First to finish

The first person from my cohort is finishing up this spring. It's kind of ironic, since our second year we had a conversation that started something like this:

Me: So, how was your summer?
Him: Oh, it was good. I didn't really do any work, but I got high a lot.

Yep, he's finishing first. Self-declared pot-smoking slacker guy. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he was downplaying the amount he actually worked that summer (i.e. that he worked more than not at all), but he also hadn't really found his niche yet that summer. Part of the reason he was able to finish so quickly was because his work was all theory (=math) so he didn't have any of the headaches and setback associated with collecting data (especially field work). If you're very smart (which he undoubtedly is) and focused, you can finish quickly.

And just to put the icing on the cake, he's managed to find one of the most lucrative niches possible within our field. I'd guess he'll be moving on to a place with a nice paycheck.

Happiness

Today has been a fantastic day. I am back at Small Friendly College to give a seminar. This comes at the end of a long string of deadlines in February. The way I've described it is that for the past two weeks I've been working uncomfortably close to the number of hours I work in the field, but without someone to cook and clean for me.

When I offered to give this talk, I imagined it as a great opportunity to talk about Best Project and teach some of the analyses in my presentation so that I'd come out with a more thorough understanding in the process. I'd imagined myself with slides done days in advance, fine-tuning the best way to explain things. So such thing.

Instead, I was still writing my talk on the way here, last night, and this morning. I only practiced the whole thing once. I was very, very nervous as I made the last few changes to my slides 20 minutes before the presentation.

But once I was on, I was on. I got an incredibly complimentary introduction from one of my former professors. He highlighted many of my accomplishments, my tenacity in getting the NSF GRF, and resourcefulness in applying for other funding. He is so proud of me, and it showed. And after that great introduction, I went on to give a fantastic presentation. I made people laugh, I talked about 3 different projects, and I ended with enough time for questions. I could hardly have had a friendlier audience, but my gosh it felt great.

I met with some current students, talked to some newly hired professors, had dinner with some senior professors, and enjoyed walking around campus. Tonight I drank wine and talked with my hosts (a faculty couple) and heard their perspectives on what's going on on campus and in the department. What a great place. I said it before (here, here, here, and here), but I'll say it again- I. Love. SFC.

February madness

There are so many things happening and so many things I need to do in the next week!

-write and submit two conference abstracts (first one due tomorrow. still analyzing data. eep!)
-write and submit a small grant proposal
-plan and launch major outreach project
-prepare and give a talk at SFC

Meanwhile, in my personal life:
-I've spent several days in the last two weeks away from Big City working with my friend Theo on the analyses for these abstracts.
-my friend and former labmate Mariyah will be in town for a week and is staying with us
-I simply MUST finish a photo book of our wedding before my groupon expires!

And now, back to the abstract.

Appreciated

I'd say I'm very knowledgable of the resources at my university available to graduate students as well as how to navigate bureaucracy. From health care to fringe benefits and human subjects research to submitting grants, I know a lot. As I've written before, I love connecting people and resources so I love it when people ask.

A fellow grad student asked if I knew of funds to support students to attend a workshop. Indeed, I did. I had already bookmarked the page for my own future use. She was impressed that I could find it so quickly. She said, "This is great! I was sitting in my office thinking, I wonder if Karina knows of any funds. I should go ask her. Thank you! You know so many useful things!"

This makes me feel appreciated. I'm glad to help!

Time to update that CV!

I'm giving a presentation in a few weeks and just got asked for a copy of my CV. Oh my. It turns out I haven't updated it for two years! Not that I have any publications to add (urgh), but I've got other things (outreach! presentations!). Time to get cracking.

Not old or male

Someone asked me to contribute to a popular writing piece "in the interests of more gender equity." They needed someone who wasn't an old, white man. I'm white, but not old or male. FemaleScienceProfessor recently wrote about this phenomenon, "Because I'm a woman." I almost titled this post the exact same thing. Considering how my research focus shifted away from the particular topic of interest, I probably wan't an obvious choice for this except that they didn't want to have too many photos of grey-haired dudes. I'm ok with that. I think my contribution will be just as good as the others. But I definitely was surprised when the person went on to elaborate about how they had only one woman other than me. I thought there were more of us around than that?

Marital status on a CV?

I just saw a CV for someone we're interviewing for a faculty position where the person included their marital status and number of children. I know that this is absolutely not required, and is in fact illegal to ask about. Has anyone else seen this? It strikes me as very unusual.

Grad school nostalgia

My department is interviewing for a new faculty position and we've interviewed two candidates so far, both of them just a few years out of grad school. Over lunch with the grad students, it is clear that they both loved grad school and are eager to interact with the grad students (which is great). I'd describe it as grad student nostalgia. I realized at the last lunch that they seem to look back on grad school with the same kind of fondness with which I look back on college. It's hard for me to imagine feeling that way about grad school when I'm a few years out, and honestly it makes me feel like I'm missing out on something really important. But what exactly is it?

I think it has something to do with a sense of shared experience among the grad students. Like I wrote previously, the grad students in my department aren't very close. Even within my lab, we're all working on different projects so there isn't much collaboration (unfortunately, some interpersonal conflicts among lab members have also kept us from bonding as a group). I do my best to help other students who ask me for help no matter what my experience with their project, but I still don't have a sense of really going through this with anyone else. I'm really doing my own thing here, and suddenly this makes me very sad. Have I imagined this isolation, created or exacerbated it? 

After considerable reflection, I think the answers are no, no, and no, but I haven't always felt so disconnected. My first year I had a few classes with a set of people and I tried very hard to invite everyone to parties (Jon and I hosted 3 in our first 6 months here) but realized before the end of that year that not even my cohort was a cohesive group.  When I was in the midst of my interdisciplinary project, I had those other students to bond with, but now most of them are in different places. I was actively involved in two different efforts to create student-led activities for grad students in the department, but neither really caught on and are defunct. As I also mentioned previously, I think this pattern of increasing isolation in the later stages of grad school is pervasive in my department. I've got to try to do something about it. More thoughts on this soon.

Jobs jobs jobs

In the past week, I have seen two fantastic job announcements that would be a great fit for me... in like a year when I'm actually almost done with my Ph.D. One of them combines two totally separate things I worked on in a way I could not have imagined, but it's perfect! Well, it will be perfect for me in a year.

I mentioned this to Leo and he told me I should apply now. I was shocked. He said that he wasn't finished with his dissertation when he applied for and was offered his job at the museum. He already had 3 publications, called a committee meeting, and said, "What do I need to do to get out of here?". They told him what he had to do, and he defended 3 months later. Let me be clear: I do not have 3 publications and I am planning to finish a year and a half from now. I think it would be crazy to apply now. I don't think I could possibly finish in less than a year. Furthermore, I have 1.5 years of funding left on my fellowship. That doesn't pay as much as the job (the starting salary is more than our combined income!), but if I left I'd have to forfeit the remaining funds. That seems like a shame.

But back to the main point- I don't think I'm ready yet. A year from now? Yes, definitely. Maybe the position will be available again. Maybe not. Oh well.

I've always kept an eye out for jobs that I found interesting. I have a folder full of job descriptions copied and pasted from ECOLOG-L or other sources. I figure it might be helpful to go through them when I get closer to being on the market to get a better sense of what appeals to me and why. This particular job goes at the top of the list! It's even in the right part of the country...

Grad student malaise

I think that in general, the grad students in my program aren't very happy with "the program". They tend to like their lab or their advisors (in some ways, at least), but there's not a great sense of camaraderie across the department as a whole. (Or if there is, I'm obviously out of the loop). I think a big part of the reason is geographical- people live all over the city, our offices are spread across buildings, and even within buildings the offices can be very isolated.

Perhaps it's just the stage of grad school I'm in, but I know a lot of my friends and acquaintances in the department don't really feel like they're being advised or mentored by our "advisors". We all feel like we're quite a bit on our own to flounder or flourish. One of the reasons for this is probably that very few people in the department are supported by grants from their advisors, so the fates of advisors and students aren't so closely bound. I'm not the only person who is primarily mentored by someone who isn't at the university, which leads to students also spending a lot of time elsewhere.

I feel like grad students in my department need something, but I'm not sure what that something is. Do we need a heavily attended, regular happy hour? A graduate-led informal seminar about career issues? A what-did-you-do-for-your-dissertation-this-week accountability club? I feel somewhat obliged to try to get something going (or strongly support other people's efforts in this realm) because, well, I think I'd be good at it, and someone should do it. Whatever it is, I think we need more opportunities specifically created to interact with and informally mentor each other.

If any of my readers have things to share that they really *liked* about a graduate program, I'd love to hear.

Dissertation envy

One of my friends is about to do her prelims so I've read her proposal and I just watched her practice her prelim presentation. I think what she's doing is really cool, and I've got some serious dissertation envy!

I'm not jealous of her in a negative way, but rather I find myself thinking, "How can I make my research more like hers in the future?" It also makes me think "what if" I'd made different choices in my Ph.D.

I've mentioned before that part of me wishes that I had done local field work instead of flying halfway around the world. If I had done field work here in Big City, her project has all of the elements that I would have liked to include. It's interdisciplinary and just awesome.

Maybe for my postdoc.

Which conferences?

After truly catching up on email for the first time in over a year (omg), I've been corresponding with Dr. Evenbigger who is interested in one of my projects. He thinks I should go to a conference in [beautiful place]. I'm going to the big ecology meeting this summer, but I should go to at least one other conference since I'll be "on the market" this fall (OMG!). I don't know which one yet, but there are 3 on my radar. I've got to balance the networking potential and relevance to my career interests with the cost of getting there. I can cobble together a few hundred dollars here and there but attending meetings is expensive.

I'm also curious, how many people attend the BIG meetings that you go to? 1000? 4000? 10,000? I just have no idea what a really, really big academic conference is.

More great advice

During a conversation that started out something like, "So, do you know what you want to do when you finish your Ph.D.?", a friend of mine recommended I look up Peter Fiske. He has written extensively about how scientists' skills can be used outside of academia, and how to emphasize those skills to potential employers. If this sounds even remotely interesting to you, download this pdf and read it.

Resurrected project

I thought my interdisciplinary project was done for good, until my #1 collaborator emailed me this morning and said, "I know I said I was done with that project in 2010, but I've been thinking maybe we should resurrect it." An hour and a skype conversation later, we have plans to try to submit it for publication after all. She's going to take the lead on it for now, but I think we could have it sent off in the next 2 months if we stay on it. I'm limiting the time I spend on it to Tuesdays, because I don't want this to distract me from my dissertation. We already did all of the analysis and writing, so we just have to find the right audience and how to pitch it. This is exciting. Maybe 2012 will be my Year of Publications. Maybe?

Biologist's nightmare

In November I opened up a box of my data sheets for the first time since I packed them up in Nyota and saw a teeny little beetle run and hide between the sheets! I searched between every sheet, paperclip, and postit to find and squish two beetles. Now almost 8 weeks later, I found a similar looking beetle (or is it larger?) hanging out on the edge of my mug, probably in search of water. I have encased this one in scotch tape.

Ack! I hope there aren't any more. We don't need any more invasive species.