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Something we don’t talk about a lot is the... professional loneliness (not quite right, but for lack of a better word) of transitioning from student/postdoc to prof. Many of us move from part of a busy collaborative lab (+ having a cohort of peers) to being largely solitary (1/n)
It’s partly that now, the buck really stops with you. You’re in charge of making tons of decisions largely on your own. But you also many not have your own students for weeks (or more likely months) when you start (2/n)
And a collaborative lab culture/atmosphere doesn’t grow overnight! New students (often undergrad or MSc) don’t have senior students to guide them, and often haven’t yet been part of a lab with an established culture/practices either. It’s all new! (3/n)
There are benefits to this. You set the tone for your lab. You can try to take the good (and avoid the bad) from past labs and mentors. But it takes time and hard work. Doubly so in our new online world! (4/n)
I’ve been lucky to have amazing students from the start. I’m really proud of our lab culture. But it’s just recently, entering year 3 as a #NewPI, that I really feel like I’m settling into something a little more sustainable, more collegial, a little less solitary (5/n)
Partly, this is just time. Those first ‘new’ MSc students aren’t so new, and work well together. UGs come back yr after yr. We have a good diversity of career stages in the lab (postdoc/PhD/MSc/undergrads). Partly it’s a lot of deliberate work. Either way, I’m very grateful (6/n)
Why tweet this? I don’t really know, other than that it’s been on my mind lately that I feel like I’ve reached a bit of a new stage. And if you’re a new prof and feeling a bit weird/lonely/isolated, or miss being part of a lab... hang in there! You’ll get back there again! (7/7)
This is a great point. *Leading* a lab is not the same as being *in* a lab. There are very real power differentials that come with being an advisor, and that can be especially hard when you are new (and young): https://twitter.com/randajab/status/1352332295508692992
