Question: in your professional life, I'm assuming that you have some people in mind who you respect and admire, and whose behaviours you try to emulate?
I'm curious if those are mostly fellow academics, or mostly people outside of academia, or a pretty even mix? Does the set of people whose behaviours you try to emulate vary much over time?
@anna it's mostly folks whom I have a lot of interaction with - so that end up people being in the overall research environment.
I did, over the years, pick up individual behaviors from friends, trainers and similar folks, where I would, when encountering it, go "oh, this is a nice way to deal with situation X, much better than my approach" or similar. But that's a bit different from what you ask.
@anna Outside academia mostly, or those who are in touch with the humanities (coming from the hard sciences myself). I don't think there is a point in trying to mimic behaviour - this is a recipe for running after fads and makes you vulnerable as such.
I'm no longer an academic but this rings true for me. When I was eighteen and went into physics, I had a disdain for the humanities and hero-worshipped scientists. During the process I developed a deep respect for the humanities.
I clearly should've phrased my original question better. I'm thinking more along the lines of "that lab mate who always seems to always be up-to-date with the latest literature" or "that politician who never uses their patience when answering questions" or "that postdoc who always attracts an audience during the poster session".
The hero-worshipping "let's all play bongos because Feynman did that" interpretation of my question didn't really occur to me until I read your post.
I'm kind of just curious where people get their inspiration.
Ah, got you! That's a different question from the one I thought you asked, but is an even more interesting question.
For me personally, I've encountered more such people via activism than via academia (and via my post-academia professional work.) Meeting really great feminist, trans-rights and antifascist campaigners was an amazing thing for me. It showed me that humans can be their better selves while still being tired and grumpy and petty like we always are.
What triggered my question was a conversation I had today in which I was advised to try to identify role models for (aspects) of the job, and try to emulate/copy their behaviour, or find inspiration in it.
I realised quickly that it is much easier to come up with negative examples within Academia; and that most of my positive examples are from outside Academia.
I'm wondering if that is because I'm suspicious of survivor bias in Academia? Or because the narrow behaviours get so personal that they don't generalise well? Or aren't easily translatable to something that I feel confident might work for me?
Because there are plenty of Academics who I admire; I just don't necessarily see them good "role models" in the sense that I feel like I can take what they do well and figure out if/how I could make something similar work for me? Or am I just too pessimistic about my own abilities to do so?
I'm very much in the middle of processing that conversation 😅
Yeah, I think I'm in the same place as you with my negative examples being within academia and my positive examples being outside of it.
Part of what triggered me leaving academia was realising that I am just not on the level of many of my peers. I'm the same age as Katie Mack and Konstantin Batygin, but I almost feel bad for comparing myself to them. To quote a friend I've had this conversation with, they're rock stars and I'm a wedding cover band.
On the other hand, when it comes to feeding the hungry or blocking fascists from shutting down a drag queen story hour, I'm there and Batygin isn't.
I think part of it is that our standards for who to compare ourselves to are unequal. In science (at least in astro, which is my field) we hold the bar extremely high. If you're not unrealistically perfect you're nobody, and we expect people to compromise on all other parts of their life in order to meet this standard. Because of this, we often meet people who either became failed human beings to achieve this standard, or try to be human and so get seen as failed scientists, and both of those are more often negative role models than positive.
Some rare people succeed, but they often become rock stars, where any attachment we hold for them becomes parasocial. Katie Mack is about as real to me as Richard Feynman.
I wonder if it's the same in sports and modelling and music, other fields which have the same sort of unrealistically high standard and rock-star culture?
Thanks for sharing! Yes, the "scientist vs human" issue is one I am very wary of.
Yesterday, when I got the advice to model after role models, the first role model that came to mind was Hannah Gadsby; and in particular her 2021 University of Tasmania Graduation address: https://youtu.be/5AUeO5nZNLI?si=-hNooUv6Su5xp_rm
In that speech, she says that she just wants to be kind. I feel more and more that that is basically all we can hope to achieve. It's hard.
I also reflected on this in the run up to my dissertation defence. I was asked to come up with 0-4 "propositions" about any thing I wanted (in addition to the 8 scientific propositions I had to submit). I only gave them one:
"It is much easier to be called a hardcore feminist than it is to be a consistently active, dedicated, intersectional, trans-inclusive, anti-racist, anti-ableist feminist."
I guess that was the life lesson I took away from getting my doctorate, and wanted to take with me for the rest of my career?
I guess this week I also needed a reminder that trying to be a good person is hard work, but also important to me.
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