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Laurie G. Smith, Assistant Professor

As the daughter of two academic scientists, you might imagine that I was encouraged by my parents to follow in their footsteps. In fact, they advised against it! I understand the reasons for this better now than I did in the more carefree days of my 20s when I started out on the path that led me to become a faculty member in a research university. Indeed, this is a career choice that often involves difficult struggles in your professional life, and significant compromises in other aspects of life and/or the lives of your family members. However, for those who truly love science and view continuing involvement in basic research as a privilege worth the struggles and compromises that may be involved, it's a one-of-a-kind opportunity with many potential rewards.

Reviewing the path that I have followed to this point, I marvel at how little consideration went into my own choice to pursue this career. Throughout my postdoc years, I took it for granted that if I could get this type of job, then this is what I would do, and never seriously considered any other possibilities. However, those of us with PhDs in the life sciences are extremely fortunate to have many career options open to us compared with those with advanced degrees in other disciplines. When approaching career decision points such as the final year of PhD or postdoctoral work, the sensible approach is to carefully consider a range of options before proceeding. Fortunately, if you're reading this article, you're probably already thinking more carefully about your choices than I did! But how can you evaluate those options and decide what's the best choice for you? Alas, the only way to really find out what a particular type of job is like is to try it, and we generally don't have the opportunity to sample the possibilities on a trial basis. However, as a PhD student or postdoc, you can learn a lot by talking to people involved in various careers about the nature of their job, what they like and don't like about it, what they find most rewarding and most difficult about it, and so on. Even with someone as familiar as your own advisor, what you learn in a conversation like this may well surprise you.

Even though I worked in the laboratories of four different university faculty members over a 10-year period before becoming a faculty member myself, it surprised me somehow to discover first hand how fundamentally different this occupation is compared with that of a PhD student or postdoc. I think I unconsciously harbored the illusion that the main reason the scientists in whose labs I had worked didn't spend more time in the lab and did little if any research themselves was because they were more interested in whatever it was they were doing the rest of the time. Actually, I was only dimly aware of their other activities, since I neither participated in them nor asked about them. Therefore, I did not realize that no matter how much I might want it to be otherwise, my involvement in the research in my own laboratory would also be limited and indirect because of my other responsibilities as a faculty member.

Indeed, although I worked pretty hard as a PhD student and postdoc, I was staggered by the quantum leap in both the quantity and difficulty of the demands of life as a faculty member, demands of a type for which I was woefully unprepared. Not only had I never taught a course before, I had never even been a teacher's assistant, since I did my PhD in the United Kingdom where there is no such thing. I had also never supervised anyone else's research, never participated in the business of running a lab, never written a grant proposal or letter of recommendation, and never reviewed a manuscript or a grant proposal. Although I had at least become reasonably proficient in giving talks and writing papers by the time I concluded my postdoc, in short, I had never done most of the things that would come to occupy the majority of my time and energy as a faculty member. So it's no wonder that I had no idea how much time these things would take, whether I would like doing them, whether I would be good at them, and how hard it would be to find time for direct participation in research, no matter how many hours per week I worked.

As a PhD student or postdoc, your first priority has to be getting the work done that will build the record of accomplishment you will need to be competitive for whatever type of position you decide you want. However, if you're even considering pursuing an independent career in academic research, take advantage of the opportunities that come along to invest a small proportion of your time doing the kinds of things faculty members spend most of their time doing. This will not only help to ease the transition in the event that you do end up in this type of position, but it will help you make a more informed choice as to whether you want this type of position!

What do I like most and least about my job? So that I end on a positive note, I'll start with what I like the least. As you've probably guessed from what I've already said, I find the limitations on my ability to participate in research to be a chronic source of frustration. Apart from the fact that I enjoy bench work and seriously miss it, the indirect nature of my involvement in the work going on in my own lab leaves me feeling a lack of control over things that I am nevertheless responsible for, particularly keeping the publications and grant money coming that are vital for the success of all members of the lab, including me. It's hard enough to feel in control over the progress of the research you do yourself, but regardless of how you approach your role as a research supervisor, your level of control over the progress of work being done by others is greatly reduced. Moreover, success at fostering the progress of research in your lab depends as much on your skills in the area of personnel recruitment and management as it does on your skills as a scientist. When first starting out, the difficulty of succeeding in these areas where you probably have no prior experience is compounded by the fact that competition to recruit the capable, motivated sort of people you want in your lab can be very tough.

Another significant source of frustration I have with my job comes from simply having too much to do all the time. On any given day, what I would like to be doing, and what I feel is the most important thing to be doing, is working in the lab and helping others in my lab to make progress with their work. Unfortunately, on average I'm able to spend less than half of my time doing these things, and for many weeks of the year, little or none. The rest of the time I'm engaged in a variety of other tasks that are either indirectly related or unrelated to research, but simply have to be done, and seem to multiply like rabbits every time I turn around. The problem is not that these other tasks are so onerous, but that collectively, they are very time consuming, and detract from one's ability to focus on research. I've long since given up on the thought that I'll ever finish the "to do" list of these kinds of tasks, and I am still trying to learn to accomplish these tasks more quickly, to say no to the least important requests, and to be satisfied if the most important things get done on time and the number of new entries on the list each day don't (greatly) exceed the number crossed off. As a perfectionist and person who wants to help everyone who asks me to do something, this approach goes against my nature, but it seems to be the only way to make some time for research and for a personal life. However, I'd like to add that a real benefit of having so many different things to do all the time is that the job never gets boring!

So what do I like most about the job? The freedom to pursue research guided by your interests is clearly a primary benefit of this type of career, although it's important to recognize that there are limitations on this freedom. Frankly, most of the time, I'm too busy to think about what I'm interested in; instead, I am simply focused on getting the things done that need to be done, just like someone in any other kind of job. Moreover, your research agenda is inevitably constrained by what you can get funding to work on, and is also determined to a large extent by the interests, expertise, and priorities of people in your lab. Still, those oh-so-rare days when genuine insight comes along into a problem your lab works on are a priceless reward. Fortunately, since I am generally not the one whose work produces these insights, I actually find it more rewarding to see this happen in the hands of a student or postdoc I have worked with than in my own hands. Indeed, the feeling that I have helped people in my lab to achieve success in their research and make progress toward their goals is a reward I did not foresee before I started my own lab, but one that I find quite gratifying. In fact, I would have to say that the greatest reward of my job is having the chance to interact with so many bright, talented, and fun young people in my lab and classes. The older I get, the more I appreciate their enthusiasm and their fun-loving and relatively carefree approach to the pursuit of science and to life in general. Related to this, another major reward of this job is the opportunity to interact with so many wonderful colleagues in my own institution and around the world, whose intelligence, integrity, and dedication are a constant source of inspiration. My life has been immeasurably enriched by the students and colleagues I have had the privilege to interact with over the last several years, and if I left this profession, I think this is what I would miss more than anything else.