A little while ago I talked about how I don't really work hard enough at what I do to be successful (according to E.O. Wilson), and that was reinforced today by another leader in my field - Dr. Stephen P. Hubbell talked to our research group about his 'neutral theory of biodiversity.' He's a really smart guy, and cool to talk to, but some of the things he said about what it takes to be successful in my field have me discouraged (plus the fact that a lot of his 'neutral theory' went right over my head).
The main points were as follows:
- The last faculty position they filled in his department, they didn't even look at anyone with fewer than 12 publications. I have 3 so far.
- Graduate students in their department have a high success rate of getting dissertation improvement grants from the National Science Foundation. According to his timeline, I should have already gotten one - I haven't even applied yet.
- Funding for the kind of work I do is getting harder and harder to come by (thanks in large part to our president) so the competition is really intense.
There were a few others, but I'm too tired to try and think of them right now. Plus I need to study. I hope you guys are happy that the pig has been bumped further on down the page.
5 comments:
C'mon... a unified theory of anything in ecology? Yeah, right. Actually, I think Hubbell's pretty cool just because he provides a perfect counter to all of those ridiculous community matrix models.
You wouldn't want to go to Georgia anyway.
Also, if those hiring standards are universal, I'm totally screwed.
Thanks for bumping the pig down. :o) (I braved it today and took the risk.)
I'm starting to think that it is a universal hiring standard.
The last position our deparment opened up (a microbiologist) ended up with a ton of applicants, the average number of pubs was 18, and most of them had at least one in Science or Nature.
I'm totally screwed.
Post a Comment