To do science professionally requires a decade or so of training. Most of the training is a series of apprenticeships, where practicing scientists like me attempt to provide something which will empower the PhD students and post-docs to become more like, well, me. Quite what we provide is a total mystery. Relevant verbs: cajole, encourage, shape, unleash, stand back, teach, learn, watch, stimulate, underpin, raise, console, cheer, challenge, expand, argue, backup, disagree….

The process generates a type of personal relationship unlike any I have experienced elsewhere in my life. (Nicole calls me boss, and we both love the irony.) You spend significant chunks of your life – and especially theirs – together. You live with them through the highs and the lows, the cock-ups and the dead ends, the good ideas and the blowouts, the rejections and the eventual acceptances. Particularly when you are starting a research group, your future is totally, totally entangled in their future. And you struggle, almost daily, to provide the right balance of stretch and support (mmm, sounds like an underwear commercial). For me at least, it is hard not to get emotionally invested in the apprentices – it’s hard not to really care, especially as you watch them grow. Many early-career advisers struggle to get the personal/professional balance right.

But then the apprentices fledge. For a year or two, the relationship stutters along, usually as the last papers are wrapped up, or they come to you for career advice and endless reference letters. Then the whole thing more or less stops. You mostly hear from them only when they want something (usually another reference letter). You see them at meetings occasionally, when it is always good to have a beer and talk about the old times and find out how their lives are going. For those who have become advisers themselves, it is particularly good to hear how they are doing with their own apprentices. But for the most part, your ex-apprentices are gone from your life.

That is exactly how it was with me and my adviser. He opened the world for me, gave me extraordinary opportunities and insisted (screamed, shrieked, demanded) that I take them. Never once did he accept poor performance (“what do you call this?”). He gave me as much time with him as I could take. He surrounded me with the smartest people in evolutionary biology and leaders in the then nascent field of infectious disease ecology and he insisted I talk with them, work with them, learn from them. And by totally outrageous example, he taught me that you could live life to the full in this business. Then, after 7 years in his orbit, I just left, only getting in contact when I needed a reference letter.

I always felt bad about that. But somehow, now that I am more or less the age he was when I fledged, and after 30 or so of my own apprentices have flown the nest, it feels like that is the way it should be.

Bon voyage, Silvie and Kirjn.

October 2004 – As a young 22 year old, I stepped into the office of Andrew in Edinburgh, Scotland. That was the start of a long and fantastic journey together. I was about to start a six-month Masters research project in his lab. Soon, my eyes were opened to the fantastic research environment of the University of Edinburgh, the quality and the enthusiasm of everybody in the lab, both PhD students and postdocs, and the stimulating research questions Andrew posed. After the 6 months were over, Andrew asked me to apply for a scholarship to do a PhD in his lab after I would finish my Masters. Two years later I would start my PhD.

November 2012 – Now 30 years old, I am once again in Andrews office, this time at Penn State and we say our goodbyes. With a lump in my throat I walk back to my office to clean up my desk. The past eight years have been really good and it is sad and frankly quite scary to leave it all behind. Much has changed, not only did I obtain my Masters and PhD, I also moved to Penn State and ‘obtained’ a husband and two children. Times change. It is time to leave my scientific dad and stand on my own feet.

Leaving Andrew is scary. How do you know you can do all this on your own? I guess time will tell. Andrew has been one of the best mentors one can wish for and has always worked hard to prepare us for this moment. He has always made me feel that he deeply cares, which I want to thank him for, a lot. The Read group and Thomas lab, past and present are a fantastic group of enthusiastic, smart and fun people. I will miss each and everyone of them, and especially my dear office mates Laura and Jessi; my tea water providers (and listening ears) Vicki and Nicole; Katey and her crazy and funny rants, all my lunch buddies and, most importantly, Megans baking. I’m sure we’ll see each other (including baked goods) again!

All, keep up the great work, can’t wait to see all the new papers coming out. Enjoy and benefit your time in this group, it will end before you know it.

Andrew, I will miss you! Thank you for all you’ve done.  Luckily leaving the nest doesn’t mean being out of touch.

Today marks the two month anniversary of my arrival in State College and the beginning of my postdoc in Matt and Andrew’s group. Not surprisingly, I’ve spent a lot of the past two months thinking about career transitions.

One thing I’ve come to realize is that moving to a new lab is a bit like being a Weeble. If you’re not familiar, a Weeble is an egg shaped toy with a weight in the bottom. When you push a Weeble, it swings around wildly until the heavy bottom brings it back to a stable and upright position. Likewise, when you transition between labs, some wobbling is to be expected but hopefully you too will eventually stabilize, thanks to your heavy bottom (or solid foundation, if you prefer).

Obviously career transitions are not unique to science, as most people switch jobs at some point in their lives. But in science, such changes are notably frequent and largely regarded as necessary. For example, I’ve worked in four labs thus far and my current position is, again, temporary. Even in a permanent position, turnover in a lab is so constant that you are still effectively changing labs every few years.

These transitions are so engrained in the scientific culture that staying on in a lab can be viewed as bad for your career. I’ve heard multiple times the advice that, when you do your postdoc, you should change at least two of three things: the institution, the study system, or the question. Presumably, the idea behind this advice is that broadening your experiences also broadens your thinking. Unfortunately, it also takes you out of a lab where you’ve spent a significant amount of time developing your skills and research projects, and sets you wobbling off into a new lab.

Likewise from the PI’s perspective, you put time and money into somebody only to send them away as soon as you start getting a return on your investment. As Mark Cohen wrote earlier this year in a letter to Science, “can you imagine a private-sector environment that demands of its best workers that they find jobs at other companies, rather than nurturing them towards the success of the business overall?” This observation makes me wonder if the frequent turnover in academic science plays a role in driving scientists out of universities and into the private sector.

All of this is not to say that I am unhappy in my new postdoc position. Despite the immediate cost to my productivity, I made the move because I anticipate a net positive in the longer term. However, I do think that it’s worth discussing the trade-off that comes with moving labs, and questioning whether the current emphasis on change really is best for many mentors and mentees, and for science in general.