Dr. Shellie

I’m writing up a lab report. For a class. No, it’s not for "credit." Postdocs can’t get credit anyway, and why would I need credit when I already have a faculty job? It’s just a subject I want to learn.

I feel like an undergraduate again.

But not.

I am older, wiser, more confident. Confident enough to learn something new without being afraid of looking silly. I love it that academia lets you learn new things over and over again.

Dear Sir,

Greetings from (Country). I have a BS in (Subject), and strongly desire to continue my studies in a PhD program in the US. I have seen your research interests on your web page, and am very interested in studying in these areas. Do you have an open position in your group?

Sincerely,

Prospective Student

I am reading applications from prospective PhD students for my research group. Most applicants are foreign. The professors who have written recommendation letters often comment on the student’s personality traits. (The title of this post is typical of this style, which I do not think you would generally find in a US student’s application.)

I am delighted by imagining these prospective students of mine, who in addition to being intelligent, independent researchers, are "always very kind and helpful" to their classmates and have a "cheerful outlook and honest disposition."

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to make an impact.

First, there’s my research. By now, I’ve written a lot of papers, and people have cited them a fair number of times. So that’s good. But I am surprised by which papers have become popular (=cited more that others). They weren’t necessarily my favorite papers, or the ones that I felt proudest of, or the ones that were most creative or required the most work. I couldn’t have predicted that they’d be popular.

Then, there’s teaching and mentoring. I haven’t done a lot of formal teaching, but I have done a variety of tutoring and volunteering here and there. For a year I tutored Spanish-language GED students. You would think that would be very useful, and yet I’m not sure that any of my students even passed the GED in the end. (Due to the way the class was organized, new students were constantly coming and going, and they had widely varying levels of formal education, making progress difficult.) Quite possibly, the most useful mentoring I’ve done so far only took one hour. A few years back, I ran into a classmate who looked a little down. We got to talking, and it turned out that she was really unhappy in her research group and wanted to switch. I gave her a few tips, and she found a new group. A few weeks ago, she told me that she is planning to graduate this year, and that she didn’t think she’d still be in a PhD program if it hadn’t been for me. I was really touched. I really didn’t do much at all! I just happened to help a tiny bit at exactly the right time.

I like it when I feel like I’ve had an impact on other people’s lives. As an aside, I do wonder sometimes whether that is gendered– why am I not as happy and proud about my paper citations as I am about helping others? Am I too timid to aspire to be a Great Scientist? (The male students writing to ask me for research positions all claim to be aspiring to this goal!)

But anyway, my biggest impact might be the least expected of all. Next week I will be a bone marrow donor. Before you all pat me on the back for my tremendous sacrifice, let me point out that this does not involve giant needles, "spooning" out of marrow, or excruciating pain. Thanks to recent medical advances, all I have to do (more or less) is get a few shots and then donate blood. Through no effort of my own, I happen to have the right genetic makeup to be compatible with my sister’s immune system. And so, right now, my cells might possibly (hopefully) save her life. Pretty dramatic. How’s that for unexpected impact?

A new faculty job search season is beginning. The people I talk to who are looking for jobs don’t seem worried at all. How is this possible?!! Are they just hiding it? Or is too early for the anxiety to set in? Or do some people just not worry?