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Anyone want a feelgood thread about academic failure? Come on over here. Failure & rejection aplenty.
First of all, my PhD was not a nice experience. My PhD supervisors refused to support the publication of any result that wasn't worthy of Physical Review Letters. 1/
First of all, my PhD was not a nice experience. My PhD supervisors refused to support the publication of any result that wasn't worthy of Physical Review Letters. 1/
By those insane standards, nothing I did for my PhD was publication-worthy. They didn't even want to let me graduate (since I hadn't done anything worthy of publication) - I should just have worked for them forever until I did something worthy of PRL. I was going to quit. 2/
I had a "how to get out of grad school alive" post-it note on my computer monitor. It said "get up, open the door, turn left, turn right, turn left, get out of 77 Mass Ave, turn left or right, doesn't matter, just keep walking." Fun times. MIT was notorious for suicides. 3/
One PhD student committed suicide in the lab next to ours, opposite my office. We saw the ambulance people looking grim, but didn't know what happened. My supervisor called me. The panic & relief in his voice when I picked up the phone: "Julia!!! You're ok!?" told me that ... 4/
he knew what he was doing to me (and to others. I was not alone.) So I was going to quit. I had not had a single PhD committee meeting ("your results aren't good enough yet"), when the 3rd committee member got wind of my intentions. He insisted on having a meeting. 5/
He asked me what I had done to date. He said "you did a, b, c, d? ok that's enough. I want you to write it up. The next time I see you is at your defense." That was my first & last committee meeting. I graduated. But my supervisors were not happy. They told me I should ... 6/
leave academia, that my work wasn't good enough to stay in, and that they would never write me a recommendation letter for a postdoc. I left academia. I tried everything and failed at everything (freelance media work? check. Substitute teaching? check. Private sector? check.) 7/
I was living with my parents in Geneva, age 31, taking masters level classes in ecological economics at the University. I didn't feel like much, but I was doing my thing. I got a part-time job working for the Swiss govt at the UN, and did some research as part of it. 8/
At a workshop at Georgia Tech, some nice old professor told me I belonged in academia. He told me to give it another try. He didn't know me at all, had just listened to my talk and chatted for 20 minutes. 9/
He was one of the biggest influences in my life, because I clung to his advice, like a drowning woman. I went back to Geneva and asked for postdocs, research positions, in ecological economics. I was told no quite a bit. I was told I needed another PhD (NEVER!). 10/
And finally I was given a chance. Luckiest thing every. Two chances: one with Suren Erkman, one with Claudia Binder. Two part time postdocs in Industrial Ecology. I had to learn so much, made mistakes, was slow. It was wonderful. I was so grateful. I loved being back in uni. 11/
My first research paper of my postdoc? Never got written. I had no idea how to go about it, no experience from my PhD. It was a super interesting project. I spend hours writing and making nice figures. Never saw the light of day. It wasn't the only one ... 12/
But the second paper did get written, thanks to a freak virtual meeting, one of the most important of my life: a skype with someone who is still one of my most important influences and colleagues: @TimmonsRoberts . He gave me encouragement, writing advice, asked questions ... 13/
was impatient with me to get this paper written. So it got written. Thanks to his advice, I also was able to write my 3rd paper. But then, things got weird. Paper 2 was rejected 6 (SIX!!!) times over a period of 2.5 years. Nobody but Timmons would have stood by me for that. 14/
The rejections went from the flatly political "the HDI is an indicator from the UN designed to make the US look bad" (whut?) to the strange "because of climate change, CO2 emissions will go to zero overnight so your projections are invalid" (would be nice, hon). 15/
But finally we made it through. The paper is here, it's great, it's still one of the most important things I've written. Paper 3 also had misadventures. I sent it for friendly review to a giant in my field, who wrote back that he read it (amazing) ... 16/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800910003733
but "although the topic is one of my core interests, I can't see the purpose of this particular paper." I was so crushed I didn't even look at it for 6 months, despite the pleas of my co-authors. Then I re-read it, decided it was fine, submitted it & it sailed through review. 17/
Paper 3 is this one. It got published almost 2 full years BEFORE paper 2, because of those 6 rejections. 18/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421508005077?via%3Dihub
Anyway, I'm putting this out there because academia can be horrible, unfair, crushing, time-wasting, especially for younger people. And without incredible luck & support of a few amazing colleagues, I don't know how anyone can make it. I'm happy to have been lucky. 19/
But I'll be goddamned if I sugarcoat it and pretend it's a meritocracy or anything like that. There's failure aplenty (and yes I'm sure being a woman played a role in how I was treated, and yes I'm sure being non-white is even worse). 20/
So I just wanted everyone out there to realise that even the appearance of success can mask some pretty crushing moments. Take care of yourselves and each other. 
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