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committing to years of unappreciated, underpaid eighty-hour workweeks
impoverished. “I just need to pour this reagent down the drain,”
“Because you are crying. In my bathroom.”
And Olive was sure that he was a Ph.D. student—the haughty, condescending tone
In the grim, dark hellscape of academia, graduate students were the lowliest of creatures and therefore had to convince themselves that they were the best.
“How long have you been here?” “Here?” A pause. “Six years. Give or take.” “Oh. Are you graduating soon, then?”
Everything about him must be huge. Height, fingers, voice.
“What if I’m not good enough?” she blurted
“Why do you want to do it?” Uh? “Do . . . what?” “Get a Ph.D. What’s your reason?” Olive cleared her throat.
want to sharpen my research abilities—” “Is it because you don’t know what else to do?” “No.” “Because you didn’t get an industry position?” “No—I didn’t even apply for industry.”
“You won’t have much freedom in academia.” His voice was closer, like he hadn’t stepped back yet. “You’ll have to fund your work through ludicrously competitive research grants. You’d make better money in a nine-to-five job that actually allows you to entertain the concept of weekends.”
clearly.” He sighed. “Here’s the deal: I have no idea if you’re good enough, but that’s not what you should be asking yourself.
Olive was twenty-three and alone in the world. She didn’t want weekends, or a decent salary. She wanted to go back in time. She wanted to be less lonely. But since that was impossible, she’d settle for fixing what she could.
above the graduate student level (Olive’s level, sadly) required some degree of assness in order to be held for any length of time, with tenured faculty at the very peak of the ass pyramid.
Malcolm, had to completely scrap two research projects
Reason?
“kissing a stranger at midnight in a science lab might be a sign that there is.” “There isn’t.”
needed to find a bigger, significantly richer lab to carry out her experiment. Otherwise, what could very well become a groundbreaking, clinically relevant study might end up languishing on a handful of petri dishes stacked in the crisper drawer of her fridge.
mentally writing an impassioned speech on how she was willing to use his facilities only at night and limit her oxygen consumption to less than five breaths per minute.
She was the only woman in the room, virtually alone in a sea of white men who
That time a physics professor asked her if she was in the wrong class on the first day of the semester. The fact that despite her grades and research experience, even her academic adviser had seemed skeptical when she’d decided to pursue STEM higher education.
I make less than thirty thousand dollars a year. My rent takes up two-thirds of my salary. I’ve been wearing the same pair of contacts since May, and I go to every seminar that provides refreshments to save on meals,
beautiful and smart and funny
Olive.” A seventh-year who
her lab mates had stopped cutting in front of her in the line for the microscope, and two different faculty members Olive had been trying to get ahold of for weeks had finally deigned to answer her emails.
unimaginable to most grads, like cooking real food!
growling at her cheap, knockoff reagents for not dissolving, then not precipitating, then not sonicating,
“but about you still being a grad student. And your yearly income.” For a moment she hesitated, wondering if she should be offended. Was Adam being his well-known ass self? Was he patronizing her? Did he think she was poor?
$21.39 without batting an eye. While they were waiting
Anh would marry her. In hindsight, this entire fake-dating business with Adam was going to be great practice for when Olive leveled up and started defrauding the Department of Homeland Security in earnest.
was in the nastiest of moods. That rumor of him throwing a petri dish against a wall because his experiment hadn’t worked out, or because the electron microscope needed repairs, or because something equally inconsequential had happened came to mind. She considered ducking under the table.
pipettes, which meant that she didn’t have to stuff them in her
backpack and take them home for the weekend anymore.
who had always been supportive and encouraging. Since the very beginning she had given Olive the freedom to develop her own research program, which was almost unheard of for Ph.D. students. Having a hands-off mentor was great when it came to pursuing her interests,
“If Aslan’s retiring soon, she’s not applying for grants anymore—understandable, since she won’t be around long enough to see the projects through—which means that your lab is not exactly flush with cash right
“Most third-year Ph.D. students are too busy infighting over the centrifuge to come up with their own line of research.
“One more thing. The talk he mentioned, the one he’s giving tomorrow?” “The one you ‘can’t wait’ for?” Olive bit the inside of her cheek. “Yes. When and where is it going to be?” Adam laughed silently just as Tom sat down again. “Don’t worry. I’ll email you the details.”
Arial (11 point), no justification.
that was so often directed at women in STEM. Unfortunately she had still found herself in an all-male lab, which was . . . a less-than-ideal environment.
My job is to form rigorous researchers who won’t publish useless or harmful crap that will set back our field.
the other day—though she’d been trying to suppress that particular
the Ultimate Frisbee group—fourteen men and zero women. It probably had to do with the general excess of testosterone in STEM programs.
“At least I’ve never ordered something called a unicorn Frappuccino.” “That was so good. It tasted like the rainbow.” “Like sugar and food coloring?”
probably inappropriate—and then went for it anyway. “How old are you?” “Thirty-four.” “Oh. Wow.” She’d thought younger. Or older, maybe. She’d thought he existed in an ageless dimension. It was so weird to hear a number. To have a year of birth, almost a whole decade before hers. “I’m twenty-six.”
He’d said that academia was a lot of bucks for little bang, and that one needed a good reason to stick around. Olive wondered where he was now.
Academia’s a lot of bucks for very little bang. What matters is whether your reason to be in academia is good enough. Suddenly, something clicked in her brain. The deep voice. The blurry dark hair. The crisp, precise way of talking. Could The Guy in the bathroom and Adam be . . . No. Impossible. The Guy was a student—though, had he explicitly said so? No. No, what he’d said was This is my lab’s bathroom and that he’d been there for six years, and he hadn’t answered when she’d asked about his dissertation timeline, and— Impossible. Improbable. Inconceivable. Just like everything else about Adam
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“We’re out of the small size.” Anh stepped inside, rolling her eyes. “Honestly, they never buy enough because I’m the only woman in the
Graduate students were rarely selected for oral presentations.
And out of all the speakers’ names, hers was the only one not followed by any letters.
“Dr. Aslan, my SBD abstract was accepted as a talk. Not as a poster, a talk. Out loud. On a panel. Standing. In front of people.”
“This is fantastic. A talk will give you much more visibility than a poster. You might be able to network for a postdoctoral position. I am so, so happy for you.” Olive’s jaw dropped. “But . . .” “But?” “I cannot give a talk. I can’t talk.” “You’re talking right now, Olive.” “Not in front of people.” “I am people.” “You’re not many people. Dr. Aslan, I can’t talk in front of a lot of people. Not about science.”
