What up with your job?: Stephanie Levi Issue #23

By Amy Schroeder
Published: March 1st, 2005 | 12:17pm

Age: 28
City: Chicago
Occupation: Ph.D. candidate, molecular genetics and cell biology at the University of Chicago

When you were in high school, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I went to high school at Hillel Academy in Dayton, Ohio. I loved science and writing in high school and knew that those might be directions I wanted to head in. Science had been my strength since I was a little girl.

What was your college experience like?
I graduated Kenyon College in 1998 with a biology major and took enough coursework to fulfill what would have been a minor in studio art. … I was the first person in my family to go to college, I paid for it myself, and I worked my ass off. I feel like I really had a full experience. Growing up, I didn’t think I was smart enough to go to college, and once I realized I could go, I had no idea how I was going to pay for it, but I did. It shaped me as a person and showed me that I could get things done on my own, and it has put me on a path that has brought me great fulfillment.

Do you have debt from college?
I made it out with a very small amount of college loans, no credit-card debt — the rest was scholarships and grants.

While in college, what were your career goals?
I had wanted to go to med school for a while to become a general practitioner specializing in women’s health. My first year in college, I was introduced to research in a lab. … I actually had started applying to med school and, after writing my admission essay, I realized that all I was talking about was research. I really wasn’t writing anything about patient care or a desire to help people as a physician. I’ve been doing research ever since.

Did you do any internships?
I did research for two summers in college, after my second and third years. I was paid a stipend of $2,500 or so for the summer, and we lived on campus and worked at the lab. I also had a great experience after college that taught me how much I love to teach science and talk about it to non-scientific audiences. I would talk at a local girls’ high school science class about what I was doing, and I’d answer their questions. The students were really responsive, and I loved it. One of the girls asked me for help with a project for her science fair, and we worked together in the lab with a project I thought up. She wound up taking home about $50,000 in scholarship winnings and is now applying to Ph.D. programs in virology. This showed me my capability as a mentor and changed the course of my path. I have yet to see a cut of her winnings — just kidding.

When did you start the graduate program at University of Chicago, and how long will it take you to complete?
I started the graduate program in 2001, and it should take about six years to complete my PhD, including the master's.

How will your graduate work affect your career post-graduation?
It is central to what will happen to my career. I needed this degree to move forward in a way that I couldn’t with just a B.A. I’m planning on going into scientific writing, which can be done without a Ph.D., but the training gives you a scientific understanding that may be difficult to develop without the Ph.D. training. I have a few years left before completing my degree, and my focus may shift to another area, but going through this graduate work will inform whatever I decide to do by developing discipline and scientific rigor.

With a PhD, what other job options will you have?
The most immediate thing that comes to mind is becoming a professor at a research university or liberal arts college. Other options include patent lawyer, research and development at a biotech company, scientific writer, scientific policy, high school teacher, and consulting.

Do you like being a grad student?
It’s a mixed bag. A graduate student’s life is pretty grueling. You really have to be doing this for yourself, and you have to love it because you have days, weeks, months that really can suck your will to live. Experiments won’t work for a long time, you do everything you can, and you still can’t figure it out. You have to be ultra-self-motivated. It can be tough to watch your friends move on with their lives when you’re almost 30 and still in school. That said, I love the day-to-day lab work. I can think ahead in my research in a way I didn't before, and I can see my intellectual gains.

Do you ever think about the notion of dream job?
I think the notion of a dream job is fallacious. Any fantasy job is going to have problems. I joked with my mom at one point when the going was tough that I wanted to quit and become an organic farmer. She said, “Stephanie, there’s bullshit everywhere, and there’d be bullshit there too. Someone would be pissed off that your lettuce wasn’t organic enough.”

What kind of competition do you face in the science world?
It’s quite stiff. Often, you will be working on a scientific problem, and there will be two or three other labs working on the same thing in parallel, and it’s a race to publish your findings before the others. That pressure exists because your ability to get grants is contingent upon your publishing record, and your standing at a university or your ability to get hired at a great biotech company rests upon your publishing record. The situation is compounded by the fact that 90% of the time, things in the lab just don’t work. It has been said that science is 10% good ideas and 90% troubleshooting. You have to be smarter than the next guy, and it can really deplete you at many levels, or it can really drive you and inspire you.