Physicist/Feminist email address

I’ve decided to start something new for the new year.  There is now a Physicist/Feminist email address!  You can use the Physicist/Feminist email address to ask questions, suggest blogging topics, or offer comments.  I’m excited about it, and hope it’s a success.  Feel free to contact me in the future at physicistfeminist@gmail.com!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, readers!  I hope you’ve all had a great year.

Since September, it’s been a pretty stressful year for me.  Some of you are probably in the same boat, whether you were applying to graduate school like I was, or to college, or even to postdocs.  So for those of you who found yourselves swamped in applications for the last couple of months, I wish you the best of luck!

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to blog more.  I’ve been slacking in the blogging department due to my crazy year, but I think next year should be a bit calmer.  It’s my last semester of undergrad, so all of my classes are fun classes that I’m really looking forward to taking.  Between that and having all my applications done, I should have plenty of time for blogging! I’m looking forward to it

I hope you all have a safe and fun night, and a great new year!

Why I love SMBC

From Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:

Back in business

Sorry I haven’t been posting a lot lately! My computer was in for repairs, so I haven’t really had a chance. But now that my laptop is all better, I’ll be posting regularly again. Look out for a post in the next couple of days. Please accept this beautiful picture of a globular cluster as an apology for my lack of posting.

Tips for women in the workplace

Today I attended an event where two very successful women (one a lawyer, one in the fashion industry) discussed their life paths and gave out some important career advice.  Even though neither woman was a scientist, I felt that the tips were very applicable to those of us in the sciences.  Here are some important points I picked out from the discussion:

1) Know what you don’t know. If you don’t know how to do something and need help with it, it’s important to say so. You should recognize that there are things you don’t know, and then learn them if necessary.

2) Don’t be afraid to ask for help. People will help you if you ask them to, and it’s okay to ask for help.  We don’t live in a bubbles, and no one can do everything by themselves.  It is important to figure out where you need to go, what you need to do to get there, what help you will need, and who can provide you with that help.  Be specific when asking for help.  And don’t forget to pay it back!

3) Seize opportunities along the way. Work hard, and you’ll be the first one in line when opportunities come along.  Figure out the things that you need in life.  Maybe you want to travel, have more free time, or do some outreach.  Look for the opportunities that will provide you with what you want out of life.

4) You can’t say yes to everything. When you find yourself totally overwhelmed and feeling like you are going crazy, it’s time to start saying no.  There is a limit to what you can do, and there are only so many hours in a day.  It is okay to say no to things.

5) Network. Be nice to people, and be interested in their work, and they will remember you.  Talk to people at conferences and at work.  Networking is about making connections with your colleagues and collaborators.  You never know who will be important for your career down the line.

6) Take care of yourself. Stay healthy, and get lots of sleep!  You can’t work up to your full potential if you are running on three hours of sleep a night and not eating well.

I found these bits of advice very helpful, and I think they apply to virtually all career paths, for both men and women.  I hope you will find them helpful too!

What advice do you think is important for women in the workplace?

Links!

Since I haven’t had much time to post due to midterms (1 down, 2 to go..), I figured I’d just post some links to some cool articles I found this week!  Perhaps I’ll find the time to write full entries on them next week.

1) Young Women Take Top Honors at Intel Science Talent Search 2011: A cool article mainly about the young woman who won first prize for her work on the effect of separating teenagers from their cell phones.  It also briefly mentions some of the other young women who won top awards.

2) Gains, and Drawbacks for Female Professors: Really interesting discussion of the status of female professors at M.I.T. 12 years after M.I.T. began making an effort to hire more women and address gender discrimination.

3) Women in STEM fields crossword puzzle:  I came really close to finishing it and then had to use Google, but I am happy to say that I got all the women in STEM clues!

4) New report details status of women in science and engineering at M.I.T.: M.I.T. writes about report on status of women faculty.

5) Women work to gain larger foothold in tech industry: Article from CNN about women in tech and the ways in which women are trying to increase their numbers.

Enjoy!

Dealing with rejection

In this season of summer internship applications, rejections abound.  I feel like scientists are always applying for something or another; whether it is grants, internships, jobs, or scholarships.  And although we often have to deal with rejection, it never seems to get any easier.  So here are my tips for dealing with rejection! (They’re sort of slanted toward dealing with summer internship rejection, but I think they could be adapted for almost anything)

1) Give yourself a little time to wallow. Getting rejected sucks, and sometimes there is nothing you can do for the moment to make yourself feel better.  So let it out!  Cry if you need to.  It’s okay to be sad or angry.

2) Indulge. Give yourself a homework break for the night (unless there is something urgent!).  Curl up with a funny movie, hot chocolate, and popcorn (or whatever snacks you fancy).  Read web comics (Science-y ones are the best. I recommend XKCD and Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal).  Watch funny videos on youtube.  Look at cute pictures of animals.

How can you be sad looking at a kitten wearing a frog hat?

3) Remember that whatever program you got rejected from isn’t the only program in the world. Maybe you didn’t get into the Super Awesome Program Of Your Dreams, but there will be other opportunities for you to succeed.  There may be advantages to not getting into the Super Awesome Program Of Your Dreams.  And who knows?  Maybe you will get into the Even More Awesome Program Of Your Dreams.

4) Make a list of all the reasons why you make a good candidate. Usually, there’s no way of knowing why a program didn’t take you.  But getting rejected doesn’t mean you don’t have good qualities.  Remind yourself that they will miss out on your awesomeness, but that you will find another opportunity.

5) Try again! The more times you try, the more likely you are to get an acceptance.  Learn from your rejections.  Is there anything you could have done better on your application?  Identify these things, and fix them the next time around.  Trying will undoubtedly come with rejections, but every rejection brings you closer to an acceptance!

And remember this:

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” -Winston Churchill

The Pipeline

This is a term I see a lot when reading articles about women in science.  So I decided I would give a little introduction to “the pipeline” here – talk about what it is, why it’s important, the fact that it is leaky, etc.  It’s an important concept, so here goes!

First of all, what is the pipeline?

In this context, the pipeline is a career path for a scientist in/entering academia.  It theoretically takes you from your undergrad to grad school to post doc and then to a tenure-track professorship. 

Why is the pipeline significant in issues relating to women in science?

Women scientists are much more likely to “leak out” of the pipeline before achieving a professorship.  At each transition point, more women are lost.  To increase women’s representation in the sciences, it is important to identify the causes of these leaks, and then to fix them.

What causes these leaks?

One cause of leaks could be having to choose between children and a scientific career.  A recent study entitled “Keeping Women in the Science Pipeline” finds that married women with children are “35% less likely to enter at tenure track position after receiving their PhDs”.  The study also found that the odds of a married woman with children entering a tenure track position are also 28% less than those of married women without children and 33% less than single women without young children.  Married women without children also have the odds working against them; they are 8% less likely than married men without children to enter a tenure track position.  Married women with children are also significantly less likely to receive tenure after entering a tenure-track position.

Discrimination could play a role too; according to a study by the Bayer Corporation, 40% of women and minority scientists say they were discouraged from pursuing a STEM career at some point in their lives.

What can we do to fix this?

Places that hire scientific researchers need to make sure they support women scientists who choose to have children.  Tenured male scientists are much more likely to be married with children than female researchers.  Female scientists are almost three times more likely to be single without children.  It seems that there exists a situation in which female scientists, unlike male scientists, are forced to choose between a career in science and children.  Female scientists should not be forced to choose one of the other.  The availability of maternity leave among graduate students and postdoctoral fellows is pretty dismal, and paternity leave is even worse.  New policies on maternity/paternity leave, and things like on-site child care could make it easier for those who have families to remain in scientific careers.

In addition, young women scientists considering families need to see that there are women who are science faculty and have families too.  The study reports that female doctoral students tend not to see enough female faculty who “successfully combine work and family”.  Perhaps seeing that it can be done will help women see that they don’t have to choose one or the other.

For more solutions, take a look at this article on Under the Microscope: Keeping Women in the Science Pipeline (Part 2): Solutions

How to give effective oral presentations

While I was at AAS, I attended a professional development workshop about giving effective oral presentations.  The instructor was Jean-luc Doumont, author of the book Trees, Maps and Theorems: Effective Communication for Rational Minds, and an engineer who has a PhD in applied physics from Stanford.  He went over how to structure your talks, how to get your message across, how to construct a good powerpoint, how to build confidence, and how to answer difficult questions.  Giving effective oral presentations is something that many people, including myself, struggle with.  I wanted to share some of the tips he gave; I found them extremely useful, and I am actually excited to give an oral presentation so I can put these tips into action!

The “What” vs. the “So What”: Doumont stressed the idea of getting across your message.  He differentiated the message from the information.  The information can be thought of as the “what”.  The message is therefore the “so what”.  One of the most useful things he said was to “maximize what the audience gets out of the presentation, not the information you put it.”  I think it can be really tempting to put as much information into your presentation as possible, but it is more effective to parse out unnecessary information and concentrate on the “so what”, the motivation for your work.  Your talks should always have a message.

The three rules of communication:

1. Adapt to the audience: You need to be aware of who your audience is.  Understand who you are addressing – is it a group of people in your field or a group outside your field?
2. Maximize the “signal to noise” ratio:  You want to maximize your message and get rid of noise.  Noise can be things like fidgeting, cluttered powerpoints, too many “likes” or “ums”, or unnecessary graphics.
3. Use effective redundancy (verbal and nonverbal):  Don’t be afraid to make the same point a few times.  In all likelihood, this will drive the point home, and not seem unnecessarily repetitive.  Use both verbal and nonverbal methods to drive home your main message.  Nonverbal methods includes writing it on your powerpoint, showing graphs, etc.

Steps to constructing a presentation:

1. Planning: Gather your thoughts.  Ask yourself the following questions.  Why – What is the purpose of my presentation? Who – Who is my audience? When/Where - What are my time/space constraints? What – What did I do/What is the content of my presentation?
2. Designing: Define the structure of your presentation.  Start with an attention getter, i.e. something funny but relevant, an anecdote, picture, question.  Tell the audience the motivation for your work up front.  If they recognize the importance/the need for your work, they’ll be more likely to pay attention.  Tell the audience what you did to address this need.  Then put in the main message, the one sentence you want your audience to remember.  This way, they will be aware of what they should be getting out of the presentation and will keep it in mind throughout your powerpoint.
3. Creating your slides: Make slides for the audience, not for yourself.  Only put one message per slide.  A bad slide is worse than no slides; if it is a last minute presentation, forget the slides.  Show stand alone slides, so that someone deaf could get the point.  At the same time, speak a stand alone text, so that someone blind could get the point.  Rehearse everything without slides.  Make sure that you include the message for slides with graphs (i.e. why is this graph important?).  Be concise.
4. Delivery: Master all channels – verbal, vocal, and visual.  Memorize the outline, but not the wording.  Verbal - Eradicate filler words, and learn to value silences.  Don’t be afraid to pause to gather your thoughts.  Vocal - Adjust your tone, rate, and volume.  Modulate to convey meaning, complexity, and importance.  Visual – Project confidence by controlling your body.  Ensure presence through strong eye contact.
5. Questions: When taking questions, do not rush.  Listen, repeat/rephrase, think, then answer.  Be honest – if you don’t know the answer, say so.  Also be helpful – tell them you will try to find the answer.  If you get an aggressive question, take a pause to quiet the atmosphere.  Then acknowledge their concern, but disagree with the opinion at the intellectual level.

Nervousness:  Accept nervousness as a good thing!  The adrenaline rush can actually make for a better presentation, since you are more aware.  Nervousness comes from a fear of the unknown, so try to eliminate as many unknowns as possible.  Make a connection with someone in the audience.  Familiarize yourself with the room before presenting.  Focus during the presentation – pace yourself, and breathe slowly.  Finally, have a positive attitude, and visualize yourself succeeding!

I hope you guys find these tips as useful as I did!  There are some online references on Jean-luc Doumont’s website, including webcasts, videos, slides, and handouts.

Friend’s Blog: Astrology the Pseudoscience

Hello all! I wanted to link to a really cool blog post written by my good friend Dan, who writes the blog “Science for Dessert.”  He posts about really cool things in science in a way that is easy for non-scientists to understand.  It is informative, funny, and even includes drawings.  I highly recommend checking it out!

Recently he wrote an entry that I wanted to share with you guys.  It is entitled “Astrology the Pseudoscience“, and it addresses some of the recent upset surrounding the new zodiac signs, and talks about why astrology is, and always has been, totally fake and not science-based in the least.