Postdocs Value Personal Life? Imagine That.

This March, The Scientist published the results of their survey ”The Best Places to Work for Postdocs, 2010”, collected from over three thousand respondents. Of note in their analysis, they point out that the top ranked places stood out for promoting family and personal life, a noticeable shift, they claim, from last year’s results.

Balancing personal, professional, and academic aspects of life was an issue I was pleased to see addressed openly at my former institution. There were regular talks and panels on balancing family and career, two of which I co-organized, and a student-run organization dedicated to women in science for which I served as a departmental representative. In addition, a number of classmates and former colleagues were getting married, having kids, and generally treating their research like a job. This is not to say that barriers didn’t and don’t still exist, but simply that I observed active attempts at breaking them down.

Perhaps my experience was a sign of the changing times and scientists are no longer willing to let the lab monopolize their lives. Or maybe it was simply the positive outcome of inflammatory remarks by then President Larry Summers (a summary of the aftermath was featured in a recent New York Times article "Women Making Gains on Faculty at Harvard"). Either way, I hope the survey results are reflective of a growing respect for those individuals who do not want their success in science to come at the expense of their personal lives and family.