主题：推荐一篇文章给想要献身科学事业，或者正在献身的人们 -- fengshui

At some point as a graduate student you will need to take responsibility for all aspects of your career and develop the skills of an independent scientist. You need to develop confidence in your ability to make discoveries and learn new techniques, so that you will not be limited later in your career when your findings lead you to new and unexpected areas (see Part II (Ref 1)). You need to do the background reading to place your results in their proper context and determine the next step in the project. You need to learn how to present a seminar in which you convey not only the data and conclusions, but also your depth of knowledge and enthusiasm for your field of research. Such public-speaking skills are critical for peer recognition of the impact of your research, for recruiting students and fellows to your laboratory, and for effective teaching. Most importantly, you need to learn how to write concisely and lucidly2, for without this skill, you will not be able to raise grant money or place your papers in high-impact journals.

In many ways the most important decision on the PI career path is where you do your postdoctoral fellowship. It should be in a field in which you envisage starting your independent career, the success of which will be almost entirely dependent on your ability to attract funding. As a newly independent scientist, study sections will be loath to fund you to embark on a project that is not a direct continuation of your postdoctoral studies. This also means that you will need access to the reagents you developed as a postdoctoral fellow. You will also need the blessings of your mentor and, optimally, your mentor should actively support your nascent career. So, in choosing your postdoctoral mentor, it is critical to determine whether a mentor enthusiastically supports, both materially and psychologically, the careers of their fledglings. This is easier to determine if the mentor is an established scientist with a pedigree. Established scientists will also be able to offer laboratories with a greater variety of expertise, reagents and greater financial resources, all of which will help you establish an independent line of research for you to parlay into an independent career.

It is essential to visit the laboratories that interest you to gauge the productivity, independence and happiness of the students and postdoctoral fellows. It is a good idea to contact scientists who have left the laboratory to obtain their honest opinion of their experience (in laboratories headed by evil mentors, this might be the only way to ascertain their pathology, as the current laboratory members may be too intimidated to express negative opinions). If the laboratory won't pay your travel expenses, then this does not augur well, as it indicates either limited financial resources or stinginess. All things being equal, it is advantageous to work at larger, wealthier institutions where there will be better access to expensive, state-of-the-art instruments and core facilities, greater overall intellectual ferment, more laboratories for collaboration and a better chance to impress other established scientists, who can write the crucial recommendation letters for getting your tenure-track application into the interview round. Sometimes, however, all things are not equal, and if the best mentor is at a smaller institution, this will do just fine.

What is it going to take?

Perspiration. Success in science will require a major commitment of your body and soul. As a graduate student, you should be spending a minimum of 40 hours per week actually designing, performing or interpreting experiments. As there are many other necessary things to do during the day (for example, reading the literature, attending seminars and journal club, talking to colleagues both formally and informally, and common laboratory jobs), this means you will be spending 60 or more hours per week in science-associated activities. The key to success and happiness is that most of this should not seem like work. If the laboratory is not the place you'd most like to be, then a career as a PI is probably not for you. At the postdoctoral level you will have to work at least as hard, but your most intense effort will actually begin as a tenure-track faculty member, when you are expected to fund your research (and at least some of your salary too), teach undergraduates as well as graduate and professional students, serve on committees and run your laboratory, which itself entails learning an entirely new set of skills (such as accounting, diplomacy and psychology). Ironically, you will have more to learn as a fledgling professor than as a postdoctoral fellow. Until you are well into your career, there will be time in your life for just one additional significant activity (family, active social life with friends, a sport or a hobby), but probably not for much more than that.

Talent. Enthusiasm and effort are necessary but not sufficient for a successful scientific career. Talent is a key part of the equation, and at some point in your career (not necessarily as a graduate student), you will need to objectively assess your skills and potential relative to your peers. The inexorable weight of the scientific career pyramid squeezes out all but the most talented from getting the tenure-track job that will offer you the chance of establishing your own laboratory. Furthermore, the insanely competitive funding situation is making the previously safe transition between tenure-track and tenured professor a far dicier proposition. Scientific talent is not a single parameter, but a complex mix of innate and learned skills and abilities. Deficiencies in one area can be offset by strengths in another. Some scientists achieve success by their experimental skills or insights, others by their management or political skills. There is no one path to success and each successful scientist has unique combinations of strengths (and weaknesses).

If, for whatever reason, you decide that you are better suited for life outside the laboratory, there are numerous career alternatives. Neither you nor your mentor should consider this outcome a failure. It is unfair, and even irresponsible for mentors to expect trainees to emulate their own career paths. Each mentor has only to train a single replacement to maintain the PI population at equilibrium. Even with robust growth in NIH-funded biomedical research (which is unlikely in the foreseeable future), the current investigator-to-trainee ratio dictates that most trainees will pursue careers that differ fundamentally from those of their mentors.

Networking plays a key part in providing information about potential alternative careers and in landing such jobs. Alumni of the laboratories and departments you have worked in are the most proximal source of networking partners. E-mail has opened a great portal into the academic community for initiating contacts that can be deepened by follow-up telephone conversations. It can be difficult to penetrate the corporate world by this path, but conferences provide ideal circumstances for meeting scientists out of the academic mainstream who can provide insight, advice and even job opportunities. It might be possible during your postdoctoral fellowship to develop your skills and attractiveness to potential employers by moonlighting or volunteering in the career path you are contemplating.

Final thoughts

So, your cup of coffee should be finished by now. Please don't be discouraged, but give some thought to your career path. If you are talented and passionate, you will have a good chance of becoming a PI; particularly in the United States, which still provides great opportunities for truly independent entry-level positions. If the trials and tribulations of being a PI aren't for you, there are many other ways to use your scientific training to make a decent living and a valuable contribution to society. Now get back to work.