- A few months ago I was discussing with my other co-adviser Jasper Rine the crisis in NIH research funding awards (better known as "lottery").
I used to be on the fence about applying to a PhD program vs medical school. Halfway through college the answer was obvious. I love research, writing, and teaching but it's just not worth it. Medicine has it's own problems but it's not nearly as bad as postdoctoral work and trying to get funding and what not.
This is scary. Very scary. I just finished my Master's and was looking forward to the 6 month break that is coming and the chance to start a new chapter. PhD. I always wanted to do a PhD. 4 Years of learning, researching and teaching! But this blog post is scaring me away. Makes me wonder if I am on the right track or not.
I love science, I love teaching but I am getting more and more signs that this is not the place for me. I had my thesis defense about 1.5 weeks ago. 4 profs. ask me questions for 40 minutes.
I got my mark, it was 1.7 (≥85%), it is good, but I was not happy. Why? I answered all the questions correctly. So what happened here? The profs. said that I was "flapsig" in german (meaning uncouth, flippant, offhand etc.) They did not like how relaxed I took the questions. I answered them in a way I felt comfortable and passionate about. But they were not pleased. They wanted me to take things more serious. But why? Can't I talk about my passion the way I want to? I did answer their questions correctly, just not in the way they wanted to hear the answers... This gave me a feeling of not belonging to this group of people called professors.
But they won't stop me from being a scientist. Edit: On a side note, if so many people are not getting funded, WHO is getting funded then?
Mostly the study sections are populated by well known, established researchers, and guess who they like to support? Well known, established researchers! Even in science, it takes money to make money. There's an unwritten institutional commitment to protecting the status quo, despite that everyone will tell you that this is exactly what they try not to do. My boss (a very famous scientist) and I (young, inexperienced, and not well known) could submit the exact same grant, and I can guarantee you that mine would be rejected out of hand, while his would be at least scored and given a chance. Because the system is capricious and arbitrary, and reviewers answer to nobody when their logic is flawed, biased or down right incoherent. (For example, I once had a grant heavily criticized because the reviewer thought we didn't propose to use enough cutting edge technology!) It's like a lottery as the tag line suggests, except that your odds of winning increase if you've already won before. The good thing is that the current trajectory is unsustainable, so something has to change eventually. Science isn't going anywhere, so sooner or later the funding models will change.Edit: On a side note, if so many people are not getting funded, WHO is getting funded then?
That blows my mind. How terribly myopic. It sounds like what the wanted was a "song and dance." Good on you. And of course, you could be a prof if you choose, and refrain from engaging in the same ignorant behavior that yours did.The profs. said that I was "flapsig" in german (meaning uncouth, flippant, offhand etc.)
They did not like how relaxed I took the questions. I answered them in a way I felt comfortable and passionate about. But they were not pleased. They wanted me to take things more serious.
This gave me a feeling of not belonging to this group of people called professors. But they won't stop me from being a scientist.