I was finishing my BSc in biology (with a strong bias towards cellular biology and physiology), and I had decided a few months ago that I wanted to switch fields a bit, to do more ecology and evolution. I applied for one particular program somewhere in France, that had all of the elements I wanted: broad overview of the field, good reputation, possibility to pick from a lot of classes.
I made the pre-selection, and sometime in July, I called the university to have the final decision. It was no, without more details. To have an idea of what was wrong, I called the head of the program, and asked him. I heard him shuffle through a few papers, and then he told me
Well, let’s not fool yourself. With your academic record, the best you could hope for is to end up as a technician in some lab. You’ll never be a researcher, and we don’t have time to waste nurturing your delusions. Goodbye.
He hang up. This is an almost verbatim transcription, because trust me, the memory is still with me these days. These were the single most important, transformative, defining 12 seconds of my academic life.
How I reacted
I decided to quit academia, and become a technician in a lab. Private sector, because I had a few contacts, and mostly because if working at a university means risking working with someone like him, then there was no chance I would work at a university.
*NB — As others, I have posted this on my blog, with a longer discussion of why these things will keep on happening, and why I ultimately did not quit academia. I was baffled by the amount of emails and private messages I had on twitter, from people with similar experiences. Including several that were not as lucky as me.
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