Working full-time
Apr. 20th, 2007 10:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scottahillIt's been a while...what should I talk about?
My career goal as a physicist is to be a professor at a liberal-arts college, where I can do both teaching and research. I know I am a good teacher (with room for growth, natch), but I've been wondering whether I'm cut out to do professional research. One problem is that my full-time research-oriented jobs (graduate school, post-docs) have all been lousy experiences for me. The second problem is that I have a hard time being productive now. I have serious procrastination issues, and while teaching has the sort of deadlines to ensure that I get that work done eventually, my research tends to get ignored for long stretches. I am probably somewhat clinically depressed, which doesn't help of course.
Now, it is often implied that research is a very time-intensive job that requires a certain level of passion to do professionally, and it is possible that I don't have that passion. My research has been more of a hobby than a job recently, and maybe that's the way to go with it. Unfortunately, while I would not be devestated if I were not paid for my research, I would be disappointed to work in the sort of place where research was not required: schools without physics researchers don't tend to cultivate physics majors who are really interested in physics (if there are any majors at all). I want to work with physics majors and I want to teach upper-level physics courses. On the other hand, it's possible that I have a perverted sense of the level of research required at a liberal-arts college; I've spent most of my research career at research universities and I'm married to someone who is a full-time researcher who has no interest in teaching. Perhaps my research level is just fine for...maybe not a Williams, but the next level down.
It's also possible that I have the passion, but have not cultivated it properly. I have been known to go on work binges in the past, when properly motivated. After some thought, there are several things I need to be passionate about research.
1. I need to work on something I'm interested in. That's the part I was missing in graduate school and post-docs. I imagine that must be true for everyone, and I don't understand why most people are able to find their niche quickly while I did not. Maybe I am finicky?
2. I need a community of people who are interested in what I'm doing. This is the part I'm missing right now. I need people to talk to about what I'm doing, people who understand the research and who can point me in directions I hadn't considered. Mostly, I need people to tell me that what I'm doing is important or worthwhile. Internal motivation is not enough for me; it's enough to get me started on some new brilliant idea I have, but without external encouragement, I can't close the deal. My past is littered with many such started projects, and while they didn't bother me when I was little, they do now.
3. I need to respect my research and give it the time it deserves. Teaching is so demanding that whenever I am in a working mood, I think "Must work on my class now". I imagine that research should be fun and so I should be able to do it whenever, but it's not a relaxing activity like watching TV. To respect my research, though, I need to believe that it is valuable in some way, and that's where #2 comes in.
4. I need to get used to working full-time again. My therapist pointed this part out: it's been a couple of years since I've worked full-time, and the thought of spending 40 or 50 or 60 hours of effort every week on a job is...almost unimaginable. (Maybe I worked that hard in college; not since.) Sure, I can imagine spending that much time AT work, but actually working for that long? I have a hard time believing I can do that on a regular basis; it's overwhelming. So as an experiment, I am trying to keep track this week of the time I spend working on teaching and research. I'm up to 21 hours over the past five days, although that hasn't included any class-planning time, which typically takes a while. Maybe I can ramp up the hours over time, to prove that I can do it. (And heck, in the summer courses I spend 16-20 hours a week in the classroom, in addition to prep time, so I must be able to reach full-time level. The questions are: how can I encourage myself to put this much time into research, and can I sustain this level over the course of a year?)
I know I sound rather pathetic, and you may be attempted to tell me to "grow up and buckle down". I'm trying my damnedest, is all I can say.
My career goal as a physicist is to be a professor at a liberal-arts college, where I can do both teaching and research. I know I am a good teacher (with room for growth, natch), but I've been wondering whether I'm cut out to do professional research. One problem is that my full-time research-oriented jobs (graduate school, post-docs) have all been lousy experiences for me. The second problem is that I have a hard time being productive now. I have serious procrastination issues, and while teaching has the sort of deadlines to ensure that I get that work done eventually, my research tends to get ignored for long stretches. I am probably somewhat clinically depressed, which doesn't help of course.
Now, it is often implied that research is a very time-intensive job that requires a certain level of passion to do professionally, and it is possible that I don't have that passion. My research has been more of a hobby than a job recently, and maybe that's the way to go with it. Unfortunately, while I would not be devestated if I were not paid for my research, I would be disappointed to work in the sort of place where research was not required: schools without physics researchers don't tend to cultivate physics majors who are really interested in physics (if there are any majors at all). I want to work with physics majors and I want to teach upper-level physics courses. On the other hand, it's possible that I have a perverted sense of the level of research required at a liberal-arts college; I've spent most of my research career at research universities and I'm married to someone who is a full-time researcher who has no interest in teaching. Perhaps my research level is just fine for...maybe not a Williams, but the next level down.
It's also possible that I have the passion, but have not cultivated it properly. I have been known to go on work binges in the past, when properly motivated. After some thought, there are several things I need to be passionate about research.
1. I need to work on something I'm interested in. That's the part I was missing in graduate school and post-docs. I imagine that must be true for everyone, and I don't understand why most people are able to find their niche quickly while I did not. Maybe I am finicky?
2. I need a community of people who are interested in what I'm doing. This is the part I'm missing right now. I need people to talk to about what I'm doing, people who understand the research and who can point me in directions I hadn't considered. Mostly, I need people to tell me that what I'm doing is important or worthwhile. Internal motivation is not enough for me; it's enough to get me started on some new brilliant idea I have, but without external encouragement, I can't close the deal. My past is littered with many such started projects, and while they didn't bother me when I was little, they do now.
3. I need to respect my research and give it the time it deserves. Teaching is so demanding that whenever I am in a working mood, I think "Must work on my class now". I imagine that research should be fun and so I should be able to do it whenever, but it's not a relaxing activity like watching TV. To respect my research, though, I need to believe that it is valuable in some way, and that's where #2 comes in.
4. I need to get used to working full-time again. My therapist pointed this part out: it's been a couple of years since I've worked full-time, and the thought of spending 40 or 50 or 60 hours of effort every week on a job is...almost unimaginable. (Maybe I worked that hard in college; not since.) Sure, I can imagine spending that much time AT work, but actually working for that long? I have a hard time believing I can do that on a regular basis; it's overwhelming. So as an experiment, I am trying to keep track this week of the time I spend working on teaching and research. I'm up to 21 hours over the past five days, although that hasn't included any class-planning time, which typically takes a while. Maybe I can ramp up the hours over time, to prove that I can do it. (And heck, in the summer courses I spend 16-20 hours a week in the classroom, in addition to prep time, so I must be able to reach full-time level. The questions are: how can I encourage myself to put this much time into research, and can I sustain this level over the course of a year?)
I know I sound rather pathetic, and you may be attempted to tell me to "grow up and buckle down". I'm trying my damnedest, is all I can say.
