Friday, July 13, 2018
By:
Life is a journey. You wake up one day, thrown into the world without any idea where you’re going, but an innate desire to get there. We spend our whole lives trying to decide where we want to go, where we hope to go, and asking others for directions when they themselves have rarely reached their destinations. We stumble and fall, and often get lost. All on a quest for that moment where we look around at our lives and may relax and say “I made it”.
Everyone's destination is different. It is part of what makes us, well, us. Our final destinations are tailored to who we are as people and what will make us feel the most fulfilled and content. No one else knows where we are going or how to get there any more than we do, so we stumble along life, effectively blind, trying new things and feeling our way around a dark room, unable to see there is only one clear path out. No one has directions. Eventually, we hope to get there.
In my life, I have struggled with many things, one of which, is what I wanted to do in my future. I started making money in childcare when I was young, and never stopped. Throughout my studies in school and college, in between research and school clubs, I have always worked with kids. As i got older My babysitting morphed into volunteering to teach in my church, and then again to working in outreach programs in physics and astronomy. But it has always been just that. Something I did in between. I have had a clear goal of being a “physicist” for a long time, and working in research. Continuing on grad school and perhaps being a professor. It was, and is, a struggle for me. I get stressed easily and have a difficult time taking exams without cracking under pressure. I am much better with my hands and learning at my own pace outside of the classroom. I alway treated my diversity work as something i did to relax me from my academic stresses. Nothing more.
Physics can be a biased field, and to its credit it acknowledges this. Many students never get the chance to visualize what our lives might be like in anything but an academic research job. Some, if we are lucky, get exposure to national laboratories or industry research positions. But what about the other 60% of people with physics bachelor degrees that don’t go on to grad school? What do they do? Ands how well are they living?
This past week our group went to a tour at OSA and participated in a resume and career building workshop. Danielle Weiland, the SPS Education Programs coordinator, formatted the workshop to focus on these positions. She spent the time to hand pic jobs she thought each of us interns would like on our interests and personalities. She gave us the job descriptions of the positions and their salary. Most of us were pleasantly surprised they were all jobs we currently, or would qualify for with a bachelor of science.
I received a project manager position title at NASa to practice applying for. I have received these positions before and it had always thrown me off. Part of me inherently feels that teaching is a calling in some way, and working on outreach and education programs is something I work on in my free time constantly. I even love what I am doing here at AIP, creating teaching materials for high school teachers about women and minorities in physics. I would be perfectly happy continuing in this job for the rest of my life. But, I was always deterred by the income level. My family gave up a lot for me to go to school and have a better life, and I didn’t want to disappoint them or make their sacrifices lass meaningful by getting a lower paying job, and struggling the same way they did. It has been an internal struggle for me, battling between what felt like a calling, and what appeared to be the most practical.
But as I looked at this paper on my desk, with a real job currently posted on the USA job site, it described exactly what I wanted to do with my life, required only a BS, and paid over 6 figures.
Suddenly, I saw clearly the next steps I was supposed to take.
I talked to Danielle more and found these jobs are open frequently, and I wouldn't be missing out on this one because I had a year left in school. I debated and warred with myself this past week, finally coming to the conclusion: I don’t want to go to graduate school. I don’t want to force myself through years of guaranteed stress in academia when I can do what I love now. Going into Project management and diversity programs does not require a PhD, and getting one wouldn't help me. Working hard here at the rest of my internship and in my SPS chapter the next few months will.
I won't lie, and say I magically know where my destination is, where I am meant to be going. But, I am breathing a little easier now. I have a few of the next directions.
Stephanie Williams