Welcome to choices, a university studies podcast. Today we have with us Sarah Paige Warner, who is new to University of Delaware. Sarah Paige, could you please describe what it is you do at UT? Sure. Um, so like Silvia said, I started at UT in October, so right in the middle of COVID, which is great for onboarding, I work as a lab manager for Joshua into Bell's Lab and the Psychological and Brain Sciences Department. So it is specifically a neuroscience lab. And I mostly, I do various managerial were kind of admin sort of things making sure we have supplies. And I also am in charge of managing the mouse colony. Skews the mouse colony, yes. Oh, there are definitely going to be questions that later we have questions right now. We got to tease it a little bit and then we can kind of go back. Okay, so we'll save the mouse questions for later. Let's stay on the topic of the lab. Could you describe more about what it is that happens in the lab? Who works in the lab? Is it for undergrads, for grad psych meds, for some mostly it's graduate students. There are currently, depending on how you count. So there are three graduate students that work with Josh as their adviser, I believe. And there are two more who are associated with a lab but not in his lap. They're just kinda doing rotations with the lab. Right now. There are sometimes undergraduates, I've been told, but this year has not been great for facilitating that because to work with the mice, you kind of have to be in the lab with the mice were trying to avoid as much people being there as possible. So they mostly do work or regarding ultrasonic vocalizations. So those are noises that the mice make that are above human hearing range. But they're very useful for looking at various mouse behavior. So they look mostly right now at like aggression behaviors and mating behaviors. They also do a lot of work looking at like the hippocampus in various areas. Even though I personally am against animal testing, that sounds very cool. So before we kinda get to, I guess too far into what it is that you do and the why. I think it'd be really great to kind of do a bit of a rewind and kind of talk about how you got to where you are. We usually leads this question very open ended. What's your career and educational journey, Ben? Some people choose to start with highschool, others with college. Some are like, when I was five, I want it to be a cartoonist or something. So wherever you want to start and kind of bring us from that point to where you are now. Yeah. So I think I alluded to Silvio and I sign up for this, that my career path has been interesting. So we're going to start in high school for me when I was, we'll actually a little bit before. So in middle school at 1, I had gotten, i've, I've always been a musician. And so in middle school I had joined I harp ensemble and decided that what I wanted to be when I grew up was a concert carpus. And so. Going into high school, there wasn't really my where I grew up, had kind of those centered high schools were like this is the Technology Center, this is the Music Center, this is the Political Science Center, and they had specialty courses. But the Music Center didn't have a harp teacher because that's not really a thing most high schools have. So what I ended up doing was I ended up being homeschooled. And I, my harp teacher specifically started up. I think she'd had the curriculum before, but she specifically started it for me. Basically Conservatory Prep program where I did my homeschool coursework. I went to like a homeschool outsource program for most of it. And then I would go see her for like basically 20 hours a week of and I would do music theory and music history and I'd have like several hours a private lessons that I would be in my harp ensemble for at least six hours. So I was just all music all the time. And then I got to like my junior or senior year of high school and I'm like, actually I don't want to be a concert anymore. I decided I wanted to be a music teacher and I had been doing some teaching on the side. I had been teaching like preschool and harp lessons to really young kids. And so I, I changed pass a little bit. Slight divergence here. I applied to a single college because that was the only college I wanted to go to and I didn't get in. I later discovered that was because I technically didn't graduate high school for homeschooling. When you finish homeschooling in Virginia at least or at least back when I was you were supposed to take the GED, would you finished at I didn't know that, so I didn't take it. So I didn't realize that I hadn't graduated high school and I didn't get into college. So I'm like, okay, fine. I'll take a year off, I'll work. I'll go to community college. I'll knock my grades enough out of the park for community college that they'll have to take me. And luckily that second year I applied and I did get it. So I go off to college. I have a am a music education major with a focus in string education because apart and at some point during the course of my education coursework, I discover that there's this thing called Educational Psychology. And I'm like, Hey, I'm an education major. I want to take educational psychology. So I go to, I think, I think it was probably a psychology professor and they told me, you actually can't take that because it's a class that's only for psychology majors to which I went fine. Then I'll just be a psychology major to. I then took this to my music advisor who told me I was crazy. I would never graduate on time. I don't know if you know this about music classes, but especially music education. You just take approximately 6 million classes at all time. And with my school, they wanted more music education classes like to keep up with technology and all that. But they couldn't add in the coursework because they were literally at the credit limit. So instead of getting rid of classes, they just reduce the number of credit hours each classes worth and then added more classes. So I was already regularly take like 10 classes a semester. So the reason I'm emphatically reacting is because I was also a music Get me. Because it was very that lake of urine and ensemble. Let's now three credits. That's one credit. Credit. Yeah, no, that's just going to Credit. Yeah. You'll have to go see Fifteen concerts the semester. That's 0 credits that Scouts. That's part of your applied lessons. Up. I'm empathizing with this so hard I'm right there. Yeah. So I look like a complete idiot going to buy advisor big like I think I'd be more class honestly. So I ignore him and I find that for psychology anyway, which ended up, I think my junior year I took like 24 credit hours my fall semester or something like that. Yeah. But I did it. I got it. I got the psychology major done. And I found out that during, during the course of my psychology coursework, I really liked it. Like I actually hated the Educational Psychology course when I got to it, it was the worst class I ever took. But I loved the rest of it. And by that point, I was also kind of becoming disillusioned with my music education major because being a teacher is very rough. And I don't know if you want to keep this part in your podcasts or not. It's especially rough when you don't identify as straight and says, it makes things a little bit trickier. So I went through and I did my student teaching. And I got out of that, didn't entirely know what I wanted to do. But a friend of mine was like, Hey, I work for a school in Japan teaching English. Anybody want to do that? And I went, Yeah, What I do that. So I went to Japan for a year and taught English. I only stayed a year because my then girlfriend now wife told me that if I stayed any longer than that, she was gonna break up with me. So after that I came back and I moved up to with her and worked at a doctor's office while I was applying for grad school. So I was mostly looking into psychology programs for grad school and I knew I'd want to do do grad school for awhile. And The Psychology Lab I'd worked in an undergrad was specifically kind of like a music like audio perception lab. So I was looking at those programs and so I wound up applying to and getting accepted at a lab in Las Vegas, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. And so I went to go get a PhD in experimental psychology with a focus in development there. I did this. I move to Las Vegas about three weeks after getting married and my wife didn't come with me. So you might guess that that didn't go very well for me. So I get there and I am essentially pretty miserable for the first year and my get to my second year, I was like, okay, this is this was a bad plan. I should not have done this to myself. And so I switch around things a little bit. I look at my options and I'm like, Hey, they have a masters in, wouldn't you guess it. Educational psychology. And most of my credits that I've already taken will transfer very nicely into that master's in educational psychology. And so I did that, I switch to that master's program, came back home, took a year finishing up my Masters, and that I graduated from that last May. So now here I am. Oh, well, it was an interesting journey because it's like you went from Tyler's thing to my thing. Yeah. Because he was like hardcore empathizing with what you're saying with all the Music Education South. And when you said you made the switch to psychology, I was like, I'm right there with you. And I did have to make like a 24 credit semester to finish out psychology as well because I was running out of financial aid because that's what happens when you take too many classes. Also, I can relate to the class that gets you into something being the class you don't like, but you liking the thing that you got into? Yeah. It was a really weird class because it was, it was one of the higher level psychology electives that you could take. And it felt like it might have just been a weird level of my experience because I had a music education teacher who was really into the idea of transfer, like transfer knowledge across subject areas. And she always focused on that all the time. And so I had learned all the basics of how these principles worked in other psychology classes. And then they were just kind of re-presented to me and educational psychology. And I'm like, Yes, I had already thought about this. I had already been told many times to take what I learned from my other classes and apply them to education. I don't know what else I'm supposed to be. I'm also just kinda stuck on the fact that educational psychology wasn't open to education majors, that it was only for psych and I'm like This seems those count I changed it like two years after I asked that question. Of course. I mean, even when I was an undergrad, we had to like educational psychology was a required course that we had to take. So yeah, that we had as a required course for our education, lifespan, human development, which was just kind of developmental psychology, slammed into one class. And assuming that you would understand how to educate children by understanding how they develop, I guess. So. One thing that I kind of wanted to I guess get a little more detail out of. You graduate with your degree is in both cyc and music ed and you decide, no, I'm done with the music ed thing, give me something else to do. And so you decide to go and teach abroad in Japan for a year, kind of going through that whole process. What was that like? Both making that decision to do that and what kind of was the seal the deal moment, if you will, that it was like, Yes, this is the thing that I'm going to do. Let's do the thing. Neil had been something I've been thinking about for a while. So I've done a month-long study abroad in undergrad in Japan. I'm a giant nerd like I was really into anime and manga and Japanese video games. I really liked the month I'd spent in Japan. I really liked being there. I had heard from other people that doing things like jet. I wind up doing jet that but things like that. We're just like a really good experience for them. I needed money. I didn't want to live in my parents house. You know, it was it was just kind of a whole combination of things. And I I really wanted the experience because I knew if I didn't do it right after I got out of undergrad, I wasn't going to do it. There was just never going to be another good point my wife to do it. Okay, so you get to Japan and you are teaching English. There were some really important things that you learned about yourself while you are in that experience. And then kind of as a branch off question of that, amongst all of that self exploration, how did you kind of happened upon the idea of grad school? If it happened at that point or if it was sooner than that. Yeah. So I've been thinking about grad school sense undergrad. It was always a goal of mine to go to grad school basically, somewhat for stupid reasons. Part of it was just I want the abbreviation Dr. In front of my name. That would be cool. Me too. That was my only reason I want to PhD. I want to be called doctor. Again it and you know, there's part of it that's just kind of a, a misunderstanding of a grad school is. But we can we can get to that later. So I went to Japan right after I graduated undergrad because I knew that once I got into grad school and graduated grad school, but I would have to be job hunting because you don't get a PhD and then go teach English at random, you know, private Jaiku, Japan. They don't hire you for that. And getting hired with a PhD in Japan is apparently a whole thing and I just do it. But while I was there, it was kind of a really interesting, like intermediate step to adulthood, I guess, because I was making money, I had of actual income for the first time in my life. But because I couldn't speak Japanese, the company handled a lot of my bills for me. They just took it out of my paycheck. So they found the apartment for me, they found that utilities for me, that money came out of my paycheck. They had me use a company car. And so it was like this weird kind of I'm making money, I am having to budget, I am having to like look at what I am earning versus what is going out. But I don't actually have to do the bill pay, which is a very weird step to be in. But it was, it was kind of it's kind of that baby step you don't usually get. It's where you're suddenly just dumped at adulthood near like figure it out. Yeah, that was one thing. I guess. What else? It's also just kind of nice having a chance to kind of start over around completely different people. So this was a thing I experienced even when I did my, my study abroad in Japan because people I was on a study abroad with or people I had no connection to outside of that one month. And I was a very late bloomer when it came to LGBTQ plus everything. I didn't realize that I was not straight until I was like 20. So I had been with a group of friends who just presumed I was naive, straight girl for the first two years and I had built up that expectation of that's who I was. And then I have this new situation where these people have no idea who I am and I'm like, Hey, I can say I'm something different and try that out and see how it goes for me. So that was nice at that little space. And then I got to do that again when I went back and I had a better idea of what that identity was. And there were definitely some teachers in Japan who were like surprised that I would be so open about it because that's it's better now I understand they're actually doing things in Japan to make, you know, gay marriage legal. Maybe they're thinking about it and trans issues are definitely getting more visibility over there. But I was, I felt safe enough to say it. And it was nice to be able to like live that without the expectations of who I used to be if that makes any sense. So it sounds like be like in a different environment, helped you to explore new side of yourself that you are, I guess discovering. Yeah, basically, it's just me around new people. I think it's kinda the main thing because, you know, even when I told my friends in college, there's still like a switch. They had to flip it their head to view me in a different manner and I don't think all of them managed to do it, that kind of thing. So there's like, I think I read like some kind of psychological study that was like saying, no matter how old you are, your friends will still see you. How you were when you first met them? Yeah. So like your childhood friend still sees you as a child, how you were as a child, no matter how much you've changed and grown. And I absolutely see that with my friend who I know the longest. She's still makes comments that are like describing somebody she had come up with when we were nine. So I have some questions about like because you had a pretty well, quite honestly, I was expecting a lot more twists and turns with your story when you are describing or when we were talking about this interview, I guess because of my own personal rewind the story. I was like, Oh, here we go. And then Barry, why idea at all? And I was like, Okay, It's weird, but it's like BIPAP. My path from from high school to through undergrad is a little bit weird, but after that, I well, I guess I wouldn't say I've had a straight path because I still don't really know what I'm doing, but who knows, who knows what will happen. So I guess it seems very consistent with music during middle school, high school, and then partway through college or even through college. But then there was a switch that didn't necessarily flip the kind of moved towards psychology and it's been kind of like that round since then. Has there been anything else? Like even whether it's before that journey or during that timeline. What are some other things that you thought of or that you wanted to do or things like in the future that you want to make a part of your career. So that's kind of a hard question for me. The answer for a couple reasons, which is that I'm one of those people who tries to plan like every five years of my life like this is going to be doing five years. This has been five years. And I have never been correct. I have always change my mind in the middle. I am trying to be at a point with with myself where I don't have the next five-years plan it out and it is killing me. Let me tell you. I was once told by a graduate student when I was an undergrad, she just kinda looked at me and she was like, I think you have too many interests. I think you're going to change careers like six types in your life. And I'm 30 and have already done that twice now. So she might be right. But like that, that is the problem is I have a lot of interests and it's kind of just a question of who I convinced to hire me prior to being in this lab. So I guess that's a thing we haven't really talked about much yet. What I was doing and psychology has basically nothing to do with what I am currently doing. And Josh, his lab, I have no prior experience with neuroscience. I have no prior experience working with mice. I am basically, this is all very new to me. How did you get hired? A good question. I was very nice. I think this is part of a thing with job interviews in general is just kind of convincing people that the skills you have are relevant to the job they're hiring for. And I have previous lab manager experience. That was something I did while in grad school. So even though I haven't worked in the type of lab he has, I still have some sort of adjacent experience. And now maybe in five years or whatever, I go somewhere else and they're like, Well, do you have any, you know, experienced testing this kind of drug and I'm like No, But now I have mouse experience. I've worked with mouse models. I understand how to take care of a colony. I understand how the handle mice. And that's not a skill I had coming into this job, but it might be a skill that gets me the next job. And do I want that kind of job? I have no idea. I have no idea what I wanted. And a lot of my pursuits outside of work are very, very much more creatively motivated. So like my mother keeps insisting that I should open a bakery and things like that. I at 1 in college had an online Etsy store where I celled ridiculous video game flushes like I like I do I do that kind of stuff on the side too. I guess the shorter answer is I expect my story to have many more twists and turns if you asked me this question 20 years from now, but my crews basically only just started. This is the first post grad job I've ever had. Didn't you say that you finish your masters degree, so do you still have a desire to then go get your PhD? Yes and no. There are parts of the PhD that I liked less than I thought I would. And also, I like making actual money and not a graduate student stipends really tell me. And, you know, obviously I had moved away for my wife and that kind of did a number on my mental health. So if I were to do a PhD program, it would have to be somewhere here. And that's not a thing. It's certainly not a thing I've ruled out, I guess is the best way of putting it. But I would need a good reason to do it at this point. Because I don't know if your students who listen to this notice, but PhD programs are expensive and they take a lot of time. They are very exhausting things to put yourself through for a lot of people, it's very worth it depending on what you want out of it. But for me where I am, there is a concern like especially with what I was just talking about. Have some concerns that a PhD would make me specialized in a way I don't necessarily want to be. I kinda discovered during this process that I really like breadth versus depth a bit more. I like to know a bunch of different things. I like to be good and competent at a bunch of things. I don't want to be the best at a single thing. And that's just kind of how I am as a person. Have you ever seen that like diagram of like it's a circle and it's like undergrad and then a little bigger like chunk coming out of part of it is like master's degree. And then a tiny little spike is like Ph.D. yeah, PhD are so incredibly specialized. Exactly. That reminded me of something that you had mentioned before. You said that you were interested in grad school because you had a different idea of what grad school is. Could you describe what your original idea or could you describe your original expectation of what grad school was? Yeah. So I think the expectation I had a bout grad school is fairly similar to what a lot of people do, which is that, well, if you're just smart enough, you can make it through grad school fine. Grad school is just about being smart and good at classes and all that jazz. I know. So if you're giving me this look like, oh, use your sweet summer child. Book has also been through grad school. The look on my face is and what did we learn? And obviously, that's not how it goes. Grad school is a lot more of what I was looking for out of grad school even once I understood a little bit better that it wasn't just that I was looking for intellectual challenge. Like I was really looking to be intellectually stimulated and intellectually challenged. And what I mostly found were social challenges. I had to manage my advice there. I had to manage this other professor I was a GA for who was a jerk to me. I had to manage like department politics in order to get anything done. Had to manage just all of these like weird inter-personal relationships that took up so much more of my time and emotional energy than anything intellectual. And it's not to say that I didn't have intellectual challenges. I had a couple classes that I loved that really intellectually stimulated me and really I learned a lot from them, but they were much less frequent than I wanted them to be. Those experiences were like the rare gem that I could find. But I had to dig through all the dirt of university politics to get to them. I think that's applicable also to everything. Yeah, it really does. It starts at everything. Like, I guess it reminds me of students who and I was the student. So who think they just need to get through the class, they just need to get the degree and don't realize it is so much more than just going to clash during the work, getting the degree. You have to build relationships, you have to do extra curriculars, you have to get involved. You have to do social things, you have to do this, you have to do that. We'll carry on through everything. And it's a skill that I think it's important for students to develop in undergrad because networking is so important for getting a job. Like you said, you got your job because you are nice. And I I don't know if you're joking or being half joking, but it's the truth. Like if people like you, they will hire you, they don't care. If you only have half the skills necessary to do it. Because if you can do a job decently, but they don't want to work with you. You're not getting the job. So it's not just about doing the work. It's about financing everything else. Unfortunately, Political. Yeah. And I was half joking. So we're going through graduate interviews right now and learning, learning a bit about how Josh sees that informs me a little bit of how I was hired, I think because he's looking for people who have relevant skills. But he's also looking for people who fit with the the attitude of the lab. Like the last thing he wants is to bring someone in who, you know will makes a lab environment dysfunctional. So if I had been the most skilled person, I knew everything about neuroscience. I had done, you know, these implantations, probes and could do all of that myself. But I was someone who would clash horribly with the lab. I don't think I would've gotten hired. So it really is just kind of this mix like being nice will not get you every job you need. You do need some skill that you need happening? Yeah, exactly. You need at least half the skills. But if you're a good person to work with that kind of reputation also does get around. Yeah. Like if you if you are a horrible co-worker, people will find out and you will have a hard time getting hired other places. But if you are someone who is genuinely enjoyable to work with, does really good things for you and you do wind-up kind of accidentally building that reputation. So like, I hate formal networking. Like I hate the networking events where you go and you like to introduce yourself and like basically do a short version of your resume and hands out your business cards and all of that. I hate it. I hate it so much. But I'm very good at just kind of the casual networking where I'd like See people don't like, hey, how's it going? I made cookies, they're in there in the lounge. Why don't you go get some how are you doing? What can I help with? I'm very good at that kind of casual NUS. And I think that's what people remembered more. If you get the chance to do that. Yeah. Will be his. I think with formal networking, there is kind of this understanding that there is, there's a layer of authenticity that's kind of stripped away from it because she knows why they're there. They're not there, necessarily make connections with people. They're there to make connections with employers. And so it becomes, it becomes more of like a numbers game in a sense, whereas. For, I would wager to say all three of us here are much more comfortable with the casual networking and building things that way that it seem a little more authentic, a little more organic as well. So that it's not a force kind of thing. It's just something that you by happenstance, by luck, and by just being yourself and not having this scripted rehearsed speech of who you are, I think is where it makes it more memorable and more welcome as well. And I would venture that most people are probably better at the casualness. It's just, I didn't even realize until recently how important that was. I thought that the type of formal networking with the only networking that mattered. But it's not, it's kind of, I thought I tell my students. I tell students, I give presentations on this and I tell them your networking right now. Look at the students around you, look at your peers. You never know who you're going to work with in the future. Or like who might be working at a company that you want to work for. Or if you **** off the wrong person, then you might not get this certain job or something like that. And it's honestly unfortunate because there are some people like myself who are even bad at the casual networking as well. But luckily there are workshops and classes for both the professional and the casual networking. Just understanding the importance that a lot of students that we work with in university studies, a lot of times kind of fall into a similar sort of personality trait as you, where they either have a lot of interests and kind of want to be able to still explore all of those things because they're just, they're curious students and I think they're honestly really intelligent as well. I really more of a personal philosophy that anything grounded in science, but I feel that some of the most intelligent people are usually the most curious, not the ones who know a lot about something. It's the ones who seek out the knowledge that kinda makes them that way. Just my thought about that conjecture. So we'll have students who are very curious about it out a lot of things, or they all want to be pigeonholed or be too narrow about what it is that they want to study. They want to have a lot of options and be broad and all of that. It sounds like you kind of fall into both of those areas. How are you able to kind of navigate that? Particularly when we frankly live in a society where that's not always supported. Yeah. That is, that is a thing I continue to struggle with to this day because they're just there simply are not enough hours in the day for me to like, do all the things that I want to do. Much less become good at all the things I want to become good at. So I have dealt with this different ways over the course of my life. Because part of what we're also taught is that if you are good at something, you should monetize it. Which is part of why I was initially going to be a concert harpist because I am slash was good at harp. I haven't practiced in a while because I got burned out. Bites. The way I dealt with just having a lot of interests going through college. That was part of why I wound up shifting from performance to education. Because we're the performance degree I was going to go to a conservatory and it conservatories. You only do music, you do nothing else. And I realized at some point, like, Oh my gosh, I would die. I would be so miserable doing one thing all the time. I cannot do that to myself. And so I switched to education, which allowed me to go to a liberal arts college. So a lot of people complain about their Gen Eds. I really like them. I liked being able to go around to the piece completely different departments and learning completely new things. I also got involved with a club that I don't think UT has anything like it. I did destination Imagination and college. I don't know if Delaware even does die. They might do odyssey of the mind, which is basically the same thing. Could you describe what it is? Yes. So it's it's a creative problem-solving kind of club. It runs from elementary school all the way up until college. And so what happens is you get a prompt basically. And they fall into a different bunch, different categories. So there's like a Structural prompt, there is a technology prompt, There's a science promptly to the fine arts prompt and community service prompt. I think it's the fifth one and you get the prompt. So like one year Our prompt for the fine arts challenge was you have to tell a story. And it's the same story. But you have to tell it three different times using three different types of storytelling methods. And there have to be two distinct modes of transportation in between. So we had to write an eight minute skit and make our own props, make our own set dressings, you know, scenery, everything. And then we perform to the competition. Now, the fine arts challenge is pretty straightforward and that you put on a play, the structural challenge, you have to build a structure that will hold as much weight as possible. And that structure and its materials have to be incorporated into your skit somehow. The fact that it breaks has to be incorporated into the skin. So you have to figure out, okay, well, how do we make that happen? What can we do to make this sync up with this? And in those kind of challenge especially, and we had this in the fine arts challenge that I described two, I did a number of challenges over the years. Wind up with people from radically different disciplines. So I remember my first year when I did that one, I think I was on as an education major. We had an engineering major, we had a computer science major, we had a physics major, we had a philosophy major, and we all brought completely different things and skills to that team. And so that was really nice for me and allowing me to be a creative outside of a way I was being asked to be in the context of my major. And it was allowing me to make these connections with people who had different skill sets than I did and learn things about those skill sets from them. And so that was that was really rewarding for me through college. So that plus my ability to take these other Gen Ed classes really helped a lot. I would also probably helps with that is just a thing that happens with music majors, which is you do not take your gen eds the first two years of college, you just take them wherever they fit in your schedule. So I was a senior and still taking gen eds just because that's how my schedule laid out. And so it was spread out across the four years, which allowed me to keep my sanity. But I think my original goal going into college was to have like two majors and three minors. Don't do that. That's a bad idea. Well, it depends on what those two majors are and what those three minors, honor. And I guess that's true. Yeah. I think I think I was wanting to do minors that my school didn't even offer it because I said I was doing with my life. But yes, so leaving that and I think part of my problem I had with graduate school was I didn't really have any kind of outwit other than graduate school. That was kinda the the breadth versus depth problem I was experiencing is that I had to be so focused into my research that I didn't really, there was no time and no energy for me to do anything else. Now, I am an employee of Udi and I am using my nice, fancy UD credits to just take whatever glasses I feel like taking. What are you taking? I am I'm currently enrolled in a theater class and I'll be taking Spanish next semester. And I've also tried to be kinder to myself about doing things, even if I'm not good at them and even if they won't make me any money. So I've been trying to get involved in like some local theater groups prior to COVID. Obviously, I've done more baking. I've done as much sewing as I can get it as much writing as I can get in. And these are not things I am necessarily good at. But they're things I like doing. And I think it's important to continue stretching myself in different directions. Partially for my sanity and partially just because that's kind of the person I want to be. I want, I want to have a number of well rounded skills. And so I will probably just keep, keep learning wherever the opportunity presents itself to me, and just keep doing that for the rest of my life. I have two questions. The first is, how is it taking classes with undergrads? So this one has been I I can't give you a good answer from the one I've taken because it's been online. And there was exactly one group project that wasn't really that much of a group project. So I didn't really get a great sense of it. I do think that there is something very interesting about having been through a graduate degree, having like graded undergraduate work, and then going back and taking a undergraduate coursework. Because part of it's like I can look at these undergraduates and what they're posting to the discussion board down and like, okay, you clearly, I have graded this kind of work before I realize that you didn't read any of it. And you're just You're just doing the thing where you post. Like we can all tell undergraduates, we can tell when you haven't done the work and you're just posting to the discussion board just to see what, uh, just, just to fill the requirement. But I could also see it from the student's perspective because there were a couple of assignments that I've been given by this professor to like, does this actually do anything? I don't, I don't think this is useful. Though. I don't know at a requirement that all professors have to take a 200 level course every so often to remind them of what? Well, when we are back on campus and things are operating normally, do you hear comfortable continue need to take classes with undergrads. So by me and I guess we'll see what happens. I have a bit of a baby face, so that helps a bit. Yeah. For the most part I can I think I would be fine with it. Like it might be a little bit weird at some angles, but I only ask because I, one of the reasons that I work in higher education is to take classes for free. Yes. I have only worked at institutions with very traditional student populations, whereas where my Alma mater did not have that. When I was an undergrad, I had classes with professors who were using their free credits and same like in graduate school. I would have had no problem taking undergraduate classes with those students. But now I'm like, I feel really uncomfortable taking classes with nothing but students. That could be my kids. I'm old enough to be their mom, you know? Yeah. Like I will say that the way this class is currently set up is very clearly with only a traditional college population in mind because things on lock on certain days. And so I can't just pre do work over the weekend. Like normally what I would I would take a class like this. It's like Okay, I don't have time during the week. I'll do all my homework on the weekends and then get through the week and do that over and over again. And I've literally cannot do this for this class. So I have to be like, well, I guess it's nine o'clock at night on a Monday time to do my homework. Because really about how I prefer to live my life. But that's actually how you can tell whether a college has a good amount of non-traditional students is how many night class that they offer? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So the other thing I wanted to mention, it wasn't a question. Was, I like that. You brought up how we value things that can be monetized. If you're good at it, you should monetize it. Because that's such a huge thing in our society, are like, like we asked each other like, Oh, what do you do for a living? Whereas other countries would be like, what do you do? And they will answer with like, hobbies or things that they do. Just what they're passionate about. Like if they go on vacation to go skiing, that's what they do. Whereas we're like, we put so much emphasis on being paid for things. So like if you're an artist or a writer, or a musician, if you don't get paper, those things, how dare you call yourself that is the attitude that people have. And that's why I personally am like, anytime somebody Buys my book in a fiscal year. I'm like, Good. I can still call myself a writer because somebody bought my book. They yeah. I think that just because you're good at something doesn't mean you have to do that, especially if it makes you miserable. Because yeah, you will get burned out and you will be good at it for much longer. If you don't enjoy doing it. Like that was one reason why I was I don't take art classes. Because anytime I'm taking creative classes, it has stucked the fun out of that. Like I would've never been any kind of music major because all of my music lessons have stuck the fun out of music. But now I play it on my own and I love it because nobody's told me to practice. I think the big takeaway, or at least something to think about for people who are listening to this, is it's good to pursue things that you're passionate about. It doesn't mean that you necessarily have to make that your work or that your work needs to be the most, the thing that you are most passionate about. I think there always needs to be kind of this management of expectations of what is sustainable for what you do to support yourself and support your hobbies and the things that you are passionate about. For some, their passion can support them and they're able to balance that and not have it burn them out or make them lose. But sometimes it's okay to do something that maybe is not the most exciting thing or you're not the most passionate about, but it is stable or sustainable so that you can pursue other things in. Sarah, I think you even being here talking about that. I for my perceptions and what we've discussed, it seems like that's something that you kind of aligned with? Yeah, definitely. I have friends, Definitely who their job is, their passion. They love what they do. They can, you know, obviously they take a break from it at some point because you have tail. But that's what they get up for the morning. And I just like I really like my job. I like what I do a lot. Josh, please capable. But my my passion is it just my job? I have a lot of passions outside of my job. And if I tried to make many of those passions, my job, as I tried with music when I was younger, I think I would lose that passion. And I don't want to do that to myself. I love these things too much to risk losing that shoe. We are kind of nearing the end. So is there any fun questions that you want to ask? Like we you did also say you wanted to ask me about the mice at some point. So Let's go back to the mice. And my big question is, do the mice again means no. That is, you absolutely do not do that. So it's, mice are an interesting population to work with. So I've had pet rats. And rats are very different from mice because rats for, to put it, to put it in kind of laymen terms, rats just kinda have better memories. They form bonds with people a bit better. Rats are like we do, is route for experiments to not, not in our lap and other places do. Mice are kind of mean, honestly and personal experience. They forget about you immediately. You cannot build a rapport with them. It sounds like mice are the cats and rats are the dogs. Rats are basically tiny dogs. It is not a scientific fact and you should not quote me on that outside of the realm of this podcast. But yeah. Josh, did you hear what she said? That it about rats with rats. Now, telling us a story the other day about here, he made the mistake. I forget if it was in grad school or as postdoc, he was working with rats and he named to the first route he worked with. But then at the end of experiments UK to feed the rat's brain. So he really, he basically was like Do not do not ever named them. It will make it so much worse. So yeah. We hang on a second. They do what with the round. When you're done, you need its brain because you gotta look at some stuff. So, oh, yeah, that's not true. That's not true of all of the experiments. We, we do a lot of behavioral experiments to where you just watch them interact. And then you like the track what they do and the sounds they make and stuff like that. But for anything that involves like probes and stuff like that, you can't yeah. With being a lab manager, how what are your what are some of your biggest responsibilities? Because it sounds like you do partake in the research to a certain extent. So I'm kind of curious to know kind of what what your week would typically look like. So right now it's probably a bit different than when COVID is no longer a thing. There have definitely been things I've been slower to be trained on just because we can't be in the same room as much as people. So my primary job well, my primary job is managing the lab, I guess is the best way to put it. Which functionally for means, means I do a lot of different things which going with the fact that I like to do a whole bunch of stuff, It's actually really ideal for me. So kind of part of the main things I do is I do all the ordering for the lab supplies. I have a lab inventory. I make sure that we're well stocked and we have everything we need for experiments and surgeries and things like that. I handle a lot of the communications, unlike just kind of day-to-day sort of stuff. So if there's anything that is going to need some back and forth and that I can handle it usually gets sent on to me and then I manage that so it doesn't pile up on Josh's inbox. One of my main things that I do in regarding the mouse quality is I, I have created a database of them and I keep track of, you know, we have breeding pairs. I need to know which of them have had litres. When do those litters need to be weaned and tagged? And if are there breeding pairs, so just are doing well. Are they just like consistently producing week litters or just having issues with the litter process. And I also go in and I, once the mice are old enough, I put in the little, little ID chips that go in their tail so they can identify them all separately. And I also get their genotype information because a lot of the strength we have, have multiple different genotypes and it's important for us to know what those are for certain experiments. And so I'll go in and do that as well. I'm just going to ask where the mice come from, but I guess it kind of lends itself to do. It's like, well, we'll just write our own. Like why do my order then? We do order some from certain strains. So we only have, so our lab has three different strains of mice currently. And we, we do try to do our breeding in house as much as we can, but we do sometimes have to order Jackson Labs is where we order them from. Okay. Thank you so much therapy age for joining us on our podcast and sharing your experience and your wisdom. Thanks for having me as but yeah, to emphasize with Soviets said this has been such a wonderful interview. You've been such a delight and it's been so interesting. Learning about your path, your experiences in kind of being able to relate this both I guess ourselves to a certain extent and also in ways that I hope our students can appreciate as well. You're welcome back anytime if you ever want to talk more about the mice colony or about the next thing that you are studying as well. Do you mind if our students, if anybody wants to learn more about the mice, if they contact you. Oh, yeah, sure. I have a UT email address. It is S as in therapy isn't page burner. We R and E are at u del.edu. I'm not really around on campus very much because of COVID, but if I was, I would be in Wolf Hall. But Yup, Wonderful. Thank you so much. And thanks everyone for tuning in again to another episode of choices, a university studies podcast.

Choices: Episode 11 - Interview with Neuroscience Lab Manager Sarah Paige

From Sylvia Lee April 13, 2021

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Sarah Paige Werner talks with us about her work with the Neuroscience lab at UD, her career journey that began in a harp ensemble, teaching abroad in Japan, and more.

Department Name: University Studies
Appears In: University Studies

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