My mum asked me to write a post on what I thought the
greatest challenges facing young scientists are for her blog. I started writing
something which didn't quite fit her criteria, so while I think more about her
topic, I thought I would share what became a bit of a confessional.
What are the biggest challenges facing young scientists, you
ask?
I can't really answer this question for everyone, but I know
for me it is the fact that reading and lab work are mutually exclusive events in my life. My lab and the fields of microbial and molecular ecology are growing so
fast, and I want to know a bit about and be involved in everything. This
clearly is not possible; 10-15 papers directly related to my work come out
every day, and it's good if I can read that many in full in a week. And that
doesn't include getting caught up on the "old" classics upon which these
fields are built. Perhaps more importantly, reading goes against the views my
father bestowed upon me.
I an my father's daughter, and as anti-elitists, reading is
an intellectual task reserved for the kind of wusses we don't approve of. Reading
can be fun, but only when the mind is allowed to wonder and I can go on random
tangents and explore citations in the papers at hand. However, reading in this
way is reserved for the artsy types doing PhDs in comparative literature or philosophy
who are expected to read for 7-9 years and possibly not graduate. When my dad and I read, we are on a mission; we
read manuals and protocols to figure out how to DO things better. But we only
resort to readin' when we can't figure out how to do something ourselves.
Reading is for the weak.
The harsh practicality of this view compounds my short-sighted
in my approach to science. I could read more, but the instantaneous
gratification of doing an experiment is so much more enjoyable. I am still
young and inexperienced when it comes to the lab, and every new discovery is
exciting. I like having a growing family of bacteria in the lab, and watching
how my "children" develop through time, how they are each unique in
their growth morphology and feeding preferences. I love the rush I get when I
have finally figured out why something didn't work, and crushing the problem. If my head was stuck in a journal, I wouldn't
get to do as many of these things. Yet ultimately I know that if my findings
are to benefit the scientific world and eventually advance some aspect of
society, I will have to communicate them in a manner which appropriately places
them in the context of what is already known. And for that, I must read.
And if to enjoy
reading I must take a day to meander through and really understand a paper or
two each week, then I must step down from my podium and become a wuss. From now on, Wednesdays are my wussdays.
