How to Make the Tough Career Decisions

How to Make the Tough Career Decisions

Know when it’s time to choose a different path, whether pursuing a new opportunity or making a career pivot.
By Candace Y.A. Montague and Melanie Padgett Powers

Karen Edelblum, PhD, was not unhappy at Rutgers University. But after seven years as an assistant professor running her first independent lab, she started to reflect on her career: What would the next phase look like How had her interests and research changed? 

As a researcher of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Edelblum realized she missed working in centers that were gastrointestinal (GI) focused, like she had as a trainee. Now, she was based in a center for immunity and inflammation. She thought she might be ready for a change—and she wanted to get back to doing mostly research.

As Edelblum applied for tenure at Rutgers, she also reached out to her network and learned there was a dream position researching Crohn's disease at Mount Sinai in New York City. Crohn’s disease, a type of IBD, was first described in 1932 at Mount Sinai, and the institution remains at the forefront of Crohn’s disease research and treatment.

“A month and a half later, I interviewed,” Edelblum says, “and then four months after that I had an offer. It was not the normal academic interview process, but that was entirely because I had built relationships in the field.” In March 2023, Edelblum—and her entire lab team—moved to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. As part of her package, she was promoted to associate professor. She applied for and received tenure after arriving. 

Should I Stay or Should I Go? 

Deciding to pursue a new opportunity, whether it is changing universities, adding or subtracting teaching and administrative duties, or leaving academia, is a major step in your career journey. It can be daunting to consider such big decisions, and fear can hold us back from making a change. But it’s important to recognize the signs that a change might be what you need and to know how to reflect on your options. Sometimes, Edelblum says, it comes down to a simple question: “Am I happy?”

To consider whether it’s time to move on, first figure out what you can and can’t control, says Cassie M. Briggs, PhD, a certified professional STEM career coach and CEO of Success in Science Career Coaching. “If the things outside of your control are negatively affecting you, that’s when you need to start having conversations with others, such as [a mentor] or colleagues, about how this can be remedied. What other positions are out there?” she says. 

Briggs says it’s a little like diagnosing an illness and then finding the right treatment for it. “This is about the diagnosis. You have to figure out what’s wrong before you can decide what to do.” 

As a university biology professor before becoming a career coach, Briggs knows what a pivot feels like. She discovered a passion for supporting students in their career aspirations during office hours. So, in 2020, she resigned from her university position and went into the STEM-tailored career coaching business full-time. 

Personal Considerations

Having the flexibility to pursue passions while maintaining meaningful connections with family and friends has become essential to employees in many industries. A 2018 Pew Research Center study revealed that 71% of men and 76% of women in STEM careers say being able to balance work and family is important to them in choosing a job. 

“I was so nervous about making that change. I’d trained to be an academic my whole life. Was I making a mistake?”

Lisa Ganser, PhD

Family life was something Alexander Staruschenko, PhD, FAPS, considered when he was ready to move on from his research role at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW). Over 14 years, he had “grown up” at the college, moving from assistant to associate to full professor, then eminent scholar, which is the equivalent of an endowed chair. He felt he had achieved all he could at MCW. 

In 2021, Staruschenko was offered a position at the University of South Florida (USF). He appreciated USF’s commitment to building a high-profile research program and saw how he could continue growing his research and his career. But he and his wife had their kids to consider.

At the time, their son was 15 and daughter, 10. Their son had just started high school, and the couple didn’t want to disrupt either child’s high school experience, so it was time to make a move or wait several years. Now, at USF, Staruschenko is a professor in the College of Medicine’s Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology Department and director of the Hypertension and Kidney Research Center.

Embracing the Curveballs

Sometimes a career move is about more than finding a new position. Maybe you are feeling unfilled in the arena you studied so long to get to and need to pivot. Reflect on what you love—and don’t—about your career and how you can lean into new passions. Sometimes opportunities can pop up when you’re not even looking. 

Growing up in Puerto Rico, Katya Melnik-Martinez, PhD, was always fascinated by the wonders of the environment. After earning a PhD in neuroscience at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Melnik-Martinez moved back to Puerto Rico and landed a research position at Universidad Central del Caribe. She worked on a project involving microscopic worms. “I had a really nice project going. I really liked it,” she says. But when the one-year grant was not renewed, Melnik-Martinez lost her position. That’s when she decided she didn’t want to deal with the ups and downs of seeking grant funding anymore. She had come to love teaching, so after reflecting on her options, she decided to become a science teacher.

Melnik-Martinez and her family moved to Maryland, where she is now a high school biology teacher. “I’m glad I went in a different direction,” she says. “I absolutely love what I do.”

Integrative physiologist Jason Carter, PhD, certainly never expected the trajectory his career took—into administration. Carter is the dean of the Robbins College of Health and Human Sciences at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

After earning his bachelor’s and doctorate at Michigan Technological University, Carter began adjunct teaching for the biology department. He advocated for Michigan Tech to launch a kinesiology department, an idea leadership supported. As Carter began to help launch the program, the plan included him becoming the first tenure-track assistant professor of the new department. Then, the chair of the new department died suddenly, thrusting Carter into the role. While that’s not a route anyone would choose, he says, “you have to follow the pathways that are opened up for you.”

It turned out that Carter enjoyed the administrative aspects of the role, as long as he could continue to do research. “I found a knack for it,” he says. “It wasn’t something I sought out. It was something that presented itself, and I was just trying to do the very best job I possibly could with my research, teaching and building a good program.”

As a dean, “I love helping people get innovative and navigate the complex landscape that is higher education.”

Jason Carter, PhD

The new kinesiology department found success and built up its research quickly. After taking on an associate dean role to help grow research across the College of Sciences and Arts, Carter was asked to do the same thing at the university level as associate vice president for research development. 

After spending his entire career at Michigan Tech, Carter decided to move on to become vice president for research at Montana State University in Bozeman. Three years later, he was offered the dean position at Baylor, where he works directly with faculty across six departments. “I love helping people get innovative and navigate the complex landscape that is higher education at an R1 university,” he says. 

Carter says not only is it important to know what you want out of a career, but to be patient for the right position to come along. “It’s super easy to chase a lot of positions because there are a lot out there for good STEM faculty.” But, he says, “People can jump on too many opportunities. It’s important to know what you want and where you want to be.”

Staruschenko stresses that the decision to stay or go is very individualized. There are benefits to both changing positions and to staying in one place your entire career, he says. When he was younger, well-established physiologists told him, “You need to make a big move every 10 years in your career.” He disagrees: “That might be a good timeline and work for some people, but that doesn’t mean that it works for others.”

Sue Bodine, PhD, FAPS, a professor at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF), has made three big moves in her physiology career—in one sense all three were lateral moves, as she was already a full professor. But she could see that each change afforded her new opportunities in her research. Bodine is a neuromuscular physiologist studying the regulation of skeletal muscle mass and the mechanisms underlying muscle atrophy.

Her move from an undergraduate department at University of California, Davis to the School of Medicine and a clinical department at the University of Iowa allowed her to decrease her teaching load. She then left Iowa for Oklahoma because her research leaned more into aging, and OMRF and the University of Oklahoma Medical School had programs that allowed her to do more translational research. 

Facing Burnout

Sometimes when you ask yourself that simple question “Am I happy?” the answer is “no.” Comparative physiologist Lisa Ganser, PhD, was once quite content with her position as an assistant professor at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. She relished her rich conversations and research projects with students. But the struggle to continually obtain grant funding, the ballooning class sizes after a merger with Southern Polytechnic State University, and the lack of opportunities for women of color took its toll on her mental health. 

“I could tell that my anxiety was coming to a head after the merger when it would take all my effort to get ready for class or to take care of the lab animals or be present for both research and course students,” she says. 

When the opportunity came for Ganser to work as a health scientist at a government agency, she jumped on it. “I was so nervous about making that change,” she says. “I’d trained to be an academic my whole life. Was I making a mistake? Because there’s no coming back from not being in the research lab for a year or so. The job and atmosphere were so different, but I eventually found my cadence.”

Karla Haack, PhD, can relate to the weight of academia. After earning her doctorate in cell physiology (applied biology), she spent five years in postdoctoral studies working in autonomic and cardiovascular physiology. She took time off to have her first child and reentered the workforce as a university lecturer. She loved teaching, but she was burnt out from the demands of academia. Because she had a passion for writing, she decided to leverage that talent.

“I was always helping write everyone’s papers; I was the person that was always helping to put together everyone’s posters,” she says. “That was the part of the work I really enjoyed. I liked problem-solving.”

Haack entered a medical writing training program at Merck, where she's now an associate medical writer. “I love my job! It keeps me on my toes. It’s an interesting way to use one’s science background,” she says. 

There are many factors and questions to ask yourself when you decide it might be time to move on—it’s a personal and individualized process. Reflect on your happiness, whether your values and goals are aligned with your position, and what lights you up every day. 

“There are many reasons why somebody wants to move,” Bodine says, “but weigh the positives and the negatives, the cost-benefit analysis, of what that move is going to bring you.”

This article was originally published in the May 2024 issue of The Physiologist Magazine. Copyright © 2024 by the American Physiological Society. Send questions or comments to tphysmag@physiology.org.