09 February 2010
By Sarah Davies
It’s easy, as a contract researcher, to fall into self-pity. Like the THES’s insecure scholar, many of us are battling short term contracts, low professional recognition, and long and stressful working hours. So – as much to stop myself being an Eeyore as anything else – here are some of the reasons I really, really, really love my job:
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Finding out things is interesting and fun. I love that I make new knowledge through my research.
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The buzz when you finish a paper, re-read it, and think: yes. This is clear and true.
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Meetings which go on far too long but which are full of intense, collaborative conversations about tiny but exciting details of analysis.
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Travel. It’s not green, but I have visited places I would never otherwise have had the chance to see, and met all sorts of interesting people.
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I’m writing this in a café, having spent some time going through some data and drinking coffee. Need I say more?
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I have a degree of autonomy my friends in office jobs can’t even begin to imagine.
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My colleagues, from the sublime to the ridiculous.
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The plus side of short term contracts: you can end up all sorts of exciting places and can constantly re-invent your research.
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My credit cards say ‘Dr Sarah Davies’ – useful for when you forget your ID.
I’m sure this is only the tip of the iceberg. What have I forgotten? And what are your own high points of life as a researcher?
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Tennie Videler10 February 2010 at 09:53 AM
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Cool post! Love embracing the positive... In addition to what you mention, I used to love.... * The fact that I got paid to flex my mental muscles- thinking and being creative and clever for a living. * The outcome focused environemnt- in my experience people didn't really care about the process (the hours you worked, where, how chaotically), just about the results (eg spectra and what conclusions you could draw from them) * reinforce the colleagues- again, because of short term contracts you get to meet an awful lot of people and so many of them are great. I've probably forgotten lots.....
Blanka Sengerová11 February 2010 at 04:54 PM
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I agree with you both, the science world (especially academic) brings with itself a great bunch of people. It is also nice to be doing something that is effectively playing with stuff to see what works (this works both ways, as it can be frustrating when experiments are never working for a while). Not entirely seriously but I do think it is great to be able to wear whatever you want without needing to be in "smart", "suit" or similar - that's probably going to be the hardest to adjust to when I leave the lab for a more writing based job (as I am planning to do).
Nick Dickens12 February 2010 at 09:28 AM
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Short term contracts aside, I feel very similarly to you. And since you've put a smile on my Friday morning, with such a positive and enthusiastic post I shan't dwell on this. The flexibility of an academic job is nice, independence to pursue my own research as well as the collaborations with others. I enjoy teaching and sharing my knowledge - I had a (far too) long meeting yesterday with two colleagues but was happy that when we finished they had walked away empowered to get on with parts of their projects that they couldn't do before. And, fundamentally, researchers like us are nosey - we just want to know things and as a career research gives us the excuse to do this. The sun is shining, life is great and I love my job - thanks for the Mary Poppins-esque post Sarah.
Matthew Salois21 February 2010 at 07:34 PM
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Great post, though Eeyore was always my favorite! Despite the many issues to complain about you are good to point out the positive aspects of this sort of life. For me, I love the constant learning. I spend about half my day in some sort of learning mode -- reading, studying, working out problems, or getting some one-on-one tutoring from my PI. I really love being able to look back on myself a year go and see how far I have come.