A lot of what you do in science is judged through the lens of who you are. Actually, that’s true of nearly any human endeavor, not just science. But since this blog is ostensibly about science careers, I’ll focus on those.

Honestly, it amazes me that I managed to build up some kind of reputation in my community of peers. It is not like I spent nearly as much effort at this as I probably should have. Yet, a few people have heard of me and my lab’s work. I suppose that is a good thing!

So, just to disabuse you of the notion that I have any idea of what I’m talking about, I’ll list out a few things that may have been important in gaining “street cred”:

1. jumping at nearly any presentation opportunity, except for this weird invitations to go to Dubai that I get on a regular basis.

2. actually putting together a coherent slideshow at said presentation opportunity, rather than just rambling on randomly about my data and putting everyone to sleep

3. acting like I know what I’m doing. At this point in my career I actually do have some bit of clue about what I am doing, but when I started, I certainly did not… Fake it until you make it comes to mind.

4. generate original ideas, and implement them. I have a lot of friends who are great about the idea generation, but fall down when it comes to the implementation part. That used to be me as well. I had far more ideas than implementation. But somehow I managed to get a few key ideas implemented (despite my best efforts to make it much more complicated than need be) – and having done this has given me the leverage to do more of it. Now I focus on implementing, implementing, and more implementing. A few good implementations are far better than hundreds of unimplemented “great ideas.”

5. interact with colleagues. I occasionally do things like invite them to give talks, serve on study section, and so on. This seems to be important, though overall I’m not very good at it, because I’m so busy with the implementation part these days.

6. don’t be a total jerk. Honestly, I had my jerky moments interacting with people in the past, but those were fortunately confined to relatively infrequent occasions. However, I’ve worked hard to sort out the underlying issues I had that were leading to jerkism, and now that I rarely do that anymore, working with others is far easier. It is amazing, but some people will go out of their way to be helpful when I am nice to them!

7. work on stuff people care about. This one is self evident but also seemingly very hard for many of us scientists to actually do. Maybe it is because of the “lone wolf” mythology about how great science discoveries are made. We’re supposed to go off in a lab, working all hours by ourselves on the next big thing… not worrying about what anyone thinks. But unlike fairy tales, in the real world, funding of some kind is necessary to have a lab to work in. To get funding requires actually paying attention to what the community and funders want.

8. knowing when to wrap up a project as being “good enough” and just getting it out the door, rather than trying to perfect it for so long that it becomes entirely irrelevant. Yes, I’ve suffered from that particular character flaw (the perfectionism one), and I have several unfinished papers sitting on my hard drive that will probably never see the light of day. Nowadays, I have no tolerance for perfectionism in my life or lab.

And, in order to stay true to number 8, it is time to wrap up this blog post.

The title of the post relates to a debate going on over at the Science Careers Blog.

The editor there was responding to an article by Dr. Isis that was responding to an article by Vijee Venkatraman titled: “Time to Hire a Housekeeper?”

The debate boils down to this: Vijee and Jim are saying that the idea of hiring a housekeeper is a great way to leverage your time and focus on the important things. The advice in the original article is particularly focused on female scientists.

This got the bees abuzzin’ – Dr. Isis and others are offended that the advice is particularly targeted at women. Their point: why is this advice specific to women?

It is not: anyone who wants to be really successful at a science career needs to learn how to leverage time – regardless of the particular anatomical bits one was born with.

One of the commenters over on the Science Careers blog went so far as to imply that we should all be doing housework, because to hire someone with a different skin color or of a different gender is somehow demeaning and discriminatory.

Pffft.

It is a simple equation. How much has society invested in the training of a scientist? Many years and over a hundred thousand dollars. This resulted in a skillset that few people have. Not just anyone can develop cures for cancer, or develop the next generation of fusion reactor, or etc.

But just about anyone can clean a house.

And in fact, there are a ton of people without jobs at the moment.

I don’t understand why some people are so weird about the idea of hiring help – as if it were just another thumbing-of-noses at others of lesser economic status. It seems like a win-win to me – use your specialized skills to maximal benefit, and give someone else a job so they can feed their kids.

In any case,the original article did made a mistake in targeting this specifically at women. While I don’t agree with Dr. Isis that this is another sign of bias against women, it does smack a bit much of a stereotype.

I can see why they did it. A lot of women are raised to feel that it is our responsibility to “maintain the household.” This breeds a sort of “internal pressure” to take care of household responsibilities that men often aren’t raised with.

Hence, I think it is easier for men to give up that responsibility by hiring someone to help. For some women, I think a bit of guilt comes with doing that.

And that guilt might just be a sufficient activation barrier that the hiring-of-help doesn’t happen.

I believe that was the reason that the Science Careers article by Vijaysree focused on women.

Perhaps that was a tactical mistake. But the central message is correct for any scientist.

Learn to leverage your time, and focus on what you’re good at, while preserving your precious free time for the things you enjoy.

Way disappointing!

That’s my reaction to the final episode of Lost. Before you go… I’m going to explain the relationship to your career in a moment. But first…

I’ll admit it, I was a fan over the past 3 years (one time I rented all the previous year’s episodes and caught up in a matter of two weeks… that was a marathon!)

(Spoiler alert – don’t read if you are thinking you might watch LOST sometime)

People who liked (and looking online, there are a lot of those) the ending enjoyed the human drama – the reunited couples, Jack’s struggles, the triumph of “good” over “evil” and all that.

People like me hated it because it did a 180 degree U-turn from some of the sciencey-type questions, like time travel, alternate realities, the meaning of the numbers, and etc. The finale tied up none of that.

From that perspective I was disappointed.

I went online and saw more than a few people complaining, “I wasted 126 hours for that!!??!”

Here’s why you should care about this. Substitute “Lost” for “a failed science experiment”. Because, science experiments can and often do fail! In fact, whole lines of investigation fail – after years of investment.

“I wasted the past six years on that stupid hypothesis???!!!???!”

I’ve seen more than one graduate student who struggles with a failed experiment in this way.

Was it really a waste? (Lost and/or your experiment?)

Lost ended up as a happy love-fest that we find out is simply a “holding place” for people after they die, until they work out their problems to move onto heaven (or whatever).

It doesn’t make sense. I think that the producers originally intended the ending as an alternative reality that was split off from the main timeline when Juliet detonated the nuke.

That altered the timeline so that they were in fact back on the plane, and went to live “normal” lives – except for that they weren’t meant to live those normal lives – they were meant to be on the island.

But for some reason Lost’s makers copped out on this. Why? Maybe they ran out of time and money. Who knows. All I can say is that, compared to my expectations, it was a let down.

So, was it a “waste?”

At first I found myself with this hollow feeling. I found myself starting to think this way.

But if it was really a waste, then why not just watch the last episode, and not bother with all those leading up to it?

The question could be rephrased like this: why not just read about someone else’s experiment in a journal after it is done, rather than risking your own blood, sweat, and tears on an experiment that might fail?

I mean, really… most experiments do fail … at least in the sense that they often raise more questions than they answer. Kind of like Lost.

So, then, why do it? Why watch Lost? Why bother doing experiments?

The only answer I can find to this question is because you get enjoyment or satisfaction out of it.

Any other answer – such as “to get my PhD” or “to get a Nobel prize” or “to find out what the meaning of the Island is” – is going to take you down the wrong path.

You will likely find yourself, after days, months, or years, asking “why did I waste my time on all that?”

Say you’re working on a PhD just so that you can be “assured” a job afterward. Well, there are no assurances. You may not get a job. You may eventually decide you just hate the work. You may not finish.

There are a million possible ways to be dissapointed if you tie your expectations, hopes, and dreams to a specific outcome.

And the point? To enjoy what you’re doing now. Maybe not every single thing you are doing now is enjoyable – but if you can’t find enjoyment in the majority of what you’re doing presently in your career (or life), then something is wrong, and it is time for a change.

You’ll never find enjoyment in just an outcome. You need to find enjoyment in the journey to the outcome.

And, from this perspective, my time spent watching Lost was not “wasted.” Neither were all those “failed experiments” that never resulted in a paper.

Last weekend I went on an Easter Egg Hunt with my daughter. I discovered something important about human psychology on that hunt, that applies to adult scientists and child easter egg hunters as well. It is important to avoid unrealistic expectations in life and in science careers. The great recognition always comes from hard work, excellence, and persistence.

In today’s episode, Morgan discusses the issue of graduate students and timelines. Presently, the term of graduate studies is often limited by most universities, to prevent people from becoming “permastudents”. While the reasoning is laudable, it causes problems for people that may follow them throughout their science careers. Morgan discusses the issue in this episode.

Today Morgan discusses really really boring scientific talk titles. Giving a great science talk begins with having a great title, that captivates the audience and motivates them to come to your talk. Don’t be afraid of giving your talk an interesting title! You will stand out, because everyone else will continue to use boring dry talk titles. Standing out is good. It gets you noticed. Morgan shares her favorite title for a talk, “Modeling biology with equations is like strapping a …. ” (you’ll have to watch the video to find out).