Sue Sierra is living proof that you can take a significant amount of time away from math and still wind up having a fantastic academic research career. She began the Math PhD program at Michigan directly after graduating college in 1993, and finished in 2008, with a nine year break in the middle to be a labor union organizer and then a policy wonk. After winning prizes from our department recognizing her as one of our most promising and accomplished alums, Sue went on to post-doctoral positions at the University of Washington and Princeton, before settling in Edinburgh. For fun, Sue is an avid hiker.
Words of Wisdom from Sue Sierra:
I had an atypical Ph.D. career — I left after 3 years with my M.Sc. and a year of research under my belt, took 9 years away from mathematics, and then came back and finished my Ph.D. with the same supervisor, Toby Stafford.
I left because I found something else that I was more passionate about than mathematics. I decided to come back because I wasn’t doing that any more, and I realised I missed math. I was very fortunate in my Ph.D. supervisor, who was extremely encouraging and enthusiastic when I got in touch to let him know I was thinking about completing my Ph.D., and was always supportive after I returned.
It was certainly difficult to come back — I was completely unused to thinking about math, and of course had forgotten a great deal. However, two things gave me confidence. The first is that my grandmother was also a mathematician, and she did not finish her Ph.D. and begin her (very successful) research career until the youngest of her three children was in high school. So I had a model. But probably what helped me more is that one morning, after doing some reading about noncommutative ring theory, my field, the evening before, I woke up with the phrase “Every open cover has a finite subcover” in my head. (This is the definition of compactness from topology, for those who aren’t pure mathematicians, and has nothing to do with ring theory.) This gave me the sense that the knowledge was still there, somewhere, and that I would be able to get it back.
For the first semester back, I wasn’t doing much but trying to relearn things I had forgotten and catch up with progress in my area. I was frequently frustrated with how slow my progress felt, but my advisor and other mentors encouraged me that this was normal and it would get better. (It did.) I had one result from before I had left, which I went back to and wrote up for publication, finishing that paper about a year after I returned. I went to as many seminars as I could — I still think that learning what words are important in an area and some idea of their meaning is incredibly useful even if one doesn’t learn anything else from a seminar. I organised a working seminar on a topic I felt I should know about but didn’t, which led to getting to know some postdocs in the department, which led to my second paper.
In many ways, I think it’s easier to do a Ph.D. in your 30s than in your 20s. Certainly I was much more psychologically healthy and resilient at 33 than I had been at 21 when I started my Ph.D. At 21, I hadn’t thought that I was able to do anything besides mathematics. At 33 I knew that I had other skills and another career I could return to if mathematics went pear-shaped. This helped to reduce the anxiety of being a graduate student a lot. I had married while away from mathematics, and benefitted immensely from my partner’s support — I could not have done it without her. I was also much smarter about not over-working and about deliberately cultivating non-academic interests, in my case cooking and hiking. And I thought very explicitly about looking after myself — my partner and I referred to this as the “Sane Mathematician Project”. If I was tired, I took breaks. If I was overwhelmed by anxiety, I saw a therapist. My partner kept me on track if I wasn’t doing a good job of this!
When I went on the job market, I very much had the attitude of “Well, let’s see what comes next and if I enjoy the next step.” When I was a postdoc, I was still enjoying research, so I decided to apply for tenure-track/permanent positions. I didn’t decide that I wanted a career in research until I was offered my current job, at the University of Edinburgh. I think this attitude, which is related to knowing that there are many jobs I could do successfully besides mathematics, reduced my stress. I’m now a Reader (UK-speak for “associate professor”) at Edinburgh. Although I am chronologically older than my peers, I think that on balance taking the time out made me a better mathematician who is more resilient and happier.
So for those returning ao for those returning after a break: go to seminars. Read widely. Know that what you learned before is still in your head and will come back if you give it time. Give yourself time and go easy on yourself. Have hobbies and don’t over-work. Look after yourself as a priority. And know that you do have other options besides mathematics as a career. Looking at this, I realise that all of this is good advice for any Ph.D. student!fter a break: go to seminars. Read widely. Know that what you learned before is still in your head and will come back if you give it time. Give yourself time and go easy on yourself. Have hobbies and don’t over-work. Look after yourself as a priority. And know that you do have other options besides mathematics as a career. Looking at this, I realise that all of this is good advice for any Ph.D. student!
