I hope all young female fieldworkers reading this want to "shoot for the top" as scientists...want to be the one to stimulate their peers' imaginations, want to change their peers' perception of EcoEvo/Behavioral Ecology/Social Biology, want to produce work with staying power and interpretive power, want to conduct research that leads to basic questions and empirical tests...are competing to be in the top 1% or 5% of EcoEvo/Behavioral Ecology/Social Biology...
1. Keep your work life and your personal life separate.
1. Keep your work life and your personal life separate.
2.
Have a Plan B and a Plan C.
3.
Be intentional [conscious and aware] about your plans for the present
and for the future.*
4.
Set realistic goals, but push yourself to bring something to the table that noone else brings to the table; higher-order quantitative skills are a winning strategy almost every time.
5.
Break large plans, projects, unrealistic goals, etc., into
manageable, realistic, sequential [not necessarily linear] "chunks." Focus; "buy" uninterrupted time; define your questions operationally.
6.
Learn 1 or 2 high-tech and/or quantitative skills in demand by others
in your department, in your sub-discipline, in Behavioral Ecology/Social Biology, as a whole.
7.
Become friends with a M.B.A. and learn how to create demand.
8.
Become friends with a M.B.A. and learn how to package yourself as a
product.
9.
"Know thyself". Calculate how choosing a life partner
and/or falling in love and/or getting a divorce and/or having a loved
one become ill and/or becoming ill yourself would affect your work
schedule, productivity, commitment, mobility, concentration, etc. In particular, consider the costs of assuming caretaking roles/responsibilities.
10.
"Know thyself". Calculate how becoming a Mother and/or
becoming a single Mother and/or discovering that your "priorities
change" for whatever reason and/or deciding that a long-term
commitment [e.g., family] has more disadvantages for you than
advantages would affect your work schedule, productivity, commitment,
mobility, concentration, etc.
11.
If you want to be a highly competitive Behavioral Ecologist and if you plan to
have a long-term relationship and/or have children and/or practice
"attachment parenting" and/or care for elderly relatives or otherwise become a caretaker,
seriously consider becoming a basic or applied quantitative theorist,
statistician, and the like. These specializations may be more
flexible [as per spatiotemporal flexibility; amenability to
publishing]. Another strategy is to choose a study model that allows flexible research planning, perhaps, a model that is amenable to lab study.
12.
Give an informal party for other "early-career" female Behavioral Ecologists. "Role-play" a variety of life tactics,
strategies, and challenges.
13.
If you want to have a long-term partnership and/or children and/or if
you want to practice "attachment parenting", interview
other females who have parented this way and are productive at a
level that is part of your plan.
14.
Become friends with a Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology and learn
how to communicate your needs, beliefs, values, attitudes, opinions,
and plans effectively, constructively, and realistically.
15.
Become friends with a Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology and learn
stellar negotiation skills.
15.
Speak up and organize females in your department around issues
pertinent to females in Behavioral Ecology [e.g., combining and managing family
duties and fieldwork; sponsoring symposia at professional meetings;
working collaboratively; keeping ones-self safe when working among
male researchers; managing an academic career as a single Mom].
"Hear" feedback about your issues from peers and senior
professors and colleagues.
16.
Hold yourself accountable. Do not make a commitment or assume a
responsibility until you have an intentional plan for effecting the
commitment or responsibility. You are a grown-up. You are a
professional.
17.
Listen to your peers and senior colleagues as seriously, as
intentionally, as you would have them listen to you.
18.
Be explicit about the logical structure[s] of your own needs,
arguments, plans, and goals.
19.
Be explicit about your sub-texts as well as your texts.
20. Focus on solutions, not problems.
21.
Befriend a Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology and learn stellar
time-management skills.
22.
Sex cards, race cards, ethnic cards, class cards, disability cards are "low"
Aces. Don;t use them.
23.
Deconstruct the logical structure[s] of your needs, arguments, plans,
and goals.
24.
Be straightforward about the degree of influence you want to have in
academic/research Behavioral Ecology and about what you must do to achieve that degree.
25.
Before you make a commitment to graduate school, financial
assistance, or, otherwise, to a department or job, identify a Mentor
and speak with the Mentor before making the commitment.
26.
Do not choose a "role model" [unless, of course, it is Louise Emmons]. There is no shortcut to
finding your own voice and being your authentic self as an academic/research Behavioral Ecologist.
27.
Think of a successful career model in terms of 1st principles of
Ecology: [E]--acquisition, consumption, allocation.
28.
Realistically and accurately determine what you bring to the table
that no-one else brings to the table. Higher-order quantitative skills are almost always a winning strategy.
29.
If you respect yourself more than anyone else, you will have your
best to offer.
30.
If you love yourself more than anyone else, you will have your best
to offer.
31.
Allocate your T & E into tasks, roles, etc.
consistent with what you bring to the table that no-one else brings
to the table.
32.
Allocate your T & E into tasks, roles, labor,
etc. that utilize & maximize your strengths.
33.
Decide in collaboration with your Mentor what strengths/skills you require
to increase your effectiveness and competitiveness to maximize the chances of
operationalizing and actualizing your plan[s]. Higher-order quantitative skills will almost always be on this list.
34.
You are a professional in a privileged position. Make the interests
of Behavioral Ecology your own.
35.
You are young or otherwise in "early-career;" the glass is
1/2-full.
36.
Learn to "switch" a glass from 1/2-empty to 1/2-full.
37.
Befriend a M.B.A. and learn to view yourself and your work as
investments.
38.
Befriend a M.B.A. and learn how to achieve the highest rates of
returns on your investments.
39.
"Get" that your T & E are limited
resources. Every second subtracts.
40.
If you live through others, they will never forgive you, & you will ultimately regret it.
41.
If you live for others and not for yourself, the others will never
forget.
42.
You're at the big table now, girls--in the big game; it'll require a lot more work to be
taken seriously. The hardest thing to achieve in academia is to be taken seriously.
43.
There are no short-cuts, and there are no guarantees.
*44. If you decide to take time off for caretaking, plan, at the very least, to arrange some sort of academic affiliation--even if it is a university in the country where you are conducting fieldwork or, for another example, with a teaching institution [HBCUs are another option]; also, arrange to stay on top of the literature in your field and in related fields. Keep in mind, however, if you are taking time off from a career in EEB to have children, there are no good substitutes for bottle-feeding, for a nanny or for good child-care, & for having a "parent-centered," rather than, a "child-centered" family arrangement. There is no substitute, also, for foregoing "attachment" parenting.
45. 4/21/2020 in the midst of Pandemic Shutdown: Fieldwork will never be the same--particularly, longitudinal fieldwork...[a] some #womeninEEB might want another animal model with which they can study their questions...do not let your career stall; [b] learn higher-order quantitative skills--all Social Biology/Behavioral Ecology researchers must have, at least, "agent-based" ["individual-based"] modeling [test your assumptions! test alternate hypotheses! conduct experiments mathematically!] [c] use databases available online or directly from researchers with whom you can collaborate; treat these data sets quantitatively [there are tons of descriptive/Natural History studies that have not been treated quantitatively!
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