Any Mama PhDs around?

RachelandEduardo

Looking for some advice on work/life balance from Mama's in Academia...

I am in my first year of a Postdoc. I am Co-I on 2 studies, PI on a newly funded study and have one study under review (If its awarded I would be the PI). Both the studies I am PI on are smaller.  I have no shortage of things to do and I am working on publishing a ton as I plan to go on the jobmarket for Assist.Prof positions at Research 1 Universities next year. I will also be co-teaching a course an Online course in the spring (I TA'd the class for 3 years as a grad student so I don't expect that it will be a ton of work).

My question, I was just offered the opportunity to teach a graduate level intro to research methods course in the Spring  (in person). I don't want to overload myself and not have time for my husband and daugher (17 months) but I could also use the experience of teaching my own course and could definitely use the money (post doc salaries suck!)

Any thoughts from those of you more experienced in the wonderful world of academia?

shannm

Not sure what kind of research your talking about. Are you in the field, at a bench, dependent on other's schedules? Your description could mean a thousand things in terms of time commitment so you will need to actually sketch out the time it will take you to accomplish the necessary things and see if you can make room.

If you think that it would help you apply for jobs, then make the time for it.

2chatter

Go with your instincts - I took on a FT job with a 40-60 hour a week commitment 100 pages into my dissertation...and am now and forever shall be ABD.  I thought the work might be too much, but I didn't have too much of a choice.  If you can make it without the money, make the decision based on your workload and the experience you need.

RachelandEduardo

Thanks ladies. I'm in social sciences (health services research and policy) so no lab hours to work around. As long as I have a computer, I can essentially work anywhere.

litzo27

I'm 4 years into Assistant professor position now but in a business field so I don't know that' much about your field. I would recommend to base your decision solely on whether or not this will help or hurt in terms of getting an academic position you want. In my field as PP said teaching experience is discounted (as long as you have some TA experience) so spending this time on research to get a a couple of more things into the pipeline would be a better choice.