The Awesomest 7-Year Postdoc

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Radhika Nagpal, writing for Scientific American, offers great insight for those thinking of pursuing a tenure-track faculty position:

I’ve enjoyed my seven years as junior faculty tremendously, quietly playing the game the only way I knew how to. But recently I’ve seen several of my very talented friends become miserable in this job, and many more talented friends opt out. I feel that one of the culprits is our reluctance to openly acknowledge how we find balance. Or openly confront how we create a system that admires and rewards extreme imbalance. I’ve decided that I do not want to participate in encouraging such a world. In fact, I have to openly oppose it.

So with some humor to balance my fear, here’s goes my confession:

Seven things I did during my first seven years at Harvard. Or, how I loved being a tenure-track faculty member, by deliberately trying not to be one.

It’s long, but worth the read.

I think the one I most relate with is to stop taking advice. That’s not to say advice from colleagues is bad. Rather, letting the implications from that advice negatively affect your emotional happiness is bad. The truth is there is no secret sauce that leads to success. People simply do what works for them. In the end, we are better off trusting our own instincts.

(via: Dr. Heather Grams)