Work Life Balance Part 1

Last week, I once again had the pleasure of attending a Young Women of Influence Evening Series. The previous one I attending was both a great social evening as well as a very motivational night. You can read my post on "7 tips for negotiating your graduate career" to find out more of what I took away from it.

This time around, the topic of the event was "Work Life Balance" and rather than have one woman talk about it they had a panel of 3 successful Calgary Women. Once again, like any good graduate student, I diligently took notes. Here's some highlights of what these women had to say.

Lesley Scorgie (Website/Twitter)

She's a best selling author of the books "Rich by 30: A young adult's guide to financial success" and "Rich by 40: A young couple's guide to building net worth." And considering the state of my own personal finances... I'm thinking these books might be in my near future. Lesley is passionate about educating young people about financial literacy, a topic her own mother introduced to her at a young age. In fact, Lesley was so well on her way to being rich by 30 that she was featured on Oprah when she was only 17 to talk about it. There is no doubt that Lesley has the work side of things down pat, so what does she have to say about life, and balance?

When asked what does balance look like to you?

"You could spend years and decades trying to find perfect balance... but really it doesn't exist....don't beat yourself up over it."

Her best advice:

Be present in your work when you're working, and your life/relationships when you're living.

Early on she made the mistake of saying yes to everything, and her time evaporated. You need filters for what's worth your time and what's not.

The lessons she learned:

1. How to prioritize her time.
2. To do this properly... How to value your time.

How to do this? Make a time wheel! Then pick the aspects of your life you need to prioritize/mean the most to you, and protect that time.

This sounded like a great idea to me and is definitely an exercise I plan on doing in the near future....only problem... I need to find the time to do it! 

Leslie is newly 29, and when asked the question "How important is it to you to have a family of your own?" she laughed because someone is always asking when will you get married and have babies it seems. But right now she says she definitely wants a family some day, and hopefully not too far away. She's spent the last 10 years all on her career, but in the past year has made a vow to herself to shift towards greater balance. She advised that you have to follow your heart and do what's right for you. Everyone else and their dog will have an opinion on what you should be doing; but those opinions don't matter.

And finally her biggest piece of advice, was you can work on your career all you want, but at the end of the day your personal relationships are all you have left, so don't forget to nurture them too!

Lesley, being closest to my stage of the game (despite being wildly more successful than I am) was who I related to the most of this panel. But you can expect to see a Part 2 of this post featuring wisdom from Nancy Foster and Part 3 featuring Mellisa Gunning in the next couple days.

Once again thank you to the people at Women of Influence for inviting me out to your events!

What is Success to Me?

This post comes to you by way of a 20 something blogger prompt. They posed the questions:

• What is success?
• What does it mean to be successful?
• How do you want to be successful?

and I kind of love those questions. Here's why.

When I think of success, in a big picture sort of way, I often think of it as being something many many years down the road for me... I mean I'm looking at a couple more years to finish this PhD and likely up to 5 years post doc work, before hopefully getting an academic position somewhere. The end of my career path is something so far off, it's hard to see, or more importantly see the steps that will get me there.

This may just be my personal outlook, or a result of taking the grad school route; but I think its something that many people of my generation can relate to. I mean more and more of us are staying in schooling until our late 20s, and even with that will change career paths a couple times...Success just seems far off to the average 20-something (or once again, maybe that's just me).

So I think that we need to instead look at smaller successes, the little milestones rather than the big picture.

Do I consider myself a successful person?

• Well I have a B.Sc. Hons in Biology and Pharmacology from a great school (McMaster).
• I am pursuing a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at a great school (U Calgary).
• My studies are fully funded by the provincial government through a grant I was awarded (highly competitive)
• I have 3 publications to show for work I did during undergrad.
• I've travelled to national and international conferences to discuss my science with some of the leaders in my field.
• I have a work life I love (despite the stress sometimes) a home life I love, a family I love.
• I am perfectly happy with where I am and who I am right now.

So yeah overall I consider myself a successful person. But there a lot's of milestones ahead of me... things I still want/need to accomplish. People and peers whom I look up to and wish to emulate (professionally and personally). I think the big picture on success is that it's often not tangible to look forwards too, but rather something that you should reflect back on.

(Although today I am looking forward to success with the western blots I'm finishing on a weekend... and hopefully I'll be able to reflect back on it when I show them proudly to my supervisor next week...here's hoping!)

7 Tips for Negotiating Your Graduate Career

Two weeks ago, I had the privileged to be invited by Women Of Influence (Website/Twitter) to attend one of their Young Women Of Influence Evening Series, if I would blog and tweet about it. And a privilege is exactly what it was, their invited speaker, Evelyn Ackah, one of Canada's top 40 under 40, gave an inspiring speech on negotiating career success, relating it to her own path to success as a lawyer with her own firm here in Calgary.

She presented the many young women in attendance (a heterogeneous mix featuring ladies from banking, real estate, advertising, students, photographers....) with 7 Career Tips for Negotiating Success...outlined by Emily Rack over at Avenue Magazine. And myself, ever the student, took copious notes. Afterwards I had the opportunity to thank Evelyn, commenting that although she spoke from her perspective as a lawyer, her advice was widely applicable to any field, and particularily to myself, striving for success in academia (a male dominated feild where you often have to create your own learning/mentoring opportunities).

So I've decided to outline her advice as it might apply to the young female graduate student. Hopefully you may find this helpful, I certainly did.

7 Tips for Negotiating Your Graduate Career.

1. Dream big, and share those dreams with other people.
Only 10-20% of PhDs will eventually get a tenure track position in academia. Is this what you want to pursue anyways? Do it! Don't let unfortunate statistics hold you back this early in your career. If that's not for you, have eaqually big goals no matter the path you plan to take, as Evelyn said "you need to dream big, even if you don't get 100% of the way there, 80 or 90% will still be remarkable." And the most important thing to do if you want to achieve your goals, tell people. Tell your supervisor, I want the kind of position you have, or as Evelyn told one of here first bosses "Hello Liz, I want your job." Tell your supervisor, committee and mentors... this will "help them to see you differently, and lets them know what's driving you and how they can help you towards that."

2. Be open to unexpected opportunities or circumstances.
Sometimes success is about being in the right place at the right time, but when opportunities present themselves you have to be willing to take the risk. As a young scientist, this may mean moving you project down a totally unexpected tangent when a curious result keeps happening. (Penicillin for instance was discovered when bread mould from a sandwich got on some plates, and killed all the bacteria). If your too focused on one path, or too unwilling to risk working on something because you're not familiar with it, then you might miss out on something big. Evelyn says "the biggest strength she has is being flexible when it comes to change."

3. Know who you are and what you really want from your career.
This can be really hard early on in our careers, in fact I asked Evelyn, what advice would she give to someone at the beginning of their path, who really isn't certain where they want it to take them.  Her answer reflected back to number 2, but also suggested that if you don't know what you want at the end of the day, you probably know what you want right now. Building an academic career is really a series of choices, and less a arrow straight to a target. But it is still important to "discover your values and let them direct and drive you." Is teaching important to you, pursue effective TAships. What is the work/life balance that you are comfortable with, success in science is often related to hours in the lab, however, personal time can keep you grounded (read sane). "Doing your personal work now will help you to develop professionally."

4. Be prepared to work hard.
This goes without saying, however there is a caveat here. "if the quality and results are not there you can't expect to advance." Its not the number of hours, blood, sweat and tears that will make you succeed at the end of the day, its what you can produce with them. And the world's not fair, sometimes people will get high impact publications with minimal effort, while you will sacrifice weekends all semester to publish in a journal no one's heard of.

5. Recognize that sometimes you have to move out to move up.
This is a tough one for the young PhD, you can't just up and leave your lab very easily. However this does apply to your project, for instance you might know I had been having a whole world of failures this summer with my project, there's a wall, and I cannot for the life of me find my way over/around/through it. So, I sat down with my supervisor, and came up with something totally different to work on for a while, so I can keep moving forward. "Sometimes that's the only way to move forward if you feel stuck." On the other hand, Evelyn, quoting the Kenny Rogers song, the Gambler, says you have to know when to hold em too. So that project I put on a shelf, I didn't throw it out, the results will be worth it once I trouble shoot it, so I'm still working it on the side.

6. Don't underestimate the importance of relationships and community involvement.
The ones applying to med school all know this...as they frantically pursue every connection and volunteer opportunity to get ahead... yet many grad students don't bother. Networking is always important, sometime this means sacrificing drinking with the other students at TGIF or a conference to hang out with the profs and hear hours of their stories of back in the day. You will make an impression, develop relationships that could lead to collaborations or post-docs, and you will have lots of fun (and probably get your drinks free). Additionally get involved, with your grad student government (have input in decisions related to your education) with organizing symposia, or student run publications. I do all these things, and have benefited directly from all of them. All this will help you "build up a professional network.... success does not happen without support."

7. You must be resilient.
Academia is a world of rejection. No your paper didn't get accepted without revisions, no you didn't get that grant the first time you applied, no your abstract didn't get you a speaking presentation and now you just have a poster in the corner. You will forever be frustrated by reviewer number 3. Evelyn's advice, which I wholeheartedly agree with "have a glass of wine then bounce back and move forward."

Hope you found this helpful, what other pieces of advice would you offer to a new grad student (besides run the other way)?

I'm back from my travels and grant apps so expect more regular posting round here!

The thing about groupwork...

I do apparently play well with rocks.....I was making an inukshuk, ok, it's not like rocks are my only friends.


The thing about group work is that it inherently takes a task that you could have accomplished in a short amount of time on your own and triples it, along with bombarding your inbox with millions of emails when/where/how should we meet.

I almost always prefer to work on my own. Having reached grad school I thought I had finally left the world of partners and group projects behind (I mean of my 3 classes, the largest one had 15 people... so they really don't need to pair you up to reduce marking ok). But alas, I still have to suffer through it, every other week.

Once in undergrad, my partner, who were were supposed to be paired with for the whole year got bit by a rabid dog and later dropped the course (unrelated reasons) and so I got to be a group of one! It was bliss! (she was fine, don't worry)

I know that working well in groups is an important skill to develop, and that some groups can be very effective... but for the most part its a huge pain!

Is it really so bad that I don't play well with others?

Do you have any group project train wreck stories... or times when everything went perfectly smoothly?

3 websites every PhD student should have bookmarked

Sometimes you have 15 minutes to kill during an incubation, time point, or exposure.

Here's 3 pages I recommend you click on while you wait.

1: PhD comics: Piled higher and deeper.

This comic strip follows the life of a nameless, bespectacled, engineering grad student as he and his friends struggle with procrastination, the endless quest to find free food, ridiculous supervisors and trying to have a life outside of the lab. Always good for a laugh, and so easy to relate to.

2: What should we call grad school.

"When someone brags about how late he stays to work."

One of those great giffy tumblrs, constantly being updated, always accurate, often at summer student's expense. If only there was a way to print these out and post them on the lab bulletin board.



3: Stuff by Matt Might, particularly the Illustrated Guide to a PhD

I came across Matthew Might (@mattmight ) 's stuff just the other day. Someone had share a FB link to his illustrated guide to a PhD, and well for me it was inspiring rather than just sad and funny. Then I spent another hour or so reading other articles like his 'How to get into grad school' his recomended books and papers every PhD student  should read and his team fortress related guide to the 9 types of students. Anyways, this is a great place to procrastinate and still feel like you a developing yourself into a better scientist.

Ponderings of a PhD: Women in Science

Tomorrow, the publication Science, is hosting a live chat on the topic "Do female scientists get a raw deal?" check it out starting at 3PM EDT here.

The chat, focused on often hot topic of inequality of the genders in academia, features the author of a recent study carried out at Yale University. "Science Faculty's Subtle Gender Bias Favours Male Student" which was published in last month's PNAS. (PubMed ID 22988126) If you don't have access to the publication (like I do as a UofC student) let me give you a brief run down.

~120 faculty members from departments of Biology, Chemistry and Physics were given an application from an 'undergrad student' who was interested in a lab tech type position and hopefully eventual graduate studies. The trick was, the student did not exist, it was a complied CV Resume made for the purpose of the study, and it was submitted to half the faculty under the name John, and to half under the name Jane.

So here's were things get interesting, despite receiving applications identical in everything but a male vs female name, on average, the faculty members were more likely to hire the 'male student', thought them to be overall more competent and deserving of mentorship. Additionally, they were offered higher starting salaries.

 (Moss-Racusin CA, Dovidio JF, Brescoll VL, Graham MJ and Handelsman J (2012) PNAS)

The paper is a solid, and interesting read, I highly recommend, if you have access, and male or female you give it a read. But I have to say, this has me alarmed. As a female student, I really don't like the idea that there's a bias such that male students are more likely to receive mentorship than me. That means that I'm set back long before the choice to have kids, and take mat leave gets a shot at my career. (See what I've had to say about women in science in the past).

So check out the live chat tomorrow.... already there are some interesting comments happening in anticipation. Particularly one which suggests that part of the reason women have less success is because we aren't as good negotiators as men. This might be the case....in fact in a somewhat related side note, I've been invited to the Young Women of Influence Evening Series next month, featuring:

EVELYN ACKAH
FOUNDER & MANAGING LAWYER, ACKAH BUSINESS IMMIGRATION LAW

Who will be talking on the topic of negotiating your career. I am thrilled to have been invited on a media pass to attend and blog about the event afterwards, and would recommend any other young ladies in the Calgary area who are interested to check out the event and consider attending.

So that's what I've been pondering today...have you ever felt held back by your gender? In science or otherwise? What do you think needs to change to avoid this in the future?

Today I: am back to class, and learning NMR

OK, so I just had to share this real quick, because it`s got me feeling a little like this kitty:

 source

SO I`m doing a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, so it stands to reason that I might have to take a couple graduate level biochem courses, tonight I have the first lecture of possibly my last class ever. The topic for the evening, metabonomics and pharmacology. The papers assigned to read in advance feature a lot of techniques, and a lot on NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance)  of which I previously know very little about... having coming from a physiology based undergrad (not biochemistry). The moral of this story is, in reading one of these papers I came across this sentence....and subsequently feel like the above cat.

``An NMR spectrum of biofluids can be thought of as an object with a multidimentional set of metabolic coordinates, the values of which are the spectral intensities at each data point, and the spectrum is therefor a point in a multidimensional metabolic hyperspace.``

 (Lindon JC, Holmes E and Nicholson JK, 2006)

So there you have it.....hopefully tonight`s class goes better than the reading of the papers did... looks like I`ll be working double time this semester.