instructors was there, quite pregnant, and is also in a teaching job but longs to get back into more research. And the course's teaching assistant is currently a graduate student, amusingly enough (she had a master's degree when she was our course assistant).
The guy who I'm staying with (well, him and two of his students) is also sort of a tropical field ecology connection. The first time I ever met him was at La Selva, in Costa Rica, where he gave a talk about his work on leaf litter ants in neotropical rainforests. Sometimes I find his enthusiasm a bit grating, but at heart he's a good, sincere person making useful contributions to our understanding of ant ecology. His story was interesting as well, as he had been at UCSD, but was denied tenure, and then transferred to a smaller state university. The trouble with a lot of these smaller state universities is that often the teaching load is so high that it's impossible to get any substantial, meaningful research done. In many cases, faculty are expected to create research opportunities for undergraduates, but they can't do much if they're bogged down with hours and hours of coursework obligations. This particular guy, however, has finagled a satisfactory situation for himself, as he can bring prestige to his department/university by bringing in large grants, and has negotiated a reduced teaching load in return for making some guarantees about his scientific output.
At the same time, I also talked to a faculty member at A&M who transferred there from a smaller institution because he wound up being a similar sort of big fish in a small pond, and it was a small pond that was drying up. His story shows that it's possible (though it can be quite difficult) to go in the opposite direction.
Collecting all of these stories, and hearing about the experiences of my academic peer group, is one of the most valuable things I've gotten from this meeting, so far. It doesn't exactly answer any questions for my own situation and hopes for the future, but it does give me more context for my experiences.
Often, when I go to academic meetings, I'm inspired to go back to wherever I'm staying to work furiously, but somehow that hasn't been happening so much at this meeting. I think it's due to some internal conflicts over what to work on - ant stuff or cricket stuff. It takes a lot of effort for me to transition mentally between the two, and I've largely been in cricket mode, recently. I miss the ant stuff. Plus it doesn't help if one is preoccupied by preparing to give a talk. I've discovered that this isn't the best place for giving a talk, because the meeting is so large that potential audience members wind up scattered around. Ah well. Live and learn. I'll certainly make an effort to attend this meeting again in the future, as it's an interesting one and I like interacting with the people I know here.
One of them spent a year at another university working on some preliminary stuff that was supposedly in preparation for a grant that would give him several additional years of funding. When the year ran out, nothing much came of the work, and he actually returned to ASU to do postdoctoral work with his graduate advisor. He has a bit more time before that clock runs out, but of course he's looking around now. And scratching his head and doubting whether he'll ever get anything out of that full year's worth of effort.
The other has been working for a governmental organization in Virginia, as part of an agreement she made to get funding for her dissertation research. She's obligated to work there for a year, but says she will most likely stick around for an additional two years to gain status that will make her eligible for a range of government jobs. It sounds like a reasonably interesting situation, although the three of us talked about how much we appreciated being treated as free agents at ASU; holding someone to a structured work schedule does not necessarily lead to higher productivity. She also encounters a number of "bean counters," which is contrary to how we have been taught to think about our scientific contributions.
I've also spent some time with several people from my Organization for Tropical Studies Tropical Field Ecology course. One has a faculty job, which isn't especially surprising given his research focus and circumstances - I haven't talked to him all that much. Another has a full-time teaching job, which she loves, and a kid. She's attending the meeting purely as a spectator (the same is true of my friend with the government job), which seems a bit odd on the one hand but it's great that they're here on the other hand. One of our course instructors was there, quite pregnant, and is also in a teaching job but longs to get back into more research. And the course's teaching assistant is currently a graduate student, amusingly enough (she had a master's degree when she was our course assistant).
The guy who I'm staying with (well, him and two of his students) is also sort of a tropical field ecology connection. The first time I ever met him was at La Selva, in Costa Rica, where he gave a talk about his work on leaf litter ants in neotropical rainforests. Sometimes I find his enthusiasm a bit grating, but at heart he's a good, sincere person making useful contributions to our understanding of ant ecology. His story was interesting as well, as he had been at UCSD, but was denied tenure, and then transferred to a smaller state university. The trouble with a lot of these smaller state universities is that often the teaching load is so high that it's impossible to get any substantial, meaningful research done. In many cases, faculty are expected to create research opportunities for undergraduates, but they can't do much if they're bogged down with hours and hours of coursework obligations. This particular guy, however, has finagled a satisfactory situation for himself, as he can bring prestige to his department/university by bringing in large grants, and has negotiated a reduced teaching load in return for making some guarantees about his scientific output.
At the same time, I also talked to a faculty member at A&M who transferred there from a smaller institution because he wound up being a similar sort of big fish in a small pond, and it was a small pond that was drying up. His story shows that it's possible (though it can be quite difficult) to go in the opposite direction.
Collecting all of these stories, and hearing about the experiences of my academic peer group, is one of the most valuable things I've gotten from this meeting, so far. It doesn't exactly answer any questions for my own situation and hopes for the future, but it does give me more context for my experiences.
Often, when I go to academic meetings, I'm inspired to go back to wherever I'm staying to work furiously, but somehow that hasn't been happening so much at this meeting. I think it's due to some internal conflicts over what to work on - ant stuff or cricket stuff. It takes a lot of effort for me to transition mentally between the two, and I've largely been in cricket mode, recently. I miss the ant stuff. Plus it doesn't help if one is preoccupied by preparing to give a talk. I've discovered that this isn't the best place for giving a talk, because the meeting is so large that potential audience members wind up scattered around. Ah well. Live and learn. I'll certainly make an effort to attend this meeting again in the future, as it's an interesting one and I like interacting with the people I know here.
