Job search and research
Jul. 26th, 2005 01:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scottahillGood news: I've been offered a part-time adjunct position at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Sciences (MCPHS for short), teaching two sections of College Algebra and Trigonometry. The pay seems pretty good for an adjunct position, and should cover our rent. I've still got a couple more applications out there, including some other part-time positions which might complement this position. However, we can get by okay with this and Jen's salary, even if I don't find anything else for the fall. (Maybe I find a couple of wedding gigs to sing, too.)
<braindump>
Professionally I am feeling adrift. I've spent my physics career so far bouncing from subject to subject: undergraduate in quantum information, graduate in granular materials, post-doc in neuroscience. My time with Bill in quantum information was fun, but the other two research projects did not suit me at all, and drained me of enthusiasm and confidence. (I don't work well if I don't like what I'm doing, not that that's an unusual trait.) When I was in Chicago I discovered the work of physicists who applied modelling techniques to studying social behavior, like traffic and pedestrian motion; this I've found to be very interesting, and I've written one paper on bus routes, with another in progress. When I came to Boston, I discovered the broad field of complex systems, to which traffic modeling might be said to belong, and that's also interesting to me.
I am not the sort of person who works well as a recluse (though I also require a good amount of personal space), and due to my past misadventures, I need the support of colleagues to help me re-establish my professional confidence. Unfortunately, I've never been good at making connections with people, particularly outside of well-defined settings. I belong to the New England Complex Systems Institute here in Boston, and I've talked with the folks there often enough that they know who I am, but I don't know how to go any farther than that. Conversations seem somewhat distant. I can ask specific questions, but I can't go up to one of them and say, "Help me figure out what to do with my career!" I'm afraid that, at this point, with my doctorate and a post-doc under my belt, I'm supposed to know what I'm doing: how to develop a "research platform", how to connect with other people and collaborate, etc. The time to learn those things was in graduate school, I fear, and since I failed to do so I am stuck.
I know that some of this fear is unfounded; that it's not too late to learn. I know that I'm not an idiot, that I have a lot of skill as a mathematician/physicist, that I _can_ do research, etc. I also know that a certain lack of social skills is not entirely rare in my chosen field. With all of this running through my head, all the time, I'm afraid that I will latch onto someone and just pour out all of my problems (like I've done here). Afraid that in response I'll receive an awkward silence, unspecific murmured sympathy, a breezy "well, you'll figure it out" or a cold "that's something you have to figure out on your own".
To get what I want I have to show weakness, to admit that I don't know what I'm doing, that I'm overwhelmed by the literature and so don't keep up with the journals like I ought to, that I have problems socializing, that I'm bad at keeping records of my research. I'm very bad at showing weakness, and afraid of making a fool of myself.
</braindump>
Well, maybe that's more than you wanted to know. :) Advice or sympathy appreciated.
<braindump>
Professionally I am feeling adrift. I've spent my physics career so far bouncing from subject to subject: undergraduate in quantum information, graduate in granular materials, post-doc in neuroscience. My time with Bill in quantum information was fun, but the other two research projects did not suit me at all, and drained me of enthusiasm and confidence. (I don't work well if I don't like what I'm doing, not that that's an unusual trait.) When I was in Chicago I discovered the work of physicists who applied modelling techniques to studying social behavior, like traffic and pedestrian motion; this I've found to be very interesting, and I've written one paper on bus routes, with another in progress. When I came to Boston, I discovered the broad field of complex systems, to which traffic modeling might be said to belong, and that's also interesting to me.
I am not the sort of person who works well as a recluse (though I also require a good amount of personal space), and due to my past misadventures, I need the support of colleagues to help me re-establish my professional confidence. Unfortunately, I've never been good at making connections with people, particularly outside of well-defined settings. I belong to the New England Complex Systems Institute here in Boston, and I've talked with the folks there often enough that they know who I am, but I don't know how to go any farther than that. Conversations seem somewhat distant. I can ask specific questions, but I can't go up to one of them and say, "Help me figure out what to do with my career!" I'm afraid that, at this point, with my doctorate and a post-doc under my belt, I'm supposed to know what I'm doing: how to develop a "research platform", how to connect with other people and collaborate, etc. The time to learn those things was in graduate school, I fear, and since I failed to do so I am stuck.
I know that some of this fear is unfounded; that it's not too late to learn. I know that I'm not an idiot, that I have a lot of skill as a mathematician/physicist, that I _can_ do research, etc. I also know that a certain lack of social skills is not entirely rare in my chosen field. With all of this running through my head, all the time, I'm afraid that I will latch onto someone and just pour out all of my problems (like I've done here). Afraid that in response I'll receive an awkward silence, unspecific murmured sympathy, a breezy "well, you'll figure it out" or a cold "that's something you have to figure out on your own".
To get what I want I have to show weakness, to admit that I don't know what I'm doing, that I'm overwhelmed by the literature and so don't keep up with the journals like I ought to, that I have problems socializing, that I'm bad at keeping records of my research. I'm very bad at showing weakness, and afraid of making a fool of myself.
</braindump>
Well, maybe that's more than you wanted to know. :) Advice or sympathy appreciated.
