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Career serendipity

11/27/2018

3 Comments

 
In my adolescent development graduate seminar I once assigned a paper for our identity unit on narrative analysis of turning points (McLean & Pratt, 2006). The authors followed high school students, and about six years later asked them to “write about an important transition or change with respect to their understanding of themselves.” McLean and Pratt consider this event a turning point, and coded the narratives in terms of meaning-making from this turning point, ranging from no meaning expressed to describing an insight from the event. 
 
Discussing this article in the seminar made me realize that at least so far (and it’s been a much longer so far than six years post-high school), I cannot really identify turning points in my life, particularly in the career realm. My How-I-got-here narrative is much more serendipity and process of elimination than Aha! moments or turning points. I’m okay with that path at this point, and actually, I think it’s important to share that path with others. Sharing my own journey to this point with high school students, college students, and grad students can help them to understand that we do not all choose our career based on a critical, life altering moment in childhood, or our lifelong passion since we pretended to be doctors as toddlers. Some of us almost fall into our career path, and that’s okay.
 
I went to college without a major. My father wanted me to be an engineer, so I went to a liberal arts university that did not have an engineering program. My first semester, I took all general education courses – humanities, history, economics, and psychology. I eliminated, three of them, so my second semester I took sociology, political science, fine arts, and another psychology course. For four semesters, I took three courses and a psychology course, until we were required to declare a major, and I declared psychology. So essentially I chose my major through process of elimination.
 
Close to graduation, I decided that I wanted a job in market research, where I could use my research and psychology skills. I spent 2 ½ months the summer after I graduated traveling back and forth to the Brandeis Career Services Center to print my resume and cover letters on fancy paper and apply for market research and marketing jobs. And as time went on, a bunch of other jobs. One of those jobs was as an administrative assistant on a research project at Simmons College School of Social Work. The PI called me to say that the project would soon have a research assistant position available, and that my record seemed more suited for such a position. And so I began a two-year position as a research assistant on a project studying adolescent mental health. My initial reasoning was that I would use the research skills I gained in the job to then be more marketable for market research positions.
 
I really can’t think of a turning point during that first year, but I enjoyed the position, and at some point decided that I wanted to continue in psych research and eventually become a professor. I knew I didn’t want to be a clinician, even though some of the topics that interested me often overlapped with clinical psych faculty’s research programs. So I decided to apply to developmental and social psych programs. I guess that’s the closest I’ve had to a turning point. I actually had trouble writing my grad school application statement because it felt as though there should be a description of a turning point, and I really didn’t have one. I applied to 13 programs, was admitted to five, relatively easily narrowed it down to two, and ended up choosing UCLA over Virginia based on several small factors, mostly from ruling out some things about Virginia.
 
In grad school I had some interest in parent-adolescent relationships, and ended up working with Marian Sigman on a project on parent-child conversations about emotionally charged topics, including sexuality. That’s essentially how I ended up having a career studying sexuality during adolescence and the transition to adulthood – because my interest in parent-adolescent relationships led me to a project that included communication about sex.
 
My large, pre-tenure NIH-funded study on gender roles and sexual behavior? Early in my faculty career, NIH had an RFA on Gender and HIV Risk and I thought, I could pull together a proposal on that. I did, with help of awesome collaborators and students, and it was funded on the first try. My move to UConn and position as department head? Someone emailed me and asked me to apply, and… I did. And here I am. There was (I assure you) no lifelong dream to become a chair or move up the administrative ladder.
 
It is not only my career that has led to serendipity in my life. Take my bridesmaids, given that bridesmaids often represent our closest friends from all periods of life (if, like me, you get married after 30). In addition to my sisters (serendipity in the extreme?), I met my best friend in college because she moved to my dorm floor the second week of classes; we met in the bathroom when I was watering some birthday flowers. I met my best friend in grad school (and long term conference buddy) because we worked in the same lab. And I met my best friend as a faculty member at Penn State at an event scheduled by the New Faculty Club in my first months there, where the youngest people in the room found each other. In fact, many people I met that night continue to be my close friends, even though I have moved away. And, I met my husband when, during my first year as faculty, he interviewed for a position in the same department and a few months later, became my colleague.
 
You may be wondering why I am sharing all of these life details. I am kind of wondering the same thing, honestly. But I think the reason is that a prevailing narrative in our society around career development is to “find what you’re passionate about.” Or, “tell me what inspired you to be a professor” or “when did you know you wanted to be a professor?” (I get asked these latter two frequently by students who are interviewing me as part of a First Year Seminar course requirement). For me, though, there wasn’t a turning point or a lifelong passion. Do I love doing research on adolescent sexuality development? Absolutely. Do I like my job as HDFS department head at UConn? More days than not. Do I think I have the most amazing friends? Can’t imagine life without them. Am I passionate about many of the things in my life? Definitely. But my journey to this point was often serendipitous, and I want others to know that there is nothing wrong with that.
 
“Career serendipity first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on November 27, 2018.”
3 Comments
Kayley Davis link
11/27/2018 12:08:44 pm

Dr. Lefkowitz,

Let me start by saying that I am a huge fan of you and your scholarship. I've cited you in my thesis and another manuscript I'm working on. Also, Dr. Amy Rauer is on my committee - I think you are friends. :)

Thank you so much for this blog entry. I get your emails, and all of your blogs are so helpful, but this one particularly so. This is something I have struggled with. I did undergraduate research with Dr. Spencer Olmstead (perhaps you know him too?), and when I was unsure about my future, he encouraged me to apply to grad school. Here I am now, with a Master's, pursuing a PhD. Once in school, I thought, "I don't know what I WANT to do for my career. I don't have a dream job." And I still don't. I think the idea of a "dream job" can be a toxic one, for some people. I think there's an idea that we should all be doing something we are always, 100% ecstatic about doing. Which is unrealistic. I think, if you have a good job, and you enjoy it 51% of the time, it's good. Anyway, I am now pursuing a career in academia, because I've come to love (sexuality) research. All to say, thank you for this entry. It's very meaningful to me.

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Claire Kamp Dush link
11/27/2018 01:43:58 pm

Hi Eva,
I have been loving your posts this semester! I wanted to make a comment on this one. I am concerned that there is an element of luck to your description of your incredible accomplishments. This makes me think of imposter syndrome. It is so important for incredibly successful women such as yourself to communicate your accomplishments as based on your skills, not luck. I have given a few talks about imposter syndrome/self-promotion this semester, and I used this article https://www.fastcompany.com/40421352/the-five-types-of-impostor-syndrome-and-how-to-beat-them . Ironically, it starts with this quote: “Many high achievers share a dirty little secret: Deep down they feel like complete frauds–their accomplishments the result of serendipitous luck.”

I used to tell a similar story about my accomplishments. I was a first gen college student and electrical engineering major at Illinois, and randomly took an HDFS course and they recruited research assistants from the course. I signed up, and decided to change my major. I was randomly assigned to a famous adviser (Joseph Pleck) who helped me figure out grad school. I got into Penn State, and I happened to take a class form another famous professor (Paul Amato) who became my adviser after my initial adviser didn’t get tenure. It went on from there – applied for an NIH K99 that was turned down on a technical glitch so turned it into a K01 that was funded on the first round. . .

Anyway, I tell my story very differently now. I own my own parts of the story. My hard work, my tenacity, etcetera. I now know that I would not write a strong letter of rec for an undergrad, or a grad student, who I did not believe in. My own privilege as a white woman definitely played a part, of course, but I also worked my butt off. And, I want women to own their stories and their accomplishments, because mediocre white men do it all the time, and why should they be the ones getting all the accolades? I make this comment because I am worried about women all over the world, and I want to make sure that we as women push against our gender socialization and own our accomplishments - and do not feel bad for doing so.

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Eva Lefkowitz link
11/28/2018 07:36:18 am

I have so much to respond to this that it may require a new post. But as a brief start...

I'm really glad you shared this perspective because it's not at all how I think of myself but it's now clear that someone could interpret my post that way, and I wouldn't want people to think I attribute my successes to luck (though definitely in part to privilege) or that I have imposter syndrome. And I wouldn't want to model that for others.

I see a clear distinction between serendipity and luck. And so for me, by serendipity, I mean ending up down one path vs. another (e.g., I could have ended up an English major, a close contender for me; or I could have ended up at at UVA instead of UCLA). There's no way to say this without sounding braggy (and because, in part, that's your point, I'll go ahead and say it), but I don't think of myself as not being successful if I ended up down a different path - I believe I would have ended up with a successful - but different - career if I was an English major; a successful - but different - developmental faculty position and line of research if I went to UVA rather than UCLA. I know a lot of women experience imposter syndrome, but for better or worse, I don't that's every been one of my issues (and here I could make a self-deprecating remark about how I have other issues, not just that one, but I'm trying to resist - though this parenthetical comment does the same thing and I can't quite allow myself to erase it!).

Thank you again for raising this issue, because it was not at all my intention.

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    Eva S. Lefkowitz

    I write about professional development issues (in HDFS and other areas), and occasionally sexuality research or other work-related topics. 

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