One year on
/This time last year, I was a newly-minted PhD, still revising my dissertation. I had just accepted my job at Briggs, and I was preparing for a conference, a vacation, and a new routine.
I don't remember much of my defense. My parents came to see it, even though it was a Wednesday afternoon and a 10-hour drive from their home. I was sleep-deprived and panicky. I couldn't remember the order of my slides, even though I'd given many variations of that same talk all the way through grad school. When I finished my talk, I cried.
My defense wasn't advertised beyond a poster on the seminar board alongside a dozen other defenses scheduled for the same week. Besides my committee and labmates, almost no one came. I'd been a bit disappointed about this when I started, but that turned to relief and gratitude when I was dabbing my eyes and pulling myself together most of an hour later.
I don't remember what questions the audience asked, and only one of the questions from my committee afterward. One committee member asked for a set of values in a tone of voice that, to me, implied I hadn't done my due diligence. Seeing as that value was highlighted in a table, sleep-deprived me lost patience and told said committee member to read the dissertation. I think I said something like "you'll find that on page 47 in table 2.3," but my internal dialogue was closer to "you obviously didn't bother to read my dissertation," so it's entirely possible that I said something else.
We celebrated in a conference room around the corner from my lab office. My labmates made me a goofy paper hat decorated with pictures of things they associated with me. It was very sweet of them, and moreso because it was a surprise. The hat is now a lab tradition, and I hope it continues. I am Graduate #1. I got to see the start of a lot of lab traditions.
I turned in my dissertation a month later, and continued to work in the lab, wrapping up projects and working on a collaboration up until I left for the conference (and subsequent vacation) in Europe. When I got back, everything was different.
I started at Lyman Briggs College in August.1 It was a new job at a new place, with new colleagues and new students, and I had to learn everything. Where is the copier? What are the college policies? Who do I ask for X or Y? Where to I park my car? What order will we cover the course material in? How deep do we dive into each chapter? How does the course website work? What resources are available? And on and on and on. An overwhelming amount of newness in my environment and also in what was expected of me.
It took me most of the fall semester to get used to being a professor. Some aspects, like delivering lectures, holding office hours, and making copies were familiar. But others -- being the authority the learning assistants turned to, handling grade disputes, offering feedback to colleagues with much more experience than myself -- took a big shift in mindset.
I have learned a lot in the past year. No longer a student, but an instructor, still I continue to grow and learn. Last year, I'd made and given a small handful of lectures. One year on, I've not just delivered 120 lectures to hundreds of students, I've also kept up the routine. When you're a grad student interviewing for a job, you can refine a teaching demo over the course of a week or more. When you're teaching, one awesome talk on Monday is not enough. You've got to be ready for class on Wednesday and Friday as well.
Academia is a flexible place to work. I can grade in my office or at home. I can decide to eat lunch with a friend near home, rather than spending a day on campus. Inspirations for lecture and practice problems can come form anywhere. But academia is also a rigid place to work. When I have a lecture, I must be there. I can't reschedule it. One hundred twenty-five students will be there, whether I am or not. One year on, I'm still getting the hang of this combination of rigidly structured and fully unstructured time.
When I started at Briggs, few people had seriously called me "Dr. Haas." It took a while to get used to; not just the title change (thought it was a much faster transition than when I changed my name after marriage), but the notion that I was a doctor of some sort. I couldn't tell my students to go ask their professor -- that professor was me!
I'd look at Facebook and see friends from high school, college and my time as an exchange student, and I'd see the great things they'd done, places they'd gone, children they'd had, careers they'd built, and I'd think "What have I done with my life?" And then my husband would point out that none of the people in question had doctorates in chemistry, that I'd spent five years in pursuit of that degree, and that I should very much give myself a break.
You see, despite five years of graduate school and all it entailed, it was (and sometimes still is) easy to forget I'd actually gotten a PhD. It's my own flavor of Impostor Syndrome, I guess. That nagging feeling that there'd been some mistake. That I wasn't really good enough for a PhD from a highly ranked university. That they gave me a PhD to get rid of me because they pitied me, but I'd gotten too far for them to kick me out.
One year on, I answer to "Dr. Haas," "Doc," "Professor," and occassionally "Prof Haas" without blinking. I've stopped feeling like the mail room is off-limits, or like I'm a child in an adults-only space. I am less surprised when a colleague asks for my input or feedback.
When I started I feared for the way I'd measure up to stereotypes. I dressed up a little; I wore khakis and slacks. I addressed emails to students more formally than my usual style. I checked and double-checked my work for errors so my students wouldn't see me fail.
One year on, I'm in skirts every Friday. It started as "Formal Fridays" in my mind, but soon became "Fearless Fridays" when I discovered that dressing like myself gave me a confidence boost. I can tackle so much more in my dress boots and a skirt than in my fall semester "uniform."
One year on, I still make mistakes. Having yet to achieve apotheosis, I expect the mistakes will continue. ;-) But I'm learning. I make new and different mistakes, and my ability to make corrections -- and let the students and learning assistants correct me -- can be evidence to my students that you don't have to be right all the time. When it comes to dealing with students, I've relaxed.
Last year my colleagues were strangers. My freshmen hadn't yet graduated high school. I had a plan for only one year. One year on, my colleagues are mentors and friends, my students have settled into college life, and my one-year job is at an end.
It has been a real delight to work at Briggs with such wonderful, supportive, creative faculty (and staff!) and highly motivated students. The students may not all love chemistry, but they do see the value in it. They challenge me and surprise me. They are funny and insightful and earnest. They bring me so much joy. I am sad to go.
But I won't be sad forever. This spring I accepted a tenure-stream position at Misericorida University. I have new colleagues, new students and a new plan. I'm thrilled, even as I start to take farewell of Briggs and MSU. I have more to learn, more ways to grow, and another good place to do it.
So here's to another year. Wish me luck.
1: Lyman Briggs College (aka Briggs) is a residential science college at Michigan State University: all of the students are science majors of one sort or another. In addition to taking intensive, group-focused introductory science and math courses together, the students also take courses on the history, philosophy and sociology (aka HPS) of science. It's a pretty cool place to work, and I'd have loved it as a student there.
