Interview by Heidi Molga, CLB Undergraduate
(under the supervision of Professor Amy Ralston)
October 16, 2013
Heidi: Could we start off with a personal introduction?
Mimmi: I am a fifth year grad student in Lindsay Hinck’s lab in MCD, and I study how breast stem cells self-renew.
Heidi: At what stage in your career did you start having children, and did you feel as though that was the best time?
Mimmi: I had my one-year old daughter when I was a 4th year in grad school. I do not know if it was the best time, or if there is any best time to start a family. There are pros and cons to being a student and having a small child. I do like the flexibility that I have as a grad student; I can alter my hours if I need to and can do quite a bit of work from home at night.
Heidi: How is having an infant at home, and balancing it? Is your partner a grad student as well?
Mimmi: Having a child and working is hard, no matter what your job is. My husband is a research associate in biotech. He commutes from pretty far away, so he has long days, as well, but we make it work. We have really friendly neighbors that have their kids at the same daycare we use and they have picked up my daughter a few times when neither of us can get home in time. Reaching out and having a supportive network is really helpful.
Heidi: How has being a parent changed your approach to research?
Mimmi: Efficiency. I pretty much don’t have time to socialize as much and go out for lunch. I am much more focused than I was before. I am still learning, and there are sometimes things that fall off the wagon. I try to think about work while I’m at school and after my daughter has gone to bed. I really try to enjoy the hours I get to spend with her at night, and just be with her. My husband is really great, because he will clean up the kitchen and what not after she goes to bed, so I can just work.
Heidi: What kind of support do you feel would be most helpful?
Mimmi: It wasn’t until I had my daughter that I realized how many other students [graduate and postdoc] have children. Quite a few of us have kids, and I think, had I known that before, it would have made me feel much more supported. You come into grad school with this stigma that it is not what other people are doing, but there are a lot of us. Especially, male graduate students, I think, more than women. I’m not really sure know how the university could make it easier for families, other than something coming from the students themselves. Having kids doesn’t mean that we are going to work less. I think that it has actually helped me to work harder. It has made me more driven.
Heidi: What do you feel is the best way to increase the number of women in STEM tenured positions without compromising excellence?
Mimmi: I think in an ideal situation, hiring a woman should not make you think, “She is a woman, she must want to have a family,” because that is not going to impact the quality. I think faculty daycare would attract both male and female scientists. We have daycare for grad students, but we do not have anything for postdocs or faculty. I think, overall, seeing more women in leadership positions would attract more women to come.
Heidi: What do you think are the most important goals of graduate school?
Mimmi: The most important goal of grad school, for me, is to learn how to tackle and solve many different types of problems. If your education doesn’t focus on problem solving, then you will only know a lot about your topic, but you will not find a job that only requires you to know a lot about one thing. Your future jobs will require a large set of skills. So, as a graduate student, you should focus on learning skills. For me, the goal of undergrad was to learn time management and study skills. Grad school is learning project solving skills, managing projects, learning how to be focused, and not wasting time.
Heidi: What is one thing most people do not know about being a graduate student?
Mimmi: I think most people already know that 98% of your experiments do not work. Delayed gratification is the number one thing about grad school. One surprising thing about grad school, is how much you have to learn to manage people, which no one really talks about, especially if you have undergrads working under you.
Heidi: What is your next big career goal?
Mimmi: Postdoc.
Heidi: Tell me something about yourself that would surprise others.
Mimmi: As a scientist, you plan things out. You have to be diligent and plan over a long period of time. In my personal life I am much more impulsive. For instance, my husband and I got married three months after we met, and then we bought our house in two weeks. I think I am balancing my life of planning for the next year.
Heidi: What is the best advice you were ever given?
Mimmi: My P.I., Lindsay told me once, “Be the star of your own movie.” It really hit home with me. Especially as a mom, and as a working mom, you are under a lot of pressure to succeed both at home and at work. But the key is to not worry about what other people think about your career choices, don’t worry about what other people think of you as a mom. Just worry about what your own expectations are, and live up to your standards. That is how I interpreted what she said. If you can be the star of your own movie, you will be happy. Then also, don’t take yourself so seriously, just relax. I try to make sure my time with my daughter is quality time, and not to worry so much about the quantity of time I spend with her. My mom is a scientist and worked long hours when I was a kid. Nonetheless, she was always there when we went to school in the morning, and she was always home before seven, at least, and then worked after we went to bed.
Heidi: When you are in a rut, how do you inspire yourself?
Mimmi: I take a look at my data that I have already put together. That was something that helped me pretty recently. I was working on some experiments, and they weren’t working. Lindsay said, “Why don’t you put together figures for what you do have?”. This made me realize how much data I do have.
Heidi: If you could do it all over again, what would you change?
Mimmi: I don’t know if I would go to grad school again… But that is only because I am in grad school right now. I think once you graduate, and you are on the next step in life, the past doesn’t look so bad. You really have be sure that you want to go to grad school. It’s a big commitment and a lot of work. It kind of puts your life on hold, while all your friends around you are moving forward with their lives, and making good money. I worked at a company for three years after undergrad, I was young, and everyone else was in it as a career, so it was a different environment. I was twenty-five when I came back to grad school, and all of the sudden I was a student again.
Heidi: What pushed you to go back to graduate school?
Mimmi: I think it just has to do with passion and motivation. I knew I wanted to go to grad school. I did undergraduate research, and enjoyed it. While I was working, I en I got to the company, I kind of had it as a goal the whole time. While working, I realized that having a Ph.D. really breaks a lot of glass ceilings, and allows you to spend your time designing projects, and interpreting data. These are the types of things I would like to do in the future.
Heidi: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Mimmi: I think the more people with children that go into science, the more acceptable it will become, and the more it will become just like any other workplace. There are so many women that do juggle family life with being really successful scientists, and there is absolutely no reason why you can’t have children and be successful. Yet there is this stigma that makes people think it’s impossible to have both.
Heidi: What are your best strategies in terms of attaining an appropriate balance between work life and home life?
Mimmi: To manage your work life and your home life, I think you really need to be an effective planner. Planning each day or week ahead of time will make you much more efficient, both at home and at work. Also, you need to set up rules for yourself. Like I said before, I try my best to give my daughter 100% of my attention in the evenings before she goes to bed. Then, after bed time, if I need to get some work done, I can focus 100% on that. Oh, and forget about keeping a super tidy house. No one has time for that!
Heidi: What are your greatest weaknesses in terms of attaining an appropriate balance between work life and home life?
Mimmi: I think I’m too ambitious and try to do too much both at work and at home. Sometimes, simplifying things just takes so much stress out of your day.
Heidi:What advice do you have for students desiring an academic career as well as a family?
Mimmi:Go for it! It’s really not a big deal. I’ve come to realize that work is hard no matter what your family situation is. I have friends that are single but take care of their parents. Other friends help take care of younger siblings, and others are married without kids. We all have to balance our personal lives with work, and it’s never easy. Having a family, whether it be a partner and a child, or your parents, gives you a support system that is invaluable.
Heidi: Would your advice differ if you were advising a male student vs. a female student?
Mimmi: Not at all!
Heidi: How has your approach to career-life balance evolved over the years/ through each stage of the journey?
Mimmi: I used to focus more on my work, and as I’ve gotten older I have started to try to balance work and home life more. Life is too short =)