Facts & Arguments is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.
I am a scientist, always have been. My first study involved determining the ratio of boy winners to girl winners in TV ads for board games.
Like any other eight-year-old, I had a short attention span, so I became distracted before I was able to carry out my data analysis. This was probably a good thing, as I was starting to attract nervous stares from schoolmates when I talked about what I did when I got home.
I am a scientist. Having developed the necessary attention span with age, I studied biology at university. It was fascinating – fascinating enough to convince me I should stay in graduate school for six years and earn two more degrees.
Graduate school allowed me to shift from studying science to doing science. It reawoke in me the passion I'd had as a child for asking questions and hunting down the answers. This time, though, my matured attention span allowed me to focus long enough to collect, analyze, interpret and publish my data. A bonus was that my peers did all of these things, too, which meant I could talk enthusiastically about what I did day in and day out without receiving nervous glances.
I am a scientist. Toward the end of my doctorate, I contacted professors the world over with my ideas for new research, hoping someone would hire me as a postdoctoral fellow – the logical next step after finishing a PhD.
I was met with the same answer every time: Your ideas are promising, and you would be a good fit in my laboratory, but I have no money to pay you. Please contact me when you have money to pay yourself.
This situation is no longer news among my colleagues, nor was my struggle unique. But I was hit by the awareness that the job of postdoctoral fellow is one that requires employees to seek out their own salary. My frustration with the funding climate for science was no longer just on principle; it was personal.
Of course, there are government fellowships to apply for, which pay postdocs just enough to pay bills and perhaps begin saving for the future, assuming they can scavenge enough food at department socials to keep grocery costs to a minimum. Receiving one of these fellowships is a massive accomplishment, and extremely few of us are successful in the annual competitions.
Am I a scientist? Knowing my chances were so very slim, I chose not to apply for a postdoctoral fellowship right out of grad school. This was my first step on the path outside of academia. It made me question who I was, and it shook my confidence.
I searched endlessly for jobs. I joined LinkedIn, networked as much as my introverted personality allowed, went to job fairs and spoke to career counsellors. I applied to 30 jobs and received zero responses.
I fought the urge to resent those baby boomers who walked with an undergraduate degree into a permanent job at the age of 22. I am sure they had their own struggles, and resentment is not a productive state of mind.
Am I a scientist? Eventually I managed to land a job, and for the first time in a long time I was ecstatic. I didn't care that it meant I wouldn't be collecting data any more. I was now a professional woman who wore nice clothes to work, who had a boss and who took lunch breaks. A bonus was that the job was in an academic institution, so I was still around familiar sorts of people. Not only that, but it was a job in which the skills I learned in graduate school could be put to use. Of my peers who stepped off the academic path, I was one of the lucky ones.
Nevertheless, it was a big adjustment to go from being in charge of my own projects to playing a supportive role for others' research by helping to write grant applications, and writing and editing manuscripts for publication. Soon, the allure of a paycheque, good clothes and lunch breaks wasn't enough to make up for the fact that I missed doing science. I yearned for my grad-school days, designing experiments, collecting data from furry critters and travelling to conferences all over the world. I regretted not fighting harder to stay in science. My feelings of failure returned.
I think I am a scientist. I have found a growing community of PhDs with "alternative academic careers." I am not alone. Despite their reputation as rigid, scientists can be creative. Many of us have found nontraditional and fulfilling ways to contribute to science. Some teach, others are science journalists. Some have gone on to medical or law school. And some, like myself, have chosen to stay close to home as university staff members, helping research institutions run like well-oiled machines.
Slowly, I have begun to feel like my old self again, and am shedding the feelings of shame at not following the path of my academic mentors. I am beginning to see my future as full of opportunities that the ivory tower may not have afforded me.
I am a scientist. Though I am disappointed by the current paucity of research opportunities, and find myself working on the projects of others, I know who I am and will keep thinking and talking science, paying no mind to nervous glances.
Joelle Thorpe lives in Kingston.