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Time for some career chat (a thread again) - I still work full-time and I hope that this crisis shows that with the right adjustments I can continue to do so even if travelling to the/an office every day becomes unfeasible...
I have a PhD in Civil & Environmental Engineering (2013) and have worked in Geoscience Research for the British Geological Survey (2013-2014) and Heriot-Watt University (2015-2018) before changing career to Researcher Development in Nov 2018...
I was diagnosed with RRMS in Nov 2016 - half way through my first postdoc (fixed-term contract), 1 month after my 10 year anniversary with my partner and just as we were making some life-plans...
Academia can be quite vicious and there is still this idea that if you don't give 100% 24/7 you are not a real scientist - disclosure rate of disabilities is very low at universities for researchers and fixed-term researchers and early career researcher have the lowest rates...
When I was diagnosed I didn't even know where to go or how to report it - I ended up going to student services and they pointed my to HR. Luckily I had met the HR contact before which made it easier to tell her but this can be a huge barrier to get access to support...
I got access to counselling and overall it was quite easy - I decided to talk about the diagnosis if it came up or made sense to mention it - it just worked for me (this is a personal decision and no one should be made to disclose but barriers and stigma need to be removed)...
As with any life-changing event my diagnosis led to me re-thinking my career, where I was, where I wanted to go and how the uncertainty of my health would play with the uncertainty of employment (another issue in academia)...
By pure coincidence I got onto a career planning course at uni (I had totally forgotten that I signed up to it) and we did this strength test by Gallup (if you can afford it or your work offers it it's worth it) - this test shows you your 5 strengths (more if you pay more)...
Part of the course was also a Level 10 Life exercise and a look at your values and if the align with your career/job...the test results and discussion during the course really helped me figure some things out and actually make a little career plan...
I was also travelling a lot and working in an inaccessible lab - I know my MS is uncertain but I wanted to make my career MS future-proof if I could and combine this with things I learned in the career planning course...
Researcher development just came naturally to me - I was involved in it without knowing it and it led to me getting some valuable experience...I remember when I changed postdoc positions my new manager wasn't quite happy with my time being spend on these activities...
But by then I knew that these activities would get me to change career and get a job in researcher development. Summer 2018 I actively started looking for relevant positions and had some interviews...now I had to face a new stigma...leaving research/academia = failure...
The amount of people who tole they hand't quite given up yet etc assumed I couldn't get a job as a geoscience lecturer but never asked why I was looking for other roles...I had 2 years left on my postdoc contract but I knew it was time to change...
The funny thing is that the role I have now is Lecturer in Researcher Development because my manager wants us to be involved research - so it's a bit of hybrid role between professional services and research...
I know organise workshops for researchers from MRes to Prof around transferable skills and support them through an online writing group and other things...I also teach on a PGCert course which is great fun...
I have been in my new role since Nov '18 and it's been a great move - I love the team, the role and helping people and I'm still working on slowly fixing academia and the stigmas...I usually say that this move was MS inspired because my diagnosis made me stop and reflect...
I'm sure I would have changed career eventually anyway but my MS diagnosis made me re-think my priorities and that I should put myself first - so I did...without the diagnosis I probably would have finished my postdoc contract and then tried to change career...
I don't know what MS has in store for me but for now I'm happy with the career change and I know I can adapt again if I have to - this current crisis and the home working have shown me that this could be possible and I could make it work for me - I hope my employer see this too
One big hope for me is that this current situation shows that adjustments, technology and flexibility could help a lot of disabled or ill people stay in work or actually start working again (if they want to) /end
