Grad school killed the neuroscience star

There’s a story my best friend from college loves to tell about me.  She even told it during my wedding toast. She describes this interaction we had during our first few weeks of being friends, my first year at Smith.

After starting college intending to major in studio art, I took intro to neuroscience to fulfill a natural science requirement simply because it did not require a lab section. I hated science lab courses in high school. Neuroscience, however, is a saucy minx and within the first few weeks I was swooning over the action potential, the habenula and long-term potentiation.

One night I was studying for an exam with my girls and was having a nerd-gasm over what I was reading about the inner ear. Caitlin loves to joke about how she couldn’t have been more bored to death by what I was describing to her, but since we were new friends she feigned interest. It was certainly clear, however, that I should be studying neuroscience. Who gets this excited about cells firing and bones vibrating?

By the end of that semester, I was a neuroscience major. My courses blew my mind. My lab work blew my mind. I spent my summers at the Autism Research Foundation studying anatomical changes in post-mortem autistic human brain. I never got as excited about anything as much as I did about neuroscience in those days.

I went to The Society for Neuroscience meeting the fall of my senior year and was instantly sold on the idea of pursing research. I LOVED that meeting! It’s possible I was just on cloud 9 after meeting my future husband my first day there, but whatever the reason, I decided I wanted to apply to graduate school right after.

In hindsight, it was definitely an impulsive decision. If I could go back in time and tell my 21-year-old self one thing it would be to slow the F down and think about something for more than 5 minutes before acting on it. (I’m sure I’m not the only person who wishes they could do that). It was mid-November when I made that decision and by early January I had taken the GREs and sent in my grad school applications. I interviewed in February and by early March I knew I’d be moving to Atlanta to start my PhD at Emory that summer.

Impulsive may not even cover it. Hasty? Yes. Rash? Perhaps. But at the time I was incredibly motivated and figured, “I love studying neuroscience. Why stop?”

And yes, I did continue to “study neuroscience” in graduate school, but it couldn’t have been more different. Maybe I thought grad school would be an extension of college.  I guess I don’t really know what I was expected, but it feels like everything went wrong from day one.

While I pretty much knew during my first year of grad school that bench science was not for me, I gave it the good old “college try.” Damn did I give it the old college try. I’d never quit anything in my life and I certainly wasn’t going to start now. I am incredibly stubborn, if that isn’t clear by now.

Almost 10 years later and multiple lab switches, a degree, a post-doc, 5 papers, one sociopath for a boss, overt sexism, paper rejections, impossible collaborators, failed grants, failed job applications, and even a knee injury at a scientific meeting that ultimately required surgery… I’m finally ready to leave the lab behind me. 

During the last year, since becoming a mother, I have done a lot of soul searching. A LOT. Self-reflection became my job in 2013. I quit my post-doc last spring and since then I’ve genuinely and seriously considered doing another post-doc, teaching, and even research administration to name a few of my pursuits.  

I have finally decided that what I want to do is write. I’ve always had it in the back of my mind, the idea of doing freelance, but it’s scared me a little. How do I get into it? I’ll have to do a lot of networking, be my own biggest advocate and might even have to talk to people on the phone! Yikes. (I hate talking on the phone. It’s like a social anxiety disorder). What if I can’t keep up with deadlines?  And worst of all… What if someone says they don’t like what I’ve written???

While I’ve been thinking about pursing science or medical writing for a while now, I have also tried getting some other more traditional jobs over the past 6+ months. I’ve applied for jobs, have been offered jobs, been denied jobs, and even turned down jobs myself.

I’m glad I’ve been on this job search journey, because now I’m absolutely convinced writing, specifically freelance, is what I want to do, at least right now. When I was faced with the possibility of spending my day-to-day doing “X” or “Y” starting next week, I realized “oh hell no, that’s not what I want!”

While a few things scare me a little, I love the idea of freelance writing. It gives me the flexibility in my schedule that I am used to after never having a typical 9-5 job at 31 years old. Having the ability to accept or turn down jobs will (hopefully) allow me to spend as much or as little time with Tess, and travel when I want/need. I don’t like working on the same thing day in and day out, so I love the idea of having various different projects to work on. I also love working at home - I don’t get distracted by dirty dishes, looming home improvement projects or even television. I got my dissertation written in 6 weeks and 90% of that happened at my dining room table. I realize it can (and will) get lonely at times, not having an office/lab to go to, but I have a lot of volunteer work I do and I’m trying to do a better job of meeting people and spending time with my friends. Hopefully I won’t turn weird. (Make sure I don’t turn weird!)

Now that I’ve finally decided to fervently pursue freelance writing, I’m still left with the battle of what KIND of writing I want to be doing.  I have been focusing on trying to get technical writing/editing type work with medical device or pharmaceutical companies, or even copyediting, where I can really use my experience, background and expertise.

The truth is, though, what I would really love to be able to do is science journalism. I think it sounds far more interesting and fun than technical writing. Not only that, but I feel strongly that the world at large needs to know what is happening within the scientific community. Tax payer money funds a vast majority of the research being carried out at US universities via grants from the National Institutes of Health. Americans have a right, and I’d even argue that they have a duty, to learn about what scientific discovery their tax money enables.  I want to help introduce that work to the public.

I just have one problem…

Science has destroyed my passion for science.

The rush I would get from studying the inner ear, that I mentioned earlier, is long gone. The excitement I once had for the brain is mostly dead. Sure, I read scientific studies and think “that’s a well-done piece of work” and sometimes even “wow, that’s pretty cool.” Mostly though, my thoughts while reading scientific articles are:

“Flawed,” “Poor controls,” “Incomplete statistics,” “Low n’s,” “Incoherent writing,” and a little bit of “Bitch, please.”

I applied for a faculty job over the summer. The overwhelming piece of criticism I got from the wonderful colleagues who read my research proposal was “where’s the passion?” It was a logical study with important implications, complete with ideas for specific experiments with sound controls and even plans for how to acquire my animal models and funding. But there was no “flavor” to it. No feeling. No enthusiasm. All facts, no passion.

When I applied to grad school, I think my acceptances were a result of my personal statement and interviews.  I wrote and talked about why I wanted to study autism in grad school. I remember my interviewers commenting on how passionate I was about the work I wanted to pursue.

Maybe my problem was that I didn’t end up pursuing that line of research… maybe I picked the wrong school… the wrong degree… who knows. But in any event, I got the shit kicked out of me by grad school and it killed the passionate scientist I once was.

Sure, I became a damn good electrophysiologist, I made it rain data like n’s were 100 dolla bills ya’ll and I was T-pain. I always knew the right statistical test to run and why, ran the proper controls and ran them again, then thought up some more. I used organized, clear, concise language to describe my work in abstracts and manuscripts, could identify poor quality data, flawed logic or pick apart a weak argument in any study.

I studied under some tough mofos who studied under even tougher mofos and they made me into a damn good scientist… but at what cost?   They would say “jump” and I wouldn’t even ask “how high” because I knew it had to be higher and I probably already disappointed them. I have had endless lessons from advisors and mentors about how to get a beautiful western blot or pull a perfect electrode, how to grow the healthiest cells and how to build a rig with the lowest noise.  So much of my gradate education was focused on “doing it right” and still feeling like I was “doing it wrong.”

Being meticulous, diligent, careful, productive, attentive to detail, thorough, committed, dedicated… these were the traits that were celebrated in the lab. Creativity, passion and innovation were secondary, if anything. And that message got through to me loud and clear.  When I sat on the Emory Neuroscience program admissions committee, I would roll my eyes and scoff at anyone who so much as used the word “passion” in their personal statement, or the expression “piqued my interest” (worse still if spelled “peaked”).

What happened to me? How did I so quickly transform from the eager, idealistic, excited 21 year old scientist I was when I graduated from Smith College to the bitter, jaded, disinterested 31 year old I am now?

I think maybe because in many ways I was dealt an exceptionally losing hand on numerous occasions. I never had an opportunity to join a lab, explore various projects, pursue one of my choice and then spend time to write a grant proposal to fund my work. I was always handed a project to complete. I had a PI encourage me to quit grad school because my brother was dying of cancer and I wasn’t sufficiently focused/driven at the time. I worked on studies that were eventually published but I was not included on the author list. My PI decided to move the lab cross-country as I was nearing completion of my project.  A professor I revered above all others told me I could join their lab to finish my dissertation research, but then mere weeks before my start date revoked that offer (and didn’t even have the decency to tell me to my face but had my previous advisor tell me). I was encouraged by program leadership to join labs I shouldn’t have simply because they had a lot of money.  I don’t mean to play the victim or appear like a woman scorned, but let’s just say I did deal with my fair share of bullshit.

I don’t mean to throw all my professors, mentors or advisors under the bus here. Unfortunately, they are slaves to the NIH and money is the name of the game. Grad students need to be paid and if you want to pay them on a grant they need to work on that grant. Funding levels are damn low, have been for a while, and don’t appear to be improving any time soon. Studies that are high-risk but high reward are hardly funded. A project needs to be half done and have 3 publications before a grant proposal gets a fundable score. There is a specific playbook, a template, for getting funded and pedigree, rather than ability or ideas, is a huge part of it. There are areas of research that get you a grant and those that don’t. There are questions they want answered and those that they don’t.

While I’ve had a lot of bad luck and missed opportunities, I don’t necessarily think that my general training was in any way unique – I think that there are few labs where things are different than what I describe. The ones that are different, where enthusiasm, ideas and creativity abounds, where students are allowed time to pursue various projects and submit various graduate fellowship applications, where the PI doesn’t need to suddenly up and move, are probably heavily funded, often by Howard Hughes, and don’t need to worry about failed studies and money.

I think the world of scientific research is sick – sick, as in un-well. Too many people and not enough money. Peer-review is great in theory, but is ultimately flawed because your “peers” are also your competitors. Anyone who thinks a PI is free of bias while they read grant applications from their competitors is naïve. I feel this is especially the case at this point in time when people are fighting tooth and nail for measly scraps with which to fund their work. There is too much focus on conflict-of-interest due to potential financial gain (i.e. relationships to industry) but not enough on the conflict-of-interest caused by the need to publish, to get funded, to get tenure, etc.

How can anyone be passionate about science with the current shit storm that is plaguing us?

The truth is, though, there are plenty of people who retain their fervent enthusiasm for science in spite of the bullshit and nonsense. These are the people who make great science writers. I might communicate effectively, but what makes something interesting and fun to read is the passion and excitement behind those words.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I’m apathetic about everything. Clearly, I’m passionate about motherhood, about food (and beer and wine), feminism, liberal politics, and the Red Sox. But I used to feel the same way about neuroscience… and I just can’t seem to re-ignite that flame.

I hope it’s not gone forever. Perhaps I just need a bit more time away from the bench before I can rediscover my enthusiasm for the scientific process. Or maybe what I need to do is combine my other passions with my scientific knowledge. Maybe I can write about the neuroscience of Red Sox fan-dom! Or about the neurological benefits of butter and booze: evidence for 40ounces a day!

Or… a more likely scenario would be writing about baby science, the science of motherhood or Goodnight Moon… I just need to find someone to actually PAY me to write about Tess’ development on this blog.

Any takers?