Animal Sex/Grad Student Woes

Animal sex seems to be a popular topic of conversation, lucky for me since that is what I study. But, unlucky for me, my dreams of having a show to talk about the exciting adventures of animal sex have been dashed by others who made it to the finish line before me.  I just became aware of this show, Wild Sex, that does a good job of making animal sex exciting, racy, and educational.  Check it out here.  Of course, I already knew about Green Porno and other short videos around the net that have approached this titillating topic, but I suppose I had hoped there still might be a place for me to talk about reproductive science in a fun and novel way.  Looks like I was beaten to the punch. Oh well, I will have to be satisfied with entertaining people at cocktail parties with scintillating tales from the bedroom of the animal kingdom...

Now that I am (hopefully) nearing the end of my struggle to get my PhD, I am definitely reevaluating what I want to do after.  It makes me realize how difficult this process has been for me. I used to think of myself as someone who is terribly driven and excited about life, but somehow I became bogged down in this one thing and forgot about what made me want to do it in the first place.  I used to be proud of what I was doing, but now I feel exhausted all the time. It is enough to finish something as mediocre, just as long as it is finished, when I know I would never have accepted that from myself in the past. I keep reading articles about how we are mass producing PhD's and there aren't the jobs for us when we graduate.  Take a look at this quote from University World News:

One consequence is that the number of Ph.D. graduates around the world is increasing at an ever-expanding rate but, unfortunately, "the job opportunities available for Ph.D. graduates and the security and remuneration these opportunities provide do not always appear commensurate with the opportunity costs involved in studying for a Ph.D., at least to the graduates themselves." 

Some Ph.D. graduates find that the openings they expected to appear once they had acquired a Ph.D. are not there or do not take the form they would like, Rymer says.

The jobs on offer may lack security or status, be poorly paid, not use directly the particular skills or disciplinary knowledge graduates acquired through the course of their Ph.D. training, or may not even require a Ph.D. qualification at all.

Or what about this quote from Nature:

The problem is most acute in the life sciences, in which the pace of PhD growth is biggest, yet pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries have been drastically downsizing in recent years. In 1973, 55% of US doctorates in the biological sciences secured tenure-track positions within six years of completing their PhDs, and only 2% were in a postdoc or other untenured academic position. By 2006, only 15% were in tenured positions six years after graduating, with 18% untenured (see 'What shall we do about all the PhDs?'). Figures suggest that more doctorates are taking jobs that do not require a PhD. "It's a waste of resources," says Stephan. "We're spending a lot of money training these students and then they go out and get jobs that they're not well matched for."

So, while I know I am diligently trudging towards my goal, I may not even have the "reward" of a job waiting for me at the end of it. And there is the added kick in the pants that I may get a job I could have gotten right out of undergrad, effectively rendering my years as a graduate student a tremendous waste of time. I do feel that the accomplishment of gaining a PhD will be a reward in itself, but at this point I'm more embarrassed by what I haven't accomplished than proud of what I have. I feel like the years have passed by, my colleagues excelling around me, graduating, moving on to jobs, living lives that aren't totally absorbed by their PhDs, while I feel like I am left behind, struggling to make it through each day.   I just went to see a masters defense of a student who managed to get funding, get important and complicated research done, and get a job (one she wanted) in three years. I have been here five years and, if you look back at my blog posts, I was once incredibly excited about all of the science and potential research I might learn about and contribute to.  I'm still excited by science and I still love it, but I feel... defeated, burnt-out, disappointed.... Well, this was a totally self-indulgent blog post. On to attempting to dig myself out of this self-pitying hole I have dug myself into. I think I will try to get back to posting at least one science post a week to remind myself why I wanted to be a scientist to begin with.

To leave on a happier note, here are James Anderson and Kelly Williams on Coconut Island working with a baby female scalloped hammerhead shark.  She's waking up from being anesthetized and they were making sure she was getting her bearings.  Kelly is holding a hose with water pumping towards the shark's mouth and gills to make sure enough is passing along the membranes for oxygen exchange. That is why you commonly hear about how sharks have to keep moving or they will die--they need to pass water across their gills and some sharks (but not all) have to constantly swim in order to do so.  Other sharks are able to bring water past their gills by opening and closing their mouths and so can rest on the bottom of the ocean floor.

And here is the view I had on my way home from work. I thought it was pretty good :)