“They call me baepsae”
Or: A story about how accepting a prestigious postdoc fellowship with very few other prospects became an extremely difficult decision.
Apropos of nothing, I feel like sharing a part of my story today. A little over two years ago, I published a blog (that I had written many months prior to hitting that “publish” button) about my experiences as a disabled academic on the job market. I won’t rehash it here — recommend just reading it for yourself. Now, two years later, I feel the need to share more of my story.
TLDR; graduate students and postdocs are adults with lives and families just trying to become the next generation of academics and industry professionals. They do the bulk of the work in many labs and often for very little pay. The system is exploitative at best and needs to be changed. Learn about the current UC-systemwide strike here: https://www.fairucnow.org/
Today I want to share a little bit more about that story. A story about how despite systemic injustice, I am in my second year of my tenure-track position in the Computational Media Department at UC Santa Cruz. Despite the dark circumstances we were living in, the stars did align in order for me to get where I am today.
I am, as they say, a “product of the UC system.” I did my PhD training at UC Irvine, then, after a two year stint at Northwestern University for an NIH postdoc, another year as a postdoc at UC Santa Cruz via the UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship program. I came into the PhD program married (and am still) and we had two children while I was in grad school.
I have been “lucky” in that have had incredibly supportive, well-funded mentors along the way in a field that pays better than most fields. I was also “lucky” that I worked in the UC system and was supported by a union that paid for my maternity leave twice and negotiated healthcare insurance that meant my pregnancies were largely financially covered.
I put “lucky” in italicized quotes here because, as my PhD advisor used to say to me, “You put in 90% of the effort and the last 10% comes down to luck.” I chose my field. I chose to do a PhD. Despite the many hardships I faced and the setbacks I’ve experienced, I am glad for the choices I made. I am glad I put the work in to do the job I want to do, the job I feel I could argue I am good at.
There were many dark nights when I questioned these choices. The days I would eat less in order for my kids to eat, so we could pay for both food and rent on my postdoc’s salary, I would pause and wonder if this was all going to be worth it. Some days, on my down days, I look at the systems I am still a part of, still supporting by working in and bringing funding in, and wonder if this is worth it.
I spent three years on the academic job market trying to get any sort of stable, livable academic job. My final year on the market, I was broken and ready to toss it in. My work was too activist oriented, too qualitative, maybe cared about people too much. My skills were too soft sciences, too people-focused. I was too much a parent, too feminine in the activist sense of the word, too disabled. Too much.
My lifeline came when I was at lunch with a dear friend. She was giving me a last minute pep talk before a job talk. (There are seriously so many unsung heroes that have supported me in my life.) I got the call about having been awarded the UC President’s Postdoc. A possibility of staying in the game one more year. An opportunity not many were afforded.
Of the offers I had on hand, the postdoc was the best opportunity. The chance at a tenure track job — not guaranteed, but a dangled possibility if I played the game right — and a chance to do what I had set out to do years prior (have my own research agenda, work with students, run my own lab), to do the thing I was trained to do.
Reality settled in quickly. My partner and I had a week to make a decision. We spent that entire week, with many sleepless nights, crunching numbers, looking at rental housing. The salary being offered was marginally more than I was being paid in Chicago. The cost of living was exponentially higher in the Bay Area. Because of the cost of childcare, we were subsisting off my single income for our family of four.
For full transparency, the salary offered to me was: $57,456.
For further transparency, you can look these salaries up yourself here: https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/
I asked for more money. I asked for accommodations. My advisor sent emails. Everyone’s hands were tied.
In that week, we determined we could not all live in or near Santa Cruz on that salary while I was working my postdoc. So, we switched gears. We calculated how much it would cost for me to rent a room while the rest of my family stayed with extended family (a huge privilege not given to many in this country).
I started trying to imagine a life where I was only visiting my kids — then 5 and 3 years old — once per month, if that was even financially feasible. As my heart broke, I told myself it was just one more year and if the year didn’t yield a job, I would stop. I would find something else to do with my life.
I accepted the postdoc offer and cried.
Tears of both grief and relief. It’s weird how the human body can hold so much emotion at once.
A week later the world shut down.
We scrambled to move from Chicago to my extended family’s house in Washington State, not knowing what was going to happen. Suddenly, all our previous calculations and planning seemed to be in vain. Not only would I be working from home for an unknown amount of time, everyone would be.
The small silver lining of the pandemic, something that still hurts my heart when I look at it too closely, is that I got to be with my kids every single day. I got to revel in their zoom bombing. I got to use a chair to block the door to my bedroom-turned-office. I got to kiss them goodnight every single night.
I was put in this position in the first place because we, as a society, de-value people. The academy, even after two years of quarantines and lockdowns, still values in-person work over other forms of labor. My research is of online social communities — all of my work is conducted via computer. My postdoc had no mentoring or teaching requirements. Working from home was not only easy, but made sense.
For someone who was going to only be in one place for a year, maybe two, why relocate an entire family of four? Why relocate more people to a place that is already overburdened with people, so much so that housing is unaffordable for most?
If I struggled this much, how much must graduate students, who get paid significantly less than postdocs, struggle? Knowing I was only able to live without being rent burdened while going to UC Irvine as a PhD student, how do students on campuses who do not have access to student housing survive? How do I responsibly bring students into my own lab?
If I was facing these struggles in the higher paying field of tech, what must it be like for everyone else?
If the value is going to be placed on having people in-person, together, then pay them enough to be able to live where you want them. No other math makes sense.
(The math here relies on the privilege of graduate students and postdocs who have working partners, parents who can support a whole additional household and with that assumption of privilege comes all the equity and inclusion issues with it.)
This story, for me, has a happy ending (or beginning, however you want to look at it). The postdoc opened the door for me to secure a tenure track position in the place that I might argue was the best possible place for me and the work I want to do. Even on my hardest days, I appreciate how much my “luck” and privilege have brought me. But in knowing that heartbreak and trauma, in knowing how close to not having it I came, I recognize how truly harsh the system is.
You can read more about current news and updates on the UC-systemwide AUW strike here: https://www.fairucnow.org/
Title is from the song 뱁새 by BTS.
Explanation of lyrics here: https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/2018/08/02/baepsae-silver-spoon/
