Minnesota Versus Madrid

By Adrian Grimes

There is a scene in Aladdin, the Disney cartoon, in which our inimitable hero tricks the power-hungry villain Jafar into becoming a genie. In one magical instant, a maniacal Jafar gains "all the power of the universe" but forgets that he must also be confined to the "itty-bitty living space" of a genie's lamp.

The link to academe may seem tenuous, but in a peculiar way that scene reminds me of what it is to be the proud owner of a Ph.D. While 11 years of scientific training can hardly be described as a magical instant, I now possess an enormous amount of knowledge about an "itty-bitty" subject matter.

With that in mind, and like many Ph.D.'s before me, I have decided to use the postdoctoral period of my career to broaden my horizons and enhance my skills. Meaning, I want to both learn more and make myself more employable for the future.

If you read my first column, you know that I was born in England 48 years ago and came to academe -- and the biological sciences, in particular -- after spending the first half of my life trying to make it in the music business.

As a postdoc, I know that I will probably earn slightly less than the average truck driver. I know that because I drove trucks to pay my way through my bachelor's and master's degrees. Now, by convincing myself that I am merely a step beyond the impoverished student, that slightly bitter pill may be easier to swallow.

In my last dispatch, I mentioned that I had been considering postdoc positions in far-flung regions of the world, such as Australia, Spain, and Duluth, Minn. It doesn't get much more far-flung than Duluth. I actually opted not to travel to Australia because it's just too far away, and I am scared by the very idea of spiders that like to live under toilet seats (I learned about them on the Discovery Channel).

But I did interview at both Duluth and Madrid. I also traveled to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and to the University of Madison at Wisconsin. I had excellent visits at each of those places, and my hosts were gracious and generous (in both their praise and in covering my travel expenses).

To digress briefly, I was pleasantly surprised that my age -- something I had assumed might hinder my progress -- never seemed to be an issue. In fact, on more than one occasion, the fact that I have spent a good deal of time at the "school of life" seemed to be viewed as an advantage by my potential supervisors.

My postdoc choices have been guided, in part, by geography. It's not that I have only considered exotic locales; Madison, as nice as it is, can hardly be described as exotic.

And I don't have a bias toward urban locations, as many Ph.D.'s do. My future wife is from North Dakota and pines for home, so I have been looking primarily north of the Mason-Dixon line. And personally, I cannot bear the idea of living in a huge city such as New York or Boston, even though I am well aware that those places offer exceptional opportunities for scientists in my line of research. But I am a hippy tree-hugger by nature; I just couldn't do Manhattan.

For those reasons, I felt a little confused by my career options, and even more so by my ultimate decision.

I narrowed my choices to the postdoctoral jobs at Minnesota and Madrid. I had to decide between six months a year of cross-country skiing, ice-fishing, and lake-effect snow -- big advantages in my book -- and, well, Madrid.

My first impression of Madrid was not particularly favorable. It is a city -- a big city -- with all that comes with big cities. It hustles and bustles 24 hours a day, and there are too many people with too many cars, the most important feature of which seems to be a horn. It may as well be Manhattan.

For my fianceé's sake, I was more inclined toward accepting a good offer in Rochester, which is a city by name but little more than a high-rise village by nature (I couldn't even find a Starbucks). She could drive home to see her family in, well, about 10 hours in the summer months (I think the borders to North Dakota are closed between August and April).

But at the last moment she surprised me by asserting, quite rightly, that now was possibly the best (if not the only) time to throw caution to the wind and opt for adventure. Careerwise, the Rochester offer was less attractive than the one from Madrid, which would effectively grant me status as an independent researcher. But the Madrid offer carried considerably more logistical and emotional complications. Besides which, I no hablo Español.

Nonetheless, after a second visit to Spain, where I found some quiet havens outside the main city, I accepted the position.

Now that the decision is made, I am very excited, and the list of advantages appears to grow every time I think of it. The folks in Madrid are bending over backward to accommodate (almost) my every wish and are even trying to find a job for my fianceé. As a postdoctoral researcher, it is the exception, rather than the rule, for relocation expenses to be covered, and yet my new employers will ship all my worldly goods across the Atlantic and provide an additional month's salary to cover incidental expenses (such as shrink-wrapping the cat for export -- I sure hope he survives the four-week "cruise" at sea.)

My new employer will even teach me how to hablo Español. Housing will be expensive, but that should be balanced by low taxation and the fact that health-care is socialized and, for the most part, free. I may also be able to survive without a car, as the public-transportation system is inexpensive and efficient. The Europeans are very family-oriented, so I will have five weeks of vacation a year.

I even found an excellent winery just 30 kilometers south of the city, where one of the tastiest Crianzas I have ever sampled is less than $4 a bottle. So if my career and personal life suffer horribly as a result of this decision, it may still be tolerable!

A final advantage is that I am European (well, English anyway) and that means I have no more restrictive visa issues as would have been the case in the States. And I can always go back to driving trucks.

Looking back over the last several weeks, it is remarkable how many people have tried to help me with my decision, and I will always be grateful. However, it is also remarkable how many exclamations of "Oh! You just have to go to Spain" have come from the mouths of people who have quite clearly never taken a risk in their lives. After all, it is much easier to think about doing something with such life-changing potential than to actually do it, and simpler to watch other people be adventurous and have the privilege of living vicariously through them.

While I do not pretend to be a wise man, the advice I'm about to offer is based on my own experience.

Given Aladdin's magic lamp, we might all wish for a smooth and direct career path but, as a postdoctoral researcher, one must consider one's immediate future in terms of a series of temporary assignments. So you might as well run with it. Change direction, explore new avenues, take risks.

In the event that you find yourself in a dead-end position with an unpleasant supervisor, well, you already have your Ph.D. You've done the time, and you can move on to the next challenge with your qualification (and dignity) intact.

Having said that, always work as diligently as you can, and try very hard not to burn bridges. There is a saying in the music industry, "Be careful who you [upset] on the way up, because they might be in a position to [upset] you on the way down."

Anyway, the world is your genie. Go on, make a wish.