No Such Thing as a PhD Drop-out

 

I recently had a conversation with a client about discerning a PhD program as a mid-level professional. His major concern was the time commitment. Is it worth dedicating several years, perhaps balancing a full-time job and a family, to gain the credential and title Doctor?

The answer really depends on one's motivations for pursuing a PhD. Do you love the topic or research area? Are you after that prestige? Are you wanting to further your education? Are you needing the credential for a career path such as professorship? Are you just not sure how to move forward and you think a PhD would help, at least for now until your path become clearer?

All of these motivations (and more) are valid reasons for pursuing a PhD. There is popular advice out there that you should not pursue a PhD unless you are truly passionate about the subject matter. This is entirely false. Passion for a certain topic is a great reason for pursuing a PhD. It is not the only reason.

Many (if not most) people are not head-over-heals in love with their PhD topic. That's okay. Most graduate students do not choose their exact area of research and instead are assigned a topic area by their professor, advisor, or funding agency. Telling students they must have passion for a PhD is setting up an ideal that is unattainable for most graduate students and is a form of gatekeeping that signals to prospective students that they don't belong. You do belong, even if you don't love your PhD topic.

Whatever the reason one is considering a PhD, the question remains: is it worth it? Only you can answer this question for yourself. Only you know your dreams, goals, motivations, and level of commitment to continue down this path. No one else can make this decision for you.

There are many benefits and moments of exhilaration pursing a PhD and conducting independent research. There are also many challenges and moments of despair. There are countless stories of the mental health challenges graduate students face. A prospective graduate student needs to consider the potential negatives, challenges, and stressors of the path they are about to embark on to be able to fully assess whether beginning this journey is worth it to them.

Beginning a journey is not a promise to end the journey the same way you intended when you began. Humans are remarkably adaptable. We adjust as we travel along our paths, learning new things about ourselves and the world. New opportunities present themselves. We continually make choices about where and how we spend our time and whether we're better off shifting our journeys based on another path. We evolve.

Is a professor or advisor not working out for you? It's okay to switch. Really, it is. I did it. It was a painful, emotional decision that led to me losing the third year of my NASA fellowship funds, but it's doable.

Is a lab, research group, department, or university not working out for you? It's okay to switch. Again, I did it. I completely changed from pursuing a PhD in astrophysics to a PhD in planetary science, a related field, but different enough to require a university change and extra courses. But it's okay to change your mind and direction.

Once I got over the anxiety and self-doubt about switching programs, I saw the benefits of my new path. I was more sure about myself and what I wanted. My new graduate advisor was a better fit for me than my previous one. My resume and experience was impressive. I was viewed as a more mature graduate students. Changing my mind and my path allowed me to experience something new, something closer to what I wanted to do with my time and labor.

Then came the most unexpected change of path: “dropping out.” I am an all-but-dissertation PhD drop-out twice over, not because I failed or was forced to leave, but because I chose to leave. I chose a different path than the one I embarked on when I began my graduate school journey. And I do not regret it. My path was the correct one for me.

It all ties back to one's motivations. My reasons for pursuing a PhD were met by literally pursuing the PhD, not obtaining it. I was interested in the research areas I pursued. I wanted to learn more. But I never needed the prestige or credential of the PhD title or degree. I never wanted to be a professor. “You'll change your mind,” I was told as a brand new graduate student, already certain I didn't want to become a professor. No, I didn't change my mind.

Because my motivation for pursuing a PhD was to go down that path but not necessarily to complete it, gaining the PhD became a secondary goal. When I unexpectedly received a full-time job offer while I was working on my dissertation, I had a choice to make. Do I complete the PhD or do I take the job? Can I do both? Well, I tried to do both and failed. Some people could combine paths, but I could not. I made a choice: to leave one job to focus on another.

It sounds a bit different framing it that way, doesn't it? Leaving one job for another. Graduate research is a job, and a very underpaid and underappreciated one at that. When we leave a job to pursue another opportunity or direction, do we call it dropping out? No. Why is there a negative connotation leaving a graduate student job but that negative connotation doesn't exist when leaving almost any other job?

Academia is known for its elitism. Many professors (but not all) are convinced that their path is the superior path and all other paths are seen as lessor. I've had professors I know and professors I just met ask me when I'm “returning” to complete my PhD, as if my graduate student labor and knowledge up to that point was discounted because I didn't gain a credential I don't need.

What did I gain? I dived deep into astrophysics and planetary science. I completed the physics comprehensive exam, a multi-day written and oral exam on graduate-level physics, the hardest exam of my life. I gained the knowledge, satisfaction, and confidence that comes from passing such a test. I know I know my stuff! I gained research and lab experience, data analysis, programming, technical writing, public speaking, and many other skills. I worked with colleagues and met new people, networking and maturing in my field. I gained what I wanted from my graduate school experience.

When an experience gives us what we wanted to gain based on our motivations for pursuing that experience, it's okay to look forward to our next steps and shift our path depending on what our motivations are. It's also okay to recognize when an experience is not meeting your expectations and to change your path accordingly. It's okay to leave. It's okay to try something new. It's okay to get a different job than an academic job and reject the stigma of “dropping out” or “leaving academia.”

Back to my client. I gave him the advice I wish I had received years ago when I was just starting out on my PhD path: if this is the path you want to pursue for now, pursue it for now. Don't feel obligated to commit x number of years of your life to it. Don't feel obligated to finish it because of someone else's expectation. This may be the best path for you now. This may not be the best path for you later, and if so, you can change your mind.

I didn't drop out of my PhD. I pursued a better path. And I'm better for it.

Mission Failure

There are many topics on my backlog to blog about: fun space things I’ve seen, new space things I’ve accomplished, my plans for the future. But what’s on my mind today is a matter of heart: mistakes, scapegoating, and team discord.

Bullying, which causes psychological harm to children everywhere, also affects adults in the workplace. I was victim to a workplace bully in graduate school who harmed my perception of myself, slowed my research progress, and exasperated my sense of impostor syndrome in the laboratory that took me years to overcome.

Preparing for my first ZeroG Corporation parabolic microgravity flight in grad school was a joyful, if exhausting experience. Finally, I would be able to float in free-fall – just as astronauts do – even if for only 30 seconds at a time. And I would be accomplishing real science as I soared, science I needed for my PhD. I wanted to have a blast, but I also wanted the experiment to be a success.

Which makes the outcome of that experience all the more frustrating.

Each team member was trained to handle a specific role during the flight. We had four team members and four roles. All four tasks needed to be accomplished during each microgravity-creating parabola in order to make the experiment a success. We had four experiment boxes to run the experiment four times, but only one laptop and camera setup.

My task was to press a button at the right time to release an impactor (a marble) to shoot at a very slow speed into a container of sand (fake Moon or Mars dirt/regolith simulant). But I couldn’t do my job alone; I relied on another team member with a better viewing angle to tell me when to fire the trigger. Our jobs depended on each other. We all needed to work together.

The first two tries were a flop. The trigger didn’t fire. Something must have been loose in the wiring. The third try worked! But my team member got too excited and told me to press the trigger too early. We weren’t having the best luck with scientific research.

At this point, we were losing team members. Two of the team had tapped out by then, victim of the Vomit Comet. We prepared for that eventuality, although admittedly not well. Each member of the team had spent a few minutes in the lab learning all the other team member’s tasks in case we needed to take over for a sick teammate. Had we thought a bit more ahead of time, we would have realized a few minutes of training would not cut it in a high-pressure quick-paced floating environment where it was hard enough to control limbs, let alone the experiment. But at the time, I had no choice. I took over the camera operation as well as my triggering duties and hoped for the best.

The best is not what happened. I don’t know how, but instead of recording 30 seconds of data on our forth and final experiment attempt, the video recorded a fraction of a second that looped for 30 seconds. I had never seen that happen before and had no idea the software even had that feature. I wasn’t sure if it was something I had done wrong, something the previous camera operator had done wrong, or just a very odd glitch in the camera software. But I was the one who pressed the camera buttons, so I accepted blame.

Up until this point, my workplace bully (the lab manager) had no legitimate complaints against me. She was envious of my educational success beyond her own, frustrated she had no authority over me, and infuriated that she couldn’t get under my skin, at least not yet. But the camera failure gave her the perfect opportunity and she jumped on it. Despite the fact that three of the four experiments failed for other reasons and the forth failure may or may not have my fault, I became the scapegoat for the whole mission failure.

With my own admission of possible guilt and no useful data to show for the ZeroG flight, she successfully turned half the lab against me, impressionable undergraduates who depended on her opinion for a job and who she also bullied to a lesser degree. The lab was a dysfunctional mess and a toxic work environment. I accepted increased isolation in the lab for my own mental health, trying my best to avoid contact with her.

My biggest failing was to internalize her lies about me. I began to see my labwork and my aptitude as a scientist in a more negative light, wondering if I really was a failure. This doubt hindered my success for years.

My bully petitioned hard to prevent me from flying during our next parabolic flight opportunity, this time with NASA in Houston. But with multiple flights over multiple days, we needed a larger team of flyers. I did fly for one of those parabolic flights. This time, it was me who got sick halfway through the flight and had to pass off my job tasks to another team member. And this time around, despite the multiple flights, our experiment failed for other reasons. I could not be blamed.

Despite the research failures, the team disharmony, and the eventual vomiting, I did have a blast during those parabolic flights. They remain one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had. I would do it again in a heartbeat if given the opportunity.

Floating around in microgravity - Nov. 2011

When I read about today’s Rocket Lab test flight failure because someone on the ground forgot to tick a box in ground control software, I feel for that person. The weight of failure on his/her shoulders must be very heavy right now. It is my deepest hope that whoever was responsible for the software mistake which doomed the Rocket Lab launch feels supported by his/her team, not isolated or ostracized.

Poor coworkers might scapegoat an employee who makes a mistake. But in reality, mistakes like that don’t happen in isolation. A unified, well-working team would work together during preparation to ensure easy mistakes don’t happen, but when they do, they would band together to accept fault as a group and seek solutions for the future. Mission success depends on the efforts of all, working together for a common purpose, holding each other up, working past failures, and celebrating successes. Mission success depends on everyone.

Welcome to Adult Life where Everything’s Made Up and Grades Don’t Matter

(Props to you if you're an improv fan and recognize the quote style.)

“Grades are so important.”

How many times was that said to you over the course of your childhood by parents, teachers, and authority figures? You may have even said it yourself, especially if you have kids or have worked with kids.

And it’s a lie.

Oh, it’s true to a certain point. In order to embark upon a decent career, a student needs to earn decent grades. Grades are gatekeepers to the next level. In order to advance and gain certain privileges, a certain threshold must be met.

How important it is to receive straight As? A 4.0 (or higher!) GPA? Top marks in the class? Valedictorian? Not in the slightest. These accomplishments are heralded as so important to students and their parents and are of no significance at all in the adult working world. None.

Grades are a horribly subjective way to measure a student’s ability to memorize, repeat, conform, and obey authority. A student’s marks bear little resemblance to their intelligence, interest, effort, attitude, enthusiasm, work ethic, creativity, and true learning of subject matter. The latter traits matter far more in a person’s career.

I was always a good student. But I was never a straight-A student, usually As and Bs with the rare C. I have a poor memory. Some lucky people have excellent memories which produce excellent grades with little effort. I extended a large amount of effort with mixed results.

Almost all tests I took in math and science courses required extensive memorization. This is an outdated model of teaching that presumes students won’t have access to information, calculators, or peers when they work in their careers. With information, calculators, and peers with us at all times in our pockets, it’s hard to see how traditional testing methods assesses a student’s true ability to perform in their future science careers.

In my case, they didn’t. I remember being so frustrated with this contradiction in undergraduate physics that I decided to program a few physical constants and basic equations in my calculator, essentially cheating. Because I knew never in my life would it be important for me to know a physical constant off the top of my head. Instead I focused on knowing when and how to use which constants and equations to solve physics problems.

Grades are also highly subjective. I’ve always been an okay writer, but in tenth grade, an English teacher disagreed with me. She disliked my writing style, graded me harshly, and wanted to prevent me from advancing to honors English. And yet my eleventh grade honors English and twelfth grade AP English teachers graded me well. I highly doubt my writing quality improved significantly in such a short time. More likely, my English teachers were human and my grades were a reflection of their own biases rather than my true writing ability.

Even STEM fields fall victim to this subjective evaluation. Some teachers expect one result and are close-minded to alternate solutions. I once got into a disagreement with a physics professor who wrote a lab question ambiguously. I answered it in a way he didn’t intend. I was correct. But he marked it zero and refused to let me rewrite it. The situation escalated. I had to take my argument all the way to the department head and get transferred out of his lab in order to be graded fairly. My theory is that he was offended I had alternatively interpreted his “perfectly” written question and his pride got in the way of evaluating my work objectively.

College admissions counselors know this concept well. Grade disparity exists not only from teacher to teacher, but from school to school. Some top schools are well known for grade inflation. Students show up to class, do the bare minimum, and earn As because that’s what they and their parents expect. It is very difficult to compare school to school, and sometimes difficult to compare student to student within schools if their teachers differ. Grades become an almost meaningless measure beyond a certain “passing well” threshold, defined differently by each university admissions office.

Within college/university, the pressure to earn good grades within one’s major courses intensifies. Higher education grades are seen as a reflection of a student’s ability to work in their chosen career. Students are “weeded out” or discouraged from continuing in their major if their grades don’t reflect a certain standard set by their advisor or department. Otherwise good students, trying to succeed in their chosen fields, are told that their self-worth as professionals in their careers is determined by the subjective evaluation of a few imperfect individuals.

Some students understandably quit prematurely when they’re told that their grades have damned them to a career of failure. This is almost always untrue, and yet it's so common it's joked about. A poor or even failing grade translates to the mindset of never being able to master the material (in the way the professor expects) and therefore never succeeding in the field, so why continue trying? Combine poor grades with social discouragement (presuming a student will fail because of their sex, ethnicity, background, physical abilities, etc.) drives away many students who would likely succeed with more support.

As I said, grades are only important as a gatekeeper. A certain threshold is needed to advance from grade to grade, to college/university, to advanced degrees, to gain certifications and credentials. A certain threshold is needed for scholarships, fellowships, grants, and awards, sometimes the very funds that allow a student to continue their education. Grades are important only because we as a society have made them important in our education system.

Grades are unimportant overall. Grades are not important in one’s career or job. Grades are not a measure of your professional ability, value, or self-worth.

I’m going to repeat that last statement, because I fell victim to believing it for so long: Grades are not a measure of your professional ability, value, or self-worth.

Because I was never a straight-A student, I suffered from impostor syndrome throughout my 12 years in higher education. I internalized the evaluations as my innate ability to learn and conduct science. I assumed that because my grades were okay but not excellent, I was doomed to be an okay but not excellent scientist. I hesitated to promote and advocate for myself as a student scientist. I mistook my grades for my professional worth. And no one corrected me.

Only my experience working as a professional has taught me how wrong I was and how I wronged myself for so long. In the adult world, no one asks what your grades were. I honestly don’t remember my GPA at any level, nor my SAT, nor my ACT, nor my GRE, etc. I’ve never asked anyone what their grades were, not even during the hiring process. Only browsing resumes will you sometimes see a GPA. I’ve never heard any colleagues ask what anyone else’s grades were. I've never heard a colleague spontaneously offer their grades. Those numbers have no power over us once we leave behind studenthood. 

Because grades don’t matter in the adult world. Yes, some companies require a certain threshold GPA for entry-level positions. But that’s uncommon, and only limited to entry-level positions. Beyond that, no one cares. In your entire adult working life, your grades as a student don't matter.

What matters in the adult world? Competency. Ability. Responsibility. Professionalism. Cooperation. Dedication. Creativity. And so many other traits that are not assessed on student tests. My ability to do great work in the profession I’m passionate about was never represented by the grades I received as a student.

Grades are not important in one’s career. Grades are not a measure of your professional ability, value, or self-worth. You are worth so much more than your GPA.

Impostor Syndrome: When Grad Advisor Relationship Goes Wrong

I’ve just passed a difficult anniversary. Seven years ago, my graduate advisor gave me the curse of science impostor syndrome. A student’s graduate advisor is meant to be a mentor, a trusted authority guiding the young trainee from student to professional. Instead, she crushed me.

Feeling inadequate and an intellectual fraud among superiors is common among women in the sciences. I already had it. But to be told by my advisor that she doesn’t think science motivates me. To be told that she doesn’t think I want to be a research scientist, she thinks I like the idea of being a research scientist. To dismiss my little voice saying, “Yes it does,” and “Yes I do,” as if she could see right through me to my true nature. To be told that I should find a new advisor because I wasn’t as married to research as she was. She devalued me and my chosen career path.

My first graduate advisor is a force to be reckoned with in her subfield. She is well-respected and highly honored. She wins top awards. She’s going to leave a legacy. Someday, someone will name an equation or astrophysical model after her. A widow without children, she was married to her work. She lived and breathed it. Her career defined her life and her life was defined by her career.

I was a student in my mid 20s, passionate about astronomy and space broadly. I’ve never been a specialist, too interested in everything to devote myself to one thing for long. I loved my graduate research, but I also loved so many other things. Since junior year of undergraduate, I’d dedicated myself to the study of our subfield. It was fascinating and challenging, probing the unknown with space telescopes observing the Universe in multiple wavelengths. I learned so much. I spent hours in the lab every day, running models, coding, and plotting (graphs, not schemes). When I wasn’t working on research, I was studying doctoral-level physics textbooks and doing complex homework. I was all in.

But I also had a life. I had no interest in winning the Nobel Prize or scoring a tenured professorship at an Ivy League. I had interests outside of the lab and textbooks. I had a social life. I was converting religions. I wanted to someday marry and have children. The world was open to me. I wanted it all. I didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t have it all.

By definition, a graduate research assistantship is half time. Ask any graduate student whether they work 20 hours per week and they’ll laugh at you. I never recorded my hours, but I was much closer to full-time on a regular basis. When times got tough, grad school took over my waking hours. At times I struggled to maintain a healthy balance.

When my graduate advisor ordered me to drop all of my hobbies and work in the lab from early morning to late evening and weekends, I fought back. I know my limits. That kind of schedule would have burned me out quickly. Plus, it wasn’t necessary. There was no deadline to meet or urgency in our work. She simply wanted 100% devotion. Anything less, and I wasn’t worthy. She even scolded me for attending a physics guest lecture outside of our subfield.

At this point, I was done with my graduate coursework, straight As except for one B in quantum mechanics. I had passed the insanely difficult exam that proved I knew my physics. I had been researching this subfield for 4 years. I should have been fairly close to finishing my PhD – just another year or so to write papers, publish, and defend. She insisted that I was 3 years away from finishing, dismissing all my previous work.

I felt trapped. I felt like an indentured servant. I had won a NASA graduate fellowship, my own grant money, but it was tied to her. She reminded me that she had paid my previous years, approximately $20k per year, plus healthcare. Her goal was to train an apprentice, the next generation of her. She expected me to be her mini clone. She even had my post-doc location picked out, a university overseas, as if I should have any say in the matter. I should be grateful and work harder. Why wasn’t I grateful? Why was I avoiding her?

A year prior, before she lost my trust, I confided in her that I had career interests in other areas. She was wise and experienced; I had hoped for advice. Instead, I was reprimanded. I quickly learned that I could not have an honest career discussion with a woman entrusted to guide my young career.

I tried to improve in her eyes. I tried to be a model student researcher. I gave it my best shot. It wasn’t good enough. I was told that I needed to be obsessed with work. I was told that if I had any plans to work beyond our subfield in the future, I needed to find a new advisor. It was her way or the highway.

She asked me why I wanted a Ph.D. I said it was because I love my research. She said no, I love the idea of my research, I love the idea of being a research scientist. Can you imagine telling a 10-year-old girl this? “You don’t really want to be a scientist, little girl, you just think you do. Go pursue a career more suited for you.” I may have been in my mid 20s, but her condescension made me feel like a confused little girl.

I chose the highway. And I never looked back. I found a fantastic graduate advisor at another university. I have a successful career in the space industry spanning multiple disciplines. I’m writing proposals to be a principal investigator in my own research. I’m married with a family. I have hobbies and interests outside of my career. Success is the best revenge.

But she planted doubt in my mind for a long time. Was I really good enough to be a scientist? Was I dedicated enough to succeed? Am I really meant to be a scientist, or do I just like the idea of being a scientist? The question itself is nonsensical because I was a scientist long before I went to school for it. It’s who I am at the core. And yet the doubt persists.

The damage was done. Impostor syndrome is why I tolerated a workplace bully in my new graduate lab, a jealous lab manager who mocked my research progress. Impostor syndrome is why I’m still hung up on the fact that I left my PhD program ABD, despite being just as competent at physics as any physics PhD. Impostor syndrome is why I let colleagues at my first full-time job treat me as if I was fresh-out undergrad instead of respecting my well-educated scientific opinions at the level they deserved. Impostor syndrome is why I still let some academics get to me when they insist that I need to go back to school to finish my PhD in order to be equal to them.

Impostor syndrome still haunts me. I hesitate to take certain risks or pursue certain opportunities because of it. And in the back of my head, a little voice asks, “Do I really want to be a scientist, or do I just like the idea of it? Do I really want to be a space industry analyst, or do I just like the idea of it?” Never mind that I’m living and doing both. I keep fighting it. I’ll likely be fighting it until the end of my career.

The advisor/student relationship is one of the most important factors in a grad school success. If it goes wrong, get out of there – fast! Leaving my NASA fellowship and university was a tough decision, but it was the right thing to do. I’m better off for it.

COLLIDE-ing Suborbital Science with Blue Origin

I usually don’t blog on the weekend. I’m usually at the ice skating rink at this time on a Saturday. But amazing feats of science and engineering don’t limit themselves to weekday work hours. Right now, I’m geeking out to the latest successful launch and landing by private rocket company Blue Origin!

After I earned my master’s degree in high-energy astrophysics in Huntsville, I switched over to “experimental planetary science” (my phrasing) at the University of Central Florida with Dr. Josh Colwell as my advisor.

Josh was working on a number of projects, but one that caught my attention was the study of how space and planetary dust (regolith) interact at very low velocities. When the grains or clumps collide, do they stick together, bounce, break apart, or what? Most of what could do in the lab in 1 g (Earth’s gravity) was even faster than we wanted to observe. We built a drop tower in the lab to examine our experiment in microgravity, but our short tower only allowed less than a second of free fall. We wanted more. I flew on two parabolic aircraft campaigns with Josh to gain a few more seconds of microgravity per parabola. But still, we wanted more.

Josh had flown an experiment on orbit on the International Space Station, COLLIDE, Collisions Into Dust Experiment. He was preparing another version of COLLIDE to fly suborbitally on a Blue Origin experimental rocket. I was intrigued by the partnership with an emerging commercial space company. For my first year and a half in the lab, I participated in teleconferences with Blue and worked on preparing the experiment for launch. The engineering students on our team did most of the work, but I was pleased and excited to participate in any way I could.

A COLLIDE box in foreground, the original COLLIDE in background, and me recording something. - February 2011

But in 2011, Blue Origin’s test rocket malfunctioned and was destroyed. Our chance to fly COLLIDE with Blue was postponed indefinitely. We were all disappointed, but that’s the way it works in the space industry. This stuff is hard and set-backs happen.

I’ve been out-of-the-loop with the experiment since leaving UCF. But yesterday, I heard the exciting news that COLLIDE would launch soon. And this morning, it did just that. Blue Origin’s rocket New Shepard launch and landed successfully in Texas.

We’re all currently awaiting the release of the official video of the successful test. I’m awaiting news of how my grad school team’s experiment fared. Knowing first-hand just how tricky those experiment boxes can be, I’m crossing fingers and hoping for the best.

The official Blue Origin COLLIDE video can be seen here:

I will update this entry with the official Blue Origin rocket video once it’s published. But first, ice skating.

Imagining A Mission to Jupiter's Ganymede with Planetary Science Summer School

Group shot - PSSS Session 1 - July 2010

The application deadline for the NASA Planetary Science Summer School at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California is approaching, and I realized that I hadn't yet written about my own PSSS experience six years ago. Rereading our paper and looking at photos just now, I remembered that I had met a few of my friends and colleagues through that experience. I present to you:

Ganymede Interior, Surface, and Magnetometer Orbiter, or, GISMO.

Planetary Science Summer School is a one-week bootcamp. Fourteen of us planetary science and engineering graduate students and post-docs gathered for the first session of PSSS in July 2010. We had been emailing back and forth for a month or so, throwing around ideas and getting to know each other. It was through these exchanges that we settled on our mission to Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon and the only moon known to have its own magnetosphere (magnetic field).

I was assigned the positions of Planetary Protection (protecting other worlds from us) and Education & Public Outreach (EPO). I was tasked with creating our protocols and objectives for protecting Ganymede and nearby worlds such as Europa from contamination and educating the public, especially students.

Protecting the solar system from us humans - July 2010

Additionally, I chose to be on the non-icy surfaces team and the instruments team. On the non-icy surface team, we focused and advocated for studying the interesting surface and subsurface features that Ganymede has to offer, that aren't ice. On the instruments team, we determined which sensors we'd need to carry in order to complete our science objectives. We had to make difficult choices when we didn't have enough money, didn't have enough data bandwidth downlink, didn't have enough power, or was too heavy to carry all that we wanted to fly.

What impressed me the most about the experience was how quickly we were able to design a planetary exploration mission to another world. With the help of experts from JPL's Team X, in just a week, we wrote a mission design paper and an hour-long presentation with technical details and budgets in line with a NASA New Frontiers program mission. The science objectives of the GISMO probe were to study:

• the magnetic field
• the interior
• the surface
• the atmosphere

All for approximately $710 million.

This was my first time at JPL, so I was glad we also got to see the sights. We got a tour of the Mars Exploration Rover mission (Spirit and Opportunity) facilities including rover mock-ups, testbeds, and the controls that give the rovers their schedule. We saw the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity in the clean room before it was launched. It was nice to roam the campus-like grounds, including spending time with the deer. We even saw a show at the Hollywood Bowl, BBC's Planet Earth with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Me with a Mars rover mock-up - July 2010

Mars rover testbed - July 2010

Curiosity on a test run in the JPL cleanroom before its stroll on Mars - July 2010

In addition to our NASA presentation that week, we also presented our paper at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Science Conference, the American Geophysical Union conference, and the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers' Aerospace conference. If there ever is a NASA mission to Ganymede in the future, I hope that the creators of that mission build upon what we started with GISMO.

A Pseudo Geologist Among the Rocks at Barringer Meteor Crater, Arizona

Around 50,000 years ago, a nickle-iron meteorite approximately 50 meters long hit the Earth in what is now Arizona, creating what is known as Meter Crater or the Barringer Crater. Four and a half years ago, I got to explore it. I was one of 16 graduate students who participated in the Lunar and Planetary Institute's Meteor Crater Field Camp in September 2011. It was quite an experience!

On the rim of Meteor Crater - September 2011

I'll start out by admitting that I was not exactly a happy camper during the eight day field camp because I am not a camper at all. I enjoy comfortable beds, temperature controlled rooms, clean bathrooms, vehicles that can take me long distances, and other modern conveniences. To be fair, camping at Meteor Crater isn't fully camping. They had bathroom facilities with decent showers, electrical outlet ports outside, and wifi. I brought my laptop and connected to the internet every morning and evening. Even so, eight days is a long time for a non-camper to camp.

The Meteor Crater camp site - September 2011

I was also quite out-of-place with my peers. Although the program was open to geologists and planetary scientists, it heavily leaned toward geology. I had taken a graduate-level geology class and was studying lunar impact craters, but it was soon clear that I was the least knowledgeable about geology in the pack. Additionally, my fellow classmates seemed to love rocks and their excitement to stare endlessly at rocks was genuine. I think rocks are cool, but my interest in the minutia is short-lived. The program leader quickly identified me as a geologist fraud and took a disliking to me. We didn't see eye-to-eye on space policy, either. Despite my inadequacies, I learned quite a bit of geology from my peers and became the group's photographer with my DSLR.

Group at work - September 2011

Someone else took this one. I'm the short girl in purple - September 2011

The landscapes in the desert are gorgeous and plenty photogenic. We hiked around the crater rim, down to the center and back up again, around the crater ejecta blanket, and in an old quarry. Abandoned mining equipment and infrastructure littered the field like an archaeological site. Recent rains caused wildflowers to burst with color. And my team always seems to be posing in an action shot among the rocks. The sights were truly spectacular.

Wildflowers blooming - September 2011

Abandoned wheel - September 2011

Standing in the ruins with abandoned buildings yonder - September 2011

On the second full day, former astronaut Tom Jones joined us in our hike down the crater. I had met him once before and once since, and he always seems like such a cool guy. Apollo astronauts used to train for the lunar terrain in the crater, and NASA relics are still kept in the crater's museum, so the area has a history of astronaut activity. Tom gave us a presentation on potentially hazardous near Earth asteroids, a relevant subject in an area once hit by a near Earth asteroid.

Posing with astronaut Tom Jones - September 2011

Resting at the bottom of the crater - September 2011

If I wasn't a geologist before I arrived at the field camp, I certainly wasn't going to leave as one. Day after day, we undertook laborious tasks that I can't quite believe modern geologists still do. We counted pebbles by hand. We measured pebbles with rulers. We took location measurements of boulders with outdated handheld GPS receivers. We categorized everything we saw with our own eyes. It seemed to me that aerial remote sensing with good software could have accomplished most of what we did a lot more easily, but graduate students are cheap labor and we were out there for the experience.

Working among the rocks - September 2011

I do appreciate the experience and I'm glad to have participated in the program. Real science was done, and in a small way, I contributed. I'm a co-author on conference proceedings from the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference: Extensional Faulting of the Overturned Coconino Ejecta Layer and Emplacement of Fallback Breccia at Barringer Meteorite Crater (aka Meteor Crater). But honestly, I'm more proud of my photography.

Self-portrait on the cliff - September 2011

Sunset at Meteor Crater - September 2011

Attention Students Desiring Space Careers: This Is For You

I am pleased to announce my services as a space career mentor. I've been sitting on this idea for a while and was finally inspired by a friend to move forward with it. I want to thank all of my mentors and mentees for giving me such great mentoring experiences over the years.

As a student, I collected mentors. No matter where I was and what stage I was in, I identified a professional who I admired and wanted to emulate. Interestingly, these were never university-assigned advisors. They were people I came across in passing or people I sought out and partnered with. Only in the case of my graduate school advisor were these formal mentors. Most of them had no idea that I considered them a mentor unless I told them. When told, they often acted embarrassed and didn't know what to say. Even the concept of an informal mentor carries weight. And so I refrained from defining relationships as thus an instead simply appreciated the individual as a colleague or authority figure who inspired me.

Over the past few years since I left academia, I've begun reaching out to individual students and student groups to spread the love of space and inspire space careers. Age ranges included elementary school through graduate students and even a few early professionals. Although these relationships are usually temporary, I have had the pleasure of connecting with some of these students long-term. I've watched some of them progress through high school and college and into professional jobs. I've been a cheerleader and a shoulder to cry on. I've watched some obtain their dream jobs and others leave the field for a better path. I've seen them all grow.

These mentee relationships, all of them informal except for one, have been tremendously rewarding. It's my current and former mentees who I have to thank for showing me how much I enjoy the relationship. It also helps to know that at least a few of them think that I'm pretty good at being a mentor. If I didn't know that I wasn't helping them in some way, I wouldn't offer myself as a mentor. To know that they think well of me and that I inspire them is a gift that they give me in addition to the gift of getting to know them. I thank them for their encouragement.

I also take inspiration from my former career coach who assisted me in jumping the hurdle from student to professional. She looked inside of me and inspired confidence and courage. She showed me that I had potential that I didn't know I had. It was from working with her did I realize that formal guidance could be offered with the assistance of the right tools, the right questions, and good listening skills. She knew nothing of the space field, yet she played a large part in guiding me to where I am today.

And so, I am offering my services as a space career mentor. The details can be found on the Astralytical website. I will still continue to speak with student groups and assist individual students on an informal basis, of course. This project doesn't replace my STEM outreach; it enhances it. I never felt that I had the time to follow up closely with each mentee to help them in the best way I could in the moment. With formal mentoring, I can do just that. I'll be able to assist and guide mentees in ways I haven't been able to before. And this excites me!

Are you looking to pursue or develop a space career, but don't know how or don't know if you're on the right track? Do you feel lost, stuck, or uncertain? Do you want to improve your career progress and prospects? Or do you know of a student or young professional who may benefit from a mentor? I'm here to help!

Hanging out in the VAB at KSC with college students at a STEM outreach event - August 2015 

Why Quitting Grad School and Becoming ABD Was Right for Me

One year ago, I quit grad school. In retrospect, it was the right move, and I don’t regret it.

I’ve started and stopped this entry several times. What’s right for me isn’t right for everyone. Quitting grad school just before the final step of writing and submitting my doctoral dissertation was the right move for me. I feel compelled to explain why. Someone reading this might be in a similar circumstance making a similar difficult choice, or know something who is.

I spent 12 years in higher education: 4 years for my bachelor’s degree, 2 years for my master’s degree, 1 year conducting doctoral research on high-energy astrophysics, took a few months off to work at NASA MSFC, 1.5 years of graduate coursework in planetary science, and 3 years conducting doctoral research in experimental planetary science. Somewhere in there, I passed the most difficult physics exam of my life: the doctoral comprehensive exam. I was at the end of my academic journey.

Graduating with my Bachelor of Science in astronomy/astrophysics

Why did I stop? Well, why did I start? When I was exploring careers in high school, I knew that I wanted to work in the space program. I loved my math and physics classes and I was captivated by astrophysics, especially cosmology. Everything I read described an astrophysics education ending in a PhD, so that’s what I thought that I needed. I didn’t know of any other way.

It wasn’t until well into graduate school that I began to recognize that my career options were more open than I initially thought. Professorship is the goal of the vast majority of physics doctoral students, and most professors are in the mindset of training their future colleagues and replacements like an apprenticeship. I knew very early on that I was separate from my classmates in that my goal was not a professorship. I didn’t even want a post-doc if I could help it.

Instead, I explored the option of becoming a researcher for a national lab. At first it was thrilling to research astrophysics at NASA! My goal was to work for NASA, and there I was. As the years went on, I realized that I needed to be especially passionate about my tiny sub-subfield in order to dedicate a large part of my life day in and day out to researching it. I enjoyed my research but I hated programming, and my interests were becoming broader. I recognized that I wanted to move on to a position that was more hands-on. I also wanted to get involved in space policy and the commercial space industry.

Graduating with my Master of Science researching high-energy astrophysics

I had a professional crisis when I experienced my first workplace bully: my master’s degree advisor. I had already passed my doctoral entrance exam, obtained my master’s degree, and was a year into my doctoral research. She saw our relationship is mentor and apprentice. She had the next several years of my life planned for me, including a post-doc with her colleague at a university in Europe, never mind what I wanted. When I began exploring my career interests, broadening my scope within physics, our relationship became toxic. Finally, she gave me an ultimatum: my way or the highway. It was a very difficult decision, but an important one. I decided not to let anyone limit my career options, but instead to pursue my interests where they would lead me.

My doctoral advisor at my next university was the opposite of my previous advisor: supportive, encouraging of my own path, and even broad in interests himself. I learned more applied physics and engineering skills in the lab, which was a refreshing change. Through him I was introduced to several contacts who have helped me enter the world of NewSpace and space policy. He always encouraged my growth. The more my world opened to the possibilities that lay in front of me, the less important my PhD became. For the first time in my life, I recognized that I didn’t need my PhD to achieve my career goals and become successful. But I still wanted the title.

Conducting lab work as a doctoral student

I’ll admit it: I used to look down on people who quit grad school. I used to think that they just couldn’t cut it and that I was superior to them for sticking with it. It didn’t occur to me that they had found a better path for themselves. The experience of quitting has humbled me. I didn’t fail out, I could have continued on and graduated, but I chose not to. My choice doesn’t make me inferior to anyone, just different. I had to get over that pride of losing the title of Doctor before I was able to make a clear decision about my future.

Many well-intentioned people counseled me not to quit. One colleague remarked how much respect he got from his colleagues after obtaining his doctorate. But really, I simply have to say the words “astrophysics” or “planetary science” and people look at me differently. I know that I’m competent in my field and others see that as well. I don’t need a title to gain other people’s respect. I already respect myself.

Another colleague warned me that I was disappointing those who had gotten me this far and that it was unfair of me to quit now. I was most concerned about this. I asked my doctoral advisor on two separate occasions if he is disappointed in me for quitting. He assured me that he isn’t. Me quitting grad school was his suggestion, after all!

Why would my advisor recommend that I quit grad school? He saw that I had already moved past it, but I was too stubborn to let it go. As I was approaching the end of my studies, I began my job search. I was told that it could take over a year to find employment, but I was offered a job within a month! A colleague recommended me to a local company that was looking to hire a space scientist, and there I was. Networking pays off. I had wanted only part-time work while I finished my dissertation, but the offer was for a full-time position, so my dissertation became a hobby to do in my spare time.

Transitioning to a professional in my day job, right before quitting grad school

I was surprised when I attended a party with my advisor and fellow grad students a few months after taking the job. I was feeling shame for making very little progress on my dissertation. They were so proud of me for landing a full-time job in my field before even graduating. The girlfriend of a grad student even remarked that she wished that her boyfriend would do the same. Everyone was happy for me.

My surprise continued when I visited the university department nearly a year later. I had expected my former professors to be disappointed in me and perhaps even feel betrayed that I had left them. The opposite was true: they were proud of my success and saw me as a peer. As a student, I had never felt that level of respect from them as I did when I visited them as grad-school drop-out professional.

I’d be neglectful if I didn’t admit that money was a factor. Almost all scientific research is conducted mainly by graduate students who work greater than 40 hours per week, but who are paid peanuts for 20 hours per week. When I took my first professional job, my salary nearly tripled. My current job pays nearly quadruple what I made as a graduate student. I never got into my career for the money, but now that I have a house and a family, money matters.

Grad school became a financial burden after I took my full-time job in industry. Although my salary tripled and I’m a frugal and financially responsible person, my school expenses became too much for me to handle without taking on student loans, something I hadn’t done since undergrad. I managed to avoid student loans by depleting my savings.

After I left my university department’s employment as a graduate research assistant, I was responsible for my tuition payments. I was only enrolled in 3 credits per semester for a doctoral research course, basically, a symbolic class for the privilege of calling myself a doctoral student. Unfortunately, once I left my department’s protection, the university saw me as a dollar sign instead of a person. They used a loophole to unfairly charge me over triple the tuition rate, and even my protest to the university president landed on deaf ears because universities are all about profit (and I attended a public university!).

Had I been charged a fair tuition rate, I would have been able to afford to stay enrolled in grad school indefinitely and may have eventually finished. The greed of the university forced me to make my decision to quit when I did, which may have been a good thing in the long run because I didn’t drag it out too long. To this day, I regret paying that last semester’s tuition, as that money would have served me much better in my savings account.

When my advisor approached me about quitting grad school, I was busy with my day job and my other responsibilities, I was nearly broke from educational and housing expenses, and my dissertation had only progressed slightly in the year since I took a full-time job. After the initial punch in the gut that was my pride saying, “I am not a quitter!” I recognized that he was right. He said that trying to finish my dissertation when my heart wasn’t into it was making me miserable. At that point, I was satisfied with my academic and research work, my career had moved on, and I no longer needed to hang on to my past. When I finally quit, I felt free.

Will I ever go back to school? Maybe, but not now and not in the same field. I’ve played with the idea of getting a second master’s degree in space policy or commercial space, but I’ve been told repeatedly that those degrees aren’t necessary for me. Colleagues have even suggested that I could teach courses in those programs. I don’t need formal education to learn something new. The title of Doctor is no longer important to me, but if I ever change my mind and want to become a professor, I’ll need that credential. What I’d get my doctorate in, I don’t know, but if it’s meant to be, it will become clear. For now, I’m satisfied with my path, moving forward in my own way! I’m ABD and happy with it!

Posing in front of my office building right outside of NASA Kennedy Space Center

Sandblasting Craters for Future Space Landings

Coincidentally, I got a message today from my colleague Dr. Phil Metzger asking me about research I had done during my grad school days at UCF in 2012. Phil is now a researcher at Florida Space Institute based out of UCF, but at the time, he was a research scientist at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in a lab that is now known as Swamp Works.

As I wrote in my previous entry, I spent much of my research at UCF conducting experiments in vacuum chambers. So what was I do to when my vacuum chamber broke and needed a replacement part that would take two months to obtain? Summer vacation? No, find other work to do. With the help of Phil and the Florida Space Grant Consortium, I spent much of the summer working in Phil's lab.

Similar to my marble into regolith impact experiments, Phil had done some work sandblasting regolith with jets to mimic a retrorocket landing on a planetary body to understand how craters are formed. We wanted to continue those experiments using varying jet width sizes, intensities, and heights above the regolith. We also used several types of granular materials, including many light ones such as plastic confetti and corn cob pieces to simulate a reduced gravity environment such as Mars.

We conducted the experiments in clear boxes with half of the jet of gas shooting in and half out in order to capture a cross section of the experiment. We recorded the blasts and looked at the way the crater formed and how the granular material moved due to the gas, studying the videos frame by frame. Similar to my marble impact experiments, the ejecta or ejected material (the splash) and the crater rim also mattered.

What I thought was the coolest (aside from blasting stuff at high velocities, of course) was the way the crater walls formed. The regolith along the sides of the craters spun like caught in a bad wind storm, creating multiple little vortices (or vortexes, if you prefer). The crater walls seems to move upwards in waves against the direction of the current. Just like blowing air through a straw into a drink, the liquid needs to move up and over, out of the way of the incoming air, and the air bubbles carry the liquid up. Granular materials act a lot like a liquid despite being made of many small solid pieces. It's fascinating to watch.

I also got to play with microscopes. I took magnified photos of the materials I used. I think amber is the coolest material to image close up out of the ones I used. I needed to understand the properties of the materials and measure the angles of repose, that is, the steepest angle that I could pour the grains into a pile without the side of the pile sliding down.

One summer isn't long to do much research and Phil is continuing the experimentation. Best of luck to Phil and the students who take this work on!