Amedeo Blog: The Future

This is an interesting post to write mostly because I’m at an interesting place in my life. Science careers don’t unfold quite the way other careers seem to. Or, more likely, I went into all of this without a well-formed plan. I don’t know – life doesn’t always follow your plans so am I really at that much of a disadvantage? I tend to believe not. To distract myself from panicking and/or second guessing my own future, I’m trying to pull pieces of wisdom from each step in my career thus far that will eventually be stitched together into a quilt of my own experiences.

My science career began with a desire to prove myself. I’ve told you before that I chose chemistry as my major in college because I wanted a challenge. I wanted to leave school with a degree that made me immensely proud. I succeeded whole-heartedly and learned the joy that comes with pushing yourself to the limits of your own brain.

Unfortunately for me, I never chose chemistry because I had a long term career vision. I didn’t have a ladder scribbled away in some diary where graduating from college with a bachelor’s in chemistry was the first rung on an extended trip to glory. It was just a personal choice at a time when I was learning who I was.

As a technician, I was thrown full force into the life of a scientist. College hadn’t prepared me for that (sorry, but it didn’t and, unless you work day in and day out in a lab, then nothing will). I was a very passive participant in the whole ordeal. Since I wasn’t in college anymore, life dictated that I needed a job and a source of income. I applied for employment that matched my experiences, which included entry-level positions working in academic research. I received an offer and I took it; bam. The only part of this that was an active decision was my choice to live in Boston, but that wasn’t even science related – I wanted to be close to my high school friends.

After two years, I was intrigued. I thought Ph.D. scientists were brilliant and I wanted to be like them. Somewhere during those two technician years, I finally decided that I wanted to go to graduate school. I learned from college that pushing my limits gave me great satisfaction while passively thumping along brought me little, so I decided to challenge myself again.

Graduate school was amazing. I’m the only one who loved it (I swear), but it gave me an amazing sense of accomplishment. I can easily say that those six years were some of the happiest of my life. I learned to think, I learned to reason, I learned to ask questions and find answers, I learned to trust my instincts and myself, and, more than anything, I learned that if I put my mind to something, I really can do it. However, I missed one important lesson that wouldn’t become clear to me until recently. I chose a research project in graduate school about which I was deeply passionate. I underappreciated how crucial this was to my success.

Following graduate school, I found myself in familiar territory: I needed employment. I chose the path of least resistance: staying in the comforts of my favorite city (Philadelphia, PA) and becoming a post doctoral associate. I did branch out beyond my graduate school research interests, but otherwise, I passively followed the path that scientists before me had laid out: college > technician > graduate school > post doc > academic PI. If I ever wanted a ladder to lead me to success, this was the one to follow.

I’ve been unhappy for two years.

Interestingly, I now know that I’m rebelling against the formula. When I look back on the past thirteen years since my fateful decision to pick a chemistry major, I need to trust what I’ve learned. I’m happiest when challenged. My best decisions come from stepping outside my comfort zone into a new area of interest, but being unsure of success there. Trailblazing, making my own paths, and creating my own sphere of experiences appeal to me more than passively ticking off the pre-determined boxes that lead directly to a pre-determined place. I will work tirelessly on a passionate cause, but only half-heartedly on something I have only minimal interest. I can ask the right questions (is this the right path for me?) and find the right answers (I don’t think so at this time). My graduate advisor often let us wander off course during research in the hopes of finding our way back, but carrying new experiences and wisdom on our shoulders.

Finally, after all this time and with the highlighted points in mind, I’ve written my own career plan, complete with erasure marks and arrows delineating exit strategies or loops back to places I might want to revisit. I’m excited, hopeful, and terrified all at once. The next rung on my ladder is to take a break from bench science and move over into scientific publishing. While I started this blog because I loved the idea, it was also an excuse for me to read outside my research areas. I have so many scientific interests and I want more knowledge about all of them. I feel strongly that, in the end, this breadth of knowledge is best thing that I can do for myself as a scientist. Working the bench does not allow for a lot of extra reading time, but what you learn by reading outside your own field allows you to be a more diverse researcher and have greater understanding of science as a whole. If you’ve read my first post, then you know it’s equally important to me for others outside science to have a large scientific knowledge base. I want to do both: I want to read academic science at its height and I want to pass that knowledge to those who aren’t in science. I want to be on the cutting edge, see what is going on in different fields, identify exciting new areas, and then tell others about it. The passion for me is the writing and all the things I will learn; the challenge is now understanding a wide array of science fields and mastering the job of an editor; the trailblazing is that this is a veer from tradition and my decisions that follow this experience will probably be less than orthodox.

They say that “knowing is half the battle,” and they are correct. I know this is what I want to do, but now I have to find a job. Wish me luck!