Speaker 1: There have only been a handful of people throughout my time in academia that I just knew belonged there and the only way I can describe it is that their job was their hobby. Like, there is nothing else that they would rather be doing than research, than being at the university, than doing what they want. And quite often this was at the detriment to their relationships, their personal relationships outside and it was like a fixation. Like, they were there on the weekends, they wanted to produce papers, they found a personal enjoyment from doing those things. And so it's not that you need that but it is a signifier to me that if you belong in academia that you just love it more than anything else and it's very rare to be that person. You don't definitely need it to be successful in academia but for some reason I think those qualities allow you to push through all of the issues with academia. You know, you have to be resilient, you have to push through issues and you're willing to do that because it is the one thing that brings you happiness and joy. And there's only been like maybe one person where I was like, wow, this really is your life and you absolutely love it. So if that's you, you definitely belong in academia but there are loads of other things that can signify that you'll do pretty well. So in this video I'm going to share with you those things and look, don't get me wrong, you don't have to have any of these or all of them but I feel like these are the things that I've seen in people over my career which really does tell me they belong in academia. Now I know you've heard about networking but does it really work? Now I've looked at all of the kind of academics that I've been with and it really does help kind of push them into areas that they wouldn't have otherwise been able to sort of break into and then they found success in these new areas, new relationships and it is something that I quite often sort of say to people and I hear them, even if I'm on the phone to them, roll their eyes. You can hear the slippery motion of their eyes in the back of their head like gross but it is something that really works and don't just take my word for it, let's look at a paper. I found this paper, it was published recently in 2020 and essentially it says there is no career in academia without networks and they looked at a hundred working academics and found that most of them participated in academic networking and it just means that you can just sort of like get away from the meritocracy and find opportunities because of those networks. So here it says it reveals that networks are viewed as methods that can subvert merit-based achievements and also there's loads of things that can happen so whether or not it's employment opportunities, publishing openings or being alerted to prospects not widely advertised, networks are the ways that you actually get to those things. Now I know of someone, a female academic who actually had no interest in golf but I know that she took up golf because she noticed that the dean of the school and the head of the centre she worked under used to play golf together and I reckon loads of decisions were made in those golf kind of matches and practices and rounds so I think she kind of saw that as an opportunity to inject herself into that relationship and you know what, it worked. She ended up becoming a very successful academic and I'm not saying it was just because of the networking, she was an incredible scientist anyway but what I'm saying is I think there's a link between being able to kind of inject yourselves into those circles, being a successful person and how that is like an amplification effect on your career. So networking, roll your eyes all you want, it works. Being able to continuously adapt. Some of the most successful academics I've seen have been able to adapt their career and research based on what's popular. Now right or wrong, that's what they've done. So for example, some of my ex-supervisors, they used to be heavily sort of into a certain area and they shift a little bit, they do a sideways motion because it matches another research priority area where there's more money and more opportunities. That ability to switch can really help kind of just keep the momentum up in your career. Also, I've seen people come from really sort of academic backgrounds shifting to industry focused opportunities so that they can build up collaborations and build up money and get grant opportunities from industrial kind of projects and that is something that I think is becoming more and more common. So the ability to adapt not only kind of your research style, your research area but also the sort of things you're reaching out for can really help. So always looking at the field and being able to adapt and adjust to match the environment is a very important skill that I think if you're willing to do shows that you belong in academia. And look, don't get me wrong, I feel like this can actually add a little bit more joy and excitement to academia but it is about being a person that is able to adapt and overcome sort of hurdles by just shifting and changing and not being locked into one way of thinking. That's how you know you belong. You've heard this one a lot as well, resilience. Resilience, resilience, resilience. Resilience not only because you're going to get criticism and that there's loads of academic rubbish that goes on in universities when you're an actual sort of researching academic but I think resilience in being told no so many times. The biggest area where resilience really pays off I think is grant writing and funding because grant success rates are about, let's have a look, the ones I was applying for were somewhere between 10% and 15% success rate. So that means for the rest of the time you're being told no. No, your research isn't good enough to be funded. No, we're not going to fund you. And the people that sort of tell you that you're not going to get funded, they do it in the most horrible way by picking to pieces your application. There's a certain person I think, I mean it's certainly a skill you can learn but resilience allows you after all of these knockbacks to keep on going forward. If you apply for 10 grants, you're hoping that one of them comes off and that's really what you need to be resilient about is someone saying no nine times and then having one sort of like research body go, oh yeah, here's some money and move on. And the problem is that humans, I think we have a biological reaction to failure and stress which means that we see the negative things much more painful than that one success. So that one success doesn't make up for the nine times, maybe more times that you've failed. But being resilient and pushing through and know that you only need one of them to work out for the next three to five years of funding, I think that's a level of resilience that not many people have. If you thrive on autonomy, academia is for you. Now the thing is is that you have these overarching goals like bringing money to the university so that you can eat and live and keep your research projects going, publish papers and really that's about it. Maybe supervise students, do some uni admin, those are sort of like ones that are expected of you but how you do those things is completely up to you. The autonomy is actually really fun if you're the sort of person that can actually manage being on your own. Some people I found really like being managed and that's absolutely okay, no issues at all. But in academia, that sort of person's really gonna struggle. So if you are able to be a self-starter, self-motivator and you're able to sort of work well within that complete autonomy to sort of like get those simple things done, you can absolutely thrive in academia. I am someone who when I set a goal, I follow it through. I think that really sort of helped me in academia because I knew exactly what I had to do. I left for obviously other reasons, go check out my other video where I talk about that. But ultimately, autonomy can be a gift for some people and absolute hell for others. If it's a gift for you, maybe academia is the place to be. Okay, maybe this one's a little bit more controversial but if you are in a relationship, the successful academics that I have seen have had a very supportive partner who allows the academic partner to take them on their journey. So if you have two people that are highly motivated and successful and are pulling each other in two different directions, that normally doesn't work in academia. The way I've seen it work is you have an academic partner and you know, this academic partner can get a job anywhere in the world and so this kind of like partner then needs to follow them wherever they go. It could be to simply as like another city within the country but I have seen people move internationally and their partner be incredibly sad, upset to the point where they've actually just moved back to their home country. So in academia, you do need to have a partner who, if you do have a partner, that is very supportive of your career and is willing to move anywhere in the world so that you can look for those opportunities and take those sort of things when they turn up and pop up. But if you've got a partner that much prefers being near friends and family that they've built up over many years in a city, wherever it is, then you know, asking them to move is a lot of a kind of, is a big ask and so that sometimes doesn't work. So have a look at the relationships you've currently built up and ask yourself if that's something your partner is also willing to get into as well. The academic career is also a burden on them. So there we have it, there's everything you need to know about how to know if you belong in an academic career. Do you have those qualities or are there other qualities that you think I should have included in this video? Let me know in the comments below. 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