Post
Dan Quintana
@dsquintana.bsky.social
What's the moment of luck that's had the biggest impact for your academic career? For me, it was how I wouldn't have gotten a PhD fellowship if it wasn't for the 1st-ranked person declining, which meant that I was awarded the fellowship as 2nd-ranked applicant. That was my last shot at a PhD.
December 12, 2024 at 11:01 PM
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I've been asked to run a career workshop locally, so it would be nice to have more examples of how luck plays a big role in academia
It is pretty hard to untangle luck and privilege, but most people don't even try and pretend that both are merit.
In a car with my old PhD advisor when we, by complete chance, passed Hugo Critchley on a bicycle. My old supervisor flagged him down to introduce us. I think he only agreed to meet with me to end the awkward conversation in the middle of the road. Ended up getting a job with him & it changed my life
So many, but current position probably takes the cake. Only interview for a prof position after about 40 applications. Didn’t hear back; figured there was little chance and moved to industry. 1.5 years later (Germany) I get an email “are you still interested in the position?”. I was.
“Luck” because I later found out that it took three other people turning the offer down for them to come to me. (Hence why it took so long)
Left school at sixteen. Joined a cult. When I was 27, one of the cult leaders insinuated that I wouldn't be able to get a degree part-time from scratch, so I did a degree just to prove that I could.
Spite degrees are the best degrees. (Half the reason I went to grad school was all the people telling me it would be really hard and I shouldn't do it.)
I finally got the courage to email Mahzarin Banaji in January that I had applied to the Yale graduate program to work with her. I mentioned my background in computer science. I didn't know that my application was already rejected, in part because my recommendation letters were missing.
Mahzarin had been looking for people with technical background. She looked back at my application, called me to get the letters in immediately (my profs FAXED them), and she went door-to-door to the faculty to rerank the list for admissions. If I had emailed day later, I would not have gotten in.
I was home, having recently graduated. She called the house, my mom got the message and called my dad at his office at UC Davis. I was sitting in on a stats class there and when I walked out of class he was standing there saying "Prof Banaji just called from Yale." The rest was a blur.
Mine was applying for a post-doc with the internationally renowned leader of my field. I figured that I might as well get rejected from the best. I wasn’t.
I heard an ad on the radio for a coding bootcamp while I was stuck in an academic job I hated. It was the spark I needed to leave academia and start a new career that I still love almost a decade later.
As a PDF I met a guy -Laurence Harris- on a beach in Maui. He told me about a York faculty search that was about to fail. I applied as soon as I got home and got it. 30 yrs later, still happy here.
Here's another kind of luck: at SFN 2001, I had to go back to my hotel to rest a sore back. Later, standing at the hotel shuttle stop, a young woman asked how long I'd been waiting. We've been Married 21 years.
Idly flipping through the pages of an anthology on early Christianity and seeing a passage that suddenly made sense out of something that resulted in my most cited publication.
Got a chance for a post doc after the departments top-rank candidate turned down the appointment. 31 years later I retired from the institution as its Provost…
I’ve met the person who declined the grad student slot so I could be admitted. The third time I thanked them, they started getting a little uncomfortable 🥴
Hitched a ride with a colleague who told that the charity foundation he was in was looking to spend their remaining funds on one final big project. This became the Generations2-longitudinal cohort study that still runs after 16 years
One of my parents died and I had to give it up. Luck runs both ways.
I was introduced to a psychology lecturer who asked could I code and was I interested in “neuroscience”. I said yes and he got me a two month postdoc in the max Planck which was great as there were no jobs in Ireland. It then became a 3 and a half year postdoc where I moved from maths to neuro.
I got a PhD by accident. My boyfriend got a job in rural Massachusetts. I didn't want to live there, and planned to work as a lab tech until I figured out somewhere better to go.
One PI wanted to pay a grad stipend rather than a tech salary. So I applied, wound up loving it, stayed for a postdoc.
When a random stranger chose Columbia over Cambridge, freeing up their scholarship for me. It allowed me to take up my MPhil place, leading to a PhD and, ultimately, an academic career.
Also, Nottingham rejecting my application a year earlier meant I was free to accept the Cambridge offer 😅
Also curious about the inverse: what have we done as academics that someone would consider *their* moment of luck?
I was hiring for a postdoc and had 2 great candidates. Offered the job to person 1 who was a better fit on paper but he turned it down. Person 2 took the job and took my research in new directions and we still collaborate many years on.
I was gung-ho to sign up for university sciences when a friend of my parents mentioned engineering. Said “You can always drop from engineering to sciences, but you can’t move from science to engineering.” Got into engineering and never looked back!
I spoke to an undergrad lecturer after a stats course and asked how I could learn more. She helped me get a funded place on a masters. Then a lecturer's boyfriend offered me an RA job. Without either of those I would never have thought I could do science for a living, never have tried for a PhD.
I signed up for a date to take the GRE - then forgot to ask the day off from my call center job.. "Luckily" the day before the test, I had an all-time bad call (justifiably angry customer taking it out on *me*). Went to my supervisor and quit.
*voila*, a PhD.
not.. a lot of luck since, though i have not been expelled entirely from academia yet. so no *bad* luck? or is bad luck just no good luck? idunno. just hanging on to that bottom rung, doing my thing, i guess.
I found my PhD programme on social media (the site we don't mention anymore) by following an unrelated hashtag. I was just lazily scrolling one evening, the open day event was the next afternoon and fortunately a meeting had been cancelled so I was able to attend and learn more about the programme!
I didn't match into residency. I looked for a lab job. When I called the lab boss he asked me to tell him about his research. I could. He was shocked. Hired me on the spot. Later got a great residency & did medicine and basic science for 10 years. Insanely lucky break.
Getting jobs in two universities in succession with a significant number of toxic colleagues and toxic administrators. That had the greatest impact on my academic career. It ended it. So, yes, moments of luck can make a big difference. 😳 It’s not always rainbows and bunnies.
Fascinatingly, my post-academic life has been infinitely more fruitful for theoretical work. Now I have no community of practice in which to communicate it all and my context of practice is primarily non-theoretical and relational. No institutional platform and little interest in one. Such dilemmas!
When applied to PhD, I didn't know the norm so didn't reach out to advisors. When I found out, it was already March (PhD interviews in US in Jan). I reached out to Deci anyway. Surprisingly he called me, said PhD offers have been made but he'd let me know on April 15. I got the offer April 15.
Messed up my A levels and as a result ended up accepting an offer to do philosophy through clearing, not the subject I had originally applied to do, law. I think I would have made quite a good and effective barrister but I became instead an unlikely and slightly weird academic philosopher.
The first job ad I found when I started my search was due in a few days, so I rushed to create all my application materials from scratch. I later applied to ~40 more, from which I got 0 TT and 1 postdoc offer. That first rushed application was the only TT offer I got, where I now have tenure!
Mine was getting a job at a University and then realizing that (1) graduate tuition was free for employees and (2) that my boss was required to give me reasonable time off to attend classes.
That's why I now have a PhD without having had to take a single day off my full time job to get one.
and it got even better when the University Press (which normally would never touch a student dissertation from their own institution) got so excited about mine that they violated their own rules.
A student in my residential treatment classroom had a spectacular meltdown while I had a practicum student present. I went to meet w/the professor & explain. I said, “I wish someone would pay me to go to school forever,” & he arm waved around his office. Began my application for the doc program.
Honestly, that the UK introduced government student loans for doctoral studies when they did. 12 months later on and I probably would have missed everything else lining up the way it did and my academic career (as it was then) would have ended there.
Probably failing to get a postdoctoral fellowship, landing in a human factors lab for a year, and having my entire career (and the faculty position I now hold) happen as a result.
I started university at 26 on a government assisted programme for unemployed to go to university. Doing all kinds of jobs before then. Got competitive scholarships all way through. After 2nd postdoc, resigned I would never secure post, was getting other work. Went for one last job advertisement....
Upon entering ugrad, I was randomly assigned to be advised by Andy van Dam. He taught me why being an academic could be glorious. And when I dropped out of my first PhD program, he tracked me down and intro’d me to who would become my advisor. He’s always had my back.
Every thing that ever happened to me in my academic career from PhD to postdocs, to lectureships has been down to luck.
After I decided I didn’t want to be an academic anymore, I’ve been riding on luck too.
Librarian here and no longer academic, but I randomly sat down at a table at a conference workshop with some folks whose library at a fancier (and more important to me: far more geographically desirable) school would end up hiring me the next year after seeing me present with them.
Had a PhD (philosophy) but wasn’t working in academia. Got bored working as a programmer, so started attending lab meetings at U Maryland at lunch. One of the PIs offered me a post-doc (in AI) because his was taking a faculty job. Everything unfolded from there.
Great you were able to attend these meetings, more labs should be open about having guests!
Most PIs just ignored my emails asking if I could sit in, but a couple were very welcoming. It’s why my lab is very open (and we get a ton of interesting people passing through!)
Was offered PhD funding by Pitt on the last day before we had to sign offer letters
I got 3 offers sequentially. When I turned one down, I didn't know if there was going to be another. I turned A&B down due to lack of fit/uncertain funding. C my preferred option, had rejected me (no $$$). So I thought: Game over. Then an incumbent dropped out and the rejection turned into an offer.
I never planned on going to university. Got a job in a bank, hated it but met my now wife there. She encouraged me to leave and do something I enjoyed. Happened to be in the first cohort of new degree course I took and it meant being first in line for all the subsequent local opportunities too.
Met a German visiting prof while doing my PhD in Italy. He got a job offer from a different Uni, his former ass profs did not follow him and he hired me. I end up in Germany (never thought about it) and my inter career started.
In my case luck= many independent sequences of events that intersect
So many. Biggest was when I was on the job market and got an on campus at the very end of the cycle, like late May. My partner already had a job offer and I was able to leverage the on campus into a spousal hire. Without the on campus, I am pretty sure I’d be out of academia now.
Felt less determinative at the time, but when I was a senior in undergrad I met with my advisor one day and mentioned an interest in grad school (had no clue). He took me next door and introduced me to a visiting speaker who was giving a talk later that day. The speaker later became my PhD advisor.
I applied for a PhD I wasn’t qualified for as practice for the applications I was planning to send out to a number of places next year. Three months, two proposals, and a proposal defense later, I got the only position with full funding. I got in on my first application.
When I arrived at IU I was randomly assigned to TA Geoff Bingham’s History & Systems class because I had had taken one at undergrad and that’s where I got to know him and learn about Gibson and ecological psychology and it all went ‘ping’ in my head. Never looked back
When a truly and deservedly eminent historian, coming through on a visit, asked me to submit the book I was working on to the series he was editing. The rest is (no I won’t say it …)
Oh hands down when original supervisor on phd left university position and general call went to other staff in vague connection to area. Ended up with my actual supervisor. Couldn't have asked for better person
In my second year on tenure track, sort of directionless, I got an invite from a senior scholar to be part of a panel submission based on a not-super-related presentation he'd seen me do at the same conference the previous year. Figuring out how to say yes to that invite set up my next five years.
On my way to a political science degree, I read . Hen kai pan; the one and all; the rest is history.
Being accepted on the Cardiff LLM course in canon law. I did it just for fun (OK: no accounting for taste) and graduated in 2002 at the age of 57. And insofar as I have an academic career, that was the start of it.
Jon Driver agreeing to supervise of my PhD.
Incredible person and I wouldn't have got near academia without him.
I also got into grad school the first time by being 2nd on the waitlist, and no. 1 declined the position when it came open.
But for me, it was when my husband and I decided that 4 years in Amsterdam would be cheaper than 3 in London, so went to the ILLC for our second attempt at grad school.
In retrospect, probably the best decision we ever made in our lives, and I include our decision to get married in that list.
But we had no way of knowing that this calculation would work out so phenomenally well, and that if we had calculated the other way, that we would've ended up in having to leave yet ANOTHER programme as a result of all the logicians leaving.
A job came up by my house - it's the only reason I became an academic, I wouldn't have moved.
Working for APA Science policy after college. Part of my job was to help put on events (sci fairs really) for congress to see importance of Psych science (fund psyc at NIH/NSF/DoD). One member of House appropriations cmte was from Charlottesville, so Denny Proffit (UVA) came to show VR& perception.
To still be employed at the same research institute (now with a PhD) when initially deciding to go all in on a 1 month contact 15 years ago.
I applied for a fixed-term job in the February. I didn’t get an interview. Then I got a frantic email at the end of May saying the person they’d picked had to withdraw, and was I interested in starting (in another country) in five weeks?
Although really it was getting the DECRA. That was a unicorn moment.
My Head of Department came into my office (I was a PhD student) suggesting we nominate me for a big and prestigious travel grant (run by the Danish ministry of science). Each uni could nominate a few candidates, and our department hadn't nominated any. Deadline: The next day...
So I wrote up an application with my supervisors, got put forward as one of my university's candidates, and then got the grant! Which let me spend 8 months at Goldsmiths in the UK. Besides this just being a very intellectually stimulating environment...
It also made me able to apply for an 'international postdoc' (in Denmark), which sent me back to the UK. So, in a way, that one-day deadline really shaped the trajectory of my career.
For me, it was when the supervisor of the lab where I was intern during my under degree years told me to join another team. At the beginning I thought it was bad news. It turned out to be the best news in my academic career, since I moved to photosynthetic organisms, where I have worked all my life.
12 applications.
1 acceptance.
That’s all it takes.
Your CV doesn’t have all the shots you missed, only the ones you made.
A last minute project on executive functions in infancy was advertised while I did my MSc. I was interested in EF but not at all in working with babies. I thought it was the 'least boring' project so chose that one. The rest is history 😊
Another guy didn’t get the grades. The prof said come and have a chat- then introduced me to the sponsors as the new student. When they left he said “if you want it you start Monday”. I started Monday. So did the other guy - as a paid research assistant. We both got PhDs in the end
Feel like most of my early career is just moments of pure luck- not sure that in today's financial climate I'd able to retrace it. Two examples- someone pulled out from a scholarship in Oxford & I was next in line :), went to a meeting in Hawaii (Hawaii!!) & met a future mentor who changed my career
Picked a paper to review in senior seminar that led me directly to my doctoral thesis advisor.
That my (future) husband was a year behind me applying to grad schools. When he was applying I did again also. So I had a fall back option when the first program I joined turned out to be toxic, and I could jump immediately into a different one that fit much better.
Not sure I would have left without another position readily available, but I am pretty sure trying to stick with that first program would have been a bad time.
Also, I got the wrong day for my ALevel German lit exam, found out too late to revise, and to this day it’s the only exam I’ve ever got 100% on because I must have been the only student to attempt “the weird question” which you could do without much revision!
Took my English Language O Level totally drunk and got an A. Not quite the same, but. . .
My PhD and entire resulting career was only made possible because my application sat unread on top of a pile of applications just long enough for me to discover that it had been sabotaged and convince a kind secretary to intercept it before the next morning.
…all the other schools I’d applied to had been prompt in reviewing their applications. This one guy’s procrastination was my salvation.
Applied to do my MPH at Harvard on a fellowship in the days when you still had to send physical transcripts. Duly packed everything up and sent by fedex from Scotland.
Weeks later, whilst on-call in the hospital medical wards, switchboard bleeped me…
Somehow, the package had been delivered to an industrial warehouse outside of Aberdeen. The manager managed to track me down to the hospital, called, and said “I think I have some important documents of yours”.
Would have missed applications deadline if he hadn’t called.
So many examples! Very early in my career I was at a conference, and was extremely tired after a long day and was now thinking twice about going to the conference dinner. Dragged myself down and the only free seats were at the table with all the keynotes. Had a great time…1/2
…and some amazing conversations. Stayed in touch with a couple of very big names over the following 15 years, and they kindly supplied glowing job references on several occasions, which no doubt boosted my chances immeasurably! 2/2
Didn't want to apply for the NSF GRFP my first year of grad school. Wanted to wait until my second year. PhD advisor convinced me to just do it. Glad I did because I got it. Showed me I might be cut out for science.
Got connected to a professor at UNC Chapel Hill because my dad bought a used car from another professor there. Was able to do research as a high schooler and in undergrad in his lab thanks to this random conversation in a bank lobby. And I got paid for some of my work which was rare at the time!
I don’t know if it’s luck, but I didn’t hold out for something better when offered a tenure track job at a regional public university (which later became a State U). A number of my friends did, and it doomed their careers permanently.
I was a terrible writer in grad school so I actively pursued a 6th yr PhD fellowship at our writing center. This led to a postdoc teaching freshman comp where my department sent me to get free DH training. I loved it and that eventually led me to my current position in DH and History.
I did honours in a tiny lab in a small dept so no real opportunities or network. Saw a scrap of paper saying summer scholarships at the national university. Applied, not realizing I wasn't eligible or knowing how to write applications. Got one. Loved it, worked day& night, & was offered a PhD place.
Short after I joined Asensio's Lab in 1980 as a rookie PhD student—and out of naïvety—I caused a big fire in a cold room due to an unattended overnight electrophoresis. The director of my institute demanded my head & being sacked immediately. But my supervisor managed to convince him otherwise 😅
I use to compare this situation with the famous scene of *Les Misérables* when Jean Valjean is covered up by Bishop Myriel when found red-handed by the police after stealing valuable candlesticks: An act of mercy that changed one's life!
It goes without saying that since then I have never ever run an electrophoresis overnight 😱!
Getting reviewers who liked my risky fellowship application. Allowed me to expand into a completely new field, and bolstered my CV to the point where I was competitive for good jobs.
I had absolutely no idea how academic careers started, but also no idea what I wanted to do. Saw one job ad, in a physical newspaper, that looked interesting. Got the job, and spent two years as a research assistant, which opened the door to everything I’ve done since
I was second or third back-up for a research fellowship grant to go to Norway. The first few were forced to decline because they had also received other research visit grants. Five years later I still hold an adjunct research position in Norway
In 2016, being the 7th choice instructor for SR training at a meeting for academics planning a systematic review for a WHO contract. Ended up (a) editing the entire special series it was part of, with (b) all the teams implementing a registered reports approach. Career-changing.
I have two, but the one related to my PhD is oddly backwards: I initially applied to a second-tier state school, but for some reason got rejected by the school despite the prof wanting me and high GRE (I suspect the star prof they had brought in to boost the dept, bc he disliked me for some reason)
So I spent another 2 years as a tech, and realized I was actually interested in a completely different subfield. If I’d been accepted I would have gotten my PhD in the wrong thing! And ended up doing it at a much better school to boot lol.
Opening 2 books during my 1st or 2nd year as an undergraduate psychology student. From the CogPsy handbook by J.R. Anderson I learned how to learn efficiently, and from the book on self-control written by Howard Rachlin I learned how to keep learning despite the numerous, ever-present temptations.
I have a background in wetlab molecular biology and did a master thesis in recombinant protein production of an allergen in Pichia pastoris. Half way through I was so exhausted from doing wetlab work, that I decided to quit. I knew I liked immunology and I have always tinkered with computers,
so looking for some credits in the course catalogue at the university, I stumbled upon "Immunological Bioinformatics" and signed up and it was a match made in heaven! Subsequently, I asked the course responsible for a master thesis slot and one was open. Following the thesis my supervisor said:
"I like the way you think, have you considered a PhD?". I had not, never thought it'd be an option for me... I did the PhD in Bioinformatics and today I have obtained tenure and I am head of the "Computational Autoimmunity" group at the Technical University of Denmark - It kinda just "happened"...
Getting my first job as a curator at Harvard’s Peabody Museum with a three year contract. Then the person expected to become Assistant Director of the museum left, so I was offered the job starting in year two out from the PhD. Solving the “what to do when my three year contract ends” issue.
The person who got the first offer turned it down so I got to start my career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And stay there for 31 years.
when I was a college sophomore, my friend Margaret (my name is also Margaret) was going to interview for an RA-ship in a lab at MIT. She insisted I come along on the bus. I ended up interviewing, too, and thus gained my first mentor, research experience, publication, and grad school recommendation.
Was a 59y/o old cleaner, listening to the radio & heard s'one mention that MA funding available in Wales to under 60s. Still a cleaner 🤣, but with an MA distinction, now applying for MPhil/PhD
When I was finishing up my dissertation, a senior colleague told me she was writing a project proposal and would I like to be included? I said sure, she got the funding and here I happily am at the same research institute 21 years later!
In 1987 I was working for a Dilbertian small-telecom R&D shop and saw an ad (in a physical newspaper obviously) where the New Oxford English Dictionary Project at U Waterloo was looking for a team leader. I was the only applicant who read books and thus a shoo-in for the job.
Due to my highschool grades I could not get into a Biochemistry degree. Instead I started in "Chemistry and Biochemistry" studies. Turns out I did not particularly like biochemistry, and the double degree made transitioning to chemistry really easy.
So many. Biggest one might have been chatting to a fellow grad student about possible dissertation topics for the two of us; he suggested I look at a specific set of archival papers in the library that later became instrumental in my dissertation (now book project).
Or happening to apply to UChicago in a year when there was no waitlist, just admissions. Or flubbing an interview, getting rejected from a cushy, long-term nonprofit job in fall 2014 -- and then, unemployed and directionless, applying to grad school later that year.
Third year PhD student, thrashing around not finding a topic, got tendonitis so I had to teach instead of research over the summer. Van broke down en route to a conference, most of the faculty left to find help, the one who stayed needed a student, had a topic, ended up my primary advisor.
I can't say too much re:specific moments, but more luck in who I've met.
I wouldn't be here without meeting people by chance that have gone to bat for me time and time again. I don't think you can really plan for who your people will be.
Also: when I started uni, I thought I was going to be all 'hard sciences' guy. Took physics and chemistry of course. Needed one more to enrol in and asked person on the desk, 'which is more sciency, Psychology or sociology'? Turns out I hated physics and my joke subject, psychology, became my career
My initial PhD project and supervision weren't going to work, but I found out that someone doing EEG work I was interested in had *just* moved their lab to UNSW. I asked to volunteer in their new lab and if they'd come on as an associate supervisor. Jumped ship completely a couple of years later.
I was 2nd ranked for a masters fellowship. The 1st ranked candidate didn’t get the grades, but I’d moved house so missed the letter offering the place until after the deadline for acceptance. I rang the admissions tutor at 9.30am on a Monday in August. He answered the phone and gave me the place
Now I’m an academic I can’t believe how lucky I was to get him in the office at 9.30 on a Monday morning in August
That job I got bailing hay between 9th and 10th grade. No effing way was I going to do manual labor my whole life. Great motivation.
No big moment but an accumulation of lucky pieces:
Born in Switzerland, raised in the wealthier part of town (despite us being middle class).
Found an internship at a comp psych institute in Zurich at the time they were running a social learning study and got in. Most supportive place ever!
While I do have my strengths and merits and am doing my best to fight against imposter syndrome. I really believe that i wouldn't be where I am had I not found my last lab. As supportive and understanding lab and PI who is well connected and wants the best for you is priceless.
Hello Dan, I did not go to college. I attended the School of Life. My middle school English teacher warned me that I would fail in life because of my (poor) English.
My PhD was originally designed for a masters student to continue her project, but she ended up on a programme elsewhere. Turned out to be a perfect fit for my interests!
Positive: I accidentally sent my GRE scores to Ohio State after having decided to not do so (was in a hurry and copied the wrong number). Ended up getting my PhD there.
Negative: A research group I'd been hoping to join at a different school was wiped out in a mass shooting, so I didn't go there.
Oh, god, that's terrible. [the negative one; the positive on made me laugh.]
Someone going on maternity leave which, as you know, over here is 1 million years
Maastricht dropping out of the exchange program with my university and uni Amsterdam jumping in. Doubt I'd be in methods or Europe otherwise, but one never really knows ;)
There were two positions opened. Applied to the first one and was not selected for interview. Then, decided not to apply for the second one but a prof from that department (that I had met) emailed me and asked me to apply. I would not have done so.
For that position, I was ranked second. The selected candidate declined after months of negotiations while I had given up because it was so long ago. When I got the email, I could not believe it
Did you ever find out who that was? I, by the way, learned (a couple years later) that I was the only applicant on the/my PhD candidate vacancy.
I never found out. I've sometimes wondered *why* they declined, maybe they were awarded another fellowship or another job?
Perhaps when I got my current job. Far less competition to start with because they wanted a Swedish speaker, and then I was second on the list but late in the process they decided to hire two people.
Was in a serious downward spiral before.
For me it was that George Soros decided to fund me to come as exchange student (from Lithuania) to US. His decision to take a chance on me completely changed my life and eventually led to me getting a faculty position here at US.
Not luck but very good kind mentors who advocated for me
My top choice postdoc lab turned me down.....
I was unemployed after my PhD when my mother-in-law had a colleague that needed someone to do qual interviews (in an only semi-related field to mine) because the project manager got pregnant. Privilege of marrying into the upper middle class + luck. I would not have ended up in academia without it.
I got my first job post-PhD (visiting position at a small liberal arts college) b/c my mentor sat next to someone from the hiring dept on a plane, while returning from a conference. Mentor called me from the airport, I sent materials ASAP, interviewed later that week, and had the job the next week.
My best luck was when the Chemistry professor whose graduate group I thought I wanted to join lost my final exam without any apparent concern, and about that time a friend told me his professors in Ceramic Engineering department rocked. So I applied there and they were amazing to me.
In my case, it was bad luck that derailed it.
I graduated from a top 10 liberal arts college summa cum laude with a B.A. in Chinese.
I was admitted to my first-choice graduate program.
Less than a month before the program started, my admission was revoked because I "didn't know Chinese."
I had been out of college for three years at the time.
I had originally tried to transfer to an undergraduate engineering program, and gained a full-tuition scholarship.
Since I had mental illness at the time, my mother would not let me take the scholarship because "the Russian mob might get you."
I've had a relapse of mental illness.
Also, partly due to the actions of the graduate program in Chinese, I have problems with Sinophobia, and usually have panic attacks when I try to use the Chinese language.
I randomly joined a Nordic-Baltic doctoral network meeting when it was organized at our uni. Met a couple of guys from University of Iceland there, chatted a bit, invited them to the lab. That eventually led to a postdoc in Iceland and a long and successful collaboration.
Is it an obvious human bias that we think we were lucky, while we really didn't experience the other option(s)?
Self-indulgent (or solipsistic even??) thread incoming...
Job 1—Advisor knew committee chair; other candidate tanked
Job 2—Didn't get offer til someone left for another position
Job 3—Got fellowship in a slow year
Job 4—No offer til first choice got permanent post
TT—Candidate w/inside track tanked; I'd met committee chair at another interview a week prior
My luck was that I was days away from accepting a position with UMKC when UNC called me for a second interview because something hadn't worked out with their initial top choice.
My privilege was I could afford to risk having no offer and didn't sign by UMKCs deadline while waiting on UNC.
There were no other available funding opportunities at the time
Another one:
Oct 2017: ICU doctor unsure about my survival rates because of diabetic ketoacidosis, in the later phases of the master's degree research, as she told my ex-wife.
Jan 2018: Research done.
Mar 2018: M Sc on Health Education.
Extreme heat and ventilators broken during the master's degree application exam. I was pissed off, just wanted to finish the thing. Did it in 35 minutes, 5 pages long while sweat dropped on the paper sheets.
Qualified 1st.
And I don't have an academic career - just the odd article now and then.
Sending a fan email when I was a first year MA student taking Beth Kolko’s technical communication class
Getting my first visiting prof job right out of my PhD and landing it with the incredibly supportive folks in classics at Texas Tech.
Seventh-year PhD student, went on the job market ABD, there was an economic boom in our field so applications were down 85% as many people chased money in industry, got on the tenure track despite taking another 3 years to finish.
Second year of PhD, bills etc and I started to look for a job just to realize the first (and still the only serious) company in my field was founded in my city few weeks ago (pre-remote work setting). Let me stay in field rather than in software development
At the end of my junior year, the financial aid I was offered, plus what I had, left me $8k short of paying my last year of tuition. I contemplated leaving school to work and save… but then I’d have to start repaying the student loans I’d taken. I worried about finishing and I felt stuck…
I learned I could finish my BS while also enrolled as a grad student, which would let me be a TA paid…$8k. I applied, got in, but all the TA slots were taken. Two weeks later was Tiananmen Square, 8 admitted students couldn’t leave China, and I got a TA. That tragedy allowed me to stay in Physics.
So many but here's the biggest. Working 3 jobs, full time school as a chem major, & public transit = sleeping through classes. Was still doing well, but community college gen chem prof asked what was going on. When I told him, he helped me get on campus jobs & introduced me to research
I’ve had a lot of luck. But the last hurdle would have got me. The Univ was not going to recognize my advisor. He was in a different department, not in the School of Engineering where I earned my doc. By luck the Dean was on my reading committee and stepped in to act as my advisor so I could finish.
2 weeks before finishing undergrad I got a fellowship to pursue a masters. Problem was that I had a military commitment after graduation that refused to release me to go. I was sulking in the cafeteria when a 1-star dropped by asking if I was excited about commissioning. I explained what happened
And he made a couple phone calls. A couple days later I got word I was released to attend grad school and accept the fellowship. It was an awesome experience. That general was the best.
I served after finishing grad school so they still got their pound of flesh. Always thought about going back for a PhD.
Positive: Steve Grossberg decided to give me a phone interview with a really weird CV, scheduled for 30min, lasted 3 hours and he offered me a PhD fellowship
Negative: I left my first postdoc on 12/31/2019 with the intention of traveling and applying for faculty on the 2020 cycle.. 8 days later 😞
Doing a PhD in schizophrenia and clinical psychology training simultaneously. Professor from pharmacy was looking to hire to interview people that inject drugs. I needed work and blagged my way through the interview, knowing little about it. 20 years later, this is my field to this day!
Alas, my luck ran out. Worked long and hard to do an English PhD. Community college to respected undergrad to almost-prestigious MA. By that time, the field was so topsy-turvy that continuing would’ve required sacrifices I wasn’t willing to make anymore. No PhD acceptances anywhere I wanted to go.