I often feel like I don’t belong in Princeton. Everyone in my department seems to be very excited and passionate about their research. They live and breathe the subject and enjoy discussing their work and new papers in the field over dinner and at parties. I find this exhausting. I like to compartmentalize work into its own box. I give it my all when I’m in lab, but I want to spend my time and attention on other things when I’m at home or out with friends. I have many interests outside of my research and feel like there are many career trajectories I could have taken if I had not decided to pursue graduate school. I sometimes feel like I am simply not “nerdy” enough to be taken seriously in my department, and I often have to pretend that I understand (or even care about) what others are discussing in social settings. This often makes me feel like a fraud and an outsider. I don’t see myself pursuing a career in academia, and I think my peers (even more than my advisor) would find this unsettling. As a woman in STEM, I suspect some of my peers would even view me as a “bad example,” since I am contributing to the “leaky pipeline” in pursuing some of my other interests/talents. I am not free to be an individual with my own ambitions without repercussions, because I have the burden of representing an entire group of people. I recently got married, and the truth is that I really do care more about my family than my work, however “traditional” that may be. I want to have kids sooner rather than later, but I have been told again and again that it is difficult to be taken seriously and to be offered post-doc positions as a pregnant woman. Even my parents who used to badger me about grandkids when I wasn’t even in a relationship have now told me that I should put my life on hold until my career is more set. I understand their logic in this advice, but I don’t want something as important as the timing of my own children to be beholden to other peoples’ arbitrary prejudices. What has helped is a close-knit group of supportive friends in whom I can confide as well as my amazing husband. Having a support network makes a huge difference, especially when feeling socially alone in my department. I think it is also super helpful to have close friends outside of Princeton to help keep me grounded.
Anecdote #16
