Climbing the post-doc ladder
Expectation 1:
You won’t have the same worries and pressures as PhD students—you’ve got independence! You’ve got experience! You’ve got that doctor title at last!
Reality:
You don’t have the same worries and pressures as PhD students—you’ve just got different ones! Yes you’ve got experience, but it’s perceived as only being useful in the field you’ve been working in and so you move to a similar lab and are now in charge of all the things you didn’t have to worry about during your PhD. Also, despite having that doctor title, your mother asks what good it is when you can’t prescribe her medicines and she still has to go visit a REAL doctor.
Expectation 2:
Now that you have made your reputation and have the backing of a supportive Lab Head, you’ll be right for getting grants and spreading your research wings.
Reality:
I think I’ll just leave no comment in this section…
Being the lab head
Expectation 1:
Finally at the top of the mountain! Now you can do the kind of work you want without interference from others.
Reality:
No you can’t—with this level of seniority, you spend much of your time attending meetings to sort out equipment purchases, departmental budges, project collaborations and grant applications, not to mention teaching loads and the associated responsibilities. This means having to delegate all the actual work to your army of post-docs.
Expectation 2:
Okay, but at least you can apply for grants to research whatever topic you want, right?
Reality:
Hmmm, well theoretically you could. Realistically, with the sheer number of people dependent on you being able to consistently and continually acquire grants in order to keep them employed because you need them to keep up the work (see above), you’ll keep researching whatever the grant committee says will most likely bring in the income.
So if there’s one thing to expect about being a scientist, it’s that you can’t expect things to turn out the way you think they will. But surely that’s part and parcel of being a scientist?
This article is from a monthly column called The Sometimes Serious Scientist. Click here to see the other articles in this series.
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Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine; Photo: Shutterstock.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.
