I try to remember my inner 13- or 14-year-old. The person who was really passionate about science, wanting to go save the world, or do something great. The person who got up and watched Carl Sagan and wanted to be one of the first astronauts to Mars. That was me as a kid. I think we lose sight of that through all those dissertation chapters, committee meetings, prelims, defenses. Being a post-doc, getting your work published, writing proposals — it’s a pretty demoralizing, hard life in some ways. A lot of the creativity and spark can be beaten out of you if you let it. My first advice would be don’t let it. Keep that inner spark. Let that be your moral compass. That should be guiding your career more than a path to getting tenure. We’re not in the business of getting tenure. We should be in the business of changing the world. And if you change the world, well, you do good scholarship. -Jon Foley
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 13:44:29 +0000