Community Spotlight: Elizabeth Drellich
We occasionally spotlight members of the Realize Change community who have recently experienced professional and personal growth.
Elizabeth Drellich enjoys playing hockey and piano (but not simultaneously!). Over the past year, she successfully transitioned her career out of academia into a fulfilling role with less stress, better pay, and more time for things that bring her joy. Find out how she did it…
Elizabeth Drellich in the Boundary Waters, Minnesota.
Tell us a little about you. What are you into? What kind of work do you do? What are your special skills and strengths?
I am a Massachusetts native who has made her life in Philadelphia. I play piano and ice hockey, though not simultaneously. I have a PhD in Mathematics and during the course of my doctoral and postdoctoral work I lived in several states and traveled internationally. In my current job I teach biomedical researchers how to use programming to ensure that the data analyses they do for their research are accurate and reproducible. My most recent vacation was spent canoeing in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
That sounds so lovely! Reflecting on a year ago, where were you in terms of your professional and personal journey?
A year ago I was wrapping up my final job in academia as a Visiting Assistant Professor. It was my third non-tenure-track academic position after earning my PhD and I had already been planning to transition out of academia for over a year, but due to the pandemic had been unable to make the leap in spring of 2020.
Before deciding to leave academia, I had been actively applying and interviewing for tenure track mathematics positions all over the east coast. This was an exhausting, months-long process and each campus interview was coupled with a not-so-minor existential crisis about whether I could actually leave my loving Philadelphia community and start completely over in yet another new location.
A year ago I decided it was time to make a big change no matter what. I declined to renew my contract at the college I was teaching at and applied for unemployment and the state health insurance exchange (PA explicitly allows university teachers whose contracts expire to apply for unemployment, not every state does). I was sad and exhausted and defeated, but also ready to be myself again.
Where are you now? What has changed for you on an inner and outer level?
Now I work for Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. I'm still an educator, but now I'm part of an awesome team of Data Instructional Specialists (my job title) who work directly with biomedical researchers to teach them the coding skills they need to produce their life-saving and world-changing research.
Everything about this job is better than the academic jobs I had before. It is easier, less stressful and pays a lot more. I enjoy the work when I am doing it, and I don't have to think about it outside of my working hours. Even better, when work-related thoughts drift through my head on the weekend, they don't stress me out or upset me. I can acknowledge them and let them drift by knowing they can be addressed when I return to my desk Monday morning.
This has opened up my time and mental energy to focus on other parts of my life that were always "on hold until I know where I end up being a tenure track professor." I knew, but didn't fully understand, how heavy it was to carry the weight of every job having an end date and (almost) every job change requiring an interstate move.
Congratulations on your successful career pivot and new-ish job!! What key steps did you go through to help make that happen?
I think the biggest external step for me was reaching out to others who had escaped academic mathematics. I reached out to people I knew, and people who were one, or even a few degrees removed from me. Ultimately someone who had been a few years ahead of me in graduate school connected me to an open community Slack channel where people post all kinds of things related to women and minorities in tech including open jobs. If I hadn't practiced reaching out to people I knew, I wouldn't have been able to reach out to a stranger who posted an interesting job. That stranger is now my manager.
Internally the biggest change I had to make involved realizing that a job application is not a lifetime commitment. It should be more like buying a raffle ticket: low cost, low stress, and if you end up winning an ugly 6-foot teddy bear you don't want, you can just say no. But you will never win the oversized check worth real money unless you purchase a ticket in the first place.
That’s one of the best metaphors I’ve ever heard. It has been delightful working with you through the reVision coaching program. How has this experience affected the way you approach your work and life?
When I was an academic, my job was deeply tied to my identity. When I first left academia, people would ask "What kind of job are you looking for?" My truthful answer was that I had no desire to be employed whatsoever. That wouldn't have been financially feasible long term, so I needed to learn how to be "Elizabeth, who works as a thing-doer" instead of "Elizabeth the thing-doer."
On a more global level, this experience made me realize it is okay to ask for, and pay for, help.
What advice do you have for other women+ who are seeking to use their gifts for good?
Talk to each other! Talk to everyone! Ask them what they do, how much they are paid, and what the next steps would be if you wanted to learn more. Get as much advice as you can, and reject the advice you think is wrong. People are happy to talk about themselves and their journeys, and you can get a lot of useful information even if their advice ends up not being for you.
What’s on tap for the summer?
Hopefully some trips to the shore with friends, a visit to friends and family in New England, and a return to the Boundary Waters for another week canoeing and camping! I've got 4 weeks of paid personal time on top of a fully remote job I can do from anywhere!