Funding academics

Normally, when there's a technology I discover through publications or a competing or start-up company, I have to make a critical decision for my company:

a) Make a better version of the technology,
b) License the technology, or
c) Collaborate.

There's a d): keep it to myself, but let's assume that doesn't exist.  Each of these has pros and cons (obviously), and a couple weeks ago I discovered a technology that will be very cool in one of my products.  And I know that with my involvement, it will be much better (one of the best things about the internet is that I can be cocky and not feel bad for it :) ).  Not just because of my knowledge, but because of my budget.  In this particular case, it's a lab at a major state university in a different state (not one of the schools I applied for...for those of you thinking about conflicts of interest).  So I'm weighing which of these options I should pursue, and since I have some experience in a), b), and c), of course I want to blog my thoughts.

a) I've done this before with a start-up that had a technology that they weren't willing to share at all.  I came up with a prototype alternative using a different physical principle, but giving similar, but better, data.  This method was cheaper and had other clinical advantages.  The company didn't get purchased for the hundreds of millions of dollars they wanted from us (don't cry for them, they got bought by one of our competitors).  My version is getting ready to save a ton of lives as we've gotten approval for sale in the good ol' USA.  This was relatively cheap, and turned around in less than half the time of the company acquisition and integrating their technology.

b) I didn't have time to create a specific product, so I knew of a company that had something close-to-done.  The product isn't really something complicated, just something that's necessary for the particular surgical procedure.  So I led the licensing effort, and ended up with a product that got recalled after 3 months.  Not a pleasant experience, and now I'm redesigning the product myself.

c) I collaborate with two university medical centers to perform animal and some human studies.  But they have relatively little engineering input, they just perform the procedures and process data for us. Nothing spectacular, although I've gotten these universities over a half million bucks each per year.  The one time I found a university to work with me on an actual product things never worked out because of legal.  They wanted a crazy amount of overhead (500%), and our people were not okay with that.  Then our legal department got mad, then my manager got mad. Not a great experience.

So, I talked to legal a few months ago, and got approval from the VP of my company.  I've been allotted $800,000 over two years to allocate to this.  The PI has a couple smaller grants, but nothing big.  He was very receptive, and he has gotten his legal department on board.  We have agreed to 400% and my company gets to keep the IP.  This significantly cuts into the budget.  We'll be able to fund maybe two students, but we will have enough left to do what we need.

I'm really looking forward to this because I'll be able to work with students again!  Being treated like a colleague from the PI is fun, too.  He doesn't really act like I'm his boss, which I appreciate.  I just want to do cool science.  My #2 working with me is pretty pumped about this too, because it's her alma mater for her MS and BS (she has a PhD).  I'm going to try and make sure she's very well trained.  If I get admission to the ivory tower, she'll need to take over.  And if the academic search doesn't end well, then at least I'll have this academic exposure!  Bright sides!

Throwing in the towel (not me...someone else)

It's funny.  We're peaking in terms of hiring activity for TT jobs, and so my conversations with friends in-the-hunt have been slowly turning away from the usual immature conversations to talking about the successes, failures, and frustrations of the faculty search cycle.  Because of this, I'm intending on throwing in a couple posts of my friends' experiences since I think their stories are interesting.  This post covers a friend at a VERY elite school who has been academic-focused since she was a kid:

A good friend is finishing her third year in her second post-doc.  She's been applying to many many universities with no hits whatsoever except one phone interview.  Her BS/PhD pedigree is similar to mine, just I went to industry and she stayed in academia (plus, most people really really REALLY hate her PhD advisor).  She got a pretty cold reception in her phone interview and they haven't gotten back to her for 4 weeks.  We Skyped earlier today and she has told me that she's officially throwing in the towel: she wants me to give her a referral for a job at my company.  I'm going to oblige because I know we will take care of her, and the things I don't like about industry and my reasons for going to academia don't necessarily apply as strongly to her.

This is really unfortunate because she's a very talented researcher (double digit pubs, good presentation record, solid ideas), and if I can bring her into my company, she's going to be a quickly rising star.  I read her research statement and CV, and if I had the budget, I would bring her in my group at a senior-level in a heartbeat.  She's also a great teacher, winning multiple TA awards during her time in grad school.  I think she'd make an unbelievable faculty member, but it's not going to happen.  I told her it was way too early to be giving up, but after years of rejection she's done waiting.

I guarantee that the people in charge in my company will recognize the talent she has and scoop her up very quickly.  I have 11 patents (submitted+awarded) from the past few years, and I wouldn't be surprised to see her pass me in a couple years.  Why can't academics see her talent?  I've read stories of people giving up, but I've never seen it.  It was heartbreaking, and it actually pissed me off.  I've came across many professors that are bad teachers, don't bring in too much grant money, and are total assholes.  My friend would be far better than half of the professors out there, I'm sure of it.

It was heartbreaking, and I'm pretty upset that she won't be able to train the next generation of scientists and engineers.  But, on the bright side, she's going to change the medical field (plus, we'll be able to hang out more. YAY!).  And if I end up giving up (though I'm not giving up hope, yet), she and I will be changing it together. :)

What the heck takes so long?

When I got my current industry position the timeline was roughly like so. Each offer I got was very slightly different, but the timing was similar.

Late Oct: Put together letter and resume. 

Early Nov: Applied to position.

Late Nov: Phone interview with recruiter.

Early Dec: Phone interview with hiring manager.

Mid Dec: Second phone interview with hiring manager's team.

Late Dec: On-site. 

Early Jan: Second on-site. 

Mid Jan: Offer.

Early Feb: Negotiated offer and acceptance.

Early Mar: Started. 

This process was a four person local and 2 person international team to decide hiring and needing the VP of R&D's permission.  They needed someone to do the job, they posted a specific position, and quickly filled it to get work done.  For my academic search, here's how quickly things have been shaping up for the position I'm furthest in on. 

Mid Sept: Started putting together materials

Mid Oct: Applied. 

Early Dec: Got request for phone interview. 

Early Jan: Phone interview. 

Now: Expressed interest in bringing me in for on-site. 

By now I had a written offer from industry after 3 phone interviews and 2 on-sites from the job I eventually accepted. What the heck takes academia so long? After the two schools that have said they'd like to bring me on campus told me so, I responded to the email with something like "Great! Please let me know which dates work best for you, as I have some international travel coming up to test some new devices."  I threw in the devices thing 1. Because it's true, and 2. Because I want to hammer in the point that they want someone with my experience.  This was a couple weeks ago.

The two schools that have said they are interested in bringing me out seem to be holding still.  So what could possibly be taking so long?  In industry, I got emails saying "unfortunately, we had to go with someone else", or "how does INSERT DATE HERE work for you?".  But no response since my response to their interest-emails.  Not even an email saying, "we will let you know more details as get closer to scheduling".  Bear in mind that they have already gone out of their way to say they want to bring me out.  I'm bewildered as to what's taking so long (although maybe ~2 weeks isn't that long?). Maybe I just operate on a much shorter time scale than most other people I know. I know if I took this long to get candidates together, short-list them, and bring them in I would be in deep trouble from my boss wondering what the heck is taking so long. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: 

I'll never understand how this process works. 

Landed the on-site!

Of the 2 Skype interviews I've had so far, they've both gotten back to me with on-site requests. One is an R2 school in a city I'm not a huge fan of, the other is at an R1 in a city that I truly adore. I'm working on my job talk and I'm a little torn.

I decided on 4 projects that cover a wide range of fields so everyone will be interested at some point (my field is quite interdisciplinary).  One of the projects is my favorite project from my work in industry. Because it's industrial work I have to be very careful.  This project has already had successful animal studies, and this will revolutionize the field.  Most of the impact in the field has been incremental, with two major advances that significantly change patient outcome.  My company has been using small changes to sell more products the past few years.  This product I'm so proud of will change the medical device world.  It will be amazing.  It's patent protected, but other companies don't know how close we are to getting this product ready.

I strongly feel that if I just focus on my grad school work and little things that are in patients in my current position my job talk won't be as strong.  I'm trying my hardest to figure out what to present.  I have my two favorites from grad school, and my future projects.  I feel like showing my current favorite project would really show them that my industrial experience is valuable to them.  But how? Maybe I'll use hypothetical statements...


Outright Rejections (their loss): 9/29
Phone/Skype interviews offered: 11
Phone/Skype interviews accepted: 5
1st campus visits offered: 2
1st campus visits accepted: 2
2nd campus visits offered: 0
2nd campus visits accepted: 0
Offers: 0

Corporate awards

At a company luncheon today I found out that I have won a big fancy award from my company for a product I conceived a year ago, and then another award for diversity and public relations for my role in my company's charity. All-in-all I take home $20,000, a plaque, and a vacation. Not bad, considering I do this because I enjoy it and want to help people.

I regularly say to my team, "would you feel comfortable using this on you child?", if we're creating a device that might not be up to our standards. I do this because I care. I overheard someone saying, "You can tell that Phindustry does this work to get company recognition and the awards. Phindustry is trying to make the move up."  Personally, I hate company awards. Supposedly, it gives employees something to strive towards, in actuality it inspires jealousy, resentment, and internal competition. We are on the same team. When something good happens we should all be rewarded here.  Maybe it's the socialist in me (although I consider myself a capitalist, tried and true) in academia, you're a little more on your own, so recognition should come on a more solo basis (although in academia, recognition rarely comes at all). I'm divvying up the part of the award for the invention among the three people that worked on this project with me. I did this with the last award I got, and it seemed to improve morale. 

The comment I overheard is annoying because I present myself as interested in the greater good. I don't care about patents or recognition. I want to have fun and help people. That's it. I felt so insulted. I understand why they said it: I work very hard, argue a lot, and dress up every day for work. The managers like me for my skills and for my public image. I really want to tell those jags (jackass douchebags) talking about me that I am trying to leave industry for good. That I moved up the ladder because that's how I could make a difference in patients' lives. Also, I want to tell them that they didn't get the awards because they suck. 

I know academic awards exists for all kinds of things with plenty of undeserving people getting them. But I've never seen someone in academia step up their game to get a specific award (unless it's a grant). Maybe I'm just naive, but science should be about improving the world and broadening our understanding. Not a plaque that I keep in my desk drawer. 

I'm a Watcher

If I had to guess how I got to my position (youngest person in my pay grade and leadership level in the history of my company) I would attribute most of my success to being able to please people. This occurs frequently through scientific or engineering achievement, but a lot of it through pure observation. I feel that I've developed a knack for reading what people want through a joke, plain conversation, a look, or just telling people what they want to hear. I made it a point to acquire this skill along with whatever technical knowledge because I've observed the most successful people having this skill.

These successful people can keep people laughing in the workplace, they can play politics without pissing everyone off, and they can give a presentation on a mundane topic and keep the room engaged. I practiced these skills tremendously. Sometimes more than practicing my art.  This has worked very well for me both in and out of grad school.  Especially after grad school.  I can tell I'm a different person in my industrial lab.  I just wish I could utilize this skill in my interviews for academic jobs.  For some reason I can't...

My problem with this is I sometimes feel fake. Unfortunately, technical ability alone does not equal advancement. In academia, my advisor said he had to kiss the asses of grant reviewers and program leaders. He went to conferences mainly to socialize, not present work. All of this was deemed necessary to get grants. In industry, having a boss like you as a person will get you much farther than having him or her like you as a scientist or engineer.  And these people-pleasing skills are something I picked up from meticulously watching those people perceived as great.  I don't practice this is my personal life, and most of my friends are from outside of work, so I don't feel fake outside of work.  I know that the more I move up and the more money my group gets, the more lives we can save (have I mentioned that we're the best group?).  So 'playing the game' is necessary, even though it's not right.

I was taking to someone about this (another person in scientific leadership in a sister company) and they said that, if you play yourself, you get stuck in a rut. You don't have to be 100% fake, just strategic. If you're in a room full of people from the south, it's probably best not to throw a southern draw and talk about incest the whole time, even if that's something you would do at home with your friends. That isn't much different than putting on a work personality. Don't rock the boat and try to make yourself someone that people would want to publish and fund. In industry, do the same thing, but you do it to get promotions, your ideas taken seriously, and more funds for your lab.  And to be the kind of person people want in scientific leadership, you have to watch.  I don't like this, but I tried to change it when I first showed up, but I knew I wanted to move up and make an impact.  With my team, I find myself acting more like myself, but I'll always watch since it also provides me with ways that I shouldn't act.  Maybe growing up overseas without my parents or a lot of Americans has taught me to mimic those around me to fit in.  I know people aren't going to like this, but there are some things that won't change, and the only way to change things is to play the game and move up.

No collaboration allowed

I'm on loan.  

Another group needs some help from someone with my skillset.  Since I'm the only one with my skillset here my boss loaned me away.  I HATE being told what to do.  Especially from someone not in my immediate group.

I hire pretty intelligent people, all masters degrees or PhDs with lot of experience.  If I surround myself with great people, we'll achieve greatness.  In the group I'm being lent out to, they're mostly people with BSs that have been working here for five years or so.  They don't know much about the biological system, however, they know a decent amount about the very specialized areas they work in.  One thing that irks me about them though is the way they do 'science'.  Their experiments are missing controls, data is processed in the most simplistic manner possible, and laws of physics and physiology are regularly ignored.  This makes the level of work really freaking simple and boring to me.  They are also stubborn.  They hate that I'm here and helping their group.  The fact that they're all a bunch of older white dudes and I'm...not...messed with the dynamic, too.  They're clueless, and my input will save them a year of R&D work.  But they hate that an 'outsider' has infiltrated their group, even though it's very obvious that I don't want to be here.  In my group, we play like a team and depend on each other, but groups within a company are often rivals rather than collaborators.  Even when we work on the same things and could benefit from each others' experience.

This whole loan experience reminded me of why I want to make the academic transition.  I want to be surrounded by smart, passionate individuals.  And if they're not geniuses with PhDs, they at least appear to want my help.  They want to collaborate.  Groups regularly collaborate from different and similar backgrounds.  They realize there is strength in numbers and truly value intelligence.

Maybe internal competition isn’t a big deal, but I hate egos, and I hate being passed around like someone owns me.  

My first interview/Talking with academics

In grad school, and during industry interviews, I consistently got the comment of "you seem like you can take control of a project and get it done."  I have a ton of drive, and it definitely showed. The passion for my research was evident. During my first set of faculty interviews I've noticed it's not quite there. I'm having trouble making great, convincing chatter that I deserve a faculty post and can bring in money and get publications.  Right out of grad school I know I could have convinced these search committees but I think industry has done two things to me: diminished my drive, and put me into a rut.

Since I wasn't in the academic mindset when things like grants and progressions of projects came up in recent interviews I felt like I was drawing a blank. And when it came to the projects I was proposing, since I haven't had time to catch up on literature, I was definitely lacking. In grad school I nailed all of these types of questions. I think I still did okay, but I know I could have done better a couple years ago. 

As I've said multiple times, I feel like I'm dumber. Maybe it's just me, but I just don't feel as smart. This might just have to do my loss of motivation in my work, and my overwhelming desire to get into a good academic position.  I noticed I do better in interviews when it seems like I don't really care if I get the job. I think I've been coming off as a desperate graduate student, and can't seem to get out of this funk. 

Prepping for my first interview

When I interviewed for industry jobs I looked up questions and not one was asked of me. So I practiced for no reason.  For academic jobs I thought that I would hold off of looking at typical questions, then the over-careful person in me took over and I've been reading up on every question I can think of.  Questions like, "What would you bring to our department?" "Why do you want to join us?" "What classes could you teach?".  I'm worried that I'm going to put my foot in mouth, since if I claim that I can bring real-world medical device experience they could get offended (even though it's the truth since most academics in medical devices have never tried their devices in a person).  I'll probably end up saying something about how I like to collaborate on medical devices and my experience can bring new things to the table like blah blah blah...

Maybe it will be for nothing again, but I hope it works out since the first school I'm interviewing for is in my top-5. It's a decently large R1 with great core facilities and collaborations in a city I love.  My advisor has told me that the person he talked to there has said I'm the front-runner. It makes me kind of nervous. Actually, it makes me incredibly nervous. Especially since I've never been interviewed over Skype. Of course, I'll be myself, but I can't help but feel like it's going to be like my defense all over: four faculty members staring at me, judging me. Although I hope it does go like my defense. I had a really fun time, cracked some jokes, and passed with flying colors (30 second faculty deliberation). Hopefully, these faculty members are as receptive.

I'll post some time afterwards with the damage, but in the meantime, I'll be talking to myself in my office while staring at these questions. Yay.

Outright Rejections (their loss): 5/29
Phone/Skype interviews offered: 11
Phone/Skype interviews accepted: 5
1st campus visits offered: 0
1st campus visits accepted: 0
2nd campus visits offered: 0
2nd campus visits accepted: 0
Offers: 0

Life's pretty cool

One of my products was passed to clinical affairs in my company.  This was my first project.  I came up with an idea my very first week on the job, and then I did a ton of science related to obtaining never-before-seen data.  New types of experiments, lots of debugging and talking with physicians.  This data culminated in a new product development.  I had some really great animal studies last year, then great human studies a few months ago.  Now, the design is frozen, and we're getting everything ready to take this to market.  Making money for myself and my company is cool, but the greatest thing happened earlier today.

I was at a local hospital and was talking to someone in a waiting room.  A man roughly 40 years old with his wife and two beautiful twin baby girls, maybe 5 years old.  He mentioned how he could barely move beforehand.  He had multiple corrective surgeries with no luck.  He was involved in the first human trial of a new product.  My product!  He mentioned how the new product has changed his life.  In three weeks he was up and moving, and in four more weeks his life was how it used to be before illness struck him 5 years ago.  He had maybe one year left in his life beforehand, and the physicians think he's going to live a full life now.  I didn't let him know that I came up with the medical device.

After he came out of the appointment, the doctor came out to talk to get me and bring me to his office to talk about the next stage of this device.  The doctor stopped the family and told them that I'm responsible for the product, from inception to implementation.  The wife teared up, and the father gave me a hug.  The girls just sat there.  I suspect the girls weren't told of the dad's severity.  They kept saying, "Thank you. Can we have you over for dinner? Can we take you out? etc.".  I told them I do it to save lives, not get free dinners.  Their thanks is enough.  

When I go through the job grind, I sometimes forget why I do this; why I got into this field.  In academia I plan to do the same.  Although, I would have the freedom to explore diseases outside of the mission statement of my company.  I'm happy where I'm at, I just know I could be happier, and do more good, in the academic field.  I just have to remember how good I have it, how many people have it worse, and keep focusing on what's important in life.  Life's pretty cool.

Staying up

I have to fly out today to meet with the MD I do most of my studies with.  This was supposed to be next week, but the MD has a last-minute commitment.  So I have to travel last minute.  boo.  I never understood the significance of New Year's Day as a holiday.  It seems so arbitrary.  Up until my early 20s I stood up all night, partied, danced, did the countdown, had a resolution, etc.  But mid-20s I stopped.  I just realized it wasn't as fun, and I could never think of anything I had to change and I didn't think I needed a special day to implement said change.

So I didn't stay up all night.  I watched movies with my spouse and my cute dog; drank some beer a friend brought in from Oregon.  Very fun and relaxing night.  I haven't stayed up past 11pm for quite some time.  And I only stay up that late when there's a hospital study that goes late.

It's not that I can't stay up.  When there's work to be done, I can stay up.  In grad school I regularly had to perform late night or early morning experiments going-until or starting at times of 3am.  It was fun.  In industry, we work pretty standard hours, and I do miss the crazy times a little because I felt like a crazy scientists those times.   Hopefully, I'll have some crazy academic research nights in the near-future.  Wait, what the hell am I saying?!  Actually, maybe I'll just stay in industry... :)

Waiting and silence this time of year

It's probably safe to assume I won't be getting any calls right now.  Everyone's on vacation, and I'm saving vacation time for interviews I'll (hopefully) get.  As I've said before: I'm very impatient.  Waiting for grants and papers to get reviewed were pretty much the only thing I've had patience for.  I don't know why I accepted the delays on these things, but that's what happened.

I would love to post a pic of my empty lab, but it's a little personal.  But, trust me, it's empty and quiet.  I kind of like the quiet.  I never get it since I live in a major city, and the team-based environment of my lab and household mean I rarely get alone time.  I prefer human interaction, but I get so little alone time that I cherish it.  I love it for a few specific reason:

1.  Meditation.  I don't mean monk-style with chanting.  Just sitting alone and clearing my mind.  I feel fantastic after a good meditation.  It's so relaxing.  I do this when I fish, too.

2.  Getting stuff done.  When I'm not being bothered I get a crazy amount of stuff done.  I can get a week's worth of work done in a day if I'm left alone.  My academia sisters and brothers would agree, I'm sure.

3.  Reading.  Reading is one of my favorite things.  I don't really get a lot of time to do this at home or the office.

4.  Being loud.  I try to be as considerate as possible, so I don't get to be loud.  Blast music, watch YouTube videos without headphones.

5.  Thinking.  In meditation I clear my thoughts, but I get my absolute best ideas when left alone.  I sit there and think about what plagues the current research community and come up with crazy ideas that materialize into awesome things.

Overall, I know I'd get tired of the quiet and turn into Jack Torrance (The Shining), but for this week, I'm going to have the time of my life.

Rejected!

I really do appreciate the schools that email me early on saying they don't want me.  Although the rejection email I got today was weird because this school requested letters from my references.  Does this mean my references wrote bad ones?  My guess would be 'no', but I'll never know.  GMP from The Academic Jungle commented on a previous post of mine writing that I shouldn't read too much into the letters.  I didn't fit in their department, whether because of pedigree, research background, research interest, teaching interests, or all of the above.  Here's what's interesting: I have an 'in' at the university, and they've let me in on some details:

The people they're bringing in are all in a specific field that I'm not in.  I applied to the position because it was a broad posting.  If you're looking for a specific type of candidate, why waste your time on a broad posting and reviewing applications that aren't tied into what you're looking for?  You're wasting your's and all the applicants' time.  Secondly, all the finalists are in an underrepresented demographic.  My demographic is underrepresented, but these are in the stratosphere of underrepresentation (I've never typed underrepresented so much!).  The university wants to diversify, so that's their deal, but I've never once hired with sex, race, tattoos in mind.  I find the best candidate.  I'm sure there are other factors at play, this is just what my 'inside person' told me.

This particular school is an R1 with a department that I'm not a fan of.  However, I adore the city.  I could see myself settling down in that college town.  I guess it's not meant to be.  I still have other opportunities, and I’m going to nail those interviews!

I decided to add an extra category to the job count: Outright Rejections.  Though it'd be a fun addition.  The slash shows how many schools I applied for so far.

Outright Rejections (their loss): 3/29

Phone/Skype interviews offered: 10

Phone/Skype interviews accepted: 3

1st campus visits offered: 0

1st campus visits accepted: 0

2nd campus visits offered: 0

2nd campus visits accepted: 0

Offers: 0

Family chaos and boredom

I don't know why, but I really don't care about seeing family. I know I should, and I have fun, but part of me (the biggest part) just doesn't care. I love socializing, but every year I'm reminded how little I have in common with my direct and extended family. Maybe because I've been off on my own since I was 17 I didn't develop mutual interests with my family. I'm also the only STEMer from my liberal arts family on my side, and my blue-collar hands-on working family on my spouse's side. But I'm not sure that's it, because most of my friends are non-STEM.  I kind of have this same issue professionally, I'm pretty quick to make friends (I usually develop a set of dependable friends within a month of living somewhere), but they end up being the more detached-from-their-work personalities. We never talk about work when we're together (which makes meetings very difficult) and despise talking work when it's not necessary. I love the work, although not as much as I love open-ended research.

My spouse thinks it's because everyone around us having kids so their interests and conversational direction tends to lean towards kids. Since I don't have them and I'm not yet interested, it's tough to get involved. To me, family just makes it loud and overcrowded. Loud commotion, tons of competing mini-conversations, lots of drinking. It's like a bar...if bars had kids with new toys running chaotically all over the place. I also think I get bored when I visit because there's not much to do in the small cities my spouse and I grew up in. I'm sitting on my phone while everyone is just watching TV or napping.  I'll be heading back to Major City, USA tomorrow and probably end up missing family. This whole situation is very difficult to comprehend how I feel, and I can't wait for the next holiday season. 

Merry Christmas!

Dear blogosphere,

Those of you that have read, commented, and emailed: thank you so much!  I started blogging because I thought there were a few folks out there that wanted to hear about industry, leaving industry, finding an academic job, (hopefully moving into the academic position), and random other musings.  Writing is cathartic to me, and interacting through comments and emails are super-cathartic.  I honestly didn't think that I would have any readers, and I wasn't sure how long I would want to do this for.  I really love writing and interacting with random people.  The email interactions are fun.  I wish I could post these in my blog since these would mix well with the awesome comments I get.

As I strike the keyboard close to the midnight strike for Christmas day at my parents' house all I want for Christmas is the health and happiness for everyone I know (and, of course, everyone I don't...unless you're a douche...in which case, screw you!).  My spouse says the only thing I probably want is a faculty job.  If it doesn't work out this year, then I'll keep trying, no need wasting Christmas wishes on something so selfish.  And I'm having so much fun writing about everything that, regardless of what happens this cycle, I'll at least keep on typing away.

Here's to hoping that you all get everything you want and need!  Merry Christmas to you all!

cheers!

Phindustry

PS-I know some of you don't celebrate Christmas.  In which case, I advise you spend the day watching this entire YouTube playlist since all the stores are closed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHRxv-40WMU&list=PLEFFD0AFDDF3F2C43

PPS @ 8am - Being the only early riser in my entire extended family is weird. I went to bed later than everyone and I'm sitting by the Christmas tree drinking coffee and glad I'm on vacation. Maybe I should open everyone's gifts...

My Christmas amp-mix

The trip home for Christmas gets me in the Christmas spirit. Every year during travel I watch a lot of Christmas specials and movies and play a ton of music and watch YouTube vids. I don't have a lot of time for this with all the decorating, shopping, and incredibly busy work. Christmas this year, more so than normal, really snuck up on me. Maybe because there's less time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, maybe because I've had a lot of stuff going on with work and the search for an academic job. Regardless, here's a few of my favorites that I'm using to get me in the spirit:

The Roots, Jimmy Fallon, Mariah Carey

All I want for Christmas is you 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWEfszb9h8Q

Stephen Colbert, Audra McDonald

Baby it's cold outside 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8XA7PtaCI8

The Temptations

Silent night

http://touch.dailymotion.com/video/xuah4e_temptations-silent-night-1982_music

South Park

Have yourself a merry little Christmas 

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/151731/time-to-go-mr-hankey

Celtic Women/Chloe Agnew

Oh holy night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ-8jYpa1-o

Michael Buble

White Christmas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZEQF9K-ksc

Earth Kitt

Santa baby

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFMyF9fDKzE

Jackson 5

Santa Claus is coming to town

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm0QVgJ3UfA

Jose Feliciano

Felix Navidad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMtuVP8Mj4o

The last song is especially important because it really reminds me I my childhood. We had a janitor at my school that started the day early and left before lunch every day. During Christmas season he would bust out a guitar and sing at lunch for all of is kids. It was the first time I can remember someone really caring about the holiday and wanting to spread joy. 

Those are just a few. If I get a chance I'll post some more. These combined with Chatlie Brown, National Lampoon, Trading Places, etc gets me ready to tolerate family. Now remember to be good, or Krumpus will get you!

Lofty PhD expectations

My boss's boss's boss came through my lab and asked me what I was working on. I told him, and he mentioned that he didn't think the direction could work. I explained initial results and he blew them off and said, "Academics have gotten similar results, and those will never be viable products."  There's a real disdain/disbelief in industry of academic results. Well, most industry. I've seen a few situations where they have faith in academic R&D.

This encounter resulted in a lot of arguing. I maintained my cool the whole time. He yelled. And a lot. And a lot more. I sat there and continued to argue, and at the end of the argument he said, "We need to start reevaluating your priorities." Then he left. Now, I'm used to this kind of arguing, and actually I secretly enjoy it since I'm correct most of the time, and learn stuff when I'm wrong.  What happened afterward was interesting...

There's a guy with a master's in engineering on our team that was in the room with us during the argument. He said, "I'm glad I don't have a PhD and don't have to constantly justify my work as much." He doesn't come up with general ideas, he comes up with methods to implement our ideas. He's a great engineer. So his comment got me thinking about expectations. 

As PhDs we have expectations that we are all-knowing, brilliant human beings, that can answer any question in our field. My company has an invisible ceiling in promotion in science and engineering unless you hold a PhD. We are expected to be able to have very productive input in every team meeting for every product line we have. In fact, the person I replaced had a BS, and every time I'm introduced to someone new, they say, this is Phindustry, they replaced Previousperson, but Phindustry has a PhD. It changes the expectations because of the PhD culture. 

But having PhDs, and knowing other people with them, we know how full of shit this is. We know a lot about a few specialized things, and more-than-the-average-Joe about other things, but we're not God. We have holes in our knowledge and abilities.  I don't know how to combat this stigma (which is good, I guess), or if it should be combatted. But I realize that I'm on the offensive/defensive more frequently that our 'lesser' degree counterparts, and I prefer a more casual discussion type of atmosphere. 

I'm impatient

I'm doing an animal study for a new device of mine today. It will be myself, a tech, and one PhD student in a hospital lab. As I'm sitting in the waiting room (I finished my setup rather early, so I'm drinking coffee and eating yogurt) I realized again how much I hate waiting. As humans, we wait. We are social creatures that need interactions to survive. Whether this interaction is meeting up with a friend for lunch, or waiting for a doctor's appointment to look at a mole, timing never works out and someone is always left waiting. I'm sure some statistics guru out there has published something on the probability that two people given a specific meetup time will be there at the exact same time. My guess is it's less than 5% of the time you arrive within 10 seconds of one another. 

This particular study is an interesting one because I am the sole person responsible for this product. I was allowed to deviate from the industry-team concept and pursue this myself. If I had no idea how to cut-down an animal then I would probably even do the animal part of this myself. It's an interesting project because it reminded me more of grad school in terms of how solo I've been. The solo nature of the project is why I'm doing the study right now when no one is back at the home-lab.  I've gotten this project done very quickly because of the solo-nature, as well. This animal study is the only waiting I've had to do other than parts from vendors. And waiting for these hospital personnel to get here is so damn frustrating.

Waiting right now also reminds me of waiting for faculty search committees to get back to me. And because I'm an impatient butt, I can't bear the waiting!  I've been told my impatience is my biggest personality flaw, but have been told that it's also an asset because it allows me to get things done quickly. Unfortunately, there are so many things out of my control. So I'm stuck waiting. And I definitely don't have the patience to learn patience. And as the holiday season approaches fewer things will get done. The one thing I've learned to do is occupy myself. If I didn't have a smartphone, laptop, book, etc, waiting would destroy me. With the holidays coming up, my mind will also be occupied with tidings of joy, and relatives I can't stand talking to. 

Now if I had some annoying relatives to talk to in this damn hospital lobby. 

Collegiate student-athlete

In my undergraduate years I was given the opportunity to play college sports in the NCAA. Hardly anyone showed up to our games because it's not a popular NCAA sport and some of the college was upset because they feel the team was created only to satisfy certain NCAA regulations. Even though that's true, we were good!

That's beside the point. I reached out to a former teammate (we'll call this person FT). FT has a FT TT AP position at an R1 (sorry, I couldn't resist). FT gave me advice that I should quit my job and get a post-doc. What?!?! FT's reasoning is that academics look at industrial folks as sell-outs. We get paid more, have practically unlimited budgets, and no longer work on understanding the world better. Most of that is true, but I know I chose this position explicitly to get real-world experience I could bring to academia since I noticed a lack of real applicability to most engineering research. Most researchers do crazy things then reach pretty far to demonstrate relevance. That's fine (and arguably more fun and useful), but I like making stuff. Especially considering I want to join engineering departments, and engineers build. So I argued that I would bring something different to the lucky department that takes a chance on me. 

FT argued that I have to show that I can be independent, and that industry work is more team-based with unlimited budget. The post-doc would supposedly prove that I can do effective independent research on a smaller budget. Isn't this what my PhD was? I was self-funded and guided. And my former advisor would back me up. 

My current position melds people of different disciplines into a team. And taking one person away from the team results in a sharp decrease in the team's effectiveness. Academia is more like golf: you're on your own. Plus, it can be a little slow (which I really enjoy).  Maybe it's the former-athlete in me, but I don't feel like I have to go solo to prove that I can work well away from my team. As a solo-player, I was good enough to make this team, why not look at my past experience combined with my team experience to prove I can get things done, instead of treating my team experience like a negative?

What gets done this time of year?

In industry nothing happens right now.  I'm not doing too much since I can't run studies because my techs and clinical collaborators are all taking breaks.  I can't work on new designs since my vendors won't be getting anything done until the new year.  I can't take time off because I need to save vacation time for interviews.  So I'm stuck.  I've been doing some brainstorming and coming up with some new project ideas, but I get tired of brainstorming after a while.

So begins my yearly ritual of reading a ton of articles.  I get to catch up on the newest science.  I remember being busy all of the time in grad school, and with finals, I'm sure professors are busy.  I know that they aren't busy with reviewing faculty apps.  I've gotten several emails saying that things will not happen until the new year.  At this point, is it safe to assume that if the school hasn't queried my references, that they're not interested in me? 

This is also a great time to blast Christmas music and sing along to get in the spirit!  No one's here!  I could run around naked and sing this music if I wanted to!!!

Working on next year's app

I'm working on my job talk right now, and I'm deciding to take a break to write about creating next year's app if this talk doesn't land me a solid TT job. 

I've always played things cautiously, occasionally making the big bet. While I have gotten interest from schools (none from my top 10 schools yet), I've been spending time on my app for next year. As I've said in a previous post, I didn't have enough time to create the application package I wanted to submit. Working full-time in a higher-level position left me with little free time for the research and teaching statements. 

In the situation where I can't find the best combination of city and school, I wanted to make sure that I can submit the best possible application next year. I'm even considering creating a home-lab to get some prelim data. I think this is my cautious nature. Will I have time? Probably not. Will I just accept any random R1 TT job? Probably. 

Getting a job in the medical device industry PART DUECE

This is part two of my experience of finding an industry job. 

Now that you have a resume tuned to specific job posting, start writing your letter.  The letter is a weird thing. In my current role, I use it as stage two after the resume, after the recruiter/software has filtered the first round of candidates.  The only thing I look for here is whether the letter is generic.  If it's generic, I figure they're lazy, and throw the application away.  Some people actually look in detail.  Either way, write it very focused on what you can provide to the employer. This is generic advice, and I don't have any other tips here other than making sure it flows and keywords and phrases appear here, too. One other small tip: you'll be applying for a ton of jobs; make sure the correct company name and job title appear. I've gotten a lot of letters addressed to the wrong company.

Next up, you go online.  Even if you know someone, you usually have to go online and apply for legal reasons.  Your insider can bypass the recruiter though, which helps a lot.  I had no insiders, except at one company.  So for the other jobs, I submitted online and waited.  About half of them called me without any further work on my end.  For the other half, I went into stalker mode.  Look up everything you can about the company and try to find someone in the group where you think you're applying.  Someone said to use LinkedIn. I didn't use it for personal reasons (bing! Idea for a later post).  What worked for me was random searches.  For example, I found one job posted on a board of some obscure society, and the hiring manager actually put her email in the posting.  So I emailed her.  It look a lot of time to find these contacts, and I seriously felt like a stalker, but it worked out in the end.  In the emails, you have two sentences to explain how you found their contact info and why you deserve an interview.  Hiring is something I don't have a lot of time for, so it needs to be optimized...and short.

After this, comes the first talk with HR.  Strike up conversations about the city and employer (don't ask about the work, salary, travel, etc.).  You just want to show that you have general social skills.  The recruiter will ask questions about your availability, expected salary, and talk-up the company.  Only talk about the availability.

If this goes well, you have your first phone interview.  This was usually with just the hiring manager, they'll ask you an assortment of questions, and are getting a feel for what kind of skills you bring to the table and whether you have a compatible personality.  When they ask you if you have questions for them, don't be generic.  Generic questions encompass: "What's your day like" "Describe your company's leadership structure", etc.  I hate answering these because everyone asks them.  Be clever and find unique questions like: "I've been reading about this medical device tax, how is your company handling it" "What's the hiking like around your area", etc.  This is YOUR chance to determine whether you fit into the group.  You're trying to spark up a conversation.  Remember, you're going to be working with this person A LOT.  The second interview often involved the hiring manager and the team over a conference call with me.  Be sure to get names and recognize voices.  Take notes on what they're saying, and again, look for unique questions.  Your goal is to turn this into a group discussion.  Remember this whole time to be taking notes on whether you are compatible with their personalities.

If all has gone well, then you schedule the on-site interview.  Try to get as much out-of-interview time as possible.  This gives you a chance to check out the city, since you'll be spending more time out-of-work then in-work.  When you meet with the first representatives, be sure to be very appreciative.  For me, I flew out first-class and they gave me a limo.  It was pretty awesome.  You'll meet with between 5-20 people over the course of 1-2 days.  Be professional, but most importantly, keep the small talk and typical conversations out and replace it with unique, interesting conversation. Research the company and all the people you're meeting with.  And again, I can't stress this enough, MAKE THESE CONVERSATIONS.  It might seem like you're being interviewed, but it needs to be two-way.  In this process, there will also be meals.  Take cues from the people you're eating with.  If they drink, then you drink, if they are very formal, you be formal.  You want to relate.  And if you're too stuck up or too sloppy at the table, they'll assume it translates to the work.  Send thank you emails. Short emails.

Some companies had 2nd interviews, some stopped at one.  Treat the 2nd like the first, that's all the advice I have on that.

Now comes the fun part: the offers.  The recruiter will call and make an initial offer and go over bonuses, perks, etc.  Take notes here since you won't be getting a paper (or digital) offer for another day, and the hiring managers will want to talk to you that day.  The hiring managers will ask if you have any questions.  Now's the time to start asking for stuff: salary, bonus, relo, vacation, etc.  You were sucking up this whole time, now the employer has to.  This will be the only time they're really sucking up to you.  After this talk, be sure to be extremely grateful, and tell them you'll let them know in 2 weeks, max.

Talk with those important in your life, maybe make a trip to the city again to see things, explore real estate, etc, then make the call to the one you want to work for.  The hiring manager will work with the recruiter on the details after this.  So what do you do with the offers you turned down (other than cry since you may have taken the wrong job)?  You call each and every person you talked to to thank them and let them know why you didn't take the job.  Be honest, but tactful.  If you didn't mesh with their personalities, mention that you seemed a better fit at X company even though you know you'd have a fun time at Y (that you turned down).  You may be calling these people again when you're hunting.

Overall timeline after applying for a position: 2 days to 1 month for first call; 2 weeks for first phone interview; 1-2 weeks for second phone interview; 2 weeks to 2 months for first on-site; 1 month for second on-site; 1-2 weeks for offer; 2 weeks for decision/negotiation.

So, that's all I can remember, I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but if I think of it, I'll add the edits.  Happy hunting!

Your research is too applicable?

I got my first official rejection letter.  From my top school.

In my company, when I hire one candidate over another, I can only tell the rejected candidate that we had to go with someone else.  A very generic statement since legal says we can't give reasons (I'll never understand this legal shit).  My rejection letter today was interesting.  It said a bunch of generic crap then, "The search committee determined your research was is too clinically applicable."  The job posting was for a bioengineering faculty member that could work directly with the local medical school to develop new therapies.  This is perfect for me since I've already launched medical products that are saving, on average, 200 lives per hour (according to statistics I got last week).

I have very strong opinions about the difference between science and engineering.  My views might be misguided but I consider scientists as those that search for a better understanding of the universe.  Engineers apply this understand with existing technologies, and scigineers perform some combination of understanding the universe and building things outside of just research devices.  PhDs in bioengineering usually fall into either science or scigineering.  The ones that fell into bioscience may have well just majored in biology.  These bioengineers piss me off because I feel like it should be a requirement that if you have a PhD in ANY type of engineering, that you should be able to solve a first-order differential equation.  Those that do only core biology research for their PhD in bioengineering don't deserve it.  Sorry, you should switch majors.  I've met far too many that can't solve dy/dx=x.  And that really pisses me off if you have a PhD in engineering.  It's a personal opinion that a lot of people hate, but good math skills and engineering are supposed to go hand-in-hand.

My application packet had a lot of scigineering: using new experimental techniques and the data from the novel techniques to drive new types of medical device design.  A strong marriage (non-Hollywood) of science and engineering.  Shit, my official job title is Senior Principal Bioengineering Scientist.  I work in hospitals, develop new therapies, pitch them to the board, do science to understand the problem, and create therapies and save lives.  This is what I'm great at.  So why does the search committee think my research is too applied for a position that works with hospitals to create new therapies?  I understand the search for knowledge, and I have a shitload of fun doing those types of projects, but as engineers, aren't we supposed to have applied research?  Isn't the current biomedical funding landscape better built for applied research?  I was certain this school would be interested given the clinical collaboration they're looking for!  Oh well...

Getting a job in the medical device industry PART 1

If I'm qualified to speak on anything, it's how to get a job in industry.  I've had more success in finding industry work than anything I've ever done, and I've been invited to 12 separate talks at universities and conferences to disseminate this information in two years.  For the record, I applied for 12 positions, got 10 interviews, and 9 offers.  These were all senior level positions as either an engineer, scientist, or engineering scientist, and all with medical device companies, large and small. This is my experience, and I'm sure some HR people might not agree. This worked for me though, and I was sure to talk this over with HR people.  But each company, recruiter, and hiring manager will be a little different.  The job hunt process is a long process, so I'll split this up into a couple posts.

First up, find jobs.  Look at your favorite companies and peruse the postings, and look for consolidated sites.  I used indeed.com.  It's pretty solid, but I'm sure there are others out there.  Do the search for what kind of position you want, and bookmark the jobs that YOU FIT.  Some people say to take a shotgun approach and apply for positions that they're definitely unqualified for, however, you're wasting everyone's time - including your's.  So find the jobs that you think you're a good fit for and begin taking notes on what's important and what's not important.  Try and get a feel for exactly what they're looking for.

Next up, spend at least 80 hours of your life on your resume. Give it to at least 10 people in different roles in the industry you want to enter. Or cycle it amongst students, faculty, and staff. The ideal resume is at max, two pages, is written in a combination of functional and chronological, and has a flow with distinctive sections. The key here is to have a resume that will woo a computer. 

Why a computer, you ask? Each posting has key words and phrases that the hiring manager most cares about. And without someone on the inside to bypass the computer for you, your resume needs to have these keywords to get to the recruiter. Now, there's two aspects to tuning your resume: direct and hidden key phrases. 

Direct ones are directly from the posting. For example, "utilize direct knowledge of cardiovascular principles to design new medical devices and evaluate devices with statistical principles."  In this case, your resume needs to have that you know a) the CV system, b) device design, and c) statistics (or sadistics, as a friend calls it).  The resume will most likely run through an automated search routine looking for these terms before a human even looks at it. Before I continue, a little rant:

What the fuck are we paying recruiters to do?  From what I've seen, some program does all the hard work for them. A candidate uploads her resume to the company's career site, then an automated program decides whether the recruiter sees it. Now the recruiter has a significantly reduced pile that he just has to skim to determine if the recruit is called. The recruiter calls the candidates with decent looking resumes (decent looking being the symmetry, distinct sections, fonts, flow, some content) then passes on those that talk semi-competently on the phone to the hiring manager. The hiring manager does the rest of the interviewing with the recruiter only stepping in to place offers and schedule on-site interviews. Can't all the recruiters be replaced with a travel agent and the hiring manager just take care after the computer? I understand there are some legal issues. But recruiters need to start actually looking at resumes again. Get off your asses, and out the software creators out of business!  Your missing great scientists that can't necessarily play the recruiting game!

But I digress. 

Hidden phrases and words are the key phrases that you think they're looking for. Recruiters know exactly what the hiring manager is hunting for, and having hidden phrases prevents tailoring the resume based on the posting since everyone worthwhile will be tailoring based on the direct words in the posting. The key here is to read the posting a couple times, look at the company and direction, and try to figure out exactly what they're looking for. There are key phrases in the search algorithm or recruiter's head that they don't post online. This makes filtering applications even easier for recruiters since those that are not truly fit for the work will not have the hidden words. Now, you might have these hidden phrases embedded in your resume already since you have the proper experience, however, chances are that you don't. You will get through the filter if you can figure this out. For example, the posting is a generic scientist posting in a medical device company that does GI. You cover the things that are listed up-front in the posting, but you don't have GI experience. You need to look at the company direction, say they're working on new proton-pump inhibitors, or you saw recent patents or conference abstracts on a new stomach stapling procedure.  You also need to figure out if this is a position where you will be in the lab, clinic, working on a computer or on animal models, etc. You can gleam this from words like "hands-on" "hospital", etc.  But you have to figure out what you think they're looking for to insert these key words and phrases in the resume. Or, if you have an insider, have them find out.

For example, one offer I got with a mid-sized major medical device company was pretty generic: drug-delivery scientist. From the posting they wanted a generic scientist: polymer experience, simulation experience, material science, etc. I went deep into the company online and made a conclusion that they're shifting company focus to loading drugs onto existing devices since none of their current products have drug-elution. I also noticed the use of a particular drug, paclitaxel, in one of their European studies. Simple detective work. So I tailored my resume to say less of the stuff they wouldn't find useful, and put in more of the polymer, drug delivery, and paclitaxel language. I got a call in two days. The offer didn't come until a couple months later (I'll talk about timeline in a little).

Work on that resume! I'll post part two later on. 

Being humble/turning into an asshole

I convinced my company to let me attend a conference this week that's mainly attended by academics. I think it can help me in my current work, although I'm also trying to socialize with people from specific schools. It's funny, they're talking to me like I can be their bridge to more funding for their labs, while I'm trying to get out of my current lab. It's weird.

At two talks a few question-askers were kind of rude: challenging the speaker, interrupting, mentioning things that aren't helpful. Grad students are giving these talks. And they're very nervous. The dudes asking the questions have been known for doing this in the past. Talking with a couple other students today we realized that there's a direct correlation of age with asshole-ery as we've come to call it. What about age causes these professors to become dicks?  The plot shows the average dickishness (or asshole-ery) over time. The dashed lines show the standard deviation. I added these because someone was going to say, "I know some guy, Dr. Idontcare, and he's so nice."  Obviously, there are nice ones, and these nice ones know that the impossible, asshole-ey questions can wait until after the talk to ask. 

So, what happens that causes profs to come in at some level of asshole-ery that most the public has and drastically increase over the years?  Why do they suddenly drop off as they near retirement? This is not a trend I observe in industry, it's a flat line in my company and it's subsidiaries. The plot was made after drawing this on a napkin with a couple people I went drinking with after scientific sessions were done. I miss this kind of conference socialization!  All of my industry comrades go back to their rooms and don't leave after sessions.

EDIT: I got an email saying this post was a little difficult to read.  Glancing through this, I agree.  But, I originally posted this in my hotel after a long day and night full of drinking.  I'm not going to edit it, but just wanted to acknowledge: you're correct, it's not that great.  No apologies from me for posting this after having a ton of fun.

First faculty interview calls!

I was certain no one but a couple R2 schools would call. I've been getting a fair share of emails from R1s!  They're wanting to schedule Skype and phone interviews!  

I feel excited, but I figured the faculty job was such a long-shot, that I kind of applied without any hope. I've even been making next year's application in the meantime. I guess I should be creating a seminar talk instead. 

What's great about this situation compared to my industry search is that I'm already in a great situation; so I'm not as stressed out. In grad school I had a defense date and knew I didn't want to hang around afterwards. This was for monetary reasons, and I hated my advisor. Because of wanting to get out, I spent every waking moment I could spare thinking about job hunting, and doing all sorts of things online. At interviews I felt quite anxious, even though it didn't show. This time around, I feel confident and excited partially because I'm not as desperate, partially because I'm already in a good place career-wise, and partially because I'm anxious about leaving my cushy industry post. 

Funny Researcher had a count on his/her blog, so I thought I'd do the same:

Phone/Skype interviews offered: 9

Phone/Skype interviews accepted: 0

1st campus visits offered: 0

1st campus visits accepted: 0

2nd campus visits offered: 0

2nd campus visits accepted: 0

Offers: 0

I love to argue

The title says everything I need. 

I looooooooove to argue. Arguing science, politics, superheroes, anything really. I love it because I've learned so much by arguing with people. I don't have to be correct, I just want to be heard and hear other peoples' opinions.

This brings me to arguments that suck.

When I'm arguing with a boss, they often do not work in my favor. The boss is in a position where they got there by sucking up, being good at their past work, and, did I mention, sucking up.  This gives them the sense that they're always correct. My old advisor (and many other advisors) had the same personality trait. My advisor once said, "I'm the one with a PhD, so I'm correct."  In this particular situation, he was, but countless other times, he was very wrong, and not willing to discuss the experiments that proved it so. In these situations I learned that it's not a fun argument since I won't learn anything AND the other party isn't willing to listen. So I usually just say 'yes, you're right', finish their task, then do what I wanted behind their back. This has worked out quite well. 

But that's bad arguments, what about good ones?  In a good argument, each person comes in with their opinion, then they listen to the other person intently in order to craft their counter argument. This repeats with each person listening and absorbing where the other person is coming from. Each person willing to admit when the other person has a good point. Another trait I like in good arguments is when each person will admit they're wrong. Arguments I have with coworkers at my level, and friends, occur mostly in good ways. I have one friend who take very immature tactics like speaking really loudly or interrupting, but I still learn things and this friend still relents when I've made a good point. 

After a nice argument I get all fuzzy inside, especially when it involves science. But this got me thinking, would I end up being like my advisor, pulling the "I'm your superior, so I'm correct"?  I haven't done that in my current work, and I manage several people. I hope not, because this would also mean people won't want to argue with me anymore. 

This also brings me to a third breed of people (1. Good arguers, 2. Bad arguers): the people that avoid confrontation. I hate these people. Although, I think I hate them because I want to argue, they want to stay quiet, so I end up arguing with myself. Which just makes me look like a fool. This nonconfrontational personality is horrible. And so freaking prominent in America and Asia. This will definitely be something I ask about in interviews: the way the department handles disputes. If they say they wait it out instead of talking, then I will say "goodbye". Actually, I'll probably still accept the job since it's a TT job.  I'm so weak.  

Speaking of arguing, I'm typing this while in a meeting, arguing with people. And I can notice people that fall in each of these categories. But then there's a fourth category: the person who hates the meeting and spends the whole argument on their phone typing in their blog. :)

Holiday visits, small talk, and family

This is an incoherent post of thoughts going through my mind throughout the recent holiday weekend. 

With traveling for the holiday and visiting family and friends, the most common question that pops up is, "How's work?".  

I love talking science, but hate talking work. I always say, "work's awesome", then change the subject. A lot of this is because work stories are usually boring when I hear them, so I figure my work stories are boring. When I talk science or fun things at work (i.e., screwing off, travel, etc), then it's interesting. I prefer to talk about funny stuff, and external activities are more fun to talk about. 

I do this at work, too, which gets on peoples' nerves. We get into science because we love it (I hope), and so we love talking about it. But, do people want to know you got rejected from a journal or just obtained a big grant? Unless the rejection comes with a funny comment (my favorite rejection comment was: "This manuscript is unfit for this journal and any other one").  

This brings me to small-talk.  I don't despise small-talk since people can make it funny and small-talk is a great way to get into more in-depth conversation. My only beef with meeting up with extended family during the holidays is that family is forced and the small talk is even smaller. You choose your friends, not your family, and therefore you don't always have as much in common. So the work talk is inevitable since my family doesn't know enough to converse science. So, I steer conversations elsewhere: stories I heard on NPR, cool facts I discovered, etc. This is where the problems occur.  I'm pretty immature, and bringing up things I find interesting results in immature, but usually funny, discussions. Some extended family did not find this amusing this past weekend. My spouse says they're jealous of my success, car, etc. But why hang out with us then?  This brings me to my final point: I'm going to try to spend Christmas away from my family (except my spouse and dog, of course).  Maybe a mountain excursion. I have a limited amount of vacation time to spend away from the lab since I'm saving vacation time for interviews, and do I want to spend it avoiding work talk?

Part of my want to spend it away, too, is that I really don't like the city I live in. It's a major city with a lot to offer and lot close by, but the weather, personalities, traffic, lack of community, and the high and mighty attitude make me miss my old college town. 

Now starts a huge rant. If you don't like rants, stop reading. Part of why I started a blog was to chronicle PhD life and the faculty search. Writing is also something I find cathartic, and I write in order to rant and get things off my chest. Another part of the holidays is visiting my parents and the in-laws. My parents are incredibly high-strung. There's chaos and questions and hectic everything. But it's nice because I don't have to do anything. No responsibility at all. We get to watch some movies, relax, nap, hike. It's nice for the most part. Their house is reasonably big if we want a little solo time, and my mom cleans religiously and keeps the house well-stocked with provisions. Usually pretty relaxed minus the often chaotic nature, and since they're pretty smart the conversations are decent. Going to the in-laws is a little crazier. My parent-in-laws are lazy as fuck. They are only active when it comes to cooking. Most of the time they're sitting on their asses. And they're pretty unhealthy because of it. This is added on top of being in a very crowded small house: both small and packed full of absolute crap. And all members of the family other than my spouse have aggressive personalities. It's also tough to have the best conversations since current events, science, factoids, jokes, most things are not topics they're familiar with. I run out of neurons to come up with things to talk about though. A lot of TV watching goes on.  Because they have a little land, there is a lot of stuff to do outside at least. On top of all of this, the house always have some kind of issue. And guess who gets asked to fix things: me or my spouse. So it ends up seeming like work. Even my doggie doesn't relax as much. This is all coupled with the existence of kids whose parents aren't here because of neglect on the parents' part and CPS taking the kids away-and depositing them to the in-laws. I feel bad for these kids, but I sure as shit don't want to deal with them. I love kids, but only specific types. And I really don't have the patience to deal with most. Well, I'm about to head on a plane to my relaxing life of waiting for calls from search committees...

Misperceptions of academia

So I got a comment from someone thinking about making the academia to industry move, and two other people emailed me a couple weeks ago asking about industry. So, since I have free time because spending time with extended family gets tiresome, I thought I'd write about my decision. I was planning on writing about my industry job search later on, too, since I started this blog about my academia search. 

Science_seeker posted a comment with a link on someone else's experience with the academia-industry-academia lifestyles. The link is here if you're interested: http://www.the-aps.org/mm/Careers/Mentor/Career-Choices-and-Planning/Early-Career-Professional/Considering-a-change-in-career-/Transitions-Between-Academia-and-Industry

At the end of the article the author had a set of questions related to the article to get you thinking about which path you'd like more. I thought I'd write the article around the questions to explain my thought process on jumping to academia; then add a little tidbit at the end:

1. What type of environment do you thrive in?
   I thrive in a fun environment.  And, trust me, I have fun in every environment, but I have far more fun when given freedom.  The freedom is the biggest part.  I have a lot of freedom in my current work, but ultimately, the projects I propose and am put in charge of must be aligned with the company goals.  I decided to work for my particular company because they work on the physiologic system I specialized in, although a completely different part of it.  So I'm still intellectually constipated because I can't branch as much.  My company is a very large one, so I can move to different divisions, but again, I'd be stuck in the types of products that will make money right now and focused on one type of pathology.
   1. Do you like to work independently or as part of a team?
      Why do these have to be mutually exclusive?  As an advisor, aren't you just the captain of a team of very 'green' scientists/engineers?  In industry, I'm surrounded with people more on my level.  This seems like a good point to go off topic: I started off in a standard R&D job, and moved up every 6-12 months 1-2 levels per promotion.  I am currently, the lead engineering scientist for two project of the six of my company's medical product pipeline.  We do a lot of clinically directed science and use clinical need to guide medical device design.  My budget is ~$2 million per year, nonsalary...so just supplies, since salary comes out of a different cost structure.  The products my group come out with are estimated to be responsible for 80% of the company's billion dollar earnings. This is nice because while there's no grant writing, I still have to go to customers, shareholders, and leadership to pitch ideas and get money. And pitching ideas and arguing is something I get off on.  Similar to grants, just less competition, but still a ton of politics.  My experience differs from the article's experience in that I don't only see a small part of the project.  I primarily focus on specialized parts, but I see everything, and reap the benefits or consequences of substandard work (which there isn't much of, but it's still there).  The team approach is definitely there, but I had it in grad school...just different.  Talking to academics, they seemed to agree, in that it's up to your advising strategy whether to instigate a team-based problem-solving environment.  Even in grad school, I worked primarily on my stuff, with some team input from collaborators, undergrads, and even other grad students.  I'll throw in tidbits from my current position throughout the post.
   2. Do you want to run your own lab and be the decision maker or would you prefer to have a boss who directs the research?
      I want to make the calls.  I get to make a lot of calls currently, then pitch said decisions to different internal boards, but they're still my decisions.  The difference is in the freedom of what I can explore.  I have ideas outside of the core specialty of my company (we're a market leader) that I want to pursue.  When other people are directing the research, I often disagree with direction, and because I'm in a position of semi-leadership, a mis-step by management and subsequent medical device market failure will hurt me immensely.  If I fail, I want to own it.  But moreso, I have a ton of ideas and would love to work on them. 
2. Do you want to work on a particular biological system or question? If you could no longer work on this system, would you be happy?
   I'm sure I could be happy.  I got into my field because I love the work.  But I have waaaaaay more fun when I get to work on what I want. I'm sure our non-biology brother and sister scientists have corollaries to their specializations, as well, that they'd prefer to keep focus on. 
3. Do you want to write grants?
   My lab in grad school was dirt-poor at first.  I wrote fellowship grant applications to several agencies and luckily was able to self-fund myself AND my research throughout my 4.5 years.  For these fellowships, they went through typical grant cycles: 8-12 pages with tons of supporting documents, submitted through sponsored projects, multiple reviewers, scored or streamlined, managed budgets, etc.  Simultaneous to all of this, my advisor had me doing all kinds of experiments and writing sections of grants he submitted.  We had good and bad success, but when I left the lab he had more money than he knew what to do with (4 NIH grants, 2 NSF, 3 private sources): polar opposite of how it was when I joined the lab (1 expiring NSF grant).  I learned early on not to take comments personally, and how to hob-nob with those that score the grants, and how to modify grants to get the funding you want.  Writing the grants was actually fun, too, because it forced us to organize thoughts on experiment and direction.  It's a skill that I was pissed about picking up at first, but I'm glad I learned it.  Especially since I USE IT NOW (GASP!).  I still have to get money, I just have a different target audience.  As you move up in industry, the blinders are pulled away and even I, an engineering scientist, have to focus on getting money to do my work.  Again, the key difference is I would rather write about my passions, not 'random' industrial work.  I actually had fun working on my Research Statement for my faculty apps.  And that was very similar to a grant, with aims, experiments, and outcomes.
4. How much importance do you place on publications?
   A ton.  I published into the double digits as a first author in grad school.  I have thrice that in first-author abstracts for conferences.  Publications define the furthest extent of the cumulative amount of human knowledge (see http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/), and this is where one should go if they want to see ground-breaking science.  My current products go into publication (with me as a 2nd-8th author) in the form of a physician publishing their success with the products.  When I do any science or R&D, we keep it on the DL so another company can't scoop us and make their shareholders rich instead of ours'.  I'm far more proud of my publications than patents (8 patents issued, 4 in review).  The application and translational research is something I'll miss, however, my proposed research has a strong translational focus, and I'm only applying to schools with a great relationship with start-ups and the medical school.  There's room for publication and profit. And I want to find it. Although it's a little more difficult when most of your work is device, rather than core-science, focused. 
5. Do you enjoy teaching and interacting with students?
   This is one of the things I miss the most.  Some student suck, but the amount of joy I would get from watching a student mature into a semi-competant researcher, or understand a concept they previously didn't, far outweighs all the other students that suck. My industrial mentor tells me that being around younger, vibrant people all the time, keeps you young, but I think it also keeps you smarter since you have to keep reiterating the topics.

Regarding free time: this is part of what turned me off of academia originally, the other parts were grants and pubs, but I've come to not mind these...although I experienced these in a different type of role.  My advisor would tell me that he works 80 hours, but whenever he wants.  This includes service, teaching, and research.  A co-advisor said he works 50 hours a week, and a prof at a separate university said he puts in 20-80 depending on what's going on.  What every single one of them said was, "to be given the ability to teach and do your own research, the service is a small sacrifice."  They all said it was worth the crap.  The latter professor has a very similar background (and personality) to me.  He worked for two years at a separate division of my company before turning to academia, and he said, "if you're a workaholic in academia, you're probably going to be one in industry, and vice versa".  If you love your work it doesn't seem like work, and then you find ways to fit in your time off.  My advisor took about 6 weeks of vacation, and regularly skipped out to spend time with family.  Currently, I put in between 30-80 hours a week depending on what's happening.  And then I have to travel once a month all over the world.  My boss consistently works 60-80 hours/week, and his boss puts in 80-100 not including travel.

All of this depends on how you are as a person, how fast you work, what type of position you're in, how your boss is, and the growth of your company, or how many grants or pubs you need.  I find the average is that industry people have more free time that the average academic.  But the academics seem to have more job satisfaction on average.  It's an interesting phenomenon.  I have a spouse and dog, and there are no plans to start a family.  And since I only sleep 4-6 hours a night, I have plenty of free time, as I did in grad school.  Most companies encourage the work-life balance, but I know plenty of people that don't take advantage.

Regarding stress, my friends in academia say that the first 5 years in academia are unbelievably more stressful that the first 5 in industry, but they tell me there's a switch after tenure.  But each person will be different.  I don't usually get stressed from anything.  My spouse says I'm a robot. During my qualifying exams my committee said I seemed too relaxed, and they would try to make me stress. They didn't. 

One final point is about money.  Professor salaries are mostly public, so you can look those up on your own. My industry offers ranged from $130k to $190k.  My current salary is more than that, but I'm beginning to hit the ceiling for science/engineering pay grades, and I'm not about to move into strict-managerial role.  The benefits are crazy good.  I'm still surprised about the benefits, discounts, and bonuses (from $10k-$40k), but working on problems that I am passionate about is very important, and academic salaries are still good.  

I think from my answers and the questions and interviews with people I know in academics, I'm currently better suited for academia, but each person is different, and I won't know until I try! If only future Phindustry could tell me if I'm doing the correct thing.