Comments to a post earlier this summer raised some well-known issues of how some US-based and some non-US-based researchers view each other in terms of work hours/work ethic.
It would seem that some researchers based outside the US (e.g., in Europe) think that those in the US have to work crazy-long hours with few vacations just to stay afloat, much less succeed. In this workaholic system, it is difficult to have a life outside of work. US researchers (faculty, postdocs, grad students) are prisoners of the extreme demands of endless work.
On the other hand, it would seem that some US-based researchers are incredulous at the vacation-laden work schedules of some of our international colleagues, including some international graduate students and postdocs who have particular expectations about summer vacation time.
I don't think a discussion about which is "better" (for individuals or for academia) would be very productive or interesting. I am more interested in discussing how/whether we can find ways to work together, even if we have vastly different philosophies about vacation time.
I have never found it to be a major problem to work with colleagues who disappear every August. I am hyper enough about my research that I am sometimes annoyed if a colleague disappears to their (apparently internetless) ancestral home and this delays submission of a manuscript, but a month isn't a big deal in the overall scheme of things. I don't want to take a month off in the summer myself, but I can work with colleagues who do.
That last statement becomes somewhat less true if the individual in question is a graduate student or postdoc who disappears for a month in the summer.
Graduate students who are not on a fellowship may have their funding separated into an academic year part and a summer part. The academic year part may be paid from one of my grants or it may be paid entirely or in part by the department/university (e.g., for teaching). In the summer months, however, I am almost always responsible for paying my students an RA salary (+ benefits). Some students might TA a summer course and some might also be paid from the grant of a co-adviser, but somehow I need to organize things so that my graduate students are paid in the summer months.
Summer is the time for getting a lot done. Graduate students rarely take summer classes, and, unlike during the academic year, there are few other distractions. Therefore, if a student is being paid from a grant to work in the summer, and if this is the time to make maximum progress on thesis research, taking a month off can be a problem.
Some students do it anyway. If a student really wants/needs to go home for a month in the summer, we can usually work that out to make it possible. Ideally, the student will have made excellent progress already and can afford (in time) to take a vacation. If progress has not been so great, taking an entire month off each summer might mean that the student's funding runs out before they finish their thesis research, and that's a problem for everyone. These things should be discussed.
So, my overall philosophy about people who disappear for a month in the summer: (1) colleagues: OK, I can deal with that; (2) students or postdocs paid from a grant: maybe not OK, but it is not impossible. If it does occur, the vacationing person will ideally deal with any major deadlines or other issues that arise during the time away, and not completely disappear off the grid.
If you advise graduate students or postdocs and support them on grants in the summer, what is your policy regarding long vacations? I am not talking about a couple of weeks off; everyone should be able to do that. I am talking about those who go away for a month and do not make any research progress during that time. Some may not even communicate at all during that time. Is that OK with you/not OK with you? Why or why not?
14 years ago
48 comments:
In my experience, people who take a month off during summer are way more productive during the rest of the year than those who don't. So maybe those who don't are delaying publications of my manusctipts during the other 11 months because they are completely overworked all the time and never get the rest they need?
I think that research requires a very long-term view. If you have a graduate student or postdoc who is productive in a long-term sense, then what is the problem if they take time off for a month every year? By productive, I mean that they produce, over the course of that year, as much quality research as anyone else. If they are not producing, the question should not be, do I fire them for taking a month off? The question should be, do I fire them for not producing a reasonable amount of research in a year?
In particular, your statement that you view colleagues and students/postdoc differently, indicates that you do not view students and postdocs as future colleagues. If your colleagues need a month off every year to clear their heads and help them stay sane, so that they can produce top-quality research, then why is it so hard to believe that this exact same thing is beneficial for your students and postdocs, who are themselves researchers and (if you are doing your job properly) future colleagues-in-training? Conversely, if you think that the students and postdocs are robbing you of money by taking a month off, couldn't your department (or the NSF), order you not to take August off for the exact same reason?
And please don't make the embarrassingly ignorant statement, "My department pays me for 9 months to teach so they can't tell me what to do in the summer". They pay you a huge chunk of money for a teaching load that is tiny compared to professors at teaching colleges, with the expectation that you will bring in external grant money from research. If not for these external research funds, there is no way to sustain the average teaching load of a Research I university. So if you can tell your students and postdocs that a month off in the summer is unacceptable because they owe you a month of research, why cannot a department at a research university say the exact same thing to a professor?
I don't support grad students or postdocs; I just finished my Ph.D. But here are some thoughts anyway.
Full disclosure: I took one summer off entirely (3 months), but I was not funded during this period. This only happened once; other summers I took at most one week off, or worked at an external internship.
First of all, international graduate students and postdocs often don't get to go home and/or visit family several times a year on short breaks such as Thanksgiving, long weekends, etc. When a trip to India takes 36 hours of travel each way and costs approximately $1500 dollars, it's natural to "save up" vacation time and use it all at once. For many of us, the annual vacation is the only time we see our parents, siblings, friends and extended family. Also, since one can't easily come home for special family events (such as weddings), these tend to be scheduled for summer or winter breaks so that people can attend. Even if one gets three or four weeks off, this time is taken up with traveling to see one's family and friends, attending events, making arrangements for the care of aging parents/grandparents, and many other things. So in spite of the best intentions, there often isn't time to do much research during the vacation.
Second, I'm not sure about the policies at your school, but I went to grad school (in Computer Science) at the University of Illinois. At UIUC, and at many other schools I know, the default summer appointment is for two months, not three. That is, students are typically not paid in August. (Exceptions are possible, but rare.) One of the stated reasons for such policies is that students are expected to take 4 weeks of vacation time a year (summer and winter), and so they are not paid for a month. Given this policy, many international students feel that it is not unreasonable to take the month of August off, particularly since they are unlikely to take a long winter vacation.
That said, I think it's perfectly fair to expect students and postdocs not to take vacations when there are impending deadlines, etc. Grad school is usually flexible enough that people can schedule a vacation for after a deadline. Unforeseen issues may come up, and I guess one just has to try to deal with them as best as one can.
Paid or not, if predoctoral students get time from me in summer, quite frankly I expect time from them too. Predocs that work their holidays around mine usually get more done than other predocs.
This post is timely, as I am about to leave for a monthlong vacation. I am an American at a US institution and a research postdoc on fellowship, so I do not have a boss, per se. Still, I am definitely a workaholic and already feel guilt, in advance, for all the work I will not get to do. While I plan to enjoy myself on my vacation, it was not my idea to take a full month. My husband is a businessman and has saved up all his vacation time for this trip -- a dream he has had for some time.
I will bring my laptop. I will work for an hour a day or so. Maybe I will even write up the manuscript while staring at the ocean...
I'm a US grad student. I believe I would be a lot less burned out after 7 years of grad school if I had ~6 weeks of vacation a year as they do in Europe. I can't promise that this would make me have the gumption to stay in science despite all the other stuff that drives me crazy, but, who knows? What I can say is that if I were in Europe, where science industry jobs allow one to take that much vacation, I would go for an industry job. As it is, living in the states, I know I need more than the 2 weeks standard vacation given by most US jobs.
I think that in science we consider breaks to be bad, because it is lost work. But if you mentally need a long vacation, then you could still make the same amount of progress in less time if you are rested and reinvigorated and can come back to the lab excited about science again.
I figure if Germans can do kick-!#& science while taking so much vacation, then why can't we?
Then again, I probably should have been born in Europe, but unfortunately, all my friends and family are here so a permanant move there seems unlikely...though I could probably visit them just as much with how much vacation I would get...
If you (FSP and others) don't want/need to take a month of vacation in the summer, that is fine, no one is going to force you. But not everyone is like that and the idea that, if you need that much vacation you must not be a REAL scientist at heart, is a part of what drives many competent, smart, worthwhile and hard-working people out of pursuing careers in science. This is my life and I can't go back and re-live it later if I realize, ooops, I spent all my time in the lab and forgot to make time for other important things in life and now I'm 80 and can't get out of bed.
Sorry for the rant, I'm just really tired of being a grad student. Another thing they do better in Europe. Actually let people graduate in a reasonable time frame.
I would like to comment from my experience as a postdoc (since I cannot yet speak from the side as an advisor). I have recently blogged about my frustrations in trying to take time off during an unpaid mat leave but keep being asked to return to the lab beyond what I have volunteered to do. During my time off, I was hoping to catch up with papers from previous positions that keep being sidelined by the work in my current lab. So, while time off by postdocs may be considered as unproductive to an advisor's current lab, I would argue that it may also serve some good if it helps your postdocs publication record. When they return, they should hopefully be more focused on the work in front of them. I agree that summer is a great time to be busy and productive and I find it an especially good time to do writing (which I find I am particularly good at when beside a lake). My opinion does change though if they are doing it on an advisor's dime and not their own funding or personal time.
So if you have a faculty position, you can take as much vacation as you want, but if you're a student you're screwed? Out of curiosity, while you insist that student whom you pay during the summer should work when paid, why don't you hold your colleagues who are presumably paid by someone as well (university, grants, etc) to the same standard?
some of these comments are bizarre.
Students are not colleagues (yet). Postdocs might or might not be, depending. That doesn't mean the students and postdocs won't eventually be colleagues.
And who gets to dictate their colleagues' vacation plans? We do get to organize our own research groups depending on funding and priorities and deadlines for everyone so of course 'standards' are different.
For junior grad students, who are swamped with classes during the year and for whom the only time to do some research in the summer, I explicitly request that they not take long leaves over the summer; if international students want to visit families overseas for a month or so, I recommend that be done over the Christmas break.
Once the students are done with classes and can make good progress during the academic year, I usually relax the above requirements. The same goes for postdocs. As long as the senior student/postdoc is making good progress and all the deadlines have been met, I have no problem with them taking vacation in the summer.
I lead by example (I don't take a lot of vacation myself) and remind them that it is important to recharge but that they also need to keep making timely progress towards their research objectives. I have really not found that long stretches of vacation are an issue -- most senior students and postdocs will take a week or so off at a time, two or three times a year, rather than take a month off at once.
I have been taking month-long vacation as a student, paid by my advisor. He was happy that I was producing around the year and considered my vacation a necessary break to see family, relax, and be ready for another productive year.
I have followed the same practice during my tenure-track years, to keep my mind sane, and keep taking month-long breaks every summer as a tenured professor in a top-10 US university.
I am actually annoyed by my colleagues that leave all the work to be done over this magic summer period, because during the 9 months of the regular academic year are "too busy". Kill the useless distractions over the academic year, and you will not need the summer months for work.
I scheduled two months to vacate between postdoc #1 and #2, and kept everyone involved appraised of the situation.
I did plan to work a bit during the time off, but not a lot. One manuscript had been stuck in stages of rerunning simulations for a year, so I didn't expect it to be an imminent problem. Imagine my surprise to get an email: 'please let us know your revisions within two days, or we will submit without your approval'. Attached was a manuscript that was an utter mess in every way: basic English, science, structure, results that were incorrect.
Needless to say, a few days of my "vacation" were quite wasted, and the timing of it - exactly when I said I'd be less available! - was not lost on me, nor was the fact that the grad student had utterly ignored all of my input thus far.
I guess that story is really more about manipulative "colleagues" (the long-play version has some tasty sexism in it), but it has definitely affected my choice of vacations since.
I, too, did my grad work at a university that only allowed grad students to be paid 11 months of the year, with the understanding that one way or another the student would have (and take) 4 weeks of vacation. (That is what they told us, anyway, although I think in reality it had something to do with accounting and benefits rates.)
While I pay my grad students 12 months of the year because that is the standard at my current university, the annual stipend is similar to that at my grad institution, with which I now compete for students. I employ pretty much the same policy, that the students get and should take 4 weeks of vacation.
My international students usually take one longer vacation, and do it whenever their budget and class schedule allows. My domestic students usually take several smaller vacations.
I am okay with whenever they take it, over the summer or over a semester break, or whatever works best for them. I agree with Dave, in taking the long view on their productivity. I also try to mentor them without micromanaging them. As long as they know what is expected of them, I don't need to tell them when and where to work and how much.
Thought this booklet from "Science" will be useful for you and your reader.
http://images.sciencecareers.org/pdf/booklets/running_your_lab.pdf
I specially recommend to read page 16, and I completely agree with the statements there. Those who don't enjoy life and don't take time off will only be burned out and less productive in long run. Also, I agree with Dave that your view towards students and post-docs as a slave laborer is derogatory.
- A usually productive but burned out scientist, who eventually took years as a break to reinvent myself
A comment from a postdoc before I hit the hay; it's 1am here in Tokyo.
"Graduate students rarely take summer classes, and, unlike during the academic year, there are few other distractions."
So the problem is with graduate students who're on an RAship with you and taking classes.
The only distractions I recall as a grad student were classes that I took (not a problem after about halfway through) and classes I taught (not a problem if you're paying them; then they're researching for you instead of teaching classes).
Your colleagues presumably teach classes; I don't understand why it's a problem for a grad student teaching classes and not a prof. (arguably, the grad student may have less to do than the prof in some scenarios).
"Therefore, if a student is being paid from a grant to work in the summer, and if this is the time to make maximum progress on thesis research, taking a month off can be a problem."
So it's the lack of work for pay? Please be clearer how this is different for colleagues versus paid graduate students.
Using this argument, unpaid graduate students don't receive your ire. And, noting the conjunction, those who don't necessarily require summer for maximal productivity don't receive your ire. Correct?
Aside from students who take classes and are paid by you, I don't see how this is different from a colleague.
"Ideally, the student will have made excellent progress already and can afford (in time) to take a vacation. If progress has not been so great, taking an entire month off each summer might mean that the student's funding runs out before they finish their thesis research, and that's a problem for everyone. These things should be discussed."
This is the same for profs to, substituting "thesis research" with "project" or "grant", but also add the fact that students' future careers are riding on the professor not failing at his/her job (a prof may be able to delay a project for a number of years (though the money will also run out for them too!), but the students and postdocs in that project will surely get screwed, and if the prof fails to submit a grant application in time or one which is sub-par, it's again the students and postdocs who get screwed.
No, I agree with the other posters as to why the same things that apply to a professor aren't counted against them.
Also, aside from noting the fact that they receive your ire for having perhaps the need to take a month-long vacation with spouse and offspring, you've mentioned nothing about the reasoning behind your iring of the postdoctoral researchers. Are we simply not collegueal enough? We have the least distractions during the semester of all of the cases--grads students, postdocs, and profs. We don't take classes. Why do we not deserve time off with our families like professors get? Believe me, if I could get a prof job without this absurdity that is postdochood, I'd surely do so. Were I working in a corporation, I'd be paid twice to three times as much *and* accruing paid time off!!
(I'm going to assume the first half of this post came through; apparently blogger uses GET instead of POST for their CGI so I had to split it up. Plus apparently using the internet from japan implies that I understand kanji. Fantastic fail all around.)
"Therefore, if a student is being paid from a grant to work in the summer, and if this is the time to make maximum progress on thesis research, taking a month off can be a problem."
So it's the lack of work for pay? Please be clearer how this is different for colleagues versus paid graduate students.
Using this argument, unpaid graduate students don't receive your ire. And, noting the conjunction, those who don't necessarily require summer for maximal productivity don't receive your ire. Correct?
Aside from students who take classes and are paid by you, I don't see how this is different from a colleague.
"Ideally, the student will have made excellent progress already and can afford (in time) to take a vacation. If progress has not been so great, taking an entire month off each summer might mean that the student's funding runs out before they finish their thesis research, and that's a problem for everyone. These things should be discussed."
This is the same for profs to, substituting "thesis research" with "project" or "grant", but also add the fact that students' future careers are riding on the professor not failing at his/her job (a prof may be able to delay a project for a number of years (though the money will also run out for them too!), but the students and postdocs in that project will surely get screwed, and if the prof fails to submit a grant application in time or one which is sub-par, it's again the students and postdocs who get screwed.
No, I agree with the other posters as to why the same things that apply to a professor aren't counted against them.
Also, aside from noting the fact that they receive your ire for having perhaps the need to take a month-long vacation with spouse and offspring, you've mentioned nothing about the reasoning behind your iring of the postdoctoral researchers. Are we simply not collegueal enough?
I had a longer thing on here about the fact that you didn't address postdocs. At all. It got lost in the lack of reading japanese and the fail of using GET instead of POST (dear blogger: fix that kthxbye).
Seriously, though. You talk about grad students and your reasoning, but it doesn't apply to postdocs! Of the three groups mentioned, we're the least affected by the semester schedule (I'm completely blissfully unaware of things such as finals week and classes starting, aside from the fact that I walk into the cafe and suddenly they're open longer, and there are more people around town and on campus suddenly.
What's your justification for denying postdocs the benefits that you afford others? Do we not deserve time off with our families, or to rest and recuperate? It seems to me just another way that postdocs are screwed--and without even the lip service toward justification you gave graduate students! Believe me, I'd be in the "colleague" category if I were able to skip this farce that is the modern postdoctoral position. In industry, I'd be getting twice to three times my salary right now *and* accruing paid time off! (depending on country, it's even a good deal of paid time off) (thanks, wall street, for screweing everyone over and yet still making out like bandits) Perhaps professors should act more like industry, suck it up and deal with the fact that grad students and postdocs are people too? In the end, I just feel like I'm getting scammed, and my family is the worse for it. Boy am I bitter. Definitely time to hit the hay.
I too am surprised at some people's reactions at FSP's suggestion that students and colleagues should be treated differently. In any job, the amount of vacation time you get increases with time at the job. Starting off with 4 weeks paid vacation time is rare. You build up to that. Why should it be different in academia?
When I was in grad school, a member of my cohort thought that he could take summer vacation as he did as an undergrad. After disappearing for two weeks in June, his PI tracked him down and ordered him back to the lab. The program head then laid down the law with the rest of us and said that any time off (even a week at Christmas) was at the discretion of our PIs. My lab mate (a fellow grad student) would spend 5 weeks each year in his birth country. Some years, it drove our PI crazy, other years he barely noticed. However, this student was incredibly productive, and managed to get three papers out (two first-author) in a five-year period. I never took a vacation because I ended up needing several emergency surgeries while in grad school, each of which required 3-4 weeks of bed rest, and I was terrified of what my PI would say/think if I ever requested additional time off.
I only care about productivity integrated over the year. Obviously someone who gets stuff done when they are around, and also takes a month long vacation, is preferable to someone who puts in contant unproductive facetime. I dont think there are grants that specifically ask for an accounting of which month the work was done in.
It's clearly a difference in culture.
In Europe, many grad students have a normal 12 months/year employment contract with the university, hence they have a given number of vacationdays that, most often, *must* be taken anyways. Or, they are on a scholarship, which is paid 12 months a year, so there is no distinction between summer and the rest of the year. Both situations usually involve a bit, but not much, teaching responsibilities, for which people are (in general) not paid explicitely.
The other difference is that PhD students in Europe do not have a huge courseload and can start right away with their research.
To be honest, when I read some of these comments, I am glad I never went to the US, - it does sound sometimes like the PI owns the student and can decide about the grad student's private life - that has nothing to do with modern labor legislation, nor with education.
I find that habit very scary, - wasn't the prevention of this why unions were invented?
But that is maybe a very european view.
I second Daves opinion, - if someone isn't productive, I doubt it will be because he/she takes too much time off. It's most likely a problem with the person's motivation and dedication. Someone who's dedicated to his/her research will take off as much time as needed without hurting ones success, - because in science we all work for ourselfs in the first place. One should grant a grad student enough maturity to decide by him/herself howmuch time off is too much. They are adults, after all.
I am a professor in physics at a German university. While I tend to have what my colleagues call an "Americanized" way of working and haven't had a vacation in (too) long of a time, I still find it very important that my graduate students and postdocs take their vacation.
Over the 10 years I've been head of my group (2 postdocs, 10 graduate students), I've seen that giving them their vacation leads to a larger productivity overall, which has reinforced my belief in the importance of vacation. The overall productivity of my students is comparable to that of US PhD students in terms of papers, number of conference presentations, etc.. They usually take less time until they're finished than their American peers (although admittedly part of this is due to the different educational systems). In the end, all people need to relax, and if you don't let your people go on vacation, they might be physically present in the lab, but they might procrastinate more. So overall by asking them to stay around you might not be doing you a favor.
Just so it is clear, apparently faculty that are paying part of their salary from a federal grant cannot take vacation during the time they are being paid.
So if I hold my students to that standard, there is no vacation at all.
Grad students are paid 11 months so that they do not have to be awarded benefits, not because of an owed amount of vacation time.
The Boss' world would have imploded if any of us had requested four weeks off. And justifiably so. It is all about momentum. Taking a month off in the work-intense summer time would have been suicide for our projects' progress.
As a European postdoc now working in the US (West Coast), I'd like to second Nitish's comment about needing around 3 weeks minimum to make the trip back home worth the cost of the flights and the time lost due to travel and jet-lag. As he or she says, this is the only time I get to see my family, and making the 'tour' around to see all the grandparents and friends etc. takes up much of the time.
I also wanted to add something that no-one else has mentioned so far: I have to spend part of my vacation renewing my visa every year (my contract is year-to-year so I can only get a one-year visa). This takes up ~2 days of vacation time and about 10 days of processing time at the US embassy in my country, plus I have to factor in some lee-way in case anything goes wrong with the process, or there is a delay with delivery. So from a purely practical visa-renewal point of view, international postdocs can need at least 2 weeks vacation.
My PI has always been fine about any of us (foreign or not) taking ~3 weeks away in the summer. We all work hard for the rest of the time, and he doesn't seem to have a problem with anyone's productivity.
Any postdoc should have a contract which specifies working conditions, which includes hours and holidays. They are an employee like any other. I've never taken a full month off since graduating, but have certainly arranged long vacations and working absences and no-one has ever suggested this is at all unreasonable.
As a student, I can't remember exactly, but after being an undergrad with 3x8 week terms per year, I certainly took a bit less holiday as a grad student :-) OTOH my DPhil supervisor took a whole year off on sabbatical, so could hardly complain.
My complaint about the USA is not that people "have to work crazy long hours to succeed" but that contracted hours are crazy long irrespective of notions or ambitions of success. I just had my attention drawn to a position which advertised a 40h working week, and only 16 days leave plus about 10 national holidays. Currently I work 37hpw, have 27 days leave and about 18 fixed holidays. I'm not applying (though it would be wrong to pretend that these conditions were a big factor in the decision).
Almost no-one here actually uses their leave, but that's the Japanese for you...
I agree with Fia: "Someone who's dedicated to his/her research will take off as much time as needed without hurting ones success, - because in science we all work for ourselfs in the first place."
I really do feel that compared to Europe, students (and postdocs) are treated and considered to both be more 'student' than 'colleague'. Having seen both sides of the coin, I don't think the US never-leave-work version leads to increased productivity.
Furthermore, depending on the type of work you do, taking 3 small breaks a year will cause your experiments to be delayed at least as much as taking a single long one. Starting up and breaking up breeding your animals, for instance.
I think that FSP's question illustrates a larger problem with the system of graduate education in the US: so many issues regarding working conditions are left solely up to the advisor.
Who would accept any other job without knowing how much vacation you would get? When I was at my university, I always hated having to ask my advisor if I could take vacation, because even though he always allowed it, I always ended up feeling guilty for not spending 365 days a year in the lab.
Is the purpose of graduate school to conduct some sort of academic hazing process, or is it to turn students into adult members of the scientific community? I think it's the latter, and part of that means treating students as considerately as you would treat the scientists that they will (hopefully) become. If it's all right for your colleagues with PhDs to take their vacation in one big chunk, it's all right for your graduate students to do the same.
I don't have any problem believing that students or postdocs can take a month off and still make excellent progress on their research (or have their overall research improved by the break), and I try to facilitate this if possible, even in the summer. However, if I am paying the student from a grant for that month of work, they need to work, just as I do if I am paid from a grant for a particular time. It's not a question of standards or fairness or whether I earn my salary as a professor or whatever.
This issue is at the heart of the "freedom" of the academic life that is so often a big part of the reason many of us want to be researchers. Unlike our friends who work for a company, we usually don't have to tabulate our days off and deal with HR in determining our vacation, sick and personal days. But, as a graduate student about to finish, I truly wish I had some clear guidelines to work with over the past several years. I am extremely dedicated to my work, and I want my advisor to think highly of me and help facilitate my career advancement. But I don't want to play guessing games about how much physical presence is necessary in the lab/office to demonstrate my dedication. Some of the comments hit on the guilt associated with vacation. I feel that too and it makes me really want to trade some of this 'freedom' for some clear, reasonable guidelines.
I think that the main difference between USA and Europe is that we (thankfully) have something that is called "paid vacation", so whether you pay your student or not in summer would be a moot point. Every worker is entitled to a month vacation every year, or the proportional number of days if his/her contract is not for the full 12-month period.
When I accept a grant, it is a legal contract for services rendered including percent effort (i.e., amount of working hours) that will be provided by myself and my students and postdocs as stipulated in the budget. Therefore, when I am paying myself off of grants, I do not take long vacations and neither do my students or postdocs. My general policy is that all lab members get 3 weeks vacation plus national holidays. Just like a "real" job, they must inform me ahead of time of their vacation days. Often, foreign students choose to use their entire annual vacation at one time. This requires some advanced planning on my part (I move them to unrestricted funding so as to not violate my grant contracts), but is generally not a problem.
I work at a large European University in the physical sciences. This month of August there are only postdocs and grad students haunting the corridors of my building. All the bosses are off for >1 month.
It is true that in Europe we are often paid with a year-long (one or more for post-docs, 3 or 4 for PhDs) contract including the legal amount of holidays, as in the industry or in any other job. In France, you "belong" to the Ministry of Research, or the CNRS, not to your PI.
The rules are most of the times not as strict as in the "real world", so nobody really counts your holidays: if you don't take them, you won't get paid better because you worked extra-time as you would be in the industry. Still, I probably took all my holiday time during my first year of PhD (5-6 weeks for the year), only 2/3 of it during my second year, and only 5 days (national holidays included) during my 3rd and final year.
I am not alone in this case and know a lot of scientists that don't take all their time off (and in consequence, actually work for free).
All in all, taking some holidays, especially when things were not working well to clear off my mind didn't prevent me to be quite productive (4 first author papers in 3 years of PhD, a reasonable result).
Then I went to the US. I took roughly 3-4 weeks of holidays there, including national holidays. I took one week to 10 days during Christmas, then around the same amount to go back to France interviewing for jobs (nice holiday). My advisor was ok with that and I'm glad he was: as others said, there's no point going abroad to see your family if this is only for 3 days and going to cost you 1 month of salary and 12 hours of flight.
It was probably more than the average grad student who took 1 week during Christmas and 1 week in the summer. But I thought that the whole holiday process for grad students in the US was a bit more childish than in my home country: grad students please the advisor by almost never taking holidays, however when the advisor is on leave, at a conference for example, most of them don't do anything for the whole time he has left. They don't come at all, or they just show up a few hours surfing on Facebook. They do a couple of quick experiments, then pretend it didn't work, or they work very hard the days before their meeting after the advisor has come back.
When I was in France, sure I was taking long time off. But then, when I was in the lab, I wasn't watching if my advisor was there to work hard... It seemed to me it was a more adult relationship.
@James Annan:
You call taking a sabbatical a vacation? Good grief!
My dad was a professor and he always worked HARDER during his sabbaticals than he did otherwise. A sabbatical is time off from teaching, yes, but it's a year meant to be devoted completely to research. My own advisor is about to head off on sabbatical, and her list of stuff to do during the year is daunting...
As a grad student (at a large US university), my advisor always asked what percentage of time I wanted to get paid (=work) during the summer. If I wanted to take vacation, I always asked for 50-75% pay. Thus, I was actually getting paid for the amount of work I was doing and we didn't run into any problems.
I'm from Europe and on my 5th year in the US enjoying 10 days vacation/year. At this point, I feel comfortable saying that *real* vacation time is a win/win situation that is grossly underestimated here in the US, at least among researchers. First, as transpires from mixlamalice's post, having the *option* to take 5 or 6 weeks off does not necessarily mean that one is going to do it religiously every single year. I never did take 5 or 6 weeks when I had the option (although I'm starting to feel sorry I didn't jump at the opportunity when I had it). But the mere option changes everything. Currently, I spend more time every year sitting in my office lamenting that I don't have the option to go away for a few weeks in the summer. While, instead of unproductively lamenting, if I were away on that vacation, I'd love my job more and I'd be much more happy and productive coming back from said vacation. As others have pointed out, productivity in research should be considered over a larger time span than one month, and I don't feel more productive with 10 days vacation than I would be with 25. On the other hand, I certainly feel less happy, especially comes summer.
UnlikelyGrad, I didn't call the sabbatical a vacation, but it was certainly a year off from supervision. A replacement was arranged - a good guy but with whom I had little in common research-wise. I thought it was an interesting alternative perspective on the complaints about some students taking a whole month off, that my supervisor was absent for my entire first year as a grad student. (Not that it scarred me for life, oh no, I'm sane as a hatter...woof)
FSP is getting flamed a bit here; I am a prof with 10 grad students and I feel the same way as she does. Basically, I let all my students have lots of time off, including 2 months for one student who went to a conference in Europe, added some sight-seeing time, then went to China for 6 weeks to renew her visa, and now is asking for a month of "vacation" time in August as she has not had a vacation yet - but she has not been in the lab for 2 months and did not do any work or reply to email while away, so everything we rely on her for has ground to a halt.
Most students are great but there are some who are not really productive enough to justify being paid off of a grant, and then they ask for 2 months off in the summer. So these are really the folks who drive us crackers, as they are slowly sinking the lab (and leeching off of others) with their poor commitment level.
Academic work and research are hard to quantify in terms of work hours, since many of us work irregular hours that add up to significantly more than 40 hours per week. Add to that the course prep, grading, drafting/reading of journal articles, grant writing that goes on in the home office and I'd say that there's a dearth of true down time for profs, post-docs, and grad students. Yes, there are lazy grad students and post-docs and retired-on-the-job profs, but I still feel most academics work very hard because they are dedicated to their work, not for the pay. If a student or post-doc has been sufficiently productive the rest of the year and wants to take several weeks off in August, I see it as taking a version of "comp time" for all the hours s/he has banked the rest of the year. If an individual is lazy, then that needs to be addressed directly, not as result of vacation time. And people who leave for any amount of time need to be proactive about letting their PI and other lab members know about their plans, arranging for interim issues (like deadlines) and agreeing to how often and to what extent they will be in touch via internet or phone or dog sled. One thing I highly value in academia is the flexibility and freedom in how we do our work....I don't want to turn it into an hourly job shop where we clock in and out and report and log every move through HR.
Idealist, yes it would be great if it worked that way. Sadly, if you leave it up to a person's supervisor, they can give you as much (or as little) vacation time as they want and there's not much you can do about it short of looking for another job where the situation will potentially be the same. For this reason, I think it's a good idea to have a higher authority deciding that people have the option of taking X amount of time off, with X >> 10 days pa. Just like there is a 40 hour week, there should be a X days pa standard vacation time.
If the university were responsible for paying student summer salary, a standardized system would likely exist. In the system in which we advisers are responsible for salary and the effort associated with it, we make decisions that might not seem fair because (as I and others have noted) some students can take a month off and continue their excellent and timely progress towards their degree, and some cannot. That introduces inequity, but also flexibility. It is part of our responsibility as advisers to make decisions about these things, weighing issues of time, money, and productivity. In some cases, an adviser's decision that a student should not take an extended vacation in the summer is best for the student; for example, if working all summer will increase the chances for that student to finish their degree before their funding runs out. Perhaps the key thing is to discuss these issues at an early stage so that everyone knows the factors.
"That introduces inequity, but also flexibility."
Well in practice, it often introduces more of the first than of the second.
This is quite unique, for what I've seen, that one guy (the PI) is directly responsible for almost everything concerning the people he manages with almost no higher authority to deal with (since most universities say that questions about holidays or stuffs like that are at the discretion of the PI).
Because there are no rules and because Students Unions don't mean much, you have strong cases of abusive PIs (people that keep you 8 years before they allow you to graduate, people that never allow you to take holidays or even week-ends and so on. Examples there: http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2010/06/22/something-deeply-wrong-with-chemistry/ ).
I don't say that all advisers are abusive, and in fact most of them are still nice people despite the "power" they have over you. And even in France where there are strict laws protecting workers (and so, PhD students), I knew some really bad (mean) PIs. Still, it seems to me that they were fewer and at least they couldn't do easily all what they would have liked, as it happens in the US, because of these rules.
So I guess that wouldn't be a bad idea: "If the university were responsible for paying student summer salary, a standardized system would likely exist."
I work in Europe and rarely take more than a couple of weeks' vacation at the same time over the summer, though that means I usually take at least a week in the Christmas/New Year period and a week or a bit less at Easter, as well.
I'm currently spending a few weeks learning how the media report on science - and I have to say, US researchers have been a lot harder to get hold of over the summer.
I agree with Mix - in the absence of a standard, what seems "fair" to one PI can be very different from what is "fair" to another. Typically, I know PIs who consider it fair that a student or postdoc gets 10 days p.a. IF they have been dedicated and highly productive. And others (in the same institute) who consider it fair that their student or postdoc take whatever time off they want (in practice, this has meant up to 6 or 8 weeks p.a.) as long the PI is told when the person's going be in and out of the lab.
Even if folks are told about the situation upfront, how is this fair and flexible to those who end up working for a PI who is stricter about vacation time?
I have to say that I was shocked to meet people here in the US who don't even conceive the idea of a vacation time longer than 10 days p.a. They just don't understand why you'd want it, or why it would even exist. They are as shocked at the idea of a "long" vacation as I am at the idea of the lack of it.
Aren't grad students typically paid for 20 hrs per week but expected to work at the minimum twice the number of hours?
Rainee
Someone commented that 4 weeks of vacation is rare, but as an inexperienced biomedical research tech I started with 4 weeks. The catch is that it was earned time, so at the end of my first year I had 4 weeks if I had not used it along the way.
In my experience, the idea of deserved vacation time in a wet-lab research environment has a lot to do with adequate face time, a concept I despise. I try to work 7:30 - 4:30 as a post-doc so that I can do errands, laundry, cook, and exercise without hitting bad rush hour traffic. If I read, plan experiments, or do analysis evenings, no one "knows"; they only know if I'm progressing in my research and learning.
So couldn't vacation time for graduate students and post-docs be contingent on if you have earned it, which rests a great deal on your research progress...which is similar to how other work environments function?
People who make an annual pilgrimage to their homeland also tend to take less holidays and long weekends? Would you agree with that?
I have a PI who makes a full Saturday compulsory also. But still gives typical vacation time (10-15 days, Saturday is included as a vacay day if you're absent!), although he gets an extra 52 days of work.
There should be some regulation honestly. It causes burnout!
Post a Comment