Remember captain hindsight from South Park? If not, watching this YouTube clip is a great way to spend 5 minutes that you would otherwise spend in…something more academic perhaps.
Ha. Anyway. Things are always crystal clear in the past. And from time to time, we all play that funny mental game of “oh I wish I knew this earlier” with ourselves. The same happened to me again yesterday while driving back from Vaasa where I was on a road trip with the kids for the weekend.
What would I do differently if I knew everything I know now if I had a chance to start the academic game from square one?
Of course, hindsight is not nearly as useful as foresight. But one’s hindsight can sometimes be someone else’s foresight. So, with that little ray of hope in mind, I thought I’ll just share the top seven things I can possibly think of.
I bet you’ll find at least one helpful idea here.
Seven to Change
1. Don’t trust your supervisor blindly
You might have a real Dr. Knowitall as your boss who is amazing in everything. But chances are, (s)he’s just a human being. And humans are flawed. Even with good intentions, they might have blind spots.
Listen to advice, carefully, but always do your own research too. What are the _REAL_ requirements of your study programme? What are the real requirement for a promotion in your field or, more locally, faculty? How much do you need to produce in terms of raw numbers to “do well” in your field or area?
Chances are, your supervisor has standards that are not fully in line with the standards of your operational environment. The standards might be too low or too high, that doesn’t really even matter. In both cases, you’re the one who might end up suffering because of this mismatch.
So just keep your eyes open beyond your immediate circle of advisors too.
2. Work faster
This one is slightly controversial. But by working faster to complete things required now, you will have more time for things that matter in the future.
Figure out what you have to do, at minimum, and get there fast. That way, you’ll get to enjoy a much more fun experience in academia and most importantly you’ll have time to help others.
Reciprocity is a great thing to leverage, and all the better if it comes in a natural way: Help people because you’re done with your work already.
3. Party more
There’s a lack of celebration in academia. So… party. I think a lot of people think they can party only once they are PIs. But the truth is anyone can start a little cultural movement
- Celebrate every submission, not just accepts
- Celebrate tiny wins every time you get a chance
- Celebrate even effort, not just wins
This one reminded me of the importance of partying:
4. Network without asking for permit
Look, I don’t want you to get in trouble with your (potentially overly attached) supervisor. But make friends. Make friends in academia. Make friends in industry. Make friends with anyone that could be useful in some weirdly distant way, one day in not even the near future. We’re talking about years here.
Academia truly is not just about “scientific excellence” but it’s your career. Career is a big part of life. And life is better together.
5. Pick just 2-3 methods and master them
Research is a funny thing. You can pursue the same project or question with dozens of different methods, all yielding valid data. But if you never master even just a handful of them well, you’ll just constantly run in trouble.
People who excel in something get invited to a lot of great things. Basically, you can freeload without feeling guilty. Getting invited to a lot of different projects as a domain expert is a real-world shortcut. Because leading projects is extremely laborious, but everyone participating in a project get to share the glory.
Related to this, here’s something I captured from Tools of Titans some time ago:
And a YUGE shoutout to Readwise at this point. Turns out, syncing everything to Notion that now has a great AI chat to help search all that mess was a pretty neat idea long ago.)
Anyways. A practical example is someone who is great at statistical methods. That someone will get invited to papers a lot by peers who are not so good. Same with other methods. Or even approaches you can invent on your own. Become known as the guy/gal who created THAT solution, and anyone who wants to use the solution in their projects is queuing at your door.
6. Shoot higher
But even if people want your help in their projects, sometimes you do have to lead. And when you do, chances are you’re going to get rejected — a lot. Like, a lot lot. Taking calculated risks in form of grant applications, paper submission venues, all kinds of random things like public speaking engagements is a great way to… let’s say practice weighted gambling.
If you lose, you learn. If you win, you might as well big. Grant applications, for instance, always have a degree of luck factor in them and you just never know.
Apply bigger, apply bolder. Go for things nobody in your lab has done before. Do it silently, if you fear being ridiculed. They’ll shut up when you hit the jackpot.
Funnily enough, I remember I used to have a “calculated risk of the month” routine a few years ago. Then, for reasons unknown, I stopped taking it. This is a great reminder to start keeping my eyes open again.
Can you imagine taking 12 calculated shots, long and high, every year? What if even one of them hits the target? How much would that change your life?
7. Think less
And after thinking about all of the six items above… I think it’s worth mentioning that overthinking sucks. Overthinking kills the joy of now. Overthinking is the art and skill of creating problems that don’t even exist, not in the now at least.
Overthinking has always been my arch nemesis.
I should’ve just gone for it. More risks. Less thinking. More stuff in the overall generic direction. Aggressive action, less thinking about details.
Thinking less is a great last thought to end my list of regrets-turned-advice. Because I can probably think of a dozen more, but at some point it just turns into a big regret fest that I think we can all live without.
Ha.