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Having Your Cake and Eating It, Too

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By Erin Keay

About a month ago, I traveled out of the country for a scientific conference. The passenger next to me on my return flight, noting my stack of word-processing documents, commented, "So, you are a student, huh?" For the first time ever, I replied to this question in the negative: "No, actually I am a ghostwriter."

Later, while stuck in line for rebooking, I struck up a conversation with another passenger, who asked where I had flown in from. I explained that I was returning from a scientific conference in the Cayman Islands. Again I was asked about my occupation, but this time I responded, "I am a scientist." The incredible thing is that both of these were honest answers.

I never dreamed that my job search would turn out as it did. I applied for only two jobs: a postdoctoral position and a ghostwriting job with a nonprofit educational-research company. Just a few weeks after I sent in my two applications, the postdoctoral position was offered to me. My decision seemed fairly straightforward. While the writing job strongly enticed me, the company's hiring person last intimated that it would need someone right away, and I still had months of thesis work.

So, I accepted the postdoctoral offer. Although I experienced recurring pangs of disappointment about the writing job, I convinced myself that it just would not have panned out. Moreover, relief tempered my disappointment -- now that my immediate future was settled, I could focus on graduate school's last hurdle: the thesis.

Or so I thought. My graduate adviser and soon-to-be postdoctoral adviser had other ideas, encouraging me to apply for a grant for my postdoctoral work. My salary did not hinge upon it; my advisers urged me to do it for the experience. Personally, I felt that I could do without the experience of trying to piece together a grant and a thesis in a mere two months' time, but I knew that my weariness was a lame excuse.

So, I plunged ahead. By limiting myself to one full day off each month, I managed to complete the grant without my thesis going completely down the tubes. However, only when I scheduled my thesis defense did I breathe a true sigh of relief, confident that I would finish in time to graduate in May. Since my postdoc started midsummer, I would have time after graduation to tie up loose ends and even relax a bit -- if I remembered how.

It seemed that I had everything planned out perfectly. Then, about a week before my thesis defense, the hiring person for the ghostwriting job sent me an e-mail message. They now had a publisher and a timeline for the book. They hoped to bring in a ghostwriter in May -- precisely two weeks after my thesis defense. In short, my argument that the ghostwriting stint would not have worked out was unfounded. It would have meshed with my schedule more perfectly than I could have imagined -- would have, that is, if I were not starting a postdoc in July. The book's projected completion date was October.

I felt enormously disappointed, but what could I do? After a great deal of thought, I sent a carefully worded reply, emphasizing the job's continued appeal but communicating my uncertainty as to how I could meet the company's needs given my impending postdoc. Within minutes, I received a reply. They were greatly disappointed, but perhaps I could have my cake and eat it too?

Well, to make a long story short, I contracted to work full-time on the book for two months, with an option to continue part-time after starting my postdoc.

When I applied for the job, I relied on the fact that the company would overlook my lack of experience and put some stock in the "transferable skills" section of my résumé. I did not think that my academic training would carry much weight. As it turns out, it's the main reason I got the job.

The purpose of the book is to promote the company's research into expanding educational access for people with learning disabilities. However, several chapters deal with the fundamental underpinnings of this research: knowledge about the brain. Because of my neuroscience background, the directors felt comfortable with me not just rewriting the book as a whole, but also researching and drafting the brain chapters.

I have been working on the project for about a month now. The experience has been dramatically different from my academic one. I had hoped that I would emerge from my thesis examination like a butterfly from a cocoon. It was nowhere near as beautifully cathartic as that. I felt more like a locust, burrowing my way out from underground after a six-year sentence, slowly shaking off the detritus. Despite how well my adviser said the defense went, I emerged feeling rattled and inadequate. I could not keep from ruminating on the questions that the members of my exam committee asked and the comments that they made.

When I arrived for my interview for the ghostwriting job about a week later, I found myself in a situation that, on the surface, was oddly similar to my thesis defense. Once again, I presented myself to four inquisitors whose job it was to evaluate my potential. However, this experience differed from the previous one in all other respects. My interviewers welcomed me into the room with smiles and handshakes, ushering me to take a seat among them at the round table -- not like my defense when I had to sit apart from my committee members, facing them as if I were on trial.

I was thrilled when my interviewers said that they were impressed with my writing ability. Such unsolicited compliments were awfully hard to come by in graduate school. Although somewhat anxiety-provoking, I actually enjoyed the interview. Again, my reaction contrasted quite remarkably from my thesis defense, which left me with heart palpitations for 24 hours.

One of the best parts about the ghostwriting job is that I get to learn more about some neuroscience topics that really fascinate me -- but which I do not normally have time for. Furthermore, I am forced to step away from the minutiae I typically deal with and look at the bigger picture. After writing a nearly 200-page thesis on a rather obscure topic, I find this tremendously refreshing. To cap it all off, I am paid a real salary.

For a few months, anyhow -- until I start my postdoc. The scientist in me is pretty burnt out, so I find it harder to get excited about my postdoc. Nevertheless, I recognize that it brings promise as well. With a new boss, new colleagues, new project, and new title, I have the chance for an entirely different academic experience. What happens from then on out I can't be sure. I think that the ghostwriting experience and postdoctoral experience will equip me to finally choose between a research and writing career. Yeah, I still do not know exactly what I want to be when I grow up, but I am working on it.