Career Profile: Paul Hoskin
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University of Calgary
The University of Calgary is a public research university.
Paul Hoskin
is one of the leaders of the 2007 Preparing for an Academic Career in the Geosciences Workshop. Prior to the workshop, we asked each of the leaders to describe their careers, for the benefit of workshop participants, by answering the questions below.
Click on a topic to read Paul Hoskin's answer to an individual question, or scroll down to read the entire profile: Educational background and career path * Current job responsibilities * Best part of the job * Challenges and strategies * Qualifications * Balancing work and life * Advice
Briefly describe your educational background and career path.
My career path has been sinuous. After my honors degree in New Zealand, I did a Ph.D. at the Australian National University. I returned to New Zealand to train in education and held a non-paid Research Associate position at a university for two years. With both my Ph.D. and education degree in-hand, I did a postdoc at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, before my first Assistant Professorship at the University of Freiburg, Germany. After gaining promotion in Germany (= habilitation), I took a position at a regional comprehensive school in the USA, Central Washington University. That school is a masters-only institution. I am now an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Solid Earth Geochemistry at the University of Calgary, Alberta. This is a research-with-teaching position.
Briefly describe your current job responsibilities, perhaps by describing a typical day, week, or semester.
I teach, run a lab, and serve on committees. Outside of my institution, I am on the editorial board of several journals and have many manuscripts coming in and out across my desk. There are graduate students to interact with too and undergraduate research students from time-to-time. I am always planning for the next field season or conference. Several times a week I spend several hours browsing new journal issues and "playing around" with electronic databases such as Web of Science, GeoRef, and Chem Abstracts. Weekly, I add to my "ideas" files where I dump and record ideas for research projects and grant proposals. Informal networking is important too and I regularly make time to share coffee or tea with a student or colleague.
What do you like best about your work?
The large variety of responsibilities and tasks and the fact that I am my own boss. It's a luxury to be able to follow my interests in research.
What is the most challenging aspect of your work? What strategies have you developed for tackling that challenge?
Work never ends and there is always more work to do...and it's always urgent. Academic life is not for the faint hearted or for those who want to work regular hours. I could work 20 hours a day for seven days a week and still never be finished. It's easy to feel overwhelmed and live with a sense of under-achievement...and perhaps failure. This is how I deal with it: I am totally organized. I have to-do-lists that I live by. I set goals and I stick to them. I manage my time. I acknowledge that I can't do everything as well as I would like, so I make deliberate decisions about what tasks will get the best of my efforts and time. This prioritization changes weekly.
What qualifications do you think made you competitive in your job search(es)?
A record of research publication is important, but what made the difference for me getting a job in the American market as a non-American and as a scientist trained outside of America was my formal training in education. I have a Graduate Diploma in Teaching & Learning. This dual science and education training made me different, in a positive way, compared to other people applying for the same jobs. Not everyone can take time to be formally trained in education, but most institutions offer graduate students, postdocs, and faculty the opportunity to take courses in teaching and education. A record of involvement in such courses may make the difference between you being on an interview list or not.
Many of the graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in these workshops are interested in balancing a family and career, in dual career couple issues, and in how other personal choices affect the search for a fulfilling career. Please share information about your situation, your ideas and experiences.
I suggest that the most successful people are those who don't just let life happen to them, but have life goals and a life plan and work in-line with those. And success is not just measured by the length of your publication list and the amount of grant money that you have been awarded. Success is also measured in other ways such as by how happy your children are, should you decide to have a family. Are you successful in maintaining those things that keep you happy and healthy as a person... for example, an exercise regime, a spiritual life, etc. I have a large and young family and more-and-more my children require greater time and emotional input. This puts pressure on me as I'm still trying to establish myself in my job. The pressures of balancing family and work demands are very real and in the here-and-now. Minimizing the strain and maximizing the chance of success requires decision making at two levels: (1) Early on: what kind of family and/or personal life do you want and at what kind of institution do you want to work? Are these things going to be compatible? (2) Weekly: make deliberate and informed plans about how you will organize your time and spend your energy. Stick to the plan.
What advice do you have for graduate students or post-docs preparing for academic careers in geoscience? What do you know now that you wish you had known as you started your career?
Never stop learning. You have to be "book smart" and "street smart". I suggest that academia is one of the hardest jobs to be successful at because there are so many things that you have to be good at and you have to be good from the get-go. The most important piece of advice I can offer is to know your own self. Be honest about what motivates you, be clear about where you want to be in the future and about how you can get there, know your strengths and play to those, and know where you stand relative to those around you, and know "the system".... the expectations on you and opportunities available to you.
