首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Returning to Science Teresa Garrett was working part-time as a biochemistry postdoc (博士后). She had an infant at home, and sh
Returning to Science Teresa Garrett was working part-time as a biochemistry postdoc (博士后). She had an infant at home, and sh
admin
2013-06-02
112
问题
Returning to Science
Teresa Garrett was working part-time as a biochemistry postdoc (博士后). She had an infant at home, and she was miserable. She and her husband were considering having a second child. She didn’t like leaving her daughter with a daycare provider, and she wondered if her slim income justified the expense of childcare. She decided to stay home full time.
It was a lonely but practical decision, she says. She hadn’t ruled out the possibility but she did not expect to return to science: After all, the conventional wisdom would equate several years of parenting leave with the end of a research career. Garrett eventually had two daughters and spent their early years at home.
The challenge of managing a science career and personal family obligations is not a new issue, particularly for women. In a career where productivity and publications define your value, can you take a couple of years off and then make a successful return? When you do, will employers trust your devotion to your job?
For Garrett, the answer to both questions was "Yes." First, she found a short-term teaching tutor at Duke University, the institution where she had done her Ph. D. And then Christian Raetz, who had been her Ph. D. adviser, offered her a postdoc. The timing was perfect: She was ready to start a more regular work schedule, and her husband was interested in starting a business. Today, she is a chemistry professor at Vassar College. Garrett credits Raetz both for his faith in her abilities and his willingness to judge her contributions on quality and productivity and not the number of hours she spent in the laboratory. "People are always shocked to know that you can take time off and come back," she says.
Returning to research after an extended personal leave is possible, but it may not be straightforward. Progress can be slow and there may be some fallout from a break. The path back doesn’t come with a road map or a timeline. Your reentry will have a different rhythm than your initial approach because this time you have to balance your career with the needs of a family. The uncertainty can make you feel isolated and alone. But if you are persistent and take advantage of the resources that are available, you can get it done.
Stepping Sideways
After time away from the work force, it’s particularly easy to underestimate your value as a scientist and— hence—to take one or more backward steps. Don’t, says Ruth Ross, who nearly made that mistake after spending 4 years at home with her children. A Ph. D. pharmacologist with industry experience, she applied for a technician job at the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom as she planned her return to science. She would have taken the job if it had been offered, she says, but "that probably would have been a bad career move." As it turned out, the university decided she was over-qualified.
Instead of taking a step back, take a step sideways: If you left a postdoc, return to a postdoc, perhaps with a special career reentry fellowship. A faculty member at Aberdeen encouraged Ross to apply for a newly established career reentry fellowship from the Wellcome Trust. Funding from that organization supported her postdoctoral research until the university hired her into a faculty position in 2002.
After 2 years at home with her son and twin daughters followed by 3 years searching for project management jobs in the biotech industry, biochemist Pia Abola got wind of an opening at the Molecular Sciences Institute (MSI). An MSI staff scientist needed skills like hers but lacked money, so the two applied jointly for an NIH career reentry supplement. She’s now a protein biochemist and grant writer at Prosetta Bioconformatics.
Independence and Flexibility
Instead of stepping backward or sideways, physicist Shireen Adenwalla took a step forward. Instead of taking another postdoc, she set up an independent research program on soft money. Early in her career, Adenwalla took 15 months off, caring for her first child and then looking for another postdoc. When she and her physicist husband decided to move to the University of Nebraska, Lincoln—he had accepted a tenure-track position—Adenwalla turned down postdoc opportunities. Instead she arranged a visiting faculty position, followed by a post as a research assistant professor.
"I think that was a very smart thing," she says today. "Establishing an independent research program is very important." Her starting salary was just $ 15 000, and she got just $ 5 000 in start-up assistance. She borrowed equipment, taught courses, took on graduate students, and published her research. She had a lab and an office, but both got moved around—her lab three times, her office twice.
Adenwalla missed having real start-up money, her own equipment, and the institutional investment that comes with a tenure-track position. On the other hand, she was her own boss, so she was able to take 6 months off when she had her second child and work part time for a while after her third child was born. Eventually she was hired to a tenure-track post.
Flexible or part-time hours can smooth the transition back into the scientific work force. Some reentry fellowships specify a part-time option and most are accommodating, but even if you don’t have a fellowship you can ask for a work schedule that meets your needs. Ross, for example, took advantage of the part-time provision of the Wellcome Trust Fellowship. When Garrett took the position on the Lipid Maps grant, she negotiated a 30-hour-a-week schedule.
Patience:an Essential Virtue
Two months before physicist Marija Nikolic-Jaric’s scheduled dissertation (专题论文) defense at Simon Fraser University, her husband was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor. Over the next 17 months, she focused on her husband and his cancer treatments. After his death, she moved with her little son to Winnipeg to be near family.
She tried to jump-start her thesis project several times, the first in 1998, but she wasn’t ready yet and became discouraged. Eventually, she found the motivation to return. She started from the beginning, with a new approach. She finished her Ph. D. in 2008. Now a postdoc at the University of Manitoba, she has moved into a new research area—biomicrofluidics. This year, her work is supported by an M. Hildred Blewett Scholarship, a career reentry grant from the American Physical Society.
Elizabeth Freeland, too, continues to work toward a permanent research position a decade after her return. When she followed her future husband to his postdoc at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, and subsequently to Chicago, Illinois, she wasn’t able to find a compatible research opportunity. Since then, she has cared for the couple’s two young children, taught part time, and found a few short-term research opportunities, some paid, others not.
Like Nikolic-Jaric, Freeland is a physicist, and like that other physicists she switched fields. Freeland moved from condensed matter theory to high-energy physics. She scraped together two one-year postdoctoral grants, the first from the American Association of University Women and the second is a Blewett Scholarship.
Unable to find a permanent position locally, in September she started a one-year postdoc at Washington University in St Louis. The location is challenging, she says, but she is encouraged by the support of her mentors (导师). And because her work is theoretical, she can spend alternate weeks at home with her husband and school-age children. It’s a great research opportunity, she says, one she hopes will someday yield a job closer to her family. She also runs a Web site for physicists navigating career breaks.
Finding Your Own Way Back
Though students sometimes see her as a role model, Adenwalla cautions that what worked for her might not be the best solution for others. "You have to find what’s right for you," she says, and ignore those with different circumstances and needs. Her own journey was a tradeoff, she says. On the plus side, she was able to pick her children up at school every day. On the minus side, she says, "there was a fear inside me that 1 would never make it."
Garrett tells everyone about her journey, even noting it on her Vassar Web site. "Both young women and young men who are coming up through their career path need to know about the different ways that you can have a good and satisfying career in science."
According to Garrett, if young people want to succeed in science, they need to know______.
选项
答案
about the different ways
解析
同义转述题。原文最后一段提到了Garrett建议正在发展事业的年轻男性和女性都应该了解在科学领域取得成功的不同方法,而全文的框架也正是以几个典型案例分析了她们成功重返职场的不同策略与途径。题干中的want to succeed in science是对原文中coming up through their career path的同义转述,由此得出答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/q167777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
Internationalairlineshaverediscoveredthebusinesstravelers,themanorwomanwhoregularlyjetsfromcountrytocountryas
Thetraditionaltwo-parentsfamilyisfastgivingwayintheAmericaofthe1980stohouseholdsinwhichoneadultmustjuggle
Dr.GregoryConnollyisdirectoroftheofficefornon-smokingandhealthintheMassachusettspublichealthdepartment.Hesaid
TheFutureofTelevision:What’sonNext?BossesinthetelevisionindustryhavebeenkeepinganervouseyeontwoScandinav
Scientistshavecomeupwithatheoryforwhytimeflieswhenyonarehavingfunanddragswhenyouarebored.Scanshavesh
Fromchildhoodtooldage,wealluselanguageasameansofbroadeningourknowledgeofourselvesandtheworldaboutus.When
HowtoGetaGreatIdeaTheguestshadarrived,andthewinewaswarm.Onceagain,I’dforgottentorefrigerateit."Don’tw
______(进入这座建筑物的惟一通道)isalongamuddytrack.
随机试题
21世纪高等教育面临挑战——美国哈佛大学校长陆登庭高等教育无论从政府、个人还是从各种资源的综合配置来说,都是一项非常昂贵的投资。因此在美国和其他的地方,目前有一种日渐增加
男,20岁。苍白、乏力一周。淋巴结脾大,白细胞计数32.0×109/L,骨髓中原始细胞占83%,过氧化物酶染色阴性。如果出现头痛,时有呕吐,脑脊液压力增高,脑脊液可见少量幼稚细胞,应加用的治疗是
A.边缘扩展阳性B.尼氏征阳性C.雷诺征阳性D.针刺反应阳性E.Wickham纹扁平苔藓的皮肤损害表面常有
我国长期以来对土地采取严格的管理方式,以土地使用权为中心的权利交易受到()。
南方地区建筑物隔热有若干手段,下列表述中哪项是不妥的?()
纳税人按照规定的期限办理纳税申报确有困难,需要延期的,应在规定的期限内向税务机关提出书面延期申请,经税务机关核准()。
增值税一般纳税人销售货物或提供应税劳务向购买方收取的价款和价外费用都应并入销售额纳税,但税法规定的价外费用不包括()。
通货膨胀是由于纸币发行量超过商品流通所需要的金属货币量所引起的______现象。
甲男与乙女于1989年结婚。乙女远在美国的姑姑早就表示乙女结婚时将给1000美元作为贺礼。1990年乙女姑姑回国,并实现诺言给乙女1000美元。甲男的父死于1980年,1990年其母也去世,甲男与弟弟继承了父母遗产,房屋各4间。1991年甲男去海南经商,不
下列内部排序算法中,在初始序列已基本有序(除去n个元素中的某k个元素后即呈有序,k<<n)的情况下,排序效率最高的算法是()。
最新回复
(
0
)