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Transitioning Into a Tenure Track Position: The Entropy of an Exciting Period of Your Career

By Patrick Allard posted 09-18-2014 15:22

  

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 Contributed in Recognition of National Postdoctoral Appreciation Week

If in your postdoctoral fellowship you have been at the top of your game—you published well, you wrote a couple of successful fellowship and grant applications, and you could give your talk in your sleep—then, you may be successful in landing the coveted, and increasingly elusive, academic position. Most likely, this position will be a mixture of responsibilities in research, teaching, and (as a distant third) service.

After stressing over whether you would achieve this position, you should be excited that you did succeed, but you are probably apprehensive as well. You may have heard the stories of how chaotic the transition to independence in academia might be, and that definitely feeds into the apprehension.

For me, this was two years ago when I was wrapping up my fellowship at Harvard Medical School before moving to the University of California, Los Angles (UCLA) for a tenure track position. It seems much further away in time than two years ago and yes, my life for the last two years has been chaotic. As someone who likes to plan things and be in control, I had to accept that I was not going to be on top of my game for a little while, that I would sometimes feel lost, confused, and frustrated as I am learning to navigate a different environment and manage significantly more responsibilities than as a postdoc. So where does this chaos come from? What happens when you transition to the next level in academia? Let me list some (only some) of the changes:

1) Every institution works differently. They have their own way of doing things: from ordering to hiring and establishing payroll, etc. Even departments within the same institution can work quite differently from each other (belonging to two departments, I can attest to that). So even if you are an experienced researcher at Institution X, your learning curve is still going to be steep once you move to Institution Y. For example, I discovered that I could not just purchase the large and expensive microscope that I wanted although I had the grant money to do so. Instead, because I am using federal funds, I needed to either have several companies bid for the lowest quote on a microscope with similar specifications, hoping that my first choice would provide the lowest bid. In the end, it took me a month and half to be able to order the microscope that I wanted and that is just one essential piece of equipment to running a lab.

2) Starting a new research laboratory means you now are exposed to, and dealing with, things that you did not have to deal with as a postdoctoral fellow. How will you manage your funds for the next three to five years? Should you wait a few years before applying for larger grants or start applying for grants right away? Hiring a research assistant, at what pay level? Do you need someone who has more experience but is expensive, or someone with less experience but who will require a lot of training? These are just some examples, but the list of small to big decisions to make is extensive. As a student or fellow, when you saw your Prinicipal Investigator (PI) sending emails all the time, you thought that looked easy and that’s all they were doing…Well yes, they were sending emails, but each email dealt with a specific request that needed to be carefully addressed and it is not as trivial as it appears!

3) Then of course, you are moving to a new city. You will need to find a place to rent in a decent neighborhood. What are the neighborhoods and places to go to and the ones to avoid? You also may be given a timeline for purchasing a property as part of your recruitment package (ALWAYS inquire about this, it is a huge help!). If this is the case, you have to get to know the city quickly so ask other PIs where they recommend living. Additionally, if you have a family you will have the added responsibility of choosing daycares and schools in a new city!

4) I am lucky to have been relieved of teaching duty for my first year and have limited teaching responsibilities throughout my second and third year. And yet…while I enjoy teaching very much, I realized how much it was taking away from progress in the lab, even with limited teaching responsibility. During my first quarter teaching, I decided to not only redesign the entire course (OK, my fault here, but I didn’t like the way the course had been taught before) but also write several small grants and a paper on top of lab work. It was quite challenging to balance all this at the same time. As my teaching duties will progressively increase, I will be designing and teaching new classes, writing bigger grants including R01s, and managing research assistants and students.

In all this, the most important thing that you need to learn is who your resource people will be, i.e., the people who know the ropes, are willing to help, and will be able to guide you through the myriad of smaller to larger responsibilities you will need to accomplish every day. Once you build that support network, they will become your mentors for guidance and navigating your new position.

Finally, try to get as much sheltered time as possible for establishing your lab and getting started with your research. It will take a lot of time, but it is also the most exciting and fun part of your transition. I know that the next few years will be chaotic and stressful, but accepting this chaos as part of my (academic) life is essential. Now, I accept that I will not always write successful grants, give great lectures, remember to reply to every email, and that not being on top of my game all the time is in itself a great learning experience. I often think that it is akin to having a baby—in both cases, your life is in shambles and yet you soldier on, you get better at it while being less anxious about the process. And importantly, very importantly, there is a lot that can be enjoyed about the process because, after all, you are giving life to new projects and new science.

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