{"id":2457,"date":"2018-12-31T20:39:53","date_gmt":"2019-01-01T01:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/phdplus\/?p=2457"},"modified":"2018-12-31T20:39:53","modified_gmt":"2019-01-01T01:39:53","slug":"epsilon-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/phdplus\/2018\/12\/31\/epsilon-and-beyond\/","title":{"rendered":"Epsilon and Beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Origami<\/a>

This is me, flying beyond epsilon! Photo by Rachel Ridenour.<\/p><\/div>\n

I started writing for PhD + Epsilon in 2014, when I was just starting my third (!) academic job (my double fabulous co-blogger, Sara Malec, started at the same time; we took it over from the extremely fantastic Adriana Salerno).\u00a0 For the last four and a half years I\u2019ve been really thrilled to tell stories about my life and help others tell theirs through this blog. But, alas, it\u2019s time to let someone else take the wheel. Folks, this is my last PhD + Epsilon entry.\u00a0 Stepping away got me thinking back on what this blog has meant in my life, and what I hoped to bring to others through my writing.<\/p>\n

I started reading PhD + Epsilon when I was in graduate school. I hadn\u2019t entered grad school planning to get a PhD. At that point I was committed, but I still felt ambivalent about academic life and about going all in on math. I also had no idea what I was going to do with this degree when I finished. In fact, I still had few ideas on what, if anything, I was going to do with the degree when I graduated in 2011 and started my first job as a visiting professor at Wesleyan University. My choice to give liberal arts teaching a try owes quite something to Adriana\u2019s blog entries\u2014her warmth and openness in sharing her experiences sketched a sort of roadmap of the possibilities of one kind of life in math.\u00a0Exactly how does person pick up and move to a new place, start a job, learn how to be a great teacher, do research, and stay really excited about math?\u00a0 This, and more, is all in Adriana\u2019s PhD + Epsilon posts.\u00a0 They spoke to me in making that first transition and the many I have made since.<\/p>\n

In 2014, as a freshly minted Associate Professor, Adriana moved on to co-edit the Inclusion\/Exclusion blog, which I love. Getting tenure is a pretty sweet way to end the \u201cearly\u201d stage of a career and move on from an early career-focused blog. No, I didn\u2019t secretly get tenure without sharing it on the blog, and I\u2019m not leaving academia or anything like that. I\u2019m moving on because, tenure or no, eventually epsilon gets big enough that it needs a new name (lest we risk absurdities like \u201clet epsilon approach infinity\u201d).\u00a0 Friends, my epsilon is now seven and a half years and four jobs. So much epsilon! It has been a winding path for sure.\u00a0 But that\u2019s part of the story that I\u2019ve been trying to share for the last several years\u2014there are a lot of different paths through mathematical life, not all of them go in any sort of straight line, and tenure is not the one thing that can mark success or progress along the way. An early career in mathematics can go many different ways; it doesn\u2019t have to mean young, pre-tenure in a tenure-track academic job, research-oriented, or any other single thing.\u00a0 Starting out in math is the uniting feature.\u00a0 The career can be almost anything.<\/p>\n

\"pentagon<\/a>

Many paths on a pentagonal billiard table, and many paths in math. Beautiful earring and mathematics by Diana Davis<\/a>, earrings available at the Joint Meetings and on etsy<\/a>. Photo by Rachel Ridenour.<\/p><\/div>\n

I have many mathematical goals, but my main career goal has been to figure out how to make the possibilities and realities of the profession work for me; I want to do a good job for the people around me while making my work as much as possible a reflection of my own passions. In this early stage, I have been pretty successful in some aspects of this, and hope to keep getting better at using the framework of the mathematical profession to do the things that I think matter\u2014in research, teaching, and interacting with the larger world.\u00a0 This blog has been a big part of the process for me. In the academic world, we spend so much time applying for things\u2014jobs, grants, awards, promotion… it is a whole system of ranking and rewards that can seem like the only way to success and validation.\u00a0 But many of the most satisfying things in my mathematical (and non-mathematical) life have come through stepping away from this machine and looking for another way to do what I really want. One thing that I really wanted to do was talk to people about their math lives, hear what they have learned and how they see the world around them. That\u2019s not necessarily an easy thing to start on in a field where some people seem to think that intellectual intimidation and arrogance is the natural order of things.\u00a0 Lucky for all of us, there are way more awesome math people out there and this blog has given me a way to connect with them (you!), both as readers and as people who respond when I reach out for a piece I\u2019m writing.\u00a0 This blog has been my platform, in the sense of a tall thing that I can stand on and talk loudly about my ideas, and also a solid scaffold from which I have built connections.<\/p>\n

Being part of the AMS through this blog has been wonderful. They have supported me in every way. \u00a0I have not always been the most punctual blogger, and sometimes when I needed to write a blog but also needed to write a test and do a thousand other things, I would think, \u201cwhy does blogging even matter?\u201d\u00a0But as soon as I had a minute to breathe and listen to myself, it was clear that this was an amazing way to do what mattered to me\u2014ask questions, tell stories, and help more people feel connected to this community.\u00a0 Thanks so much to the AMS, especially Mike Breen and Annette Emerson, for the opportunity and the support. And thanks to everyone to has read the blog or shared with me. I am very grateful for it.\u00a0 YOU ARE AWESOME. I still want to hear about your life in math\u2014if you have read this far, you know that\u2019s why I\u2019ve been doing this at all. I\u2019d like to invite everyone out there to keep the conversation going.\u00a0 To ease my blog withdrawal pangs, I\u2019ll be blogging for AMS at the Joint Meetings in Baltimore in a couple weeks, so say hello if you see me around!\u00a0 Wishing you all the best in the New Year and beyond.<\/p>\n

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I started writing for PhD + Epsilon in 2014, when I was just starting my third (!) academic job (my double fabulous co-blogger, Sara Malec, started at the same time; we took it over from the extremely fantastic Adriana Salerno).\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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