Postdoc perceptions as to what a PI actually does

There’s been a couple of posts up this week over at Propter Doc's and Lou’s blogs about what the position of lecturer (UK)/assistant professor (US) actually entails and how even experienced postdocs are rarely prepared for what they face as a newly minted junior faculty member. As a new assistant professor with a ton of teaching experience and a 4yr postdoc under her belt prior to joining the faculty ranks, I can attest to this firsthand and this is primarily what I’ve been talking about on this blog.

I moseyed over to MsPhD’s blog yesterday and found myself getting a little hot under the collar about her most recent post. I commented on a few of the statements she had made and MsPhD subsequently, and expectedly, accused me of deliberately misreading her post … again. I’m not flaming MsPhD and I don’t want to get into a shitfight because I just don’t have the energy, but I thought it would be interesting to expand on my thoughts about some of the issues she brought up in her post because these are common misconceptions among postdocs.

The first issue is that experienced/senior postdocs are essentially operating as PIs without the official title and that they are fully aware of what the role of PI involves. MsPhD commented that "Aside from teaching, I've done everything they do- the grants, the mentoring, the papers, the university paperwork for safety clearance, purchasing equipment, purchasing supplies, serving on committees, giving talks at meetings, setting up collaborations, all of it. Teaching lectures is the only thing I haven't done."

If you’ve never read this post by DrugMonkey, you need to start there. Theoretically, the things that MsPhD listed are things that constitute the research side of a PI’s responsibilities but in reality, it’s so much more. I’m still learning all the in’s and out’s of things but having total and absolute responsibility for all of these things is substantially more difficult and time consuming than a postdoc realizes, particularly as a new PI. Each of these duties is a huge time-suck that can easily consume all of your time and energy. Trying to do all of these things from scratch, in addition to continuing to liaise with your postdoc mentor/lab to finish that work as well as dealing with people who are interested in working with/for you in your new role is exhausting.

And that doesn’t even include learning to navigate the political minefield that exists in the department as well as figuring out your role on the faculty totem pole – who’s going to be able to help you, who is planning to sabotage your plans, who can you ask for advice, who does nothing but play with smoke and mirrors, etc.

As to the teaching side of things … oh boy, don’t even get me started. MsPhD commented that "It makes me wonder if I'm just completely clueless about teaching, or if they really have it so easy that teaching is as bad as their stress ever gets? Maybe both?"

From my perspective, I knew that I was an effective teacher – I say this with quiet confidence as I have extensive formal training in education and years of successful teaching experiences at many different levels and in many different areas. But having to deal with the nuts and bolts of being a university educator was quite a shock and this was independent of the issues I’ve had with senior faculty. For those of you who think that teaching is a cushy way to make money, think again. If you think that teaching just involves talking for an hour or so here and there you really don't have a clue.

After you’ve taught the same course for a year or two, things get a lot easier but getting this shit together for the first time is a killer. For every hour of delivery for a new course, you can count on at least 3-5 hours of preparation and it doesn’t matter how well prepared you are, something always goes wrong – you aim the material at the wrong level, you mistakenly give conflicting information, the students misinterpret something you say, etc. You don’t usually find any of this out until the class is over or until you grade exams or papers by which time it’s usually too late.

Have you ever done a 40-50 minute research seminar? How long did that take to prepare and fine tune? Multiply that by the 2-5 hours of lectures/tutorials/labs you have each week and then by the 14 or 15 weeks in the semester and see if that seems easy.

And have you ever written an exam or designed the criteria for a term paper? Not quite as easy as you think – and this is coming from someone who has designed and written lots and lots of these in a previous existence.

As I commented on MsPhD’s post, "I had a ton of teaching and research experience before starting this position and am still overwhelmed about how much I need to learn and the skills I need to develop."

Finally, I want to make it clear that I’m not digging at MsPhD as I know that she and I typically agree to disagree. But I wanted to make the point that her views about what a PI actually does are not uncommon amongst postdocs. I am well aware of this because I was a postdoc and I had the same misconceptions. Until you're actually in a PI's position, you aren't aware of exactly what the job entails and as a postdoc all you see is the tip of the iceberg.

And let’s get another thing crystal clear – I’m not writing this post as a way of looking down on postdocs who aspire to faculty positions and this is not meant to come across as condescending (although I know it will to some, particularly MsPhD). If it does, I apologize as that wasn't my intention. If we were informally chatting about these issues, I would say exactly the same things. If you’re thinking about going to grad school or doing a postdoc, you ask students and postdocs about what it is they do and what’s really involved. As a new assistant professor, I’m just trying to tell it like it is. Whether you choose to believe me or not is up to you. But believe me when I say that my own perceptions of what’s actually involved in this position were not entirely accurate and that you have to learn and adapt as you go on.