Posted on behalf of Sugar Daddy
There seems to be this mindset among scientists, particularly chemists, that what we do is noble and somehow above the fray. Perhaps it comes from our training as graduate students. We live lives often completely removed from the world around us. We have friends who go home at 5 pm, cook dinner every night, watch TV programs, write books, do crossword puzzles, or other “normal” things. These people don’t “take” the whole weekend off; it is naturally given to them, an unalienable right of living in the “real world”. We are in a research lab and when we leave for brief periods, we don’t leave our work behind. Now that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but every now and then — going to get your driver’s license renewed, or “taking” a day off to go to some tourist site because a family member or friend is in town — we cross paths with the real world around us.
Bubble, meet daylight.
Long hours and an physico-emotional connection to our work are probably two of the most hackneyed topics amongst graduate students in science. But why is it that way? The obvious answer is ambition, a state of mind that isn’t unique to aspiring young scientists but can be applied to aspiring people in any walk of life — lawyers, politicians, chefs, artists, sports players, etc. But there is something unique about science. Many of us have a sense of elitism, that what we do really is that important, so noble, and there’s this sense of urgency that we can never put it down for fear of being overtaken. And that feeling, I think, contributes to a sense that we really shouldn’t be doing much else at all with our time. Do you think that? I know some graduate students do, and I’m curious as to where this feeling comes from: ourselves, our advisors, who are typically the ones who have risen to the top (one particularly cynical comment to a previous post comes to mind), our work environment, or other influences entirely?
Hah, you described my life perfectly at the moment. I spend way too much time in the lab, even when it seems like I’m not doing much work. I still watch movies at home though. And on the bike ride home, I get to see some people outside.
Anyways, I do have a sense that what I’m doing is really important and that it could potentially lead to a ground-breaking rethinking of how we look at our energy sources, even if it’s just a lowly grad student project. The problem is, progress on my project is measured by articles, which journals (i.e. you guys) publish. I make a lot of progress and see some interesting chemistry, then I have to stop everything for six months in order to publish. That means getting elemental analysis (I have the damn NMR at it can’t be anything else! Besides, if it works for what I’m intending, then the impurity was a good thing) and getting repeatable yields. Then you have to write the paper and the experimental for a really long time to make sure reviewers like it. Uggghhh. Meanwhile, the really interesting chemistry I want to see is waiting. I’m sure the people working on the Manhattan Project weren’t told to drop everything because this ‘heating’ “is really exciting and we must publish it before someone else does!” It’s just very frustrating to have so many ideas and to be held back by the established system from realizing them in as short amount of time as possible.
Everything is tied into the number of publications. Unfortunately, the industry environment that allowed you to do this interesting research doesn’t exist anymore, so I’m left feeling apathetic, and because of that, I don’t think what I do as important or elitist anymore. It’s definitely not noble. It it was, it wouldn’t be measured in the number of publications. Just another job. I need to do it less and enjoy the outside world.
Some people say I spend too much time in the lab and some people say you can become burnt out eventually but when science is a passion I beg to differ. I burn the midnight oil because I am excited to see the outcome of my experiments. I enjoy cracking the puzzle or manipulating chemicals to make them perform a desired reaction. Being a graduate student/scientist to me is being a professional puppet maker and puzzle solver, the only questions are “What do I want to create?” and “How do I create it?”. My research is not noble or important but it is very fun hah! I do know many graduate students though who think they are going to save the world or find treatments for diseases; someone has to be interested in curing diseases and saving the world… I guess?
Further, I am sure in all upper levels of any field there is a certain extent of elitism, scientists usually act intellectually elite but as seen in many surveys and studies perhaps scientists do think drastically different than the average persons about God, Evolution, politics???(Am I being elitist in saying that?)
As blatnoi said I wish I did not have to publish things. I am not good at writing, if I was I would have become an author. Instead I usually become bored of writing and start doing experiments again. Someday I hope I can hire someone to write all my publications and grants to leave me all my time to do research!!!