Bio Career Center

A pink elephant
Let’s admit it: there are few of us who have not dreamed of collecting the ultimate accolade of academic accomplishment – the Nobel Prize. Not that it should be a goal for anyone, but it is far from unusual for high-aspiring, competition-thriving, über-achievers to picture themselves in the glory.  Even if you are humble, chances are that your parents and teachers have told you how intelligent you were since first-grade.

I had the opportunity to witness the grandeur of the Nobel ceremony in beautiful Stockholm during college. There was an international student seminar that included attendance to the Nobel ceremonies, and I was one of the lucky invitees. It was that trip to Sweden in freezing December that inspired me to cross an ocean and a continent from my native South Korea to pursue my academic dream in one of the best biomedical research universities, the University of Pennsylvania. On my flight to the town where I would spend many years tormenting cells and mice, I thought my career is now engrained into a destiny.

How to spend your time
After all the dreaming, sweating and earning a promising academic career track, I found myself discontent with the program. Don’t get me wrong. I had the support system to succeed in academia: state-of-the-art facilities, a devoted advisor, and smart colleagues who knew the ins and outs of biomedical research. I liked the projects I was on and enjoyed learning new techniques every day. The one thing I had not found, though, was a breakthrough.

A close friend of mine who has committed to an academic career put the matter this way. When you do research, there are only two ways to spend your time. Either you work in the lab and feel productive or you don’t work in the lab and feel guilty for not working. I laughed at the joke, but it also struck me hard as well, because that was exactly how I felt.

I excelled in college because I performed well with clearly defined goals. I always went to extra lengths in addressing clients’ issues during my consulting engagements because I knew my efforts would lead to successful results. Contrary to consulting projects, modern science projects tend to go on for years, and only those with conviction and a love of science can truly appreciate the delayed gratification. This is an over-simplification, and there were many reasons that I chose a career transition. However, working on shorter projects with tangible achievements was certainly one. I suppose this is an untold feeling many out-of-academia converts share.

Best buddies through career transition
Finding a support group to help and guide your career transition is not a trivial task. It is of critical importance to surround yourself with those who understand your decision, will help you to network, and simply give you a pep-talk when needed.
Easier said than done. Talk to your advisor? You are a black sheep. Sympathy from your co-workers? You just betrayed them. Family? In my case, my mother was heart-broken from the fact that I was not going to become Professor Kim.

The supportive people, I found, were peers in the same situation, like-minded fellow students who were also temporarily lost in the quest for a new career path. We kept ourselves busy doing extra business projects outside labs and fed information to each other. Your fellow career switchers are the ones who really understand your challenges, and you can count on them for difficult matters. Also, your career will likely cross theirs for years to come.

Go ahead and be happy
It is not easy for anyone to depart from childhood dreams of scholarship, but there are good reasons to justify your path and plenty of ramifications that can increase your “happiness factor”. Once you have good buddies on your side to keep you going through the difficult patches, I am confident your limit lies only within your aspiration.