Dear Reader,
Hi there, I’m Vicky Sherwood, the founder of the Biomed Badass (BB) blog and community.
I just need to be straight up with you about something: This past 12 months has been a real rollercoaster for me. I had a baby in June and since then I’ve been trying to get my life back on track from the whirlwind that a new bundle of joy brings, whilst desperately trying to get back to regular postings to support the BB readership.
I’ve felt guilty for not providing regular posts, I’ve been inconsistent with emails and new content, and in the last 3 months, I’ve just not been there for my fabulous subscribers.
Fortunately, those early baby paralysis days are slowly coming to an end. For the first time in weeks, I’m able to carve out a little more time to get back to what I’m passionate about – helping early career researchers build successful careers.
My Background
After completing my PhD in 2006 and a couple of postdocs thereafter, I started my first independent research position in 2011, building a lab from scratch. It was exhilarating to start a lab of my own and work on the things that I found most interesting. It was truly liberating to be free from having a ‘boss’ who was driving the research focus of the lab.
However, it was also daunting trying to build significant funding, whilst also finding time to focus on the teaching and admin jobs that came hand-in-hand with my university position. My personal life was a struggle too, balancing the demands of an academic career whilst also starting a family.
A few years in and it began to dawn on me that the academic career path I had focused so much time and energy in getting, was not necessary the right one for me. Sucker punch!
There were several aspects of the academic system I found frustrating, including the demands involved in securing funding and the difficulty of finding time to complete all my research duties to a high enough (internationally competitive) standard, whilst also fulfilling my teaching duties to a satisfactory level and finding time to spend with my young son.
It took me two looooong years to finally admit to myself that an academic career wasn’t for me. I had finally faced the reality that it was time for me to leave academia and move on.
On the one hand this decision was a liberating one – I could choose to do anything I wanted to, ‘the world was my oyster’… etc., etc., but on the other, it was utterly terrifying: Was I making a mistake that I’d live to regret in the long-term? What on earth would I do next?
I had worked in academia for 16 years (yes I am that old)! I knew I had a tonne of skills and expertise to offer any future employer, but was my age and education going to work against me? Was I too over-qualified, yet too inexperienced outside of academia to land a great non-academic job?
I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do next and had soooooo many questions spinning round my head:
- What would I enjoy doing?
- Outside of scientific research, I didn’t know what else I would like to spend my days working on
- What would my skill set enable me to well?
- I wanted to move into work where the skills would provide success
- How should I rewrite my CV for the commercial sector?
- I lacked the essential knowledge about how to sell my skills effectively in applications, or what employers were looking for
- Who could help me?
- In my extensive network of academics, no one had ever held a senior position outside of the public sector
I was lost! It took a prolonged period of trial and error to find the answers to these questions, before I figured it out and managed a successful move into an industry role.
In 2018, once I’d finally made the successful transition from academia to industry, I came up with the idea of creating a blog that could help out other academic researchers who are trying to figure out their next career step. BB was born out of this desire to help others.
I’m passionate about sharing my what I’ve learnt both in obtaining a faculty job and working in industry, to assist you in making your career dreams a reality.
Finding your career path as an academic researcher isn’t easy, its full of ups and downs and that’s why it’s important to seek out impartial advice and be there for one another.
Contribute to this discussion by joining the community forum www.biomedbadass.com/forum, and/or provide comments and posts to this blog site of your experience.
I’m actually in the middle of creating a brand-new set of blog posts about CV writing for both academic and industry jobs, to help you achieve your dreams. My subscribers will be the first to be notified when they’re ready.
A huge thanks for being part of the BB community, it means a lot. I’m excited to be back and can’t wait to share more with you in the coming months.
With the skill set you have as a researcher, success is yours for the taking!
I’ll be back very soon…
Vicky
P.S. If there’s anything you’d like me to share in a future post let me know info@biomedbadass.com