Neurosciencegirl

Thursday, July 10, 2008

still on the winding road

I met with my adviser yesterday to talk about edits for a couple of chapters of my prospectus and the lingering paper. It was a good meeting but we sort of got off topic and started talking about the fall conference and how I needed to set up meetings for post doc spots. It started off with me talking about my nephews because she asked me where I went for my mini holiday. Then somehow we got on the topic of when is the best time to have kids. She thinks post doc years are prime because she waited until she got her job here and was trying to get tenure and it has been an uphill battle. This I know because I was here then and observed it first hand. (she goes up for review this fall and her daughter just turned 5). But you can't very well interview and say someday you would like to have kids because I can almost guarantee I wouldn't get hired that way. I know it can be done because people have kids and Sciencewoman is proof but you still have to have a flexible boss, and if they are paying you with grant money they may not be able to be very flexible. I don't want kids for a couple more years, so I could work as a post doc for one or two years before trying, but I don't want to wait forever. I don't want to be in my late thirties before I even have one. 1) that will make me an older, more tired mom; 2) I raise my risk of having difficulties conceiving or complications for the 'kid'. So how do you find a post doc that is a good fit? I would like to work for a at least a year and then if approach my boss to see what we could work out, but how do you go about that? It something I have to keep in mind while searching which makes the search that much trickier. I want to find a post doc to do well at so I can find a real job when I'm done. Is it better to have two post docs or can I have one longer one and still be viable on the job market? How do you find this out and how do you ask around to find out about bosses that are willing to have young female post docs that might someday want to have a family? (without scaring everybody away?)
I'm going to make a list of possible labs I would like to work for/with and discuss it with my PI but beyond that do people have suggestions?

2 Comments:

  • At 10:58 AM, Blogger Unbalanced Reaction said…

    It's just so annoying that we have to worry about this at all! Yes, perhaps one works with dangerous chemicals, etc. that are exposure risks so that should certainly be discussed with a boss.

    But how many other jobs truly cause a woman to discuss baby planning with the boss? Sure, many will decide to have a baby at a certain time of the year in order to fit a schedule, but how many couples actually sit down with a boss to do this?

     
  • At 7:06 AM, Blogger B said…

    I know it is crazy! Just thinking about it makes me feel sort of ill.

     

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