do what you like

So I knew that I wanted to do something that kept me in touch with the big-picture scientific questions. And I wanted to be able to draw upon that well of scientific information in my head lest it become like a bottomless cup of decaf coffee -- completely useless in most situations. To avoid falling into another unsatisfying job, though, I had to figure out what I did and didn't like about academia.

I've mentioned some of the aspects of research science that I disliked. At first, I was so consumed with the idea of escaping academia that it was difficult to look objectively at my job and see the things that I did like. But there were actually a lot of things that I liked about it and that I wanted to find in a new role.

Writing. Those days and nights of writing papers, of being knee-deep in references, of trying to put my own meager contributions into the context of decades of work, and of tweaking sentences and paragraphs were my favorite part of the scientific process.

Being around smart people all the time. Academics are generally pretty intelligent, and I like being around smart people.

Variety. I like to dabble in a lot of different projects and do a variety of tasks. Writing is great, but I can't do it 8 hours each day. Teaching is fun, but teaching the same thing year after year doesn't appeal. Ditto for data analysis, labwork, and putting together prensentations. I do best when I have a lot of variety in my day.

I could also identify some qualities I wanted in a new job: I wanted to talk to people during the day; I wanted to have a more obvious connection to what was going on in the real world; and I wanted to work more collaboratively, so that whether or not I showed up to work actually mattered.