competition survival and academic

Competition, Survival, and Academic Niches

None of my graduate students graduated in 2006 or 2007. Apparently

they were all waiting to graduate in 2008, an auspicious year in which

5 of my students may obtain graduate degrees. This is going to be the

biggest year yet for students graduating from my research group.

2008 will therefore be a momentous and exciting year, but it will also

mark a huge change in my research ecosystem. I would prefer that my

group change more gradually, with intermittent degree-obtaining by my

senior students at about the same rate that new students join the

group. It's impossible to plan these things, though. I am very fond of

my research group now, so my pleasure at watching my soon-to-be-former

students move on to new and interesting activities will be accompanied

by a hint of melancholy. Perhaps this melancholy will be assuaged by a

new group of excellent students.

It is entirely selfish to feel sadness at the graduation of one's

students, but I do think that the intermittent-graduating-student

model would also be better for the group as well because it would then

avoid the situation of people in the same group applying for the same

positions. That can be stressful for all concerned. Fortunately, each

one of my students has their own specific expertise and skills, and

so, if required, I can 'compare' them in reference letters without

saying that one is better than the others. Even so, I'd rather not

compare them.

When I was a grad student, two of my office mates were applying for

the same very small number of faculty positions in their specialty.

This was at a time when the number of available faculty positions was

exceedingly small, and these two office mates were very stressed out

and essentially stopped speaking to each other. Even worse, we all

shared a phone, and the ringing of the phone became a very traumatic

time for everyone in the office: Was one of them going to get The

Call? -- inviting one for an interview but not the other? offering one

of them a job, but not the other? For some reason related to stress

and their temporary loss of sanity, neither of them would answer the

phone. I became terrified of answering the phone because one of these

office mates often yelled at me for not answering the phone in a

professional enough way, as if my casual phone-answering style would

cost him his tenure-track position. (In the end, both got tenure-track

positions.) I don't think things are quite at that level of stress in

my group right now. Hooray for e-mail and personal phones and staying

sane and collegial during a search for faculty jobs and postdocs.

When I was a postdoc, a group of us who had the same supervisor --

including several current and recent postdocs -- were applying for the

same few faculty positions. Another postdoc and I had great fun

discussing who was our supervisor's favorite postdoc, second favorite

postdoc etc., as we tried to imagine what he was writing in his

reference letters for us all. We both agreed that the wild-and-crazy

brilliant guy who liked extreme sports and long nights in the bar was

#1, but we disagreed about who was #2. My friend said it was me

because I had the most publications (and our supervisor worshiped

publication quantity), but I said it was him. I had compelling

evidence: my friend was given the better office, was paid more (for

the same job), and spent more time hanging out with our supervisor

(beer, sports, science-talk etc.). Also, our supervisor kept telling

me rude jokes about feminists and I didn't think any of the jokes were

funny, thereby proving to him that feminists don't have a sense of

humor. And, as if that weren't enough, our supervisor once somehow

failed to notice that I was taking care of a grad student's very large

cactus while she was traveling, and, during a visit to my office, he

leaned back against the cactus and .. It was like something out of a

cartoon, although I did not laugh in any obvious way at the time,

probably because I am a feminist and lack a sense of humor. Later, I

suggested to my fellow postdoc that he should offer to help pull out

the cactus spines, thereby vaulting to the position of #1 postdoc, or

at least cementing his position as second-favorite postdoc, but he

declined.

If that last paragraph has a point, and I'm not sure it does, it is

that members of the same research group can 'compete' for jobs and

still have fun and remain friends, even while staring possible career