Too Soon

Just the other day I told you I'd like to run a mass spec facility when I grow up. Before I can do that, or post doc, or anything else for that matter, I have to graduate. I'm planning/hoping to write my dissertation and defend next spring, walk in May, and then next summer hanging around working (doing corrections, writing papers, training younger students etc) about half the time and traveling about half the time. More than one late night at school has been spent mapping out a ridiculous fantasy post-graduation roadtrip all over the country. So theoretically/ideally I'd start a job/post-doc during the fall of next year. If I found something I really liked that really wanted me sooner, I'd certainly try to make that happen.

In some ways, graduating and leaving Tucson in 10-14 months sounds really far away. (Please, please, please just let graduate school be over!) In the scope of graduate school, and in terms of lining up whatever I do next, it's really not that far away. Which scares the crap out of me.

While you may be under the impression that I have a pretty good idea what I want to do, nothing is set in stone. I have no idea where my life is going to be in a year, or even 6 months, and only a hazy idea what it might look like two weeks from now. I used to be a huuuge planner. Let's face it. At my core I'm a type-A, perfectionist, eldest daughter. I like to be in control and know what's going on and when. I'm also the super weird kid who, with M.D. and Ph.D. parents, grew up thinking it was totally normal to be in school into your late 20s and assumed that I, too, would go to graduate school. The older I've gotten the more I've been able to let go of some of this, and better at realizing that while I can certainly work for almost anything I want, a lot of things just aren't up to me. Some of the things I want out of life inherently require giving up control. Sure, I can plan my experiments for the week, I'm excited to make plans for the weekend or for a trip 3 months away, but I'm no longer eager to make decisions and solid plans for 6, 12, or 18 months from now. Actually at this point I'm dreading most of the decisions that will have to be made sooner than I'd like. It's not that I don't have exciting opportunities for after graduation, because I do. I'm very lucky to have the options that already appear to be open. I guess the decisions coming up just seem more important, with more significant consequences that may affect more than myself than previous decisions. Sticking my head in the sand as long as possible is looking really good.

Unfortunately not all the pressure to figure out what I'm doing is internal. Talking to a friend and former labmate who is in industry, it sounds like I can wait til next spring to look seriously for an industry position. I'm ok with that. I think that by then I might have some idea where the rest of my life is headed, or at least be ready to figure that out. What scares the crap out of me is that if I want to post-doc, especially overseas, that I need to figure that out much sooner. One of the professors I talked to at ASMS (this on in Switzerland!) made it quite clear that the best post-docs are the ones that plan far ahead. Ok, so I get that it's a the-sooner-the-better situation, but how far ahead do I have to decide? I understand that it can take quite a while for the advisor-student-funding-project stars to all align, and that with enough lead time funding can be obtained to pay a post-doc to work on an appealing project. And a lot of fellowships have application deadlines quite far (easily a year) in advance of when they would start paying. My committee members have also started asking what my post-graduation plans are.

I could certainly continue to pursue all of these options, apply for every position of possible interest, and go ahead and write fellowship applications. Fellowship applications are an enormous amount of work though, and it's not like I don't have enough regular work to do, so it would be incredibly frustrating to apply for fellowships that I may not even take if I got them. I'd feel really bad wasting lots of other people's time, too - fellowship applications also require knowing what lab I plan to go to, and having the support, assistance, and letters from that advisor, department chair, etc.

Sigh. I have decent ideas about what I'd like to do, and some ideas how to get there. At this point though I'm still really uncertain as to the best route to get there, or what the rest of my life will look like or what I'll want a year (plus or minus) from now. It's getting somewhat stressful that I just don't know and that I may have to make decisions before I'm really in a good position to do so. I have a meeting with The Queen in a couple weeks to quiz her about time frames for all this, but I think I'm going to stick my head in the stand and ignore it as long as possible.