STEM work with partner in fellowship

[mcsmitheslc]

I am so glad I discovered this place. And this topic too. I have my intro post talking about me and my partner (and maybe advice appreciated if you can do that).

I am in automation engineering and early in that career. My partner is in their second year of pathology residency. They will have two one-year fellowships after this. IF you are in STEM, you of course know that it's not easy to have to move around with jobs like ours. How did/do you plan for things like this before they come up? I want to be a good partner and support him, but my career matters too. And of course being a female in my field can sometimes make things even more challenging as people think someone in their late 20s/early 30s thinks about family planning when what they don't realize is that I want to just have my partner and career as my main two goals right now. People are starting their families later in life, so maybe perspectives are changing, but I do know that it still is in mind for employers.

What are you guys doing that works and how did you plan?

[alotofyarn]

Finding jobs for me is both hard and easy - it's hard if I want to stay in academia and work with colleagues in a similar field, because there are a limited number of people who do that at a handful of universities and medical centers. In a way it's easy though, because my field is in high demand, so should I choose to leave academia, I have a ton of options. When my husband was applying to med school, I was in grad school, and we tried to limit it to places where I knew I'd find a job afterward. He ended up getting accepted to two places, and we chose the one where we thought we'd be happiest overall, which included the location with better career opportunities for me. He's now a PGY2 in urology, so it was a super competitive match, and we had to apply more broadly. Again, we tried to focus on places where we knew I could probably get a job, but we included places where it was going to be a little bit of a stretch too. I did some interviews at his top choicse before match. We were a bit surprised by the match results, and I had to scramble myself and try to make something work. I ended up getting a faculty appointment, although it's not in a completely related department, and I have to find my own colleagues and build some of my own relationships. It helped that I have almost all of my salary externally funded, so it was easier for me to find a tenure track appointment than it is for most junior faculty. We've got 3.5 more years here, and I don't know what's after that. He may consider a fellowship, or he may go straight into practice somewhere. We have ideas about where we'd like to live in the long term that have the best of location and job opportunities, in our minds, but who knows what things will be like then. For now, I try to just do my best at my job and make sure that when I am back on the market, I'm going to be highly competitive and desirable (i.e., getting lots of publications and grants, and getting good teaching evaluations). It can be challenging having two professionals (plus we have a kid now, which makes things even more fun), but it's totally doable - so far!

[SoonerTexan]

Actually, I wasn't that worried about finding a job. If we had moved for residency, I was going to ask about telecommuting, but I'm guessing that isn't an option for you. It's easier in IT. But in general, it doesn't seem that hard for people in my field to get jobs in the areas we were looking (south and Midwest).

Interesting about the family planning...I don't really get that vibe at work at all. They've been willing to work with me as I had kids, but it was never something anyone but me brought up.

I'm not a great person to ask about this in general, though. I chose MIS because I liked it, but also because I wanted to do something that allowed me to "get going" (not a lot of extra school/training) quickly and make a good salary while DH was in school because I planned to stay home eventually. It has definitely served that purpose.

[civilspouse]

I am a civil engineer. I don't have much to offer on the job search front but I did want to chime in on the family planning perspective. At the company I worked at when I was pregnant with our second there were three other pregnant women, all but one of the female engineers in the office. The pres of the company joked that they were going to have to stop hiring women. In truth though when we looked at new applicants that was never a factor, it was all based on who was best qualified. They even brought me in shorty after my maternity leave to give me a raise and tell me how much they missed me while I was out. All this to say although it was a worry I had before I had kids, it was all good as long as I proved myself as valuable. Now I stay at home though .


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[Howfunitis]

Finding a job for me is somewhat hard especially because I'm in a rural area. I'm a pastry chef by trade but with a little one, I can't afford to go to work with the crazy hours they sometimes have. So, I have decided to stay home and support his career. We made the decided to have children because of his age and beig together for 10 years "it was about time!" Is what we heard from most of our family members and friends. Once he graduates then I reevaluate where I want to go from there.


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