Season 2 |
Bonus Episode S2Bonus5: How to Manage Service without Sacrificing Research
[00:00:00] EMILIA: I mean, Dr. Wakimoto had so many cute stories. I really love when she gets invited to go to the science fair by her teacher, but then when she finds out that she would have to spend the whole day with the boys in her class, she said, I don't want to do that. Yeah.
[00:00:17] RORI: She was like, spend the whole day with the boys?
No, thank you.
[00:00:21] EMILIA: But she had a great teacher who said, don't worry, I'll bring a girl.
[00:00:25] RORI: And then he brought his wife. Mrs. Martindale,
[00:00:30] EMILIA: who spent the whole day holding Dr. Wakimoto's hand around the science fair.
[00:00:36] RORI: It does sound like a nice way to spend a day, I have to say. Well, listeners, here we are again, doing a bonus episode to think about what we learned from our wonderful conversation with Dr. Barbara Wakimoto. Okay, Emilia, what's one lesson?
[00:00:54] EMILIA: One lesson that resonated with me was that we need to protect the environment. students time. Students need to think about this. Faculty need to think about this. And one of the things that she mentioned is that students do so much more now, including service. And so I think sometimes if they or their PhD mentors are not careful, then it can be, it can be a big ask.
[00:01:22] RORI: Like students are being asked to be on departmental committees, which in some ways is nice. It's nice to have student voices on these committees, but it's a lot of work. And it doesn't necessarily help them with their next career stages.
[00:01:34] EMILIA: Yeah. And the other thing that came up related to that, to time is collaborations.
You know, like sometimes it's fun to work on a collaboration and it's, I think it's really nice to be asked to collaborate on a project or to do something for a project. Right. Because it's, it's nice. I think it feels, inclusive? Or you feel included? But I think she mentioned that we romanticized collaboration.
[00:01:59] RORI: Yes, yes.
[00:02:00] EMILIA: Where she basically said, you need to be careful because you might end up as a middle author in a lot of projects and not have enough projects that you, that you led, where you were the
[00:02:13] RORI: And for better or for worse, first authorship is still super valuable for the way science is done. Having first authorships is still considered a gold standard for getting jobs, for getting grants, for all of this.
It's how we're evaluated. I mean, I think it's kind of bold and interesting because we do love collaborating. I love collaborating. But. Collaborating in a way that means students don't get first authorship has a real impact on students career. And so this gets into how we protect students time, like how faculty advisors can work to make sure students are spending their time on projects that will lead to first authorships, and how students can advocate to understand the authorship position that they're working towards in projects as well.
[00:02:55] EMILIA: Yeah, all those I think are important.
[00:02:58] RORI: Another thing that I got from Barbara, Emilia, is about how it's important to be clear about what you need in order to reach your goals. She talked about how she, as so many first-generation students, she like, didn't know what getting a PhD was and then somebody kind of directed her and was like, oh yeah.
This is something you can consider for a career path. And she did, and she was like, Oh yeah, that's what I want to do. And then they were like, Oh, you have to go take the GRE. And she just kind of showed up. She wasn't prepared at all. And she didn't understand the kind of significance of this test in determining her options for getting a PhD later. And she did, she got a really low score. She said she, she didn't do well on the GRE so much that her advisor, what was her advisor saying to her?
[00:03:42] EMILIA: Oh, I think she said, Oh, you're so smart. How did you get such a, was it such a bad score in the GRE?
[00:03:49] RORI: Yeah, something like that. It's a little cringy, really. Like it would have been really useful for Barbara to understand the significance of the GRE, which could have happened because she could have talked to people and been like, Hey, what's the GRE?
And why do I need to take it? I wonder, Emilia, what about you? Did you ever have something that you didn't understand the significance of for your kind of like future?
[00:04:11] EMILIA: It's hard, right, when you're a first-generation student to know the things that you don't know.
[00:04:16] RORI: Oh, yeah.
[00:04:17] EMILIA: Or like, how do you, like, find out what you don't know?
I remember in high school, you have to take college prep courses if you want to go to university afterwards. And I remember I received a schedule.
[00:04:32] RORI: Like they assigned you classes.
[00:04:34] EMILIA: Yeah, they assigned me classes. And I had like only one course that was a college prep course. I had all these courses on like knitting and choir.
And I was getting good grades in my courses. Of course, I thought I only needed to get good grades to go to university.
[00:04:52] RORI: You're like having a good time, which is true, you know, they're good things.
[00:04:55] EMILIA: I think it was called home economics. It was fun. You do crafts and you learn how to do nice things, but like I wasn't taking science, for instance.
[00:05:05] RORI: How did you find out that? To go to college, they would want not only good grades, but certain courses.
[00:05:10] EMILIA: I joined a cross-country team. And then I, I talked to a lot of smart students who knew more than me. And so then I was like, Oh, they knew they were prepared.
[00:05:19] RORI: Right, right, right, right, right. And they were like, Oh no, you've got to take these other classes. And then you're like, okay. Okay. Yeah.
[00:05:25] EMILIA: And so then I remember then going, making an appointment with my counselor. I said, Hey, I want to go to college. I need to take college prep courses.
[00:05:35] RORI: Yeah, but you had to do that and you had to know to do that. I had to do that. Yeah, like you say, you can't know what you don't know. So, yeah, there's a little bit of a catch 22 there.
[00:05:45] EMILIA: What about you? What's another lesson that you got from talking to Dr. Wakimoto?
[00:05:49] RORI: I feel like a big theme of what you talked about is to really consider the consequences of doing a lot of academic service. And, you know, this is a theme that comes up in different times, but she talked about how she was putting together her retirement paperwork, she was kind of like reflecting back on all the work she did, and she was seeing the huge, huge volume of service that she did.
And so what does that mean? That means Applying for grants to support students, working in the institution, on the curriculum committee to try to change how the curriculum is for the undergrads or to run a program, to oversee a doctoral program, any of these things that faculty do that is not for their research and not for their teaching, but kind of for this broader service.
She talked about how she did so much of this so early, right? Like, didn't she say that she started doing this kind of service when she was an assistant professor and she noticed that the men in her department didn't start that kind of service until they were like full professors? And when they did, they were like, whoa, Barbara, this is a lot of work. Which was like, yeah, no shit.
[00:06:59] EMILIA: Yeah, I think Barbara really realized when she was getting ready to retire, she was looking at all the service components that she had, questioning all the service that she had done. The fact that she, she experience doing all that service and she is telling us that we should think about the consequences of doing a lot of service is, is something that, that at least I'm gonna think about as I move forward.
Like choosing what is it that I really enjoy doing or how can I combine service with something that I enjoy.
[00:07:32] RORI: Yeah, I mean she had this framework of like choose one or two things. Um, you know, Emilia, you make a really good point that Coming from Barbara, it's different than the kind of standard advice, and we've even talked about this, kind of the standard advice in our field, in our fields, and in science broadly, especially when you and I were coming up, was to like, not do any service, because then you're not doing your research, and your research is what matters.
Service doesn't matter. And I think Coming up, it was difficult for me to take that advice from people who were very comfortably in the scientific culture, people who have like a lot of privilege and were maybe, you know, people who didn't have targeted identities that motivated them to want to change the system because of their first hand experience.
And Barbara. is different. Barbara has targeted identities, she worked so hard on service, and she's like now saying that was actually too much. So I think The advice is received for me really differently depending on who it's coming from. And so I appreciate hearing from Barbara's experience specifically.
[00:08:37] EMILIA: I mean,
in some sense, I feel like there's substance in this message. Other people just say, don't do service or don't do that much service. All those other people didn't do as much service Barbara, so they don't actually know what it is to do so much service.
[00:08:52] RORI: They don't, and she has the first hand experience, and they maybe weren't as motivated to change, to like transform academia as she was.
She was very motivated to do that, and she did that, and she felt like it was too much.
[00:09:03] EMILIA: And she helped so many people, like her service helped probably a lot of students.
[00:09:07] RORI: She ran a training grant that funded me. I'm a direct beneficiary of her service.
[00:09:12] EMILIA: Yeah,
so the impact of her service. is big, but it does come at the consequence of having less time to do other things.
[00:09:20] RORI: I'm
so glad that now in her retirement, she's running her, like, retirement research, uh,
[00:09:25] EMILIA: Learning for Luxury.
[00:09:26] RORI: I love that she's just got the time and space to pursue her scientific questions on her own now. That's brings me joy.
[00:09:33] EMILIA: Yeah.
You could see that when she was talking about her science, you would see her, like,
[00:09:39] RORI: She would light up.
[00:09:40] EMILIA: Yeah, she would light up.
[00:09:41] RORI: Yeah, she was like, these questions still keep her awake at night. She's like losing sleep thinking about science. I wish really good sleep for everybody. I'm very serious about good quality sleep, but it is also very sweet.
[00:09:51] EMILIA: Yeah.
[00:09:52] RORI: Well, Emilia, thank you again
for chit chatting. Thank you listeners.
[00:09:56] EMILIA: I'm so excited that we got to hear from Dr. Barbara Wakimoto. Thank you. And thank you for listening.
[00:10:03] RORI: Catch you next time.
[00:00:17] RORI: She was like, spend the whole day with the boys?
No, thank you.
[00:00:21] EMILIA: But she had a great teacher who said, don't worry, I'll bring a girl.
[00:00:25] RORI: And then he brought his wife. Mrs. Martindale,
[00:00:30] EMILIA: who spent the whole day holding Dr. Wakimoto's hand around the science fair.
[00:00:36] RORI: It does sound like a nice way to spend a day, I have to say. Well, listeners, here we are again, doing a bonus episode to think about what we learned from our wonderful conversation with Dr. Barbara Wakimoto. Okay, Emilia, what's one lesson?
[00:00:54] EMILIA: One lesson that resonated with me was that we need to protect the environment. students time. Students need to think about this. Faculty need to think about this. And one of the things that she mentioned is that students do so much more now, including service. And so I think sometimes if they or their PhD mentors are not careful, then it can be, it can be a big ask.
[00:01:22] RORI: Like students are being asked to be on departmental committees, which in some ways is nice. It's nice to have student voices on these committees, but it's a lot of work. And it doesn't necessarily help them with their next career stages.
[00:01:34] EMILIA: Yeah. And the other thing that came up related to that, to time is collaborations.
You know, like sometimes it's fun to work on a collaboration and it's, I think it's really nice to be asked to collaborate on a project or to do something for a project. Right. Because it's, it's nice. I think it feels, inclusive? Or you feel included? But I think she mentioned that we romanticized collaboration.
[00:01:59] RORI: Yes, yes.
[00:02:00] EMILIA: Where she basically said, you need to be careful because you might end up as a middle author in a lot of projects and not have enough projects that you, that you led, where you were the
[00:02:13] RORI: And for better or for worse, first authorship is still super valuable for the way science is done. Having first authorships is still considered a gold standard for getting jobs, for getting grants, for all of this.
It's how we're evaluated. I mean, I think it's kind of bold and interesting because we do love collaborating. I love collaborating. But. Collaborating in a way that means students don't get first authorship has a real impact on students career. And so this gets into how we protect students time, like how faculty advisors can work to make sure students are spending their time on projects that will lead to first authorships, and how students can advocate to understand the authorship position that they're working towards in projects as well.
[00:02:55] EMILIA: Yeah, all those I think are important.
[00:02:58] RORI: Another thing that I got from Barbara, Emilia, is about how it's important to be clear about what you need in order to reach your goals. She talked about how she, as so many first-generation students, she like, didn't know what getting a PhD was and then somebody kind of directed her and was like, oh yeah.
This is something you can consider for a career path. And she did, and she was like, Oh yeah, that's what I want to do. And then they were like, Oh, you have to go take the GRE. And she just kind of showed up. She wasn't prepared at all. And she didn't understand the kind of significance of this test in determining her options for getting a PhD later. And she did, she got a really low score. She said she, she didn't do well on the GRE so much that her advisor, what was her advisor saying to her?
[00:03:42] EMILIA: Oh, I think she said, Oh, you're so smart. How did you get such a, was it such a bad score in the GRE?
[00:03:49] RORI: Yeah, something like that. It's a little cringy, really. Like it would have been really useful for Barbara to understand the significance of the GRE, which could have happened because she could have talked to people and been like, Hey, what's the GRE?
And why do I need to take it? I wonder, Emilia, what about you? Did you ever have something that you didn't understand the significance of for your kind of like future?
[00:04:11] EMILIA: It's hard, right, when you're a first-generation student to know the things that you don't know.
[00:04:16] RORI: Oh, yeah.
[00:04:17] EMILIA: Or like, how do you, like, find out what you don't know?
I remember in high school, you have to take college prep courses if you want to go to university afterwards. And I remember I received a schedule.
[00:04:32] RORI: Like they assigned you classes.
[00:04:34] EMILIA: Yeah, they assigned me classes. And I had like only one course that was a college prep course. I had all these courses on like knitting and choir.
And I was getting good grades in my courses. Of course, I thought I only needed to get good grades to go to university.
[00:04:52] RORI: You're like having a good time, which is true, you know, they're good things.
[00:04:55] EMILIA: I think it was called home economics. It was fun. You do crafts and you learn how to do nice things, but like I wasn't taking science, for instance.
[00:05:05] RORI: How did you find out that? To go to college, they would want not only good grades, but certain courses.
[00:05:10] EMILIA: I joined a cross-country team. And then I, I talked to a lot of smart students who knew more than me. And so then I was like, Oh, they knew they were prepared.
[00:05:19] RORI: Right, right, right, right, right. And they were like, Oh no, you've got to take these other classes. And then you're like, okay. Okay. Yeah.
[00:05:25] EMILIA: And so then I remember then going, making an appointment with my counselor. I said, Hey, I want to go to college. I need to take college prep courses.
[00:05:35] RORI: Yeah, but you had to do that and you had to know to do that. I had to do that. Yeah, like you say, you can't know what you don't know. So, yeah, there's a little bit of a catch 22 there.
[00:05:45] EMILIA: What about you? What's another lesson that you got from talking to Dr. Wakimoto?
[00:05:49] RORI: I feel like a big theme of what you talked about is to really consider the consequences of doing a lot of academic service. And, you know, this is a theme that comes up in different times, but she talked about how she was putting together her retirement paperwork, she was kind of like reflecting back on all the work she did, and she was seeing the huge, huge volume of service that she did.
And so what does that mean? That means Applying for grants to support students, working in the institution, on the curriculum committee to try to change how the curriculum is for the undergrads or to run a program, to oversee a doctoral program, any of these things that faculty do that is not for their research and not for their teaching, but kind of for this broader service.
She talked about how she did so much of this so early, right? Like, didn't she say that she started doing this kind of service when she was an assistant professor and she noticed that the men in her department didn't start that kind of service until they were like full professors? And when they did, they were like, whoa, Barbara, this is a lot of work. Which was like, yeah, no shit.
[00:06:59] EMILIA: Yeah, I think Barbara really realized when she was getting ready to retire, she was looking at all the service components that she had, questioning all the service that she had done. The fact that she, she experience doing all that service and she is telling us that we should think about the consequences of doing a lot of service is, is something that, that at least I'm gonna think about as I move forward.
Like choosing what is it that I really enjoy doing or how can I combine service with something that I enjoy.
[00:07:32] RORI: Yeah, I mean she had this framework of like choose one or two things. Um, you know, Emilia, you make a really good point that Coming from Barbara, it's different than the kind of standard advice, and we've even talked about this, kind of the standard advice in our field, in our fields, and in science broadly, especially when you and I were coming up, was to like, not do any service, because then you're not doing your research, and your research is what matters.
Service doesn't matter. And I think Coming up, it was difficult for me to take that advice from people who were very comfortably in the scientific culture, people who have like a lot of privilege and were maybe, you know, people who didn't have targeted identities that motivated them to want to change the system because of their first hand experience.
And Barbara. is different. Barbara has targeted identities, she worked so hard on service, and she's like now saying that was actually too much. So I think The advice is received for me really differently depending on who it's coming from. And so I appreciate hearing from Barbara's experience specifically.
[00:08:37] EMILIA: I mean,
in some sense, I feel like there's substance in this message. Other people just say, don't do service or don't do that much service. All those other people didn't do as much service Barbara, so they don't actually know what it is to do so much service.
[00:08:52] RORI: They don't, and she has the first hand experience, and they maybe weren't as motivated to change, to like transform academia as she was.
She was very motivated to do that, and she did that, and she felt like it was too much.
[00:09:03] EMILIA: And she helped so many people, like her service helped probably a lot of students.
[00:09:07] RORI: She ran a training grant that funded me. I'm a direct beneficiary of her service.
[00:09:12] EMILIA: Yeah,
so the impact of her service. is big, but it does come at the consequence of having less time to do other things.
[00:09:20] RORI: I'm
so glad that now in her retirement, she's running her, like, retirement research, uh,
[00:09:25] EMILIA: Learning for Luxury.
[00:09:26] RORI: I love that she's just got the time and space to pursue her scientific questions on her own now. That's brings me joy.
[00:09:33] EMILIA: Yeah.
You could see that when she was talking about her science, you would see her, like,
[00:09:39] RORI: She would light up.
[00:09:40] EMILIA: Yeah, she would light up.
[00:09:41] RORI: Yeah, she was like, these questions still keep her awake at night. She's like losing sleep thinking about science. I wish really good sleep for everybody. I'm very serious about good quality sleep, but it is also very sweet.
[00:09:51] EMILIA: Yeah.
[00:09:52] RORI: Well, Emilia, thank you again
for chit chatting. Thank you listeners.
[00:09:56] EMILIA: I'm so excited that we got to hear from Dr. Barbara Wakimoto. Thank you. And thank you for listening.
[00:10:03] RORI: Catch you next time.