Relief

It has been my experience that the moment when I decide to stop obsessing over something and resign myself to whatever may come, even though what's coming is not really what I ever envisioned is also the moment that things start to happen.

In a previous post I mentioned that I had sent out a "fishing" e-mail to the sciences director of a local technical college. That was nearly two weeks ago and I had kind of written that off. Because it's a terrible job market and economy right now and because I don't have the teaching experience I feel like I need I have spent a large portion of the last few weeks planning out a post-June 30th life in which I don't have a job. While my husband and I could deal with a one-income household (at least for a bit) this is not something I have ever really desired. I've been doing lots of research into how I can save money - I have told myself that I will have the time to iron and starch S's shirts, I will have the time to clip coupons and run immediately to Walgreens for that random Tuesday sale and I will have the time to plant a garden thus saving us at least some money on fresh vegetables. I know, it's kind of sad, but I promise you, if you were in my situation you'd be trying to find ways to feel useful and not this big giant burden on your husband too. So today, while I was bookmarking on-line coupon sites (no, really) an e-mail popped into the in-box. It was a reply from the associate dean of the technical college. (Insert gasp of shock and near-crying experience out of total relief here).

He complimented me on my CV, wants to know what my fall looks like (little does he know how open it is) and what I'm looking to get out of teaching. Attached was the application for employment that he said I should fill out as the next step. I certainly don't have a job yet, but I think this was a huge leap in the correct direction and I'm excited again about the prospect of doing something new.

As for all that business about clipping coupons and being able to starch my husband's shirts......I have to say that I kind of didn't mind the idea of being able to take care of my family (small though that is at the moment) and my house a little more than I do now. And who doesn't like the idea of learning how to shop smarter to save money? If I'm lucky, maybe I'll be able to do a little of both.......

One way to figure out you're not getting the job......

While I'm not getting any hits on my applications, I do appear to be serving at least one purpose to my potential employers. It seems as though my applications are excellent reminders for them to remove the job posting from their websites.

Example one: In November I applied for a lecturer position at a local college. I never heard from them, however, 2 days after my application had been sent in the job posting had been removed.

Example two: Sunday evening I e-mailed in my application for that grant writing position. I haven't heard anything from them. Today when I went back to that University's job website I saw that the position had been removed.

Ok, so maybe I overreacted - this has only happened to me twice. On the other hand, I've only applied for 4 positions which means I'm at a 50% "Oh crap, we still have that job posted?" rate. Now, if only I can figure out how to get paid for that........

A Few Thoughts

I currently have 3 applications out. The first is for that assistant professorship at a local liberal arts college. The second is an adjunct application at a different liberal arts college. I rewrote my application and e-mailed it this time, directed to the correct person, hopefully. And finally, I e-mailed away my resume and cover letter for a possible grant writing position. Every time I send out an application I get a pit of anticipation in my stomach, like I can't wait to hear from these places when they tell me I have an interview. But that has yet to happen. I'm not yet familiar with the timeline of when there's still hope versus when I need to give up on a particular job. We'll see. Of course job opportunities are few and far between these days, so while there was a bunch for me to apply for at first, now that I'm caught up with what's come up in the past few months I'm now at a plateau where I check my job sites every morning and wait for that next thing to apply for to show up.

In the meantime,......today is the first day that I feel like I'm useful in the lab again. The last few days of the week we found out what was happening were spent in a lethargic-shock state. Plus we felt completely justified in sitting around doing nothing. Last week I didn't mean to do quite as little as I did, but it takes time to start back up after you've essentially taken 3 days off. Also, I was spending a lot of time searching for jobs. Plus, our PI was being very very very difficult to deal with and that just made me want to accomplish nothing, mostly out of spite (I tried not to feel that way, but it didn't work). Finally today I am doing a big giant experiment that will take all day and has loads of steps and makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something. It's a nice feeling, really.

On a completely other note, my husband has suggested that if I really want to use this blog as a tool to break into science writing I need to write about science here - I completely agree with him, but the amount of time and effort that that would require is not something I have at the moment. Of course that statement brings along with it a whole lot of guilt - like, if I really want to change my career I clearly can't be lazy about it. At the moment though, I'm still putting in the hours at the lab and when I go home I like to relax, cook dinner, watch TV and read books that are fluffy. But, I do realize he has a point, and so I plan on making an effort (a slow one, but an effort nonetheless) to pick a science topic, do a bit of research and make a coherent blog about it every now and then. Actually, since I have a mostly non-science audience - what scienc-y stuff interests you? Give me suggestions and I'll see what I can do.

Slow Friday

It's not too exciting in here at the moment. Our tech is off for the day and our boss is away as well. For better or for worse, knowing my time in here is extremely limited and knowing I don't plan to do research in this form once I'm done here has changed my priorities - and therefore my motivation.

I'm certainly spending time at the bench, but I'm being very choosy in what experiments I do. Really, I'm trying to get the most useful information out of 4 months. At the same time, I'm trying to ease out of this life into whatever one is waiting for me beginning on July 1st. I'm spending a lot of time doing what will benefit me in the end. I'm searching for jobs. I'm writing this blog. I'm reading and reading and reading whatever I can find about alternative careers and other blogs about education and being a woman in science.

Still not much progress job-wise - but I've only been at this for a week, so I won't get too disappointed in myself quite yet. Today I sent my CV to an on-line tutoring service - they're interested in me, but currently at maximum capacity within my field. I've been told I'll be contacted when there's an opening - hopefully this is true.

This weekend I'll be getting my materials ready to a) resend in regards to the adjunct position that I misdirected, b) send the first round of materials to another local college expecting to have openings in a year or 2 and c) switch my CV over to a resume (my business-type husband is going to help me out here - I'll blog about how to do this once I've learned myself) so that I can apply for a part-time grant writer position. My deadline is Monday to get these three things going. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

  

My Heroes

A list I strive to join someday

A Third Path and an "I Wouldn't Hire Me" Moment

Besides teaching or career advising, I've always enjoyed scientific writing. According to my graduate advisor (although perhaps not so much my postdoc advisor) I'm pretty decent at it. In fact, when I first told my Ph.D. advisor that the standard path through academia might not be for me, a career in writing was what she first suggested.

I've come across two opportunities to pursue in this vein. The first was for a medical writer and came from Craigslist and the requirements were a Ph.D. (got it), postdoctoral experience (got it), experience with manuscripts and grants (yep, that too) and 0-2 years of experience. It's really difficult to find a position that's outside of what I immediately do for work and so I was incredibly excited to see this posting. I've already sent off an e-mail in reply with my CV attached. The second I found on an area-university's website and was for a grant writer. Basically I would mine the internet for grant opportunities for the faculty at this university and I would aid in the writing process. In order to apply for this one I'm going to need to turn my CV into a resume, but that isn't too much of a problem (I hope).

On a more embarrassing note, I re-visited the website of the school that I've sent an adjunct application to. Upon visiting the page devoted to inviting people to apply for adjunct positions I was mortified to realize that I had not looked at the page well enough and had in fact sent my application back to the wrong department. I thought that there was one general application to download and send back in to the human resources department. Turns out that there is just a general application, but it should have been mailed into the attention of a specific person in the division that I'm interested in. The fact that the application asked me to state what division I'd like to work for is a bit confusing, not to mention the fact that the division listed first on this page has an extremely generic name. But really, this is my fault for not taking more time. This is not the job market in which I can afford to make a stupid mistake. But this is also not the job climate in which I can write off an adjunct position at this institution. And so I'm going to fill out that application again and send it right back.......but this time I'll be sending it to the right person...........

Wednesday

Today I spent about 30 minutes on the phone with the woman who heads up the career services portion of the graduate office where I went to school. She was very helpful, both with suggestions about how I could get into academic advising or teaching. She strongly recommended "adjuncting." She was quite honest about how I wouldn't get paid very much, but it would be a huge boost to my CV as I apply for more full time faculty positions. She said that besides waiting for specific calls for adjuncts, she knew of many graduate student who had success simply by e-mailing the head of the biology department at a number of schools and requesting to be kept in mind should a course come up that they were suited to teach.

As far as getting into academic advising, I wasn't surprised to hear her say that a lot of it came down to being in the right place at the right time. Her best suggestion to me was to become involved in the postdoctoral office where I am now - unfortunately with only about 4 months left here as a postdoc, that's not going to get me very far.

I was very happy to realize that I really am doing all I can me and I'm using the right resources for what I want to do. Each time she mentioned a school in the area that I should check out it was generally already on my list. Also, all the science/higher education websites she mentioned were ones that I'm already checking on a daily basis. I suppose I can sleep well at night knowing I really am checking out all the local options each day.

   

Out of my Hands

I mailed off two applications this morning - one for an adjunct position and one for an actual associate professor position. Once I got into the lab I managed to get the department fax machine, circa 19wheneverfaxmachinesfirstcameout to send away my transcript requests and that was it - my part is done until there's a new position to apply for. And now I get to wait. I hate waiting and I hate things being out of my control, but such is life.

Speaking of out of my control, I'll use this moment to discuss reference letters. Reference letters are ridiculously important (at least I think so). My transcript can tell you how I do when I take tests, but my references can tell you how long it takes me to lose my temper and how I deal with stress and how well I get along with other and about a bunch of other important things.

Choose your references carefully and have more than the usually required -3- on-hand in case one is out of town or is too busy to get something together quickly enough or just doesn't quite fit the bill in a particular instance. When choosing references who aren't the obvious (your boss, your graduate advisor) try to find the right balance of -they'll carry some weight but still know enough about you to make a personal impact. Also, make sure to keep up with your references. I still ask my college advisor for letters of recommendation all the time and I graduated nearly 7 years ago (ugh). I don't just e-mail him when I need a letter, but make sure to send him an update and find out how he's doing every 3-4 months. It keeps them connected and they're much more aware of what you've been up to when you do need that letter.

This particular position (the assistant professorship) required that have 3 references send in letters. For me, this was an easy decision - Yesterday I told my boss I'd need a reference soon and I'd have the address for him in a day or two and I e-mailed both my college advisor and my graduate mentor and asked for them to mail letters for me. I conveyed as much urgency as I could while profusely apologizing for how quickly I needed these letters to go out. I included an "out" in the e-mail to my college advisor. When all of this went down last week he was one of the first people I e-mailed.....and I got no response. That is so incredibly unlike him that I was fairly certain that he must just be swamped. And sure enough I had an e-mail back this morning that said he could get it together next week at the earliest but if it had to be quicker I should find someone else. I will miss having his recommendation, he knows me well, but I can't tell you how much I appreciate his honesty in suggesting I get a different person. I e-mailed a PI who was on my committee instead and she quickly agreed to have a letter in the mail within a day or two. My graduate mentor was equally easy and let me know today that her letter would be in the mail by the end of the week as well.

That leaves my boss here. I told him this morning when I came in that I had an address for him and I got a fairly abrupt "I can't work on your letter until next week when I get back." (He'll be away from Thursday to Saturday). I'll let you all draw your own conclusions as to how I should feel about that - and how I actually do feel about that.

My application is in the mail though and by the end of the week the college should have my application papers as well as 2 of 3 references and my transcripts. Hopefully that's enough to at least get the ball rolling.

Period of Wallowing in Self-Pity is Officially Over

Today I am officially starting the search for something new to do (sorry about the rhyme).

First, I should mention that there are a number of websites that will be the foundation for my search. I plan to check back at each website each morning to look at what new jobs have been posted that I might apply for. They are:

• The Chronicle of Higher Education



• HigherEdJobs.com



• Science Careers



• Nature Jobs



• USA Jobs



• Craigslist

The first four are also excellent for keeping up with what's going on in science these days and in the job market. Additionally, the Chronicle is a fantastic resource full of blogs and articles that are great to read in order to stay informed with trends in undergraduate education. USA Jobs is the government's website for job opportunities. And finally, Craigslist - yes, I realize I won't find the career of my dreams here, but it is a decent source for finding tutoring jobs which might fill some time and some monetary need. I'm also checking the career pages on websites of local colleges just in case they don't list their positions with one of the above websites.

There are also a few more concrete things that I'm doing today as far as the job search. First, I e-mailed the director of the graduate career center where I did my graduate work to find out how she got her job and what extra things she may have done to get her position. (I should mention here, that while teaching is my main goal, I would be happy doing a number of service-oriented jobs aimed at helping scientists get on the correct career path). She was more that willing to help me, and even suggested that chatting on the phone would be easiest - so I have a call with her set up for later on this week.

Next, I e-mailed the dean of the sciences division of a local technical college. I am fortunate to work across the hall from a graduate student with similar career goals and she has taught classes at this institution. She said they're often looking for teachers and that it would be worth my while just to make them aware that I exist and ask that I be kept in mind should any instructors be needed. We'll see where that gets me.

Finally, there are two positions that I am actually applying for. Both are at small-ish liberal arts colleges in the area. For one school I am simply filling out their generic adjunct teacher form and passing along my transcripts. For the other college I am applying in response to a specific job call. It has been open for a while and so I fear that the position may already be filled. Additionally, it is for a full time professorship - my dream job, but I'm worried that the teaching experience I have may not be enough. I have nothing to lose though and of course there's that whole "nothing ventured, nothing gained" thing. Besides, it's impossible to predict what about me will make certain people decide not to hire me and other people decide I'm the perfect candidate.

That's it for today - 2 fishing e-mails and two real live applications that will be in the mail tomorrow. And so it begins...........

I am an ostrich

I realize that the purpose of this blog is to chronicle my steps toward a new job/new phase in my career. And I also realize that I haven't told you about any steps I've taken yet. That's because I haven't done anything yet to find something new to do. I am allowing myself a few days to stick my head in the sand and pretend that nothing has happened.

I hope that the two previous posts will convey a little of what I've gone though in the past couple of days. It's draining and not just a little overwhelming - especially when you consider that I'm using this as my "big sign" to make the switch in career path that I've been thinking about for a long time. There are so many things to consider and within 24 hours of being told you don't have a job anymore isn't the time to try and fit everything into a neat little box again.

The day were were told the lab was essentially over was Wednesday. It is now Friday. I told myself that I would allow myself to sit in the lab and be entirely unproductive until the weekend. I also told myself that I would not set foot in the lab over the weekend - instead I will clean my house, read books for fun and, most importantly, spend some time with my husband.

On Monday my pity party is over. I plan first to march into my boss' office and find out what he wants me to work on for 4.5 months. One of my current projects is worth continuing, while the other should be sidelined since I can't move forward on it quickly enough (in my opinion). But I don't want to sit here for months and not do constructive work. Second on my list for Monday is to send out a few applications for adjunct teaching positions and send a few e-mails to people who might be able to find some teaching/work opportunities and at the very least put me on the right path.

I'm not quite ready to motivate and I think that's fine. I know that for me, giving into the desire to play an ostrich for a few days is critical for my drive to move on and find that next position that's out there waiting for me.

Growing Up Overnight

We didn't really see it coming. There were small hints, but nothing that we took seriously enough. My boss had told me just two weeks ago that his annual meeting with the department chair was coming up and he was 99% sure that he'd receive the funding to keep me another year and that he would fight tooth and nail to keep me. He was very reassuring, but still wanted me to know that this was a very distant possibility. Mostly for fun, the three of us in the lab started having secret conversations about whether or not one of us was going to have to leave and what we'd do and we weighed the pros and cons of keeping the tech vs the grad student vs the postdoc. The day before his meeting our boss spent a lot of time reconciling every penny of our current spending and while this made us a bit more nervous, it wasn't particularly unusual the day before a budget meeting. When our boss got out of his meeting the next day he left work for the day immediately. This was certainly a sign that he was unhappy - but it still wasn't a sign of what was to come. We convinced ourselves that if he was going to have to let any of us go he would have done it right away. After all, how fair was it to be all dramatic and run out of work leaving us to wait to hear that we didn't have jobs? We still didn't quite see it - in hindsight, maybe we were protecting ourselves.

The next morning our technician told me that the boss looked absolutely horrible when he came in, but he was in another lab until at least 11:30 and so we'd have to wait. I can't quite describe the atmosphere in here. We were beyond wound up, but I still don't think we saw it coming. He came back to the lab to return something to his bench and then left the lab - I relaxed a bit. If it was coming, he would have done it then. And so I went to eat my lunch. 5 minutes later the student came to find me and said "The Boss will be looking for you. I know what it's about, but I'm not telling you, I just wanted to warn you. He's got The Tech now." My blood turned to ice and I couldn't eat anymore. I was convinced that I was the one being let go - the student hadn't been in his office long enough to have had the breakdown that certainly would have come if it had been her. I waited 5 minutes more and then went back to the lab. Our tech was already back - and completely calm. I new at this point that it was me. She looked at me and said "Remember to breathe." Oh God. It took another 20 minutes for the boss to come and get me and during that time my blood pressure skyrocketed and I couldn't stop shaking. I was miserable there, just waiting - although I think the wait prevented my boss from having to see the great meltdown.

I was only in his office for maybe 60 seconds. He told me as quickly as possible and I ran away as quickly as possible. Knowing it wasn't just me but also our tech and essentiall our boss who's jobs and careers were over as we knew them made it much worse. I IMed my husband and cried, but not as much as I thought. Mostly I turned into a zombie. I was exhausted suddenly and felt absolutely nothing. Literally, nothing. My boss came into the lab and asked me a question about an experiment that I'm doing - I answered his questions while fighting back and very bitchy "You just told me I'm done with this job in 4 months and you want me to talk about science with you?!?" I finished what I had to do for the day and left at 3:30.

I was fine when I was alone. It wasn't until my husband got home and I actually had to talk about how it had happened that I lost it. It just made me sad. And then, once I'd gotten that out of my system, I felt nothing again. I still don't quite feel anything. The only time I feel something is when I realize that my time working with these people is much closer to ending than it should be and then I get sad again. When I walked in to the lab the next day I chatted with our tech and we both agreed that it was worse than the night before. We were both exhausted. I said I felt much older on this morning than I had when I walked in the morning before. Our tech agreed and said she thought we kind of grew up overnight. I agreed and and she even suggested that maybe that wasn't a bad thing. "You're right" I agreed. It was pretty obvious that neither one of us thought that was true.

A "Brief" History of how I Ended up Here

Where I want to go will (hopefully) make more sense if you know where I came from.

I grew up in Small Town, New England, the daughter of two parents who had also grown up in that same Small Town. While they never left, they certainly encourage me to do so and I did this by going to school.

I started out with baby steps and attended a small, liberal arts college with only about 2,500 undergraduates. This school was located just 100 miles from home - strategically chosen for being far enough away from home to have to live there, but close enough to home for emergency visits. I earned degrees in both biology (for my career) and religious studies (for fun).

My little school was one of those places where you have classes with only 7 other students and you become friends with your professors. For me, there were two particular professors that I could not have succeeded without. They were also the reason I changed from "biology major with no idea what to do in life" to "biology major who wants to do for other students what these two have done for me." And so, I had a plan - become a biology professor at a small school.

This, of course, meant first obtaining my Ph.D. With very little in the way of advice (partially my fault for not asking, and partially my adviser's fault for not offering more information that would have been useful) I landed myself a spot in an interdisciplinary graduate program at a very large research university 1,200 miles from home.

I soon found myself surrounded by people who were far more serious about science than I was at a school in which people with my career goals were a joke and trying to find teaching experience was more difficult than achieving nuclear fission. I very quickly learned to not talk about what I really wanted to do with my life and to pretend that I absolutely loved research and wanted a traditional academic career. Because of this I was able to become a student in a very large, very well known, very well funded lab. I struggled for a while, but soon learned good lab techniques, became super-efficient and maybe even became an ok scientist. Somewhere in there I realized that I had probably attended the wrong graduate school....that I should have gone somewhere where teaching was important. I realized that with a bit more guidance in college I could have ended up at a graduate school far more amenable to my career goals (although if I had never gone to this particular school I never would have found my husband and so I will never complain about this too loudly). At this point my goals expanded from just teaching at a small college, but to provide more help and preparation for chosing the right grad school and then succeeding once there than I had received.

Graduate school went by quickly and suddenly I was faced with the choice of where to go next. I knew I had sacrificed a lot of time in which I should have been getting teaching experience to research just to keep my boss happy. And so I knew that applying for teaching positions right out of school was not an option. I decided a teaching postdoc would be best for me and even got the support of my boss. Unfortunately the best career opportunity for my husband would take us to a region of the country with no teaching postdocs and therefore I decided to give an academic postdoc a try......I tried to tell myself that I didn't hate research, I hated the politics and I hated graduate school and so this second chance for a relationship between me and the bench would be good.

Because of my husband's job, I was geographically limited as far as choice. Most people saw this as a bad thing. I saw it as a way to streamline my search. I had no trouble finding 10 labs at the 4-ish major institutions in the area that conducted research I considered interesting and translatable to a smaller institution, when the time came. I will save the frustrations of my search for another post if anyone is interested. Suffice it to say that because of funding and my average publication record I was left to chose between two labs. One with a PI having tenure issues and one with a PI having funding issues. I went with the funding issues - and again, if you're interested, I'll be happy to write a post on why.

So, last summer I packed myself up once again. I'm still 1,200 miles away from home, but in another region of the country. Despite a limited budget I actually have had a lot of fun as a postdoc. I get along with my boss. I enjoy the two women I work with. My reseach has had a slow start but I was getting somewhere with it. And I was looking forward to starting my second year when I would be allowed to get some teaching experience. Despite my failure to secure an NRSA, my boss was pleased with my progress and my work ethic and was going to keep me for another year.

And then two days ago my boss had his yearly meeting with the department chair. And then yesterday he let us know that as of the end of the fiscal year both myself and our technician would be out of a job and that our student could stay one more year to finish up. We had had a bit of an idea that something like this was coming, but we didn't know it would be this bad or this soon. We're all still in shock and waiting for some sort of emotion to happen other than being tired. My boss can't look me in the eye yet even though I'm not upset at him and I will never blame him for whatever happens to me and my career in the future. Someday I will be able to say that to him without tearing up.

And now it's today and I can admit that I don't love research and that I need to follow some other career path. I can honestly say that I tried this academic life and it didn't work. Somewhere, deep down inside myself I'm relieved. This was the push I needed to stop doing what I thought I was supposed to be doing and start doing what I really want to do. But it's not going to be easy. I don't have a stellar publication record from graduate school and I have no publication record from my postdoc. I'm also short on teaching experience. And we're in a recession. But achieving what you want in life isn't supposed to be easy and so, when I finally get my dream job it will have been hard earned.

I'll use this blog to chronicle my path from here.....to vent my frustrations..........to proclaim my victories. And while it would be awesome if my readership goes off the charts, I will be happy if I reach just one other person out there with similar struggles as mine and make them feel not quite so alone.