Print This PostBefore we start, it is probably wise to mention that this is more of a vent/frustration at my fixation on a singular song than it is a cohesive blog post with a strong narrative thread, a beginning, middle and end. That’s because at the moment, I don’t know the ending, but oh boy do I need some help to get there, and maybe others do too and we can go through this together.
So, when The Clash wrote Should I Stay or Should I Go, I think it was supposed to be more of a punk anthem, and less of the soundtrack to my current “should I keep going and apply for a Fellowship or should I leave academic research and take my knowledge elsewhere” predicament, but yet here we are. It fires through my brain at every inopportune moment, every time my brain shuts off for a second. I don’t even really like the song all that much, if I’m honest (although maybe I used to!).
I think everyone goes through this stage at some point after their PhD, not necessarily soundtracked by The Clash, sure, although maybe, but certainly having the doubts of whether academia is your forever career, or you want to try and make it so.
I kind of want to do both, but also neither. I know that’s not possible, I have only really got two options – I stay in academia as I know it (i.e. try to go down the Fellowship path), or I…don’t, and I do something different. Of course, there’s also a bunch of other academic jobs that aren’t traditional research posts, and some of these are very appealing to me, but ultimately at this stage it is academia vs. not academia that has me most in a tailspin. I’m scared of picking the wrong one, but at this point in time I have absolutely no idea which one that is.
What has been so surprising to me, as I try to navigate this, is the perpetuated assumption that I want to stay, because the whole undergrad-to-professor pipeline is set up with that idea underpinning it. I think where I am at just now is perhaps the culmination of many of the other pieces I have written for Dementia Researcher – I am queer, the pipeline is leaking and I am statistically likely to ‘leak’ out of it, I had an atrocious run of it as a PhD student, and seemingly one of the things I enjoy most outside of academia is life modelling for people which is, obviously, quite a different job. And, the crux for me, probably, as to why it is this specific song that runs relentlessly through my brain? The line “if I go there will be trouble, and if I stay it will be double”; I worry that, whilst I am in a good place now, is the “outside world”, as it were, going to be just as bad as academia has been for me in the past?
Turns out that quite a lot of people have quite a lot of different opinions in this space. Sure, some of these I ask for – the guidance of my current boss, for example, is invaluable – but other times people who don’t know all that much about academia say a little bit too much about what they think I should do, and it leaves me metaphorically screaming into the abyss. It is markedly striking to me that as someone who is ferociously independent and stubborn (to a fault), at this stage it would actually be really great if someone could just tell me what to do. I feel torn and split and I literally cannot work out how to move forward.
It’s also at this point that most people say to me that I need to take a break and work things through, but when I am three weeks out from my wedding (at time of writing, by the time this is published I should be married!), and my job is only secure until the end of February, it doesn’t really feel like I have that time to breathe, and maybe if I want to do a Fellowship with a smooth transition, I am already too late. I’m exhausted, and I haven’t even really started yet.
Considering this feeling of exhaustion, and in search of a way forward to at least start thinking about making a singular choice and sticking to it, I went to my old friend and confidante, ChatGPT. Because what else is a scientist to do in such a predicament?! Even though I did this as a joke with my partner – that maybe ChatGPT had a way to get through my back and forth – it turned out to be an incredibly useful exercise that left me with multiple questions to consider:
- Am I satisfied with my current job? (and would I like to continue doing similar work?)
- Is there space for me to advance my career?
- Do I have space for my own personal growth?
- Am I comfortable with the culture of the environment in which I work?
- Is my job or position secure?
- Am I suitably compensated for my qualifications, skills, and experience?
- Can I maintain a healthy balance between my work and personal life?
- What is my gut feeling?
I already know the answers to some of these, but others I don’t. However, I think that they provide a really useful structure through which I can agonise over this all a bit more, by ridding the decision of a lot of the emotionality (and hopefully its soundtrack). I definitely have a lot to consider, and hopefully by the time I next write on this topic, I will have got off the fence that I am currently very much sitting on.
Jodi Watt
Author
Dr Jodi Watt is a Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Glasgow. Jodi’s academic interests are in both healthy ageing and neurodegenerative diseases of older age, and they are currently working on drug repurposing for dementia. Previously they worked on understanding structural, metabolic and physiological brain changes with age, as measured using magnetic resonance imaging. As a queer and neurodiverse person, Jodi is also incredibly interested in improving diversity and inclusion practices both within and outside of the academic context.
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