So.. What do you do??

First semester of grad school completed. I am taking a much deserved winter break and I am determined to relax and spend time with friends and family.. with no work. This is really hard for me because I like to take care of things while they are on my mind. I taught a class this past semester (which I loved. Very time consuming, but I taught a section in my favorite subject—animal behavior) and during break I received some emails from my students—mostly about grades and their final. I was told that I was under no obligation to answer emails right away during break, but I couldn’t help myself. I have to take care of things while they are fresh for fear I will forget to address these things later.

But anyway, I have been mostly sticking to my goal. I have seen a lot of relatives and extended family during the holidays and one question that seems to come up a lot is “So, what do you do?”. 

I get that everybody gets asked this, but most people can get away with quick one liners: I am a dentist. I am a firefighter. I am a teacher. I am something-that-everybody-already-has-a-concrete-notion-of-what-I do-on-a-daily-basis. Not scientists though. We have a much harder task when asked this question.

I am sure my fellow grad students can relate to me here; this is a tricky question to answer for a few reasons:

1.    How do I make my work not sound too specific that it sounds insignificant?

One of the first times I thought about how to answer “So, what do you do” happened to me while on a plane. I was wearing a Yale sweater. Next to me was an elderly man, whom I could only determine from his accent, was perhaps from New York.

He pointed to my sweater and asked in an accusatory tone as if to call me out on wearing a collegiate sweater to a school that I didn’t attend, “Do you go there?”

Or, maybe he was genuinely curious and it was just his manner that made it sound that way. I explained that I am in grad school—the ecology and evolutionary biology PhD program.

He then asked, “So, what do you do?” to which I replied “I study fish cooperation.”

He laughed.. no.. scoffed. “Why on earth would anyone care about that? Dear God, I hope that you aren’t getting any money from tax dollars to do that.”

Okay, my science is like my baby. I just stared at him, baffled at how openly rude this man was. I thought about defending my research to him, I didn’t think he cared to hear it, and I didn’t want to waste my efforts. At the time I wrote him off as an arrogant, grumpy, old man.

People not involved in science tend to think that science is some mystery potion making, daily-experiment running thing that will result in some huge discovery at the end. Science is much slower than that. Most of the time, I won’t be running experiments. Maybe a few times a year at most, and not during my first year of grad school. Also science is thorough. Being thorough requires many people to study very small pieces of the puzzle at seemingly slow rates. The pressure to do big, fast science just results in people making up data or sacrificing thoroughness to increase their output rates. Smaller scale science is worth something. I feel that most people, non-academics in particular, don’t always see it.

Looking back, I should have actually thanked him.. He taught me the first lesson I needed to know in how to answer “What do you do?”. Actually, I kind of knew this from writing manuscripts but never thought about applying it to a conversation with a complete stranger: start broad and interesting, then (if conversation permits) work your way into specifics.. this gives people the big picture at least, and makes it more relevant. Although his approach was harsh, it is a reality that scientists face. I am sure I will face similar criticism throughout my career. I know my science means something. I have to appeal to a broad audience and demonstrate why our science is worth funding. I took his harsh words as a lesson to think about how to better answer that question next time (and there were many next times).

2.    How do I determine how much someone cares to know?

I love what I do. I have to remind myself that not everyone shares this love.  I feel that testing the waters with a hierarchy of answers to gauge listener interest is a learned skill—one that I have gotten better at doing throughout holiday, family gatherings. Among these, one of my answers is “I am interested in marine biology”. This answer is reserved for non-scientists. It has some buzz to it. Marine biology— I like the way this sounds. I like for people to think I do something really cool. You know, focus on the glamour of what I do rather than the nitty-gritty. SCUBA dive in the Mediterranean.. field work in France.. But “marine biology” is such a broad term.. this could mean anything from ocean chemistry to counting sardines.

The next answer: “I am interested in the evolution of cooperation, and I use fish as a model system”. I feel like this is more accurate, however, it is far more dry to the average person. This answer is for people who ask beyond my “marine biology” answer, or my typical answer for scientists that may or may not be in my field. I may go into more detail, again depending on their reaction.. and my next reason for why answering this question is tricky:

3.    How much energy do I have to explain what I do?

Like I said, I love what I do, and it is my goal when explaining what I do to get other people to love it too. I feel like there is this pressure to prove that this is what I love by being animated and excited about what I do every time I talk about it. But I am human. I get tired of saying the same things over and over again to a lot of different people within a short amount of time. I have a limited amount of mental energy and explaining biology basics to people with little to no scientific background and sometimes to those that question the core principles of evolution is enough to send me into a mentally-drained, much-less-merry state of Stacyness. Or sometimes during winter break I want just that, a break from thinking about what I work on and focus on presents and board games and movies and food.. Especially food.

4.    It is my first semester of grad school.. what am I doing?

To be honest, I am still figuring that out. What am I doing? Right now I am learning how to do science. I learned mathematical modeling this semester and how to model social evolution. I learned how to use Mathematica (just basics..) and I made a 3D manipulation plot of a model that I made.. this is my greatest accomplishment so far. Though, I am not sure how good it actually is. But this model doesn’t really have anything to do with cooperation; it is about alternative reproductive tactics (super interesting, my advisor wrote a really great paper on this topic. I will include a link below if you want to learn all about it!) and maybe I will do that for my research, maybe I will do this and studying the evolution of cooperation. But I am still figuring it out. I am told that this is normal for a first year.. Hopefully I will have a more concrete answer not only for relatives at once a year get-togethers, but for myself as well.

If you are wondering what I do, here is what I have so far, though, this may change as I learn more, refine my interests, etc. (taken from my graduate student bio):

“I am fascinated with cooperation. Cooperation occurs in a multitude of situations from human romantic relationships, professional relationships, academia, and even in non-human, animal social groups. Why individuals cooperate and how individuals choose whom to cooperate with are questions that drive my current studies in graduate school. Particularly, I am interested in the cooperation that occurs when cost is immediate, but future benefits are uncertain. As a theorist and empiricist, I will tackle these questions using mathematical modeling, and test those models experimentally. Because cooperative groups occur in several species of fish, and fish are easily manipulated in the field and in laboratory studies, I will use freshwater and/or marine fish as model organisms to examine cooperation.”

But then as if “So, what are you doing?” didn’t cause enough anxiety, it is most certainly followed by, “So, what are you going to do after you graduate”. But that is another topic for a later time.

http://alonzolab.yale.edu/sites/default/files/alonzo_and_warner_behav_ecol_1999.pdf (male alternative reproductive tactics paper written by my adviser)