My Goals for 2017

This was an assignment for all of the new graduate students to start thinking about who and what they want to be, and how they're going to get there. We were asked to address our career aspirations, the coursework and experiences required to get there, sources of funding for our research, and how our career and personal life will jive. Here's what I wrote.

After completing my Ph.D. at the University of Big City, I aspire to teach undergraduates at a small college or university. My ideal position would be teaching biology at a small liberal arts college where I can also do research with undergraduates, lead foreign study programs, and be involved in community outreach related to science education and environmental issues. Conducting research that involves students is widespread at liberal arts colleges, but the other two activities are less conventional.

Off-campus study is an integral part of the student experience at Small Friendly College where I did my undergraduate studies. More than half of SFC students study abroad, and others attend domestic off-campus programs. I participated in three different international programs during college, including two that were led by professors from SFC. These experiences opened my eyes to the amazing diversity of our world and broadened my worldview. I want to lead foreign study programs so that other students will have the outstanding opportunities that I did to see the world from a different perspective. From watching my own professors and group leaders in this role, I know that it is a demanding, 24/7 job. It not only requires expertise in a subject area (ecology in my case); I will also have to coordinate travel, logistics, manage money, facilitate group dynamics, and plan meals. I think this is a job that I could do well based on my attention to detail, passion for teaching, travel experience, experience facilitating group decisions made by consensus, and my own experiences as a participant in such programs.

Although I love to travel, my experiences have taught me that I also need a place to call home. Teaching at a liberal arts college where professors lead off-campus study programs would allow me to travel every few years while having a place to return to. While on campus, I would like to work with college students to do tutoring and outreach programs with K-12 students in the local schools. Developing an outreach program may take a few years if a similar program does not exist at the institution so it may not be achievable by 2017 but it is something I would eventually like to do.

Admittedly, my career aspirations are modeled around my own experiences with the relatively unusual Small Friendly College model of undergraduate education. I could incorporate many of my ideas and goals by working with an organization that specializes in undergraduate international experiences such as the School for Field Studies. A long-term position with the School for Field Studies would require me to live abroad for most of the time, so this is not an ideal end-goal but a potentially useful job to have for a few years. Another way for me to get my travel and outreach fix might be to lead Earthwatch expeditions. This could allow me to maintain a more lively research program while meeting some of my non-research goals.

There are few formal course requirements that relate directly to these goals. I would like to take more math or applied math courses because I think that this is one of my weaknesses and I aspire to be a well-rounded ecologist. It might also be a good idea for me to take more courses in Spanish or another language, depending on where I do my field work.

There are many informal learning experiences that will be important for me to reach my career goals. The first set of experiences surround research. Since I aspire to lead students in international programs it is important for me to do my research abroad so that I can become familiar with the challenges of coordinating logistics in another country. I will need to publish my research and establish myself in my field. Finally, I need to develop a research paradigm that will be accessible to undergraduates so that I can continue to do research in my field as a professor in the U.S. For example, the focus of my research can’t involve modeling using such high level math that few if any of my students can understand it.

I believe it is crucial for scientists to communicate their findings in ways accessible to people who don’t read their painstakingly peer-reviewed publications. As part of the field work for my research I plan to develop an outreach program to communicate my project and its findings to the people living in the area. This will give me experience communicating my paradigm to non-scientists and will hopefully garner interest, support, and possibly even participation in my research.

Since I aspire to a position that is focused on teaching, it is important that I develop my skills as a teacher. Incorporating the feedback received from the students in the courses for which I am a TA will help me become a better teacher. UBC also has the Graduate Teaching Program which will help me create a portfolio of my teaching abilities.

I have found several options for financial support for my research during graduate school. First of all, I will definitely reapply for NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program this November. If I can find the appropriate pitch, I will also apply for the EPA STAR Fellowship. Organizations such as Sigma Xi, National Geographic Young Explorers Club, Association of Women in Science, and Graduate Women in Science offer small grants to help cover expenses. Wildlife Conservation Society, and Sea World Busch Gardens Conservation Fund all offer larger grants that could fund a large portion of my research. Later in my graduate studies I will be able to apply for a NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant.

I do plan to start a family by 2017. I am not sure exactly how children will fit into the picture, nor can I realistically expect things to go as planned. But if I could choose, I’d like to have two children relatively close together to minimize the pre-school time period. When in my career I try to have children will depend on my research plans and post doc opportunities. Perhaps I will try to have kids between finishing field work and defending. I do plan to travel abroad with my children and would seek advice about this both from parents who have traveled extensively with their children and people I know who grew up in traveling families.

I plan to seek advice about my career goals from several Small Friendly College professors with whom I keep in touch, including a young pair of professors who are about to lead a semester-long program abroad with their two small children. Of course, I also plan to talk to faculty members at other liberal arts colleges so that I can develop a broader sense of the types of positions available.

At this point in time my ideal job is quite specific, and I’m not even sure it exists. However, the breadth of what I want to do to is great enough that I would be happy to pursue other careers that fulfill some, if not all, of my interests in other ways. I will remain open to other options that I can’t even imagine yet.

I can't get the funk off of my Chacos

This might not seem like a relevant topic for my blog, but these sandals have carried me all over the world in the past five years and I wear them almost every day. They get really stinky and then I wash them. Sometimes I wash them in a pillowcase in a washing machine, sometimes I scrub them by hand in the sink, and sometimes I take them in the shower with me. Recently I've been unable to remove a spot on the outside edge of each sandal. At first I thought I just wasn't trying hard enough. So last night I took them in the shower and really scrubbed them. As they started to dry these spots (labeled as "funk" in the picture) started to appear again even though I cleaned them as best I could. I tried putting hydrogen peroxide on them in case it was a very persistent colony of bacteria or something.

Have you ever tried putting hydrogen peroxide on your sandals? My sandals fizzed EVERYWHERE! I hope it was destroying my dead skin cells and the bacteria persisting in the cracks rather than the footbeds. But I still can't scrub those spots off! I'm not sure what's going on. I guess it doesn't really matter as long as my feet aren't terribly offensive or infected with some kind of nastiness. Still, I'm intrigued and annoyed by the spots that won't go away.

Backup Plan

After hearing horror stories about grad students losing years of work when their laptop is stolen, I've decided it would be prudent to come up with a plan for backing up my data and stick to it. I don't have much to back up at this point so it will all fit on my 1 GB flash drive.

Every Friday when I come home I will copy my folder labeled "Grad School" onto my flash drive, replacing the previous version from the week before. The flash drive will stay at home in a place where I don't think a thief would look. I should only need the flash drive if something awful happens to my computer.

The obvious problem with this plan is that everything is lost if the apartment burns down with my computer and flash drive in it. Maybe later I'll get a second flash drive to keep at school.

I can also back up documents more regularly if I choose, but at minimum I'll do it once a week. I'll probably also come up with a system for backing things up online later.

Do you have a system for backing up your data? What is it?

Presentation Skills

Today I attended a public Master's thesis seminar. It just so happens that I had personally talked to this person for some time at a poster presentation, so I knew a bit about his research and I was looking forward to this seminar. Unfortunately, it left a lot to be desired. He obviously knew his stuff, but he simply didn't do a good job telling us about it. He used the same tone throughout his presentation and didn't seem excited about his topic. He seemed a bit nervous and hardly smiled at all. He didn't use the common name for his focal species (at least not that I noticed) until the very end of the presentation. These problems made his presentation difficult to follow even though I already knew a bit about his research. I felt bad for this scholar who clearly did good research but couldn't engage others in his presentation style.

While talking to Leo on Friday he mentioned how important it is for grad students to teach, even if they come in with fellowships or whatnot. As a TA you end up talking in front of students under all sorts of conditions: fully prepared and well rested, flying by the seat of your pants with a hangover, and everything in between. Leo said this hones your ability to captivate and instruct an audience like nothing else. You've simply got to be able to communicate your research to other people without them falling asleep in your presentation.

So far I've been impressed by the presentation skills of only one of the four U of Big City professors I've heard speak, and that's my Pop Ecol professor. The others weren't terrible, but they didn't shine with that inner enthusiasm for their topic. Perhaps they don't put on their best show for grad students? This is a bit of a change for me as someone who did their undergraduate education at Small Friendly College where teaching, not research, is the emphasis. I'm planning to do some of both. Time will tell where my balance lies.

Talk about a life-changing experience!

I was just listening to a podcast of Living On Earth by Public Radio International and heard this story about a swimmer who accompanied a gray whale calf that had been separated from his mother. Click on the link above to read the script or download the segment as an mp3. This is incredibly cool.

Advising

I haven't yet introduced my advisors to my faithful blog readers. I think now is a good time.

First of all, I am jointly advised. One of my advisors is from U of Big City and the other is from Big Natural History Museum. I like them both and my interests are a good marriage of theirs. They are both older and well-established in their fields.

Herb is from U of Big City. He's interested in factors that effect community composition. My office on campus is right next to him and I'm a member of his lab. He has four new graduate students this fall so it's quite a cohort for him. Herb's research is based in Central America.

Leo is a -ologist from Big Natural History Museum. He works with all kinds of critters all over the world but I'm interested in working with him because he's very well connected where I want to do my research in Africa.

Herb is my primary advisor. The extent to which I work with Leo will depend on how my interests develop and possibly how I am funded in future years (i.e. grants or TAship).

However, the coolest thing about having Leo as my co-advisor is that I get to work in Big Natural History Museum. For those of you who have never been behind-the-scenes at a natural history museum, I highly recommend it. The objects on display are just the tip of the iceberg of their collections. I'm excited to be working with Leo simply because of the WOW factor involved in going to visit him at the museum.

On Friday I went to see Leo at Big Natural History Museum so that I could get my student pass and talk about stuff. This pass is super exciting because not only does it get me behind the scenes at the natural history museum, it gets me and my family into all of the other museums in Big City.

While I was talking to Leo about my plans for the semester, I said I'd like to try to be at the museum at least once a week even if it were just for part of the day. I imagined myself going there as often as I could just because I feel like there's information practically oozing from the walls from all the volumes and specimens in the building. So Leo caught me off guard when he said, "And what would you do here?"

I actually wanted to say, "Because this place is just so cool! Who wouldn't want to work here?" But I decided that I should articulate a better reason than that so I said something like, "Well, I think it would be good for me to check in with you frequently as I develop idea for my research and keep you informed- not that I want to take up all of your time or anything since I know you're a busy person- and I also thought it would be good for me to use the library here for access to the rare literature that the university won't have." I suppose this was an acceptable answer because he didn't press it. Whew!

As illustrated in the exchange above, one of my greatest fears at this point is embarrassing myself in front of advisors and other professors. For this reason I'm really nervous about talking to people about my research interests. I'm afraid of them asking lots of questions I can't answer and just generally appearing clueless. I know that I just need to speak with confidence and everything else will fall into place but talking about my research ideas is currently my greatest fear.

First week of grad school in review

I think my first week went well. I can do this grad school thing.

Classes: My professor for Population Ecology is great. From the amount of energy he puts out first thing in the morning I suspect he drinks a whole pot of coffee before class. Population Ecology requires a fair amount of math, so in addition to class there's an optional "Calculus Club" (say this while pushing your very large imaginary (or not?) glasses up on your face with your index finger). Even in the first two classes I've found my summer math/ecology program (aka Nerd Camp) incredibly useful. It feels good to be applying what I learned this summer so soon to my graduate education.

My other class is required for all new ecology & evolution grad students. The main assignment in this class is to write a review paper on a topic related to the research I intend to do for my thesis. This means that I'll be able to make progress on class and research at the same time.

Teaching: I was really nervous going into my first class. I walked into a room with 20 students staring at me with blank, disinterested faces. I didn't go to the first lecture, but I heard from another TA that did that it was pretty bad. With that in mind, I tried to be engaging and supportive. I took my time explaining things, paused when I need to, and watched their faces transform over the course of lab. My second lab of the week (with entirely new students) went well too. I encouraged them to ask other student for help and get to know each other and I think this really made a difference in their engagement. I seem to have had an easier time my first week than the other TAs I talked to and I think encouraging the students to work together might have been part of it.

Miscellaneous: I locked myself out of my office (keys, phone, and everything inside) but I was thankfully able to find one of the department secretaries to open the door for me. My student health insurance is now in effect so I canceled my crappier policy that I've had for the past few years. Next week I have an appointment FOR FREE at the student health center. No copay, no deductible. My student insurance is less than $100 per month.

Students get into the recreation center for free and they even have free group fitness classes! I went to a few last week and plan to go to them regularly. I can't believe they don't fill up completely. The recreation center is new and awesome. I'm loving the fringe benefits of being a student again.

Jon still doesn't have a job and I'm getting nervous about our financial situation but we'll figure it out. I think we're going to be even stricter on our spending until he gets his first paycheck. I'll write a different post about my advising situation.

I've had a few moments of stupidity and nervousness but overall I'm feeling really good about starting grad school.

Clarification about my funding

Someone asked me "I thought the school gave you funding? Don't you get a stipend? So why do you need to apply for separate funding?"

These are excellent questions which I did not thoroughly address. This academic year I am funded with a Teaching Assistantship. I have a 50% teaching load (20 hours per week). In exchange for being a TA, my tuition is waived and I get a monthly stipend. From my student stipendI still have to pay for my health insurance and some other miscellaneous fees (about $800 per semester I think). I have no loans for grad school and my undergraduate loans are deferred until I finish.

In biology, you shouldn't go to graduate school unless they're going to pay you. I think this is true for most Ph.D. programs in the sciences. Unless you come with your own funding, the source of your stipend will probably be a Teaching Assistantship, Research Assistantship, or perhaps a university fellowship. Schools and departments are limited to some extent in the number of TAships they can award. In some departments TAships are so scarce that you are basically required to come with your own funding (something like an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship which you can apply for before you being grad school).

So if I have funding this year, why do I need to apply for grants? There are two answers to this question. The first is that research is expensive. My advisor has some money, but not enough for me to do whatever I want. I need to apply for grants that allow me to use the money for supplies and equipment that I don't already have access to. Most importantly (for my research), I need money to cover my transportation costs and supplies for while I'm in the field. I'll most likely be doing my field work in Africa so simply getting there is a significant expense. Hopefully I can get a grant for a few thousand dollars this year to cover the expenses for an initial trip.

The second reason I should apply for additional funding is that some fellowships pay a lot more than being a TA. The NSF GRF pays you $30,000 per year for three years. That's about $8,000 more per year than a TA stipend. Somewhat strangely, the EPA STAR fellowship would actually only pay $20,000 per year for stipend, which is less than I make as a TA. The advantage (if you see it as one) of a big stipend-paying fellowship like that is that you don't have to teach so you should be able to progress more quickly in your research.

I hope this clarifies things somewhat. Please feel free to comment if you have other questions or have something else to add to the discussion from your own experience.

Plans for the semester: be organized and get funded

Classes start tomorrow but I don't have any until Tuesday. Still, I want to make a good impression so I'm going to spend most of tomorrow in my office. There are plenty of miscellaneous things to do like give the place a decent cleaning and figure out how to connect my laptop to the internet. I also need to find the locations of all of my classrooms on campus.

This afternoon I was reading Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide to Earning a Master's or Ph.D. It said that having a good calendar system for keeping track of deadlines, especially long-term ones, is critical to a grad student's success. Then it spends several pages discussing the different merits of computer calendar programs from 10 years ago that I've never even heard of, so I skipped that section and started one on Google Calendar. Then I spent a few hours this evening looking for grants and fellowships and inserting the appropriate deadlines into my Google Calendar.

Applying for grants and fellowships is going to be my main research focus this semester (unless my advisor tells me otherwise). Writing the applications will require extensive literature review and intellectual acuity so it will help me develop and hone my research interests (on paper, at least). I'm definitely planning to apply for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, EPA STAR fellowship, and maybe Sigma Xi. I've bookmarked several others to apply for later in my graduate career because I'm currently ineligible. People I talked to this summer told me to apply for as many grants as possible to increase my odds of getting something since getting funded requires an element of luck as well as talent.

Meanwhile, Jon is still trying to find a job. So far he's been interviewed for a very low-paying part-time bookstore job and has qualified as a participant in a research study. While I'm planning my own course of research, I think we'll both be supplementing our income as participants in other people's studies.

Teaching Reassignment

I thought I was TAing a 200-level vertebrate class, but at some point they reassigned me to Bio 100 and didn't tell me until the beginning of this week. At first I was disappointed but it sounds like Bio 100 will be a good first course to TA. I don't have to attend lectures, grade exams, or lead study sessions. I lead two sections of lab and discussion and grade their lab assignments. It's a big course with many sections so there is a lot of structure in place and I don't have to worry about figuring that out myself.

I was sort of excited about the idea of office hours. I liked the thought of students coming to my office to ask me questions. I never thought about exactly how many hours I'd have, but I thought we'd take the normal working hours of the week and divide them up among the TAs so that there would be someone available when students have questions. Therefore, I was quite surprised when we were informed we were required to have TWO office hours per week for our students. Other TA's students won't know our office hours. I wasn't expecting them to form a queue or anything but it seems this would be incredibly inconvenient for my 60+ students. Perhaps I'll have more office hours than the two required.

From the other TAs I've talked to it sounds like I shouldn't have to spend more than 20 hours per week on average. I'm excited about teaching, but I'm also relieved to hear that it's not going to take over my life this semester. I've got lot of grant proposals to write!

First Impressions

This week was orientation. I got an office, met all of the other incoming biology grad students, and learned more about my responsibilities as a TA. While it's all fresh in my mind I want to record my first impressions.

The department: We met most of the professors and heard a little about their research. I was impressed by their openness and friendliness. Since I didn't get to visit, I was somewhat concerned that the feeling in the department would be one of competition rather than collaboration. All of the professors we talked to expressed enthusiasm for helping us apply their research techniques to our own projects. It's great to know that faculty members other than my advisors are open to future collaborations if our interests converge.

The students (in my department): I wasn't nearly as intimidated as I thought I would be. I haven't started classes yet so this might change, but the first day of Nerd Camp was way scarier. I'm sure I'll have my bouts of inadequacy and "the imposter syndrome" but it hasn't happened yet. From the conversations I've had so far, many of us are in a similar place in the development of our research interests (we have some idea of what we'd like to do but we're not sure exactly how or where to do it). Generally I thought our group of students was kind of socially awkward and shy but I think that will fade as we get to know each other better. I met a few current grad students and had interesting conversations with them about their research (eg. the fieldwork challenges of an urban ecologist- being offered drugs and getting stopped by the police while you try to survey invasive species in rough neighborhoods).

The university: It's big. This place is very different from Small Friendly College, as I knew it would be. Still, wow. During TA training we learned about the demographics of the student body, which I found fascinating. It's incredibly diverse in many ways (the way in which it is least diverse- most come from within the state). My gosh, the buildings are ugly! Except the new recreation center. I like that one. I plan to make good use of my unlimited access and free group fitness classes.

The health insurance: I probably don't have to tell you how awful health insurance is in this country. I've been looking forward to having better health insurance in graduate school for years. For the past two years I've been paying over $100 per month for insurance with a $1500 deductible that is basically just for emergencies. It doesn't cover preventive care or anything useful. Basically it sucks. The only advantage it had was that it covered me abroad (not that I had to use it...)

The university health insurance I'll have during grad school is cheaper and covers almost everything 100% as long as I go to their medical center. I have no problem with that. Overall it seems like a very good plan. The biggest problem with the university health insurance is that it does not cover me abroad and there are no options within their system. As someone who will be doing research outside the United States for this institution, I'm very annoyed. I'm going to be a thorn in someone's side about this particular issue.

Classes: I can't really comment on these yet but I'm taking two real classes and then a seminar and a little research ethics class. I've ordered all of my textbooks online but I'm nervous that the important ones won't get here in time. I think they were only about $100. I'm going to do a separate post about my teaching assignment.

Why didn't the extinct dolphin make more waves?

I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to this riddle.

I first heard about the Yangtze dolphin extinction when it was mentioned in passing on ECOLOG (Ecological Society of America's listserv) yesterday. Lots of people at scienceblogs.com are blogging about the unfortunate news.

First impressions of life in Big City

Our apartment is really starting to look like an inviting place now that we've unpacked or hidden most of the boxes. I have three very heavy boxes of books that need to be moved to my grad student office one backpackfull at a time. It will take a while before those are gone from the living room. We also need a lot more houseplants.

We've been walking around and getting to know the neighborhood. There's a bike shop, a few small corner groceries, and a hardware store within 2 blocks. Our congressman's office is about 4 blocks away. I like this neighborhood and it's very conveniently close to school for me. Hopefully Jon will find a job nearby. I do, however, have a few substantial complaints about life in Big City so far.

Public Transportation: It's not nearly as good as it should be. I'm sure my list of complaints will get longer, but let's start with infrastructure. I have to walk under train tracks to get to school. The metal beams supporting the tracks are seriously crumbling. I'm talking about a centimeter of airspace at the base where there used to be metal. I am not convinced that this is sufficiently sound in light of the recent Minneapolis bridge collapse. Aside from infrastructure, the whole transit fare system is complicated and not user-friendly. The buses don't give change! You can't buy their stupid fare cards everywhere they can be used! At least if the infrastructure sucks they could make the system user-friendly. I also think the fares are on the expensive side (especially if you're paying cash). If you really want people to use public transportation instead of driving then it should be cheaper because it CAN be a pain to take a bus instead of drive your car... which brings me to the next point.

Air Pollution: It sucks. And it makes my face break out in big, nasty pimples. It took me several years to make a connection between air pollution and acne but I'm absolutely convinced of it. Hopefully in the near future the scientific literature will begin to support me on this (as far as I can tell, there is NO ONE doing research on air pollution and acne so if you're a dermatologist I've just given you a way to make a name for yourself). My coping strategy is to wash my face 2-3 times a day (compared to only when I shower every other day or so in low-pollution areas). The air pollution in Big City isn't helped by the...

Lack of green space: My section of Big City is particularly park deficient which is a shame. I'm keeping my eyes out for community gardens but nearby one was recently turned into a parking lot :-( There are definitely some empty lots with potential. I would LOVE it if a community garden started nearby. Big City doesn't even have very many trees. Trees give us shade to keep us cooler in the summer! They clean our air! Why didn't they have the foresight to plant more trees? I've been taking mental notes on other people's container and window box gardening techniques. I have to admit that I'm usually a bit of native plant snob and frown upon impatiens and other boring water-hogging non-native annuals but in Big City I find myself appreciating ANYTHING green and growing, including the highly invasive tree of heaven. Even an empty lot full of weeds makes me thankful for some green in this sea of concrete!

Ok, enough ranting. I really don't want my blog to be a laundry list of complaints about life. We have a great apartment, we can happily live car-free even with the public transportation shortcomings, and next spring I'm going to have beautiful window boxes.

Interesting or not?

Scientists can have a hard time convincing the wider world that what they study is important. Who in the general public cares about the evolutionary radiation of land snails? Because of that, I think I assumed that ecologists should "band together" by professing interest in each others research. I mean, I'm generally interested in most ecological research. There are plenty of things I wouldn't devote my life to, but I'm willing to attend seminars of lots of different things. So I was caught off guard the first time I heard a well-established ecologist profess their complete lack of interest in someone else's research. I couldn't possibly imagine myself saying anything that blunt about someone's research.

I've been thinking for a while about why these 50-something ecologists so openly declare their disinterest in some threads of ecological research. First of all, ecology is a huge field. There's no way anyone can keep up with all of the research. They've had years to read the literature, attend seminars, and find precisely what excited them and what doesn't. And I imagine as they delve further and further into their own research, threads similar to theirs are what interest them the most. Maybe it's also a way of setting oneself apart from other researchers. And they're well known enough that they probably don't have to worry to much about offending anyone new.

Since I'm just starting grad school and my research plan is only beginning to nucleate, I'm still in the process of figuring out what interests me most (and what I think is boring). I haven't decided yet how much of my specific research interests I'll reveal on the blog. You'll just have to wait and see :-)

ESA in San Jose

The Ecological Society of America has its annual meeting this year in San Jose, California. It seems like everyone I know in the field of ecology is at this conference and I have to admit I'm feeling a bit left out of the fun. Friends of mine from the field station, nerd camp, and my advisors are all there. Instead of seeing friends, networking, going on field trips around San Jose, and hearing about exciting new ecological research, I'm in the process of moving halfway across the county in 95+ degree heat.

I've never been to a real research conference so I'm really looking forward to it. I went to an undergraduate research symposium but that hardly counts. I imagine ESA to be an exciting gathering of people who love to talk about the same things I do. Hopefully I'll be able to go next year when it's in Milwaukee, even if I don't have anything to present yet.