Tag Archives: Boston 2015

Work/life balance: New definitions

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The scientific culture needs to redefine work/life balance so that each person can find their own route to it, says Susan Gelman.

Contributor Susan Gelman

Which way now?

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Research science is an incentive-based career: journal publications, tenure, grant funding, fellowships, awards, etc. It is certainly not unique in this aspect, but its extreme competition does set it apart. When you commit to a research path you are not only committing to become proficient in a general subject area, but to become one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on a very specific topic, creating an environment of extreme pressure and induce tunnel vision. And so, there are many fears and anxieties that go hand-in-hand with being a scientist, including  getting ‘scooped,’ becoming the 8th year Ph.D. student, doing multi-year projects producing no valuable data. So as tempting as it can be to take a weekend off or leave the lab while it’s still light outside, we often remain in our windowless workspaces late into the night out of guilt. We worry that a scientific career won’t wait for us.

However a major problem is that science culture not only expects but also celebrates the dedicated lab rats. Many of us are secretly in awe of their work ethic, even if we don’t necessarily want it for ourselves. We hear whispers of legends renowned for spending 80 hours a week buried in the lab and wonder if we should be doing the same. And therein lies the rub: we can’t cry out for work/life balance and yet still yearn to be the ones always burning the midnight oil. Continue reading →

Career paths: Should you follow in the footsteps of your idol?

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Idols are a key source of enthusiasm, says Anthea Lacchia, not people you should try to emulate.

Contributor Anthea Lacchia

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When it comes to choosing a career, the options can feel infinite and yet non-existing, as though we are navigating through a dense forest, with endless paths stretching out in front of us.

As we scramble through the thick undergrowth, armed with hope and guided by experience and intuition, we ask ourselves: which path is the right one for me? How can I get to that coveted position? How did that person make it? Why can’t I be like them?

It can be tempting to emulate the career choices of our idols: after all, the decisions they made led them to where they are now. So following in their footsteps could be the way out of this forest.

So we trawl through online bios and CVs to see what it is that got them to their current role, increasingly feeling inadequate and underprepared for the careers we hope to follow. Continue reading →

Science idols: Not all they appear to be

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Don’t follow in the footsteps of your idols. Create your own career path inspired by their work, says Sofia Otero.

Contributor Sofía Otero 

In the 1880’s Nikola Tesla moved to New York City to work with his idol, Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor of the phonograph and the founder of Edison Electric (the future General Electric) on his ideas for alternating current systems. He believed that together they could illuminate the world. Unfortunately, Edison didn’t recognize Tesla’s talent and, since he believed that Tesla’s alternating current threatened Edison’s investment in his inefficient continuous current, he started a campaign to discredit his new adversary.

Idols are not necessarily as we imagine them: their outstanding achievements may not match an outstanding personality. Even so, they might have pioneered discoveries in their fields and are an inspiration for young scientists, attracting them to their laboratories in search of an opportunity to share their knowledge and foresight. Fingers crossed then, that your hero will mentor you and help you grow as a scientist, creating a relationship that will be fruitful for many years. However, don’t worry if for whatever reason this is not the case: be inspired by your boss but make your own decisions and become a leader. Continue reading →

Work/life balance: Remain flexible

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Flexibility is the only viable way to remain competitive as a scientist while still juggling a life, says Igor Zlobine.

Contributor Igor Zlobine

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Are we living to work, or are we working to live? I’m not certain as to how many scientists have delved deep into their souls to ask this question, but I think it’s pertinent that we all do.

Work/life balance, that mystical unicorn, remains an elusive goal for undergraduates, graduates, post-docs and professors alike. And as I am about to embark on a PhD, I’m thinking about how I can manage my time to make sure I stay relatively sane. I’ve heard too many horror stories about people half way through their PhD going for a “coffee break” never to be seen again.

For me, flexibility is the only viable way to remain competitive while still juggling a life. I’ve set hours for myself, centered approximately around a 9-5ish type of schedule (typically including some work at home on Sundays) but I break them if absolutely required, if for example we are finishing a paper, or when I was close to completing my thesis. We need to move away from the notion of “work” and “life” as two separate entities that exist in parallel universes never to interact with one another. Continue reading →

Work/life balance: A question of identity

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Achieving work/life balance comes hand-in-hand with understanding yourself and your identity as a researcher, says Justin Chen.

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Contributor Justin Chen 

During my third year at MIT, I began playing basketball with a small group of graduate students. The weekly games, casual and sloppy, were a chance to talk and catch up. During a break, a friend confessed that he felt guilty for spending a few hours away from lab. “But then I tell myself exercise is good for my research,” he said. “It clears my mind and helps me focus.” I had heard similar justifications for having hobbies and found them puzzling. “What about saying that exercise is good for you?” I asked. To what extent can we separate our personal identity (or a comprehensive view of who we are) from our research? I joked, “soon you’ll be saying eating is good for my productivity or breathing is good for my research.”

The question of identity is linked to the issue of work-life balance. Most of us have a broad identity consisting of several things like mother, runner, writer, wife, daughter, baker, musician etc., but researchers usually have one identity: their job as a scientist.  Among professions, science is unique in that some researchers choose their projects.  As an undergraduate in a developmental biology lab, I was captivated by embryos. They were not much more than three layers of tissues flattened together in the pellucid shape of an animal.  While looking under the microscope I began to wonder how a single cell becomes a complete animal and eventually applied to graduate school to find out. This decision, in one sense, freed me to follow a passion but in another way my research became a shadow or alter ego constantly trailing me. Continue reading →

Work/life balance: Get inspiration

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As well as an opportunity to relax, time away from the bench might bolster creativity, says Grigori Guitchounts.

Contributor Grigori Guitchounts

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About a year after graduating from college, I interviewed for a lab technician position with a postdoc who was gearing up to start his own lab. Chatting in Cambridge’s hipster Area Four coffee shop on a disappointingly freezing March day, I was trying to assess what kind of lab environment I should expect. After all, a highly competitive top-notch institution such as his was notorious for producing overworked, stressed people. “I work about one hundred hours in the lab every week,” he said, “plus another twenty in the clinic. And I have a kid at home.” Noticing my incredulous expression, he added, “science does not wait.”

I couldn’t help but imagine all that this young scientist was missing out on. At the peak years of his ability to explore life, this man was spending every waking hour digging deeper and deeper into ever more esoteric areas of science, and the protruding belly and baggy eyes couldn’t hide that the hours were taking their toll. Clearly his schedule did not allow for anything resembling a work-life balance, which is typically taken to mean the moderation in time spent working that allows one to engage in leisure activities daily. Taking the time to engage in activities outside the lab might not be for everyone; some are happy to be doing experiments sunrise to sunset. But besides being a way to relax, leisure activities can often reset one’s mind and inspire. Taking a break from the lab can often be the extra push needed to complete a difficult task. More importantly, time away from the bench might bolster creativity, which is crucial to the progress of science. Why then is a work-life balance so elusive for scientists? Why do so many feel that in order to succeed, they must immerse themselves completely in experiments? Continue reading →