fantasy vs. reality

In thinking about what I wanted to do next, there were a few things that I had to figure out for myself:

1. Did I want to leave science all together and pursue one of my butcher/baker/candlestick-maker fantasy careers? Or did I simply want what's usually called an "alternative career" in science?

2. What was it that I liked about my job in academia? What didn't I like? These likes and gripes would serve a purpose in evaluating future job possibilities, should any actually arise.

3. What do people actually do outside of academia? Aside from the professions in which the tasks are fairly well-known -- doctor (the real kind), teacher, lawyer, etc. -- I really didn't know what was out there or how I might fit in.

In the next few posts, I'll look at each of these in more depth. For now, we'll just look at the fantasy career question.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'd come up with a lot of careers that I thought would be more fun than being a scientist. This was not a difficult thing to do since everything looked more fun than what I had been doing. I'd wander through Williams-Sonoma silently choosing the Wusthof knives for the kitchen of my haute-vegetarian restaurant. Or I'd read a Kristof piece in the New York Times and spend hours researching careers in public health. Most of these fantasy careers involved working more directly with people -- feeding them, serving them good coffee, helping them. But another thing these jobs had in common was that I'd never done them before.

If you've never done something before, it's very easy to fantasize about it. In these daydreams, it somehow never sinks in that bakers actually have to get up at 2 a.m. to prepare those lovely warm croissants they serve you in the morning. Or that many chefs work until 2 a.m., sleep for a few hours, then get up early to get the freshest fish at the market. If you've ever fantasized about owning a restaurant, I highly recommend reading Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. Bourdain bills himself as a renegade chef, which gets pretty annoying, but he describes his life as a chef, and it's horrifying. All the things you never thought about in your glowing vision of chefdom are brought out into the light.

The greater message here is this: Really think about these fantasy careers. Are these jobs things you'd like to do for an afternoon or for a month? Or are they really something that you want to do day-in, day-out for years to come. One of the best ways to figure this out is to actually talk to someone who does that job for a living. Talk to your barista, and you'll realize that she's making minimum wage and has coffee burns on her hands. What are these jobs really like? Stop fantasizing.

The other thing I realized about my fantasy jobs was that I wasn't qualified for most of them. Sure, I'd waited tables for a summer in college, cooked dinner for friends, and made truffles for my valentines, but did that mean that I could effortlessly slip into a glamorous career as a personal chef? No. Did my Ph.D. qualify me in any way for a career in public health? No. In the course of getting a Ph.D., you realize that you can pretty much learn anything. You learn how to learn, and you learn how to learn quickly. You figure out how to learn on your own, with a book and a stack of journal articles. So it is easy to think that you can do anything you want. And you certainly can. But when I looked at many of my fantasy jobs and what it would take to actually do them, I realized that many of them would require more school. I love learning and all, but going back to the classroom to learn held no appeal for me. At some point you have to stop loading and start firing.

Crazy (okay, nerdy) as it may sound, in college I fantasized about becoming a science professor. I now knew that that fantasy career was unsatisfying, but there were aspects of science that I was still drawn to. I kicked and screamed my way through labwork, but still loved to spend hours puzzling over the big-picture questions that had been challenging scientists in my field for decades. I still had a sense of wonder about the overall concepts in science. And over the years those questions and concepts had come to shape who I was and how I viewed the world. I didn't want to leave them behind completely, but I did want to change how I approached them.

There are a few well-trod paths into the world of alternative careers in science. Science education and outreach. Science writing. Science policy. What these all have in common is, well, science. They offer the opportunity to stay in touch with those seductive big-picture concepts, while trading the nitty-gritty details of academia in for other nitty-gritty details that might be a better fit.

I loathe the phrase "alternative careers in science," so you won't see it here again. With less than 20% of science and engineering doctoral degree holders in tenure-track positions 4-6 years after graduation, it's clear that academia is just one of many choices that are out there*. To describe non-academic careers as "alternatives" is silly and only furthers the perception that those who don't pursue the tenure-track are failures.

* In 2003, the actual number for the physical sciences was 16.7% [National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Statistics, Science and Engineering Indicators 2006 (NSB Publication 06-01, Arlington, VA, 2006)]. For more statistics, check out the National Postdoctoral Association.