I have never really done a year in review before. For the past 10 years, I have had the privilege to write an annual report of my activities and accomplishments as a professor. But, those reports were, by necessity, biased toward the positive and did not mention the negatives. Now, and inspired by others, I feel free to make a list with both the wins and the losses. It’s been a big year!
Rejections:
- Rejected for internal grant proposal
- Rejected for teaching award
- Rejected for another teaching award
- Rejected application for summer teaching institute
- Rejected for NSF grant
- Rejected for seven job applications (scientist, writer, and faculty positions)
Wins:
- Faculty Appreciation Award from graduate student organization (my favorite award ever)
- Funded grant proposal from commodity board (PI – got another professor to take over)
- Funded federal grant proposal (Co-PI – taught them how to do my part)
- Funded Hatch proposal (Co-PI – taught them how to do my part)
- One journal publication with co-advised graduate student
- One preprint publication (BioRxiv)
- My h-index went up from 20 to 23
- Unfollowed a bunch of people on Twitter who cluttered up my feed with politics and negativity
- Invited to be on the editorial board for a journal in my field (turned it down)
- Invited to speak at international scientific conference (turned it down)
- Rode a 100-mile gravel road bike race in the fat bike division and finished within my goal time of 8 hours
- Moved half-way across the US for unknown new opportunity
- Met a lot of interesting new people and increased LinkedIn connections to >500
- New job as scientific consultant/grant writing specialist
- Got a bigger raise after 6 months at new job than I had in many years at the University
- Started trail running
Teaching/Coaching/Mentoring:
- Taught Scientific Writing for the seventh time
- Developed and led four professional development workshops for graduate students and postdocs
- Led 10 “Sit Down and Write” workshops
- Developed and led a 5-day Thesis Writers Boot Camp
- Mentored one senior thesis
- Mentored one undergraduate researcher
- Invited to present career development workshop to graduate student organization
- Coached five small businesses through writing NIH proposals
- Wrote letters of reference for former students/postdocs
- Edited English for friends overseas
- Wrote letter for graduate student seeking visa
- Started my scientific writing blog (SciWriting.blog)
Activities:
- Participated in Faculty Learning Community
- Participated in faculty leadership development program
- Was on one postdoc search committee
- Peer reviewed for one scientific journal (turned down dozens of invitations – bad me!)
- Peer reviewed grant proposal for DOE
- P&T committee
- Seminar committee
- Graduate student committees
- Various other committees
- Sold a house after buying it less than a year previously
- Revamped my LinkedIn profile from looking like a clueless academic to looking like a business professional
- Converted my 9-page CV into a one-page resume
I like three “wins” of your “wins” the most; Moved half-way across the US for “unknown” new opportunity, Got a bigger raise at new job and Started trail running. I may can work as a broker who broker you and/or your company with Korean start-up companies that want to receive the U.S. funds someday^^
Thank you for the comment, Jeong Sheop! It’s an interesting idea.