Running into doors

In a previous post, I’d alluded to a couple of strokes of luck that I had here and there that opened up some opportunities which eventually led to my current location and position. Some commenters felt that I hadn’t acknowledged that I may have been “luckier” than others and that I was in some way looking down on those that hadn’t been so fortunate.

Given that the theme of January’s Scientiae is “As one door closes, another one opens. Likewise, as one door opens, another one closes” and that I had never gotten off my ass in time to submit anything for previous Scientiae carnivals, I figured that this was as good a time as any to provide one example of how having a door opened for me helped my career … and how I almost fucked it up.

After taking a very circuitous route through two undergrad degrees, a postgrad honors degree and a multitude of horrible jobs, I knew that a career in academia was what I wanted.

There were only two PhD programs I was interested in pursuing: one in my home town (well, actually it’s a big city) at the highly respected school where I had completed my honors degree and the other at another school in a bigger city elsewhere in the land far, far away.

I interviewed first at the latter school and while they were prepared to sign me up right away, the PI I was most interested in working with was about to disappear on a lengthy sabbatical.

None of the faculty at the school in my home town were working in my field of interest but my honors advisor informed me that a young, new assistant professor, Dr C, had just arrived who not only shared my research interests, but was also keen to meet me as he’d heard good things about me through the school’s grapevine.

At the time, I was working in a commercial pathology lab; I had worked full time at this lab for most of my honors degree which made it an incredibly stressful time but I had to pay my rent and buy food somehow and it was a good way to get more lab-based sciencey experience.

And so it was that I contacted Dr C via email and set up a meeting for late one afternoon after my shift at the pathology lab was finished.

I should have had this opportunity in the bag, right? Perhaps, except that I didn’t think things through well enough.

I commuted everywhere on my bicycle and didn’t think twice about riding from work to the school and knocking on Dr C’s door wearing lycra from head to toe – after all, I had attended all of my honor’s classes wearing the same gear.

Needless to say, his first impression of me was not favorable.

To make matters worse, when asked WHY I wanted to pursue a PhD, my answer was something along the lines of “well, I hate the job I’m doing right now so I want to do something else”.

Fucking idiot.

It wasn’t until Dr C stood up and told me to go away and think about whether grad school was what I REALLY wanted to do that it finally dawned on me that I had well and truly fucked up. WTF was I thinking??

The reality was that I had been awake since 3am that morning in order to do the 45 min cycle commute before showering, eating and starting work at 5am and had been working extra long shifts that week to cover for a coworker who was on vacation. I should have scheduled the interview for another time when I knew my mind would be functioning better than a bowl of jello.

When I got home, I emailed Dr C, apologized profusely, explained the situation, reiterated that grad school WAS what I wanted and why I wanted to work with him and he very graciously granted me a second chance interview.

After all of that, I did join Dr C’s new lab, continued to work at the pathology lab for my first year as well as working as a TA until I got a scholarship, then continued to teach while I worked my ass off on my thesis and published everything I got my hands on in very good journals. Dr C and I continue to have a great relationship and we have several ongoing projects being undertaken by the grad students we co-advise. The opportunity he gave me and the freedom he afforded me during my thesis work set me up for a very successful postdoc and subsequent job search.

So while I was very fortunate that Dr C had joined the faculty just at the right time and offered to open a door for me, I had slammed it in my own stupid face. Despite my own fuckwittery, I’m in this position today because I made the most of an opportunity, not because someone handed it to me on a silver platter.


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