Psychological flexibility is an essential trait for academics

Recently I came across the idea of psychological flexibility.* Of course, it's something I've tried for a long time to put into practice but I've not had a catchy name for it until now. The concept is essentially that a psychologically flexible person will have their decisions and behaviour shaped by long term goals and values and not by their immediate circumstances. This is so important for academics, particularly scientists, because most of what we do is pretty underwhelming: scouring the literature for relevant papers, setting up complicated (and often tedious) experiments that fail more often than we like to admit, teaching students who just don't 'get it' (or just can't be bothered applying themselves), submitting grant proposals that get rejected more often than accepted, applying for positions and getting outcompeted by one of the other 200 applicants, the list goes on. When facing trials like this, if we're not psychologically flexible, it might be easy to give up. It might be easy to look at your failed experiments, rejected grant proposal and struggling Masters student and just give up and become a baker or something! At those times, it's important to remember why you became a scientist in the first place; it's essential that you remember what your goals are and what you value; most of all, it's important that you act in accordance with your goals and values to overcome any immediate setbacks. We must look at our current circumstances and then let our long term goals and values inform us what we should do next.

There are two values that see me through the challenges of academic science: 1) a passion for discovering something new. We're finding out things about the world that no one has ever known. Just stop and think about that for a minute. It's amazing, right? 2) A passion for teaching. It's a privileged position to be tasked with training the next generation of scientists, innovators, thinkers and world-changers. By teaching, we can multiply our impact for good in the world.

What difficult circumstances are you facing in your academic journey? What goals and values are helping you to move forward?

*This term was used by an article pinned to a notice board in my department without any indication of author or publication name, so I can't give a citation.

If you leave academia, you can come back

In my experience, a common thought among junior academics (e.g. PhD candidates/graduate students, postdoctoral associates, associate lecturers, etc.) is that if they leave academia they will never be able to return, unless their job outside the academy allows them to keep publishing articles in their field. I too thought this way for a long time. But recent personal experiences have proven this idea wrong.

In 2015, I left my position as a Postdoctoral Associate at UMN to pursue a career outside academia. I really had no intentions of going back. I had pushed myself too far. I was burnt out. I needed a break. But I didn't have much idea what I could do outside academia. After a few gruelling months of soul-searching and over 100 job applications for positions in a panoply of industries, I landed a position at a raw narcotic material manufacturing facility. I thought this job was the perfect fit for me. It mainly involved process development and improvement, technology transfer and factory process troubleshooting. It seemed to offer the right level of challenge for me but was also the kind of work I could forget about at knocking-off time. Initially, this was a welcome contrast to academic work, which seemed to follow me home every night and stalked me every weekend. It wasn't the sort of job that involved publishing journal articles or presenting at conferences, but I didn't mind this—at least, not at first. However, after a couple of years, I found I missed academia. I missed basic research. I really missed teaching. I missed publishing and sharing research findings at conferences. Most of all, I missed daily interactions with university faculty and students. But, from everything I had read and understood from conversations with colleagues and friends, the transition back from industry to academia would be very difficult, some might even say impossible. I thought my bridges had been burnt. Yet, I decided to give it a go anyway. I fired off a bunch of applications for academic positions at universities in Australia, the USA, NZ and the UK. Fortunately, it turns out you can come back to academia after some time away; I recently accepted a Level B Research Fellow position at the University of Western Australia and I'm excited to be returning to where I belong.

If you are certain you belong in academia, then stay the course; but if you want to explore other options, then perhaps some time in industry would do you good. Perhaps you are considering taking a break from academia, but you aren't sure that you want to give it up for good. Hopefully, my story shows that it is possible to return to academia after a break. Moreover, I think time in industry research or development is actually an asset: it will broaden your mind, make you a more well-rounded academic and better mentor if you do decide to return to academia, improve your future job prospects and give you time and space to figure out which career path is right for you. As far as I can see, taking a break from academia to experience a different side of science is a really good idea.

Disclaimer: Advice given in this blog is of a general nature and does not take into consideration individual circumstances. If you're at a crossroads in your academic career and not sure what to do next, you should talk to a trusted mentor in your institution and also consider getting professional career advice from someone outside your institution.