Here's a great little post from an awesome blogger, SciCurious, about the "Impostor Syndrome." In summary, it's the idea that we/people are really just 'faking it' when they succeed and/or only highlight their successes without openly admitting or talking of their failures. It can lead to a disastrous way of working and living in that some people never feel like they're doing enough or are 'good enough,' and are not deserving of their job/title/anything.
Sci highlights the need for a more transparent culture in science (especially in Academia), where flaws and failures are discussed as openly as successes and accolades. I agree in that it would be wonderful to be respected and commended for failing and trying again (and again, and again, and again...)-- not just for succeeding.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
A despondent rant
This is nothing new, but no less true. No less significant. Perhaps it's so devastating because it's not new. Because my entire experience in grad school has been an uphill battle, one where I continuously plummet back down the mountain and have to retrace my path. Do it again, except while battered and bruised.
Throughout my career here, my successes seem few and far between. They are shrouded in the myriad (often unexplainable) failures. And by this, they are rendered insignificant and forgettable. My confidence in my capabilities as a lab-based scientist has waned. Experiments work and fail with the changing of the tides or, perhaps, by something more random. Repeating experiments to confirm results and to complete the requisite n = 3 only results in having the third inexplicably fail. Was it a bad day for the cells? My incompetence? Wrathful lab gods? I'm unsure.
My list of experiments to be completed in order to finish my degree is plentiful. It wouldn't seem so impossible, however, if experiments worked when I did them. If I was able obtain usable data from 3 experiments the first 3 times I did the experiment, instead of accumulating them within 20 times of repeating the same. Unfortunately for me, this is not an exaggeration.
Do you know how much more I could have completed, how many other new things I could have done in this time, if the experiments had just yielded appropriate results after 5 times instead of 20? Do you know that I could be finishing this degree this summer instead of staring down a long tunnel that may or may not end by the Spring of 2013? Do you know how much anxiety, stress, and disparaging comments could have been avoided had these experiments worked, had the positive controls read positively, and the data obtained in a timely manner?
I think I'd be much happier. I think I'd feel like this was worth it. I think I might have the will and desire to come work everyday to finish this degree. Maybe I wouldn't feel like my day to day life is useless, a waste of time. I wouldn't spend hours, days, and weeks completing an experiment to ultimately determine it failed. I wouldn't be looking at the same "to-do" list I have had up for months, wondering why barely anything is crossed off when I know I've been working constantly. Maybe then I wouldn't feel like a failure.
Throughout my career here, my successes seem few and far between. They are shrouded in the myriad (often unexplainable) failures. And by this, they are rendered insignificant and forgettable. My confidence in my capabilities as a lab-based scientist has waned. Experiments work and fail with the changing of the tides or, perhaps, by something more random. Repeating experiments to confirm results and to complete the requisite n = 3 only results in having the third inexplicably fail. Was it a bad day for the cells? My incompetence? Wrathful lab gods? I'm unsure.
My list of experiments to be completed in order to finish my degree is plentiful. It wouldn't seem so impossible, however, if experiments worked when I did them. If I was able obtain usable data from 3 experiments the first 3 times I did the experiment, instead of accumulating them within 20 times of repeating the same. Unfortunately for me, this is not an exaggeration.
Do you know how much more I could have completed, how many other new things I could have done in this time, if the experiments had just yielded appropriate results after 5 times instead of 20? Do you know that I could be finishing this degree this summer instead of staring down a long tunnel that may or may not end by the Spring of 2013? Do you know how much anxiety, stress, and disparaging comments could have been avoided had these experiments worked, had the positive controls read positively, and the data obtained in a timely manner?
I think I'd be much happier. I think I'd feel like this was worth it. I think I might have the will and desire to come work everyday to finish this degree. Maybe I wouldn't feel like my day to day life is useless, a waste of time. I wouldn't spend hours, days, and weeks completing an experiment to ultimately determine it failed. I wouldn't be looking at the same "to-do" list I have had up for months, wondering why barely anything is crossed off when I know I've been working constantly. Maybe then I wouldn't feel like a failure.
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