The Life of a Scientist

I admit, I had no idea what I was signing up for when I decided to study science. I had vague ideas of test tubes, chemicals, and maybe a little computer modeling stuff. Nothing well defined.

After working 4 years as a research assistant in a lab on campus, I did get a clue for what lab techs did: fix instruments, log samples, run protocols and samples, and troubleshoot hick ups. I understood and excelled at the nuts and bolts of getting research done.

For a very long time, I was not really aware what Ph.D. scientists did. They clearly gave presentations, some of them taught. There were a few post-docs running around labs. It took a long time to ask what was going on. Research scientists seemed to be leading an opaque life, cloistered in their offices. Doing what? Always something, but I never got to see the big picture.

Now, as a research scientist, I know. The results of the grand inquisition are anticlimact: they were reading. analyzing, and writing.

It's what I do all the time. The reading and writing almost completely decimates the analysis portion too. If there is any program that is constantly running on my work computer, it is Microsoft Word. Scientific writing is a long process, and you have to do it to stay alive. After working as a research assistant and then as a graduate student, getting data is relatively easy. Easy, that is, once you have funding and a hypothisis. After you have your data, you need to deeply understand it, publish it, then start the process over again.

This is why the professors I worked for were so aloof, and rarely in the lab. First, they had already been there, so what I was doing was less novel. Second, they had bigger fish to fry than worrying about a few %RSD on the signal for benzene. That is not the sort of problem that would put food on the table.

They had to write.

I had previously remarked that setting up an experiment was like a drawn out Domino Rally... Months are spent carefully testing and aligning the pieces, and then, in one quick burst, an experiment is run and the actual data is collected. Then there is the post processing. Now, in retrospect, it is like you have to pick all the dominos up and alphabetize them before you aloud to do it again.

There is some explanation as to why there is often a 3-5 year gap in many others CVs post graduate school. Post docs can be hit or miss in terms of publication generated, and setting up, or integrating into a new research program is long and laborious.