I had two research papers accepted today. TWO! And a third was accepted two weeks ago. I am thrilled these projects are going to see the light of day, but I need to be honest about how draining it has been to do so much work in my free time that I am no longer being paid to do.
Academia left me in June 2020, yet I am still finishing out projects from my post-doc. In what other career are you expected to continue doing your old job — unpaid — for months and years after your last day at work? This is an abusive practice, & we need to stop normalizing it.
There should be a clean slate, especially as you transition your career out of academia. But there isn’t. You feel like you have opened the window and begun to crawl out, but one leg is stuck.
I was lucky to have had a long post-doc, to be able to complete data collection before I left and before the onset of an unexpected pandemic that has thwarted science projects around the globe. But like so many others, I wasn’t able to publish this work before I left.
The final stage of any research project is its publication, which is a messy and laborious process. If your papers aren’t out by the time your position ends, then you are left with a TON of unfinished business.
Even if you’ve submitted your papers before you leave, which is damn near impossible, you then have to deal with paper rejections, responding to reviewer comments, edits that appease them & your collaborators, further data analysis, formatting for other journals & resubmissions.
This work is EXHAUSTING!!! And no one should be expected to do it for FREE!!!
This entire process can take months, if not years and is (surprise!) especially burdensome for women scientists because of peer review biases: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.100…
It is even more laborious if your mental focus has not been on those old projects for over a year. No matter how psychotically organized you are, digging into any old data sets is a mental block, especially after you have plunged yourself into a new work environment.
Maybe it’s obvious to others that once you leave, it’s done and you don’t owe anyone anything. [Side bar: I’d love to know how this mentality plays out for other women/POC/disadvantaged people compared to white dudes who leave academia].
So why did I do it? Because (1) I want to see my mentor - a badass woman scientist - get tenure; (2) my projects were paid by taxpayers, and without publishing them I may as well have never done them (but don’t get me started on paywalls); (3) my colleagues were depending on me.
I know I should be celebrating that three (of four!!) pubs are done, but I can’t help but feel bitter about the entire thing. I am sure I’m not alone out there. For grad students/post-docs on the way out, consider this your warning. What are you willing to do after? And why?
For those still in #academia, please help fix this broken system and stop normalizing free labor. #AcademicTwitter #AcademicChatter #AcademicMentalHealth #WomenInSTEM #WomenInScience #postdoclife #PostdocVoice #postdoctoral
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