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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& #39;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& #39;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& #39;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& #39;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& #39;t quite given up yet etc assumed I couldn& #39;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& #39;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 & #39;18 and it& #39;s been a great move - I love the team, the role and helping people and I& #39;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& #39;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& #39;t know what MS has in store for me but for now I& #39;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
