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So, I& #39;m officially no longer a postdoc and have transitioned to a group leader position within the newly formed K. Lisa Yang & Hock E. Tan Center for Molecular Therapeutics in Neuroscience here at MIT. (thread)
I can 100% say that this was not the plan when I started my postdoc. I was all-in on staying in academia and starting my own lab. But things change. I learned more about academia, my interests, my long-term goals, etc and realized that I needed to change plans.
This new position is a stepping stone. There are larger things in the works that I can& #39;t currently talk about. But the entire decision is based on getting back on track with my real long-term goals for my career, which are firmly centered on therapeutics.
My entire decision to get my PhD was based on a desire to develop technologies and therapeutics. I first worked in a human genetics lab and was endlessly frustrated that we could tell families what caused their children& #39;s diseases, but had no way to actually treat them.
The goal back then was to eventually help treat and/or cure these disorders. But along the way I really fell in love with basic science, so much so that my vision shifted to academia for the long-haul.
This isn& #39;t inherently bad. Academia is for many reasons amazing and it& #39;s been VERY good to me. But recently, thanks to an ongoing hate/hate relationship w/ peer review, I& #39;ve found myself less excited about the idea of spending the rest of my career in this environment.
The reality is that my long-term goals within academia have still been related to therapeutics. But I find myself wasting sooooo much time and energy answering questions tangential to those for the sole purpose of getting a paper published, especially in a "high-impact" journal.
And the reality is that this process of chasing high-impact publications wouldn& #39;t end anytime soon in our current academic climate if I were to pursue a tenure-track position. I& #39;m not saying I couldn& #39;t do it or couldn& #39;t be successful, but it& #39;s just not what I& #39;m passionate about.
You can argue that academia is so much more than that and you& #39;d be right. But the job market is small and students/postdocs need committed and emotionally invested mentors, so my space should be made available for those who truly want to do that work.
I& #39;ve still gotta get some papers published, but this move allows me to shift the bulk of my focus to some tech dev & early preclinical gene therapy work that has taken a back seat for a while.
Tbh, I haven& #39;t been this excited about the future in a very long time. I& #39;m very happy that I get to keep working with my colleagues here at MIT for the time being and I& #39;m even more excited for the bigger changes that are on the horizon.
Anyway, tldr; do what makes you happy and don& #39;t be afraid to make changes.
