Print This PostSometimes academia sucks. Long days spent coding and getting nowhere. Endless to-do lists which require masses of self-motivation. No set hours making work-life balance a precarious concept. And we don’t get paid much. There are a lot of reasons not to do academia. And yet… I’m still here.
No job is sunshine and roses 100% of the time, and academia certainly has its share of thunderstorms. But with that said, I like my job. This does not mean I haven’t been dangerously close to finding out how hard you have to hit a hard drive with a floral mug to cause permanent damage, but it does mean that I usually leave work satisfied. Now this isn’t meant to in any way diminish the difficulties that many of us have in our jobs, but rather as a moment of meditation to remind us why we started off on this journey in the first place, and why we decide to carry on down the rocky road of academic life.
I’d like to kick off with my most calm and rational of reasons… it’s so cool! How many people can say they scan brains for a living? If I went back in time to tell my teenage self that my actual job is a computational neuroscientist, she may well have passed out. I will never forget that for the longest time the job ‘researcher’ fell into the same category for me as ‘astronaut’ or ‘movie star’ – I knew it existed but it certainly wasn’t an attainable goal. When I’m feeling drained from the day, it always brings a smile to my face to remember just how excited baby Rebecca would feel to be walking away from a research unit where she works. I owe it to her to share a little of that excitement. She worked so hard to get here in the first place. It’s easy to forget how impressive what you do is when you’re surrounded by equally impressive people doing equally impressive things. When your everyday is extraordinary, the extraordinary becomes every day. But whether you work on cells or scans, models or modifiable risk factors, this is your reminder that the work we do as dementia researchers is baseline awesome.
On the topic of being surrounded by the extraordinary – have you met other researchers? Everybody has their quirks but on the whole I can’t think of a better group of people to work with. Colleagues who will drop everything to help me tackle a bit of code or rant about why this model isn’t running or give some much-needed context when it feels like it’s all going downhill. Not only are they amazing researchers, but also amazing people. Amazing people from around the world. As a small-town girl myself, the fact that I get to work with people from such an incredibly diverse array of backgrounds always makes me smile. The academic community might be one of the most international that comes to mind, and I get to learn so much by having conversations, sharing ideas, and just meeting people who I would never have met otherwise. People who may share nothing with me but a love of science. As a certified nerd, nothing makes me happier than getting to be unabashedly nerdy with other nerds. I hope I will never get tired of seeing a student or a colleague’s eyes light up when I tell them about my favourite study.
That’s the big picture, but what about the everyday?
- I can’t think of many other professions in which I can work in symbiosis with my own motivational drive. Working from home, working from abroad, working with my practically teenage circadian rhythms. All viable within the realms of academia.
- Problem solving. I love a good puzzle. There is something incredibly satisfying about sitting in front of an empty script with a goal and prayer. Generating ideas, failing, trying again, failing again. Problem solving in its purest form. It puts the fun in fundamentally annoying and will always be the best kind of challenge to me.
- Making slide decks that help other people better understand what I do. Making slide decks that help me better understand what I do. Thinking of new ways to communicate complex concepts, new daft analogies to explain my latest computational model. Bliss.
- Cups of tea. There is so much drinking tea in academia. I am very experienced in this field.
- I know how to operate a machine called magnetoencephalography, even if I still can’t spell it, and struggle to say it.
- I have my own little desk with a crocheted platypus on it. His name is Perrier.
- I get to write blogs that apparently people even read. Sometimes they might even enjoy them!
- I organise events that help other students like me explore the world of research. There’s nothing more fulfilling than opening doors people didn’t realise existed.
…I really do just like my job.
Now you might not like presenting or coding. You might not be a PhD student anymore and you might miss those simpler days of simpler problems to solve. You might not get on well with your current lab or feel you’re in the right area of research. All of these are entirely valid. No-one likes every part of their job, and I would never encourage you to stay in a job you don’t like. But what I would encourage you to do is to take a moment today to remember the parts you do like, or even love. Maybe share it with a colleague, or write it on a scrap of paper to remind you the next time that floral mug starts to resemble a mallet.
Academia can be a tough gig, but it can also be an immensely enjoyable one. Long days spent coding and problem solving. Endless to-do lists that get updated with every nerdy conversation over a cup of tea. No set working hours with sometimes envious levels of flexibility. Granted we still don’t get paid enough, but really there are lots of reasons to do academia, and maybe that’s why you’re still here.
Rebecca Williams
Author
Rebecca Williams is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge. Though originally from ‘up North’ in a small town called Leigh, she did her undergraduate and masters at the University of Oxford before defecting to Cambridge for her doctorate researching Frontotemporal dementia and Apathy. She now spends her days collecting data from wonderful volunteers, and coding. Outside work, she plays board games, and is very crafty.
Dr Becky Carlyle
Rebecca Williams
Amelia Robson
Dr Sam Moxon
Emily Spencer
Dementia Researcher