"Descent Into Mediocrity"
In her compelling auto-biographical essay, "Falling Off the Ladder: How Not to Succeed in Academia," former biochemist Kathy Weston writes about the end of career as a scientist. Her assessment of how she failed herself strikes me as a lesson that all young professionals, whether in academia or in some other field, would be wise to consider:
What could I have done to check my descent into mediocrity? I should have put aside my fears of looking dumb and got on with the networking stuff anyway. And -- very importantly -- I should have found myself a mentor. Every scientist needs someone in a position of power who has faith in his or her abilities, to provide advice and do a bit of trumpet-blowing on his or her behalf. I should have taken more scientific risks, gone for bigger stakes, and thought harder about direction. Finally, I should have followed my instincts and quit my job before it quit me -- but I was hampered by an exaggerated terror of being labeled a failure. (In fact, none of my friends and family seems to care a hoot about my fall from grace, and of course I should have known that all along.)
(h/t Ideas Market)
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Jun '10
Re: "Descent Into Mediocrity"
I actually thought this article was less about her descent into mediocrity and more about the inability of intense research scientists to have a normal life.
"My obsession with my work declined as normal life seeped in: I got married, learned to ride horses and play the cello, looked after aging parents, and nixed all hope of redemption by having two children in my late 30s..."
This statement in particular struck me as particularly sad. Losing redemption by having children? AH! CHILDREN!!! The unbearable burden! This comment, a bit tongue and cheek, I guess, shows just how depraved the lives of serious scientists are. Could that be why they are so boring?
May '10
Re: "Descent Into Mediocrity"
Years ago, I had a friend who graduated with a bachelors degree from the college of chemistry at Berkeley. No small accomplishment. So, what's a newly-minted graduate to do? Graduate school, of course.
Well, my friend was a bright, hard-working smart young guy, and he found himself completely lost in graduate school. He was consumed by self-doubt and inadequacy and just felt he couldn't cut it and worse, he found he had other interests in life. His post-grad experience did lasting harm, from which he never really recovered. He got his Ph.D, but at a terrible cost.
Jan '11
Re: "Descent Into Mediocrity"
Samwise Gamgee: I actually thought this article was less about her descent into mediocrity and more about the inability of intense research scientists to have a normal life.
"My obsession with my work declined as normal life seeped in: I got married, learned to ride horses and play the cello, looked after aging parents, and nixed all hope of redemption by having two children in my late 30s..."
This statement in particular struck me as particularly sad. Losing redemption by having children? AH! CHILDREN!!! The unbearable burden! This comment, a bit tongue and cheek, I guess, shows just how depraved the lives of serious scientists are. Could that be why they are so boring? · Feb 24 at 5:55pm
She's a lucky one. Her alternative would be spending her life on her career and then having nothing to show for it when it's all said and done. There are a lot of scientists, postdocs and the like who would love to be in her position.
Jan '11
Re: "Descent Into Mediocrity"
My father told me I have the Mulville Curse. That is, most people see achievement as the path to happiness. Mulvilles are basically happy to begin with, so achievement is just so much bother.
Or, think of it this way. Other than Jesus, what human has achieved the most? Julius Caesar, perhaps? Now tell me. When was the last time you gave a crap about Julius Caesar? What did all his achievement and laurels get him? Stabbed.
Achievement and excellence are two different things. Strive for excellence, not achievement. Achievement is about reward. Excellence is about love ... and that's why the Greeks valued areté, and considered it equivalent to happiness.
Edited on Feb 24, 2011 at 8:37pmMay '10
Re: "Descent Into Mediocrity"
My older daughter, who has her own lab, and is tenured in a well-known UK university, talks about this a lot. She says that people really need to choose between children and work if they are going to succeed in that world. She has a couple of friends who struggle with the conflict between work and their own families, because you can't do world-class research and nurture a successful nuclear family.
It really is a flaw in the system in some ways, because there are a lot of first class minds that are wasted because they make sensible life choices. If there was some flexibility and "give", we'd all be better off.
Academics is a real wolf-eat-dog jungle.
Re: "Descent Into Mediocrity"
The story is told in hundreds of places. Those of us who take our first job at a state university or a small liberal arts college usually already know that our publications will not attract wide attention; either you can be bitter -- and many are -- or you make peace with it. In my own case, after a few years trying to publish a dissertation that my discipline had sped by, I decided my career was going to be defined by something other than length of my curriculum vitae.
One advantage I get from the Kathy Westons of academia is that I have students, often more than 100 in a semester. When I was a department chair with only one class, it was often the best part of my day. There are great stories and opportunities in some of them (and in others not -- and that's also a lesson you have to learn.)
With that and getting paid to read things that interest me, I find it odd that people complain about the life we have. But there are enough Westons to keep an anthropologist or psychologist busy.
Jul '10
Re: "Descent Into Mediocrity"
The whole publish or perish thing is a fraud.
Let's be honest: most of the stuff published by university Professors is shredder-ready.
Edited on Feb 24, 2011 at 9:50pmRe: "Descent Into Mediocrity"
Kenneth
The whole publish or perish thing is a fraud.
Let's be honest: most of the stuff published by university Professors is shredder-ready.
True to an extent. There are many fields where professors pay to publish. And getting faculty to referee articles is so hard some pay for on-time reports. There are so many journals now, largely because they are demanded by faculty desperate for tenure.
But since working papers and blogs in academia became ubiquitous, there is a fair amount of good stuff being done by people at universities not known for turning out Nobels or 7-figure NSF grants. At least in my field, there are people writing very interesting things and getting them circulated from all kinds of schools. What was once the shredder is now the un-linked URL.
Feb '11
Re: "Descent Into Mediocrity"
Lots of comments here & elsewhere suggesting that academic life, especially in the hard sciences, is so demanding that it's incompatable with having a family.
Compared with what? Is it more demanding than partner track in a law firm? More demanding than a job with a major consulting firm? Starting and running a serious small business? Success in high-level business-to-business sales?
If so, why?
May '10
Re: "Descent Into Mediocrity"
Kenneth, I suggest that you spend more time at a research university before making a blanket statement like that. I agree that there are is a lot of nonsense published, particularly in the soft, subjective social "science" areas, I also believe that almost universally there is too much emphasis placed on publishing and far too little on teaching. I am hoping that the emerging higher education budget wars will help to weed out some of the nonsense. BS doesn't float quite as well as cream.
But Art. 1, section 8, clause 8 was put in the Constitution by the Founders because they valued scientific research and especially publishing. This is one more means of interchange of knowledge and in the sciences it works very well- not perfectly.
Jul '10
Re: "Descent Into Mediocrity"
Duane Oyen: Kenneth, I suggest that you spend more time at a research university before making a blanket statement like that. I agree that there are is a lot of nonsense published, particularly in the soft, subjective social "science" areas, I also believe that almost universally there is too much emphasis placed on publishing and far too little on teaching. I am hoping that the emerging higher education budget wars will help to weed out some of the nonsense. BS doesn't float quite as well as cream.
But Art. 1, section 8, clause 8 was put in the Constitution by the Founders because they valued scientific research and especially publishing. This is one more means of interchange of knowledge and in the sciences it works very well- not perfectly. · Feb 25 at 5:10am
I've seen first-hand how professors at those institutions simply appropriate the research they require of their graduate students and residents and publish it as their own.
Sep '10
Re: "Descent Into Mediocrity"
I have come to terms with my womanly mediocrity as well. It turns out that being bright as a child + lacking any sort of ambition = being just smart enough to see how unremarkable my adult life and career are. I don't have kids but my domestic life is endlessly interesting to me, partly because I have so little time to devote to it. I don't lack for ambition in how clean and beautiful I want my house to be, or in the complexity of the gourmet meals I want to serve my husband, or in the sewing projects I've taken up as a hobby. All I want is enough time to do these things properly. I put it all down to being a chick, because seriously, that's the only stuff that's really compelling to me. Well, okay, and hockey.
Jul '10
Re: "Descent Into Mediocrity"
One thing I noticed in Dr. Weston's piece is something that I've spoken with other researchers I've met, some of them Nobel prize winners themselves. It seems that in the hard sciences, educators, researchers and practitioners alike are very clear when talking about the importance of networking, and younger researchers are totally open about mentioning that they got a certain postdoc or fellowship position because they met and had a good conversation with some administrator or principal investigator at a conference in Timbuktu.
Having studied international relations (and taking far fewer political science courses than one would imagine necessary to complete that major) I find this lack of frankness about both the importance of networking in general and the specific gains one sees from networking to be disturbing. Like my mother I'm a natural schmoozer, but looking back it seems criminal that none of my professors in college and only some of my supervisors in Washington ever made it clear to me or my peers how important it is to network and meet people.