Catherine P.
About me
| Catherine P. | |
| Biology | |
| Computational Biology | |
| Undergraduate | |
| Wentworth | |
| 2011 | |
| United States |
My employment
| Postdoc | |
| HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology | |
| United States | |
| Digital and IT services | |
| 2012 | |
| £49000 |
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A day in the life of a Postdoc in the United States
Where I hope to be in 5 years
My hope is to make the transition from being one who was empowered with new knowledge and skills, to become someone who empowers others. At present the best forum by which to do this is not apparent to me, but I can see possibilities within academia, joining a small company, or starting my own small company.
My advice to students considering work
Although I was not in the position of looking for work in my home country there is some common ground. First thing is your budget, cost up things like flights, visas, hotel stays, car rentals, eating out etc. And either have enough money to cover that, get a mini-job to get those funds before you head back, or get your new employer to pay for it. Otherwise your first pay checks will just be paying off your move and the job search process. If they want your talent, they need to pay to interview and relocate you. Second, prioritize applications to employers that have experience in dealing with relocation, especially any visa issues, and are willing to hold your hand (and cover the costs) along the way.
Sector advice: I would call my sector 'Gamifying Genome Analysis' (I just made it up). I may be the only member, except for those guys that did 'FoldIt', but actually to be picky that was more protein than genome analysis.
You might know the field as bioinformatics, which is data analysis in the sector of genomic information. In my experience this field is completely devoid of any of the latest practices from the gaming community that could possibly make interaction with genomic data user-friendly, mobile, intuitive and fun.
My advice is take your lead from Google. You don't have to come up with something new. There were plenty of nasty web search engines before Google. Take something ugly and clunky that someone else has made a mess of (because they really don't care about how painful it is to use their tools) and make it pretty, easy to use, extensible and whenever possible fun! Wouldn't you rather sit down and have fun playing with your data to find your answers? Wouldn't you rather focus on the data than the idiosyncrasies of the interface? What's the point of producing a tool that no one uses because it's unbelievably dull to interact with and takes up two weeks of your time to work your way around (only to realize that much of the complexity of the interface is due to poor design, not inherent to the data it represents).
Next time you play, pay attention to what you like about it, and put it in to what you create.
Going home this is probably not an issue, going to a different country it will be, and it can take time, budget for that and work out something productive to do during your wait for your paperwork. Third, prioritize applications to employers that have a global outlook, living in a different culture is one of your USPs, capitalize on that. Fourth, if you've been inspired to start your own business or translate a business practice that you've seen in the UK to your home country ensure that the legal freedoms exist to do that in your prospective new location. Fifth, the world of work is a constant negotiation, it's in the employers interest to devalue you to get a better price on your salary, never forget your worth, ask yourself, 'how many people in this country have the unique mix of the skills I've just learned AND my experience?' and get the highest salary you can. Every employer you have after that will base their salary offer on what you already make. So it makes sense negotiate and start as high as you can. You may come across arguments such as 'well in this country we pay our x's this amount' or 'the standard of living here is so cheap', don't forget it's a global market, and you may not be retiring in that country. It's a balance of your global worth and where you see yourself settling. Sixth, never fly anywhere unless you're 80% sure you'd like to work for someone, you can typically evaluate that by phone or Skype, for free. You're just wasting time on interview prep and travel that you could be spending on getting the job that is actually the one you should be getting. Seventh, pray and remember that life is full of imperfect choices that bring a surprising amount of happiness.
Something that was brought to my attention recently was the propensity of 'B and C grade' male students to persist in a sector, whilst 'A grade' female students drop out.
What I took from this is that if you are used to being a high flier, don't allow imperfection from discouraging you from pursuing your dream. There's a lot to be said for an attitude of 'I don't care what you think, I want to do this'. Men are fortunate to be able to access this attitude and forge ahead despite criticism or indeed failure. Yes, there is some data to indicate that when a man fails he's not judged as harshly, nor is it remembered as long, as for a woman's failure. And being aware of this may pressure you in to being perfect. However, I would say to women who want to be in this field, resist that pressure and adopt the male attitude, and the failure attached to it. Ignore the evidence that shows that because you are a woman in a male dominated field you need to be not just as good, but better than a man to be regarded as equal. Resist the pressure those findings create and experience failure.
Don't burn out being better because it is so much more important to fail and have the energy to experience what recovery is about. Don't fail after a burn out, that leads to walking away. Also realize that sometimes people will help you to your feet, and sometimes they won't, and when they won't you learn more.
The other thing I've come to accept about this field as compared with my previous life as a lab-based molecular biologist can best be described by this analogy:
Say you just start out in a lab and you need to learn how to do a PCR experiment, you ask a senior scientist, 'hey could you teach me PCR?', to which the reaction is typically 'sure, let's do one together, tomorrow, and I'll take you through it'. The instruction which follows typically includes working in parallel and being given all the practical tips and tricks to get this experiment to work. By contrast, in the field of computational biology the equivalent response would be 'Sure, the PCR machine is over there, and there might be a manual somewhere'. I'm still trying to discern the origin of this apparently unhelpful and time wasting attitude. When an architect starts out are they asked to re-write the CAD software and independently derive trigonometry? My conclusion to date is that the majority of coders I come in to contact with believe they are self-taught, often forgetting 4 years instruction in Computational Science, and for those that are truly self-taught they were significantly lacking in any self-awareness at that time as to discern anything about the process which they could pass on as useful advice. In any event, learning to discern these individuals is a vital skill so that you can focus your time and energy on more supportive and collaborative individuals, who are interested in getting projects to work, rather than sequestering knowledge either as a means of control or to boost a fragile ego.
My advice about working in my industry
MS NOTE - NEED TO CHECK ADVICE BOXES AND JOB SEARCH BOX ARE DISPLAYED
I would call my sector 'Gamifying Genome Analysis' (I just made it up). I may be the only member, except for those guys that did 'FoldIt', but actually to be picky that was more protein than genome analysis.
You might know the field as bioinformatics, which is data analysis in the sector of genomic information. In my experience this field is completely devoid of any of the latest practices from the gaming community that could possibly make interaction with genomic data user-friendly, mobile, intuitive and fun.
My advice is take your lead from Google. You don't have to come up with something new. There were plenty of nasty web search engines before Google. Take something ugly and clunky that someone else has made a mess of (because they really don't care about how painful it is to use their tools) and make it pretty, easy to use, extensible and whenever possible fun! Wouldn't you rather sit down and have fun playing with your data to find your answers? Wouldn't you rather focus on the data than the idiosyncrasies of the interface? What's the point of producing a tool that no one uses because it's unbelievably dull to interact with and takes up two weeks of your time to work your way around (only to realize that much of the complexity of the interface is due to poor design, not inherent to the data it represents).
Next time you play, pay attention to what you like about it, and put it in to what you create.
What I do
The requirement of a postdoc depends upon the character of your PI and how they deal with the pressures that exist upon them by the establishment they have achieved Faculty status with. My current postdoc position has been a day to day experience of exploratory research and skills acquisition with the goal of generating a tool for clinical diagnosis. It has both the freedom to be creative, to learn, to explore and the satisfaction of measurable objectives. Day to day I create, design and modify software that I have originated and collaborate with other scientists to develop the most comprehensive, reliable and user friendly product possible. I work with lab biologists, data clerks, the IT department and computational scientists, and there is a reciprocation of skills development within these disciplines. As part of that process, I mentor PhD students and other postdocs in code architecture and software design.
Skills I use and how I developed them
Extracurricular skills:
Perseverance. Humility. Communication. Negotiation. Project management. Expectation management. Initiative. Personal development planning. Computer programming. In terms of developing these skills I have to admit that I am better at planning and acquiring 'hard skills', like programming, than the softer skills like communication. I suppose this problem is linked with our subjective nature: it is easier to evaluate one's skill level when that skill can be objectively defined by external criteria, rather than trying to objectively evaluate skills that relate to our internal character. For example, I'm sure we all believe we are excellent communicators, however it is really only our colleagues that can provide us with an accurate evaluation of such. Choosing an honest, transparent and caring work place that enables feedback to be acquired in a productive way is key. So learning how to seek out, evaluate and position myself in those environments is my first priority.
What I like most
I enjoy the fact that my job combines both a creative and scientific approach to tool development.
What I like least
This role does not involve as much travel as I am used to.
Next steps...
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