It’s been just over a month since the 12th International Conference on Mycorrhiza. In these blog posts, we hear from some of the winners of Functional Ecology’s poster and talk prizes! Here, Beatrice Bock – who won our second place prize for her poster ‘Common mycorrhizal networks: exploring the “dark web“‘ – discusses her journey from business to ecology. She makes the case for pursuing career-happiness and shares her top tips for progressing and poster-making.
Having no real idea what I wanted to do when I graduated high school, I started college as a Business major. I was under the impression that my career options were: Lawyer, Doctor, and Engineer. I knew I liked reading, so I figured Business was good enough.
Going into the spring semester of my first year of college, I felt a lack of connection to the material I was learning. I felt distant from my classmates and a bit lost overall. I wondered if this was just how a career is supposed to feel: doable but uninspiring. Trying to knock out requirements for my liberal arts degree requirements, I first tried to get into the admittedly easy-A Lab Science course. Because that filled up unsurprisingly quickly, I ended up taking a class I had no real interest in at the time, Oceanography. The course was taught by a quirky and passionate professor, Dr. Neil Kelley, who quickly changed my preconceived notions about the subject material. Within the first week, I fell in love with natural sciences. Dr. Kelley talked to us about his career in science, and I remember having the ah-ha moment where I realized that “Scientist” was a possible career to choose. It seemed like a beautiful hoax to me that someone gets to be paid to spend their career asking and answering questions about the world around us. I changed my major that same week to “Earth and Environmental Sciences” and have not looked back since.
The next semester, I started working as a Research Assistant for Dr. Simon Darroch, studying worm-like traces fossilized into ancient rock. Under his mentorship, I grew more confident in my lab skills and even presented our work at national conferences. During my senior year, I did a capstone research project under his and Dr. Michelle Casey‘s supervision. This research turned into multiple conference presentations as well as my first first-authored publication.
After a year of working post-bachelor’s degree, I started my PhD at Northern Arizona University co-advised by Dr. Nancy Johnson and Dr. Catherine Gehring. When I accepted my offer with them, I told them that one reason I chose their labs was that in interviewing, I could not find a single person to say a single negative thing about either of them. They both responded jokingly that I clearly hadn’t talked to their husbands. I can assure you that their husbands think very fondly of both of them, as does everyone else they work with. Under their mentorship, I have been studying the complex interactions between plants and their symbiotic fungi. This summer, they brought me to the International Conference on Mycorrhizae in Manchester, UK (which is a long way from our home in Flagstaff, Arizona). At this conference, I presented on my research, which is investigating the degree to which fungal connections among plants are possible across different fungal guilds. We know these connections occur with many mycorrhizal fungi, but if other types of fungi can also form these connections is currently unknown.
I feel honored to have won a prize for my poster on this research, and I was asked to provide some advice for people making their own posters for the first time. My main advice would be: follow a template that you find online as a guide, make sure all text is big enough to reasonably read in person (an online search will provide recommendations for sizing), put way less text on it than you think you need to, pick 2-5 colors and keep everything on the poster within that color scheme, don’t make the poster too cluttered (focus on the important messages and figures), and get excited to talk to people about your research.
Looking back on my path, I can identify a few pieces of advice that helped me get to where I am. 1) Apply for every opportunity that interests you. There are near-infinite scholarships, fellowships, and travel opportunities for students, and even just applying for these is great practice for future skillsets like grant writing. Get your email on various listserves (e.g. ECOLOG) to help you find opportunities. 2) Find a good mentor (or two). I feel blessed by the many amazing mentors I have had (only a few of which I have mentioned in this article), and they are doubtlessly a huge reason I am doing what I am. If you are an engaged student in class and visit your professors during office hours, you may end up finding a mentor who will change the shape of your career. 3) Follow your interests and try different things. You may think that something like worm tracks on rocks sounds really boring, but every adventure into a new discipline will inform you as to what you do and do not want to pursue.
A career does not need to feel uninspiring, and you deserve to do things in life that make you happy. I feel so lucky to have moved away from that Business degree that just was not for me, and I hope I can help other students find their dream careers through the same type of mentorship that was given to me.
You can find out more about Bea’s research on her website
