#ProfLife #4: Assistant professor vs. grad student years

I’ve been an assistant professor about as long as I was a grad student.  It’s interesting to reflect on these two high-growth times in my life.

I feel like I have grown and been challenged much more in the past 5+epsilon years (epsilon is starting to approach unity!!!) than during my grad student years.  Part of that is on account of life—as I’ve been learning my professor job, I’ve also been learning how to parent an extremely active and extroverted and intense small child.  But mostly it is the sheer amount of new stuff flung my way at a high baud rate in my work life.  Sometimes I think I need to reserve ~5 hrs/week for the “expected unexpected” things that land in my lap that I somehow need to figure out how to deal with fast and not too shoddily.  I’ve grown, I’ve stretched, I’ve failed (and rebounded) so much.  I’ve learned so many very different things.

That said, in many ways graduate school was much harder, and if I had to choose between reliving my student days or my assistant professor days, I would definitely choose the latter.  I learned a lot as a graduate student, most significantly, how to run my own research program.   But, most of my time in grad school I struggled to the point of near-paralysis with imposter syndrome, and was suffering from untreated and undiagnosed depression.  I was learning how to be an adult.  I didn’t know if I had the “right stuff” for my longed-for career in academia.  I didn’t have the perspective and wisdom that I have now.  I didn’t have the experience to guide me to not sweat the small things or the hard times.

For me, wisdom and experience defeats youthful energy any day.  I’m definitely playing the long game, career-wise, and looking for a more productive and more zen future.

—–

I realized only later, after having mentally mapped out most of this post, that I was a postdoc for a similar amount of time as I was a grad student and a professor as well.  Trust me, there was much growth then, too.  But, like most things university-related, much attention is paid to professors and grad students—keeping track of postdocs is at best an afterthought. 😛 Yikes.  More on that later…