And so I've taken the next step and a leap into the unknown--in September I will join the ranks of those who have retired early. I've thought long and hard about this decision and have planned well for it, as one of my leaders commented. I have. My responsibilities for research projects and PhD/Masters students are fulfilled; my last PhD student defended her thesis in April. I could go in another direction now and start to study another type of cancer (my focus has been colorectal cancer for my entire academic career), but I don't want to switch fields and there is no more funding to be obtained for my particular research area. I'm proud of the work I've done. I've published nearly one hundred research articles as a main author/co-author and have been a mentor/co-mentor for three Masters students and six PhD students, all of whom successfully finished their degrees. What I've learned after many years in academia is that an academic career is demanding; one must be good at grant-writing, article-writing, mentorship, project planning and execution, networking, academic politics, communication, and diplomacy. I was good at most of it, but not at academic politics and as it evolved, grant-writing. But to be fair, the world of research science changed dramatically compared to when I started out in the mid-1990s. It was easier to write grants and get them funded then. I prefer the way research was done then--in smaller research groups without an emphasis on centers of excellence and platform-based research. I am old-school and do not apologize for it. I do not fit together with big research groups and large research centers, nor am I interested in having to follow a center leader's plan for what type of research project I should focus on. As a senior scientist, I feel that this decision should be left up to me, but often it's not. I've written about all of this before, about how postdocs are used as technicians in large research groups, going from one postdoc position to another and using valuable time trying to please group leaders instead of the group leaders encouraging them to become independent scientists. I would go so far as to say that many group leaders use postdocs as slaves; they know they will get a lot of work out of them, but they don't have to worry about rewarding them in any way. It's unfair, and that's just the way it is. There are scientist associations (unions) working on the problem, but so far it remains that--a problem.
I won't miss the work world. Either it moved away from me, or I grew beyond it. I grew to want more than it could give me. I used to get really jazzed at the idea of scientific meetings and conferences; I no longer do. It's more a 'been there done that' type of feeling. And I could write a long post about academic politics--how bored I am with them; the truth is that you are either on the current ruling team or you're not. If you're not, you're not important, and that means that your expertise is mostly ignored in favor of someone else who just happens to be on the right political side. And so it goes. Life is not fair, and academic life is definitely not fair. It's who you know, not what you know. I think it's always been that way, and that it will continue to be that way. I also won't miss the feeling of constantly having to do homework--read articles, stay updated, read more articles, plan more research. It's tiring.
Now that I've informed my leaders, I feel free. I've been walking around for the past year with this decision on my shoulders, so to speak. Should I or shouldn't I? As it turned out, there are personal reasons for why I made the decision now. I won't detail them here, but it has to do with that life is short and that friendships mean more than work. So in a sense, the decision was easy to make. I want to spend more time with friends, not more time at the office.
Leaving the work world is a leap into the unknown. I look forward to finding out what the next life chapter holds. I don't need to know everything that's going to happen, nor do I want any major plans or responsibilities hanging over me. I want at least one year without any plans or responsibilities. After that, we'll see. One thing is for sure; I will be able to focus on my writing a lot more. It will be nice to have the time to do that, when I want to do it. And if you want to find me most days during spring, summer, and fall, you'll find me in my garden.
