本文文字及音频来自naturejobs.com

采访 朱莉·古尔德（Julie Gould）
笔译/听译 杨惠东
审校 丁家琦

2011年诺贝尔物理学奖得主布莱恩·施密特对学生们最担心的一点是：“他们不知道自己将来如何能成为一名研究者”。

这是布莱恩·施密特在以下这条播客中的开场白。他很关心他的学生。

很多年轻的研究员觉得，博士阶段的学习与训练只能为进入学术界做准备，而施密特并不这么认为。他认为，一个科学博士学位不仅让你能立足于学术界：它也能帮助你在毕业后进入任何职场。

他也在播客中谈到了自己的学术生涯，以及自己曾经差点离开科学研究领域、差点退出发现宇宙加速膨胀的研究团队的经历。他将这些经验和教训分享给了自己的学生和博士后研究员，现在，我们也一并分享给你。

这里是我们谈话的概要：

1. 本科和研究生阶段的科学训练很有意思，你会学习有趣的事情，并将他们用在有趣的工作中。

2. 做研究是一项很棒的工作，但不是唯一的工作。只要你用心寻找，任何工作都会变得有趣。

3. 心态要开放：你有很多办法将学术研究中得到的知识与经验运用到其他工作中。

4. 活在当下：不要追逐不切实际的东西。

5. 竭尽你所能。

6. 时刻反省：想想你喜欢做什么，你又会为这件事情牺牲多少？

7. 多向导师和其他科学家请教，看他们都做了些什么——不论是在学术圈内还是圈外。

8. 优秀的科学家的共同点：积极进取、不断学习、保持积极、充满热情、有条不紊。

9. 一定一定要做让自己开心的事情！

最后一点也是我想强调的。如果你对一项将要花费你人生大部分时间的事情（也就是我们所说的“事业”）并不满意，那么它势必会影响到你生活中的其他方面。任何职业都不值得你牺牲自己的快乐。

以下是谈话录音的中文翻译和英文文本：

古尔德：大家好，欢迎来到Nature Jobs的播客节目，我是朱莉·古尔德。这个月的节目很短，但会很贴心，希望大家能够有所收获。几周前我去了林道市。林道市是德国康斯坦茨湖中最美丽的小岛，60多名诺贝尔得主和其他年轻学者在此齐聚、研讨问题，分享他们的思考和生活中的故事。

这里是2015年的林道市的诺贝尔奖得主大会。为了多给大家分享一些见闻，我抓住机会去和一些获奖者交谈，以便更多地了解他们的生活和科研生涯，并做成了一系列的节目。在今天的节目中，你会听到我和布莱恩·施密特（Brian Schmidt）的对话。他因发现宇宙的膨胀速度正在增加而与索尔·珀尔马特（Saul Perlmutter）和亚当·里斯（Adam Riess）分享了2011年诺贝尔物理学奖。我觉得他是一个极其迷人又擅于鼓舞他人的科学家，他总是热衷于帮助和他一起工作的人——尤其喜欢帮助学生、博士后和实验室的其他研究者解决事业方面的问题。

我们这次的谈话主要有两个部分：一是施密特谈论他的个人经历和他的生活；在第二个部分，我们讨论了他喜欢往实验室招什么样的人，以及这些人在完成科研训练之后最终去做了什么。

施密特：我最担心的一点，是学生们不知道他们以后如何能成为一个科研人。研究领域的竞争十分激烈，我们所教授的学生数量要远远多于学术界能提供的工作岗位的数量。我曾经也面临这样的问题，但是这个情况在今天更加严重：如今竞争的激烈程度大概比以前要大出三倍，比我那个时候可怕多了。当我在求职过程中不知所措时，我甚至都没有想到过自己有一天会成为一名教授。我确实梦想过拿诺贝尔奖，但老实说，我觉得自己成为天文学家的可能性小之又小。但是，我之所以在本科和研究生阶段接受科学训练，是因为它们很有趣，也因为我明白，学习了这么多有趣的东西以后，总有一天我能将它们用在某个有趣的工作中。

做研究确实是一份很好的工作，但不是唯一的工作，所以我觉得人们并不用担心“天哪现在这份活儿是我唯一想做的工作”。我们要把眼光放开一点：大千世界，工作机会多得是。有时候我们也需要退而求其次，学习一些自己不那么感兴趣的东西，或者看看薪水更低、更短期的工作。与博士学位对口的工作岗位的合同时间一般都很长，薪水也更高，招人少是因为留在学术界的人实在是太多了。如果你下海的话，从理论上来说你应该也会很成功。即使你在岗位上不一定百分之百会很开心，但这样的工作和其他任何职业一样优秀。

古尔德：您曾经想当一名物理学家，也确实在本科学习了物理。我听说您曾经申请过一份工作但没能申上。您能解释一下到底是怎么回事儿吗？

施密特：我拿的是天体物理学的博士，博士毕业后我申请了工作，也的确得到了一个很好的工作。可之后我又申请了另一份工作，因为我结婚了，而我妻子是一个经济学博士。我们得在同一个地方工作，但这是一个挺大的难题——可能是我们面临过的最大问题之一吧，因为在同一个地区找到两个专业性如此强、范围如此窄的工作是很难的。我们最后搬到了澳大利亚。我老婆是澳大利亚人，我也有亲戚移民到那儿了，所以还是挺方便。起码我觉得蛮舒服的，因为澳大利亚也是一个很适合居住的地方。美中不足的是，我的工作合同只签了三年，而接着就来了一个为期三年半的项目，测试宇宙膨胀是如何减缓的。

到了两年以后，由于我在项目上花了相当多的时间，所以也不像其他人那样发表了很多论文。虽然我做得并不差，但还是没能续签这份的工作，所以我也就只能像很多人一样，重新找个职位。一开始我没申上那个职位：排在我前面的有三个人，所以我只能认真思考一下自己的未来了。

如果是你会怎么做？反正我对当时处境很不满意。但另一方面我也没病急乱投医，盲目投身于一个之前丝毫不了解的领域。我就尽力而为。在那之后的大概六个还是八个星期，我没有放弃，还是认真在找，和各种资源保持联系。结果我前面那三个被录取的人居然都决定不干了，于是我就拿到了那个职位。职位大概是98年1月1日开始的，而就在1月8日的时候，我们研究组就确定宇宙其实是在加速膨胀的——其实几个月之前就发现这个迹象了。我成功留在了组里。

当时就像是去戏院看戏一样，我们不知道到底会发生什么。当然，有人会说：“好险啊，要是你没得到这个职位，你不就做不出这个得诺奖的成果了？”事实确实如此，但科学无论如何都会不断前进，就算我不发现这个事实，总有人会要发现的。我不会任我的生活随波逐流，不会去追求一些不可知的东西。所以，我想告诉大家的是：要活在当下。不要去担心你控制不了的事情。做好你力所能及的事情，不论如何，生活的路总在脚下。如果经历了一切后还是走投无路，那你可能就是运气太差了。

古尔德：要让科学家不去担心他们无法控制的事情是很难的，你要怎么教你的学生放松的呢？

施密特：我跟所有学生都有过这样的对话。我是这么说的：事情都是这样的（this is the way things are going），你要仔细思考：有很多你能做的事情摆在面前，你到底想做什么，并愿意为此做出多大的牺牲？我并不会把自己的价值观强加给学生。我会问“你们到底想做到什么样？”他们会有自己的家庭，所以我会问他们，是不是准备好牺牲家庭来奉献给学术事业？钻研学术往往会导致家庭不和谐、甚至离婚。因此，除非你觉得这份工作对你十分重要，不然不要轻易做决定。这就是我会给学生说的话。

当然，对于那些去了别的行业的学生我也同样会这么说。有意思的是，每次我问他们过得怎么样的时候，大多数人都会回答说非常喜欢现在的工作。这是很好的事情，我完全没有想到会是这样。我总劝诫他们说，学过的东西总会有用处，他们开始不相信，但后来他们就会发现，“哇你当时说的很对啊，确实很有用”。所以我会把这些告诉我的学生，这也很有效，能让他们不那么紧张。同时，对于那些会思考又有多种专业技术的人，在学术之外也有很多令人激动的机会。我今年最优秀的一名学生就直接去了公司，她说学术对自己来说并不是那么有趣。她想直接去企业工作，而且这让她很兴奋。我当然不能说她是错的。在企业里、政府的实验室和各种行业里都有很多精彩的事情。其实只要你认真对待，任何工作都可以变得有趣。

古尔德：那么， 不论你带的学生最终将要去哪儿，你希望在他们身上看到哪些品质呢？

施密特：嗯……对于学生来说，我比较喜欢有自主能动性的人、真正愿意在我管理的项目下工作的，而不是只想着我拿了诺贝尔奖。我想看到他们的动机。我也想要能平和地与之相处的人，而不是喜欢捣乱的人。我还喜欢那些时刻准备聆听和学习，同时又积极主动的人。我视我的学生为合作者，而不是我一个人当“老板”指挥他们工作，因而我需要有人能随时站出来说“我觉得你错了”——因为大多数的时候我都是对的，所以我需要听到这样的声音。至于博士后，我想找那些已经做过很多有趣的工作，并且有自信和激情去闯，真正想做博士后工作的人，因为我自己就对这些工作很有激情。对于博士后，我同样喜欢平和的，不搞破坏的人。当然，能适应组里专业技能需求的人总是再好不过。我不想像父亲对小孩子一样对待他们。我也不想让他们不开心，我希望他们能茁壮成长，走向成功。

古尔德：那你要如何定义“成功”呢？

施密特：对我来说，成功就是当他们离开的时候仍然感到快乐。真的是这样，我也觉得我离开的时候也会很开心。我会跟学生和博士后聊聊，让他们持续工作的动力都是些什么。一般的做过些项目的博士后都会很快让你知道他们能做什么，虽然我不会很严格地要求他们一定要做出什么事情，但如果他们心情好，他们就会有好的实验结果。当然，当一个人在科学上没有什么建树的时候，他不可避免地会感到不快乐。这样一来，我就想知道他们为什么不开心，然后帮他们做出转变。

不管他们是不是想要继续搞学术，都没有什么不好意思的。我百分之百地想让他们成功和快乐，我也觉得我的工作不仅是让他们在《自然》杂志上发文章，更重要的是让他们变成更快乐更全面的人。这是我的职责。

古尔德：你的学生做过的最不寻常的工作是什么？

施密特：他们大部分都还是在搞科研。但是也有为创业公司做数据挖掘的，这还挺新奇。我知道一个人做过各种各样的事情，比如风险管理，但他接着又去为澳大利亚的外科医生写行为守则，帮助他们规范自己。我也有学生去做很艰难的生物科学，系统生物学。所以你看，他们能做各种各样的有趣的事情。

古尔德：感谢布莱恩·施密特。那么，在接下来的几个星期甚至几个月内，我还会和大家分享我在林道市和其他诺贝尔奖得主以及学生交流的细节，请按时收听我们的节目。今天的节目就介绍到这儿，如果你想知道“自然·求职”到底是什么，它能做些什么，请登录naturejobs.com。我们也有自己的博客，地址是blogs.nature.com/naturejobs. 我们在Twitter和Facebook上都有公共主页，所以我们一定会再见面。非常感谢您的收听！我是朱莉·古尔德。【完】

Gould：Hello and welcome to the Nature Jobs podcast. I’m Julie Gould. This month is just a short one but a sweet one, and hopefully one that will pack a punch, because a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Lindau, the most beautiful island in Lake Constance in Germany. Where more than 60 Nobel laureates came together with hundreds of early career researchers to answer their questions, share some insights and some of the stories of their lives.

And this was at the 2015 Lindau Nobel Meeting, last time while I was there, I obviously had all of you in the back of my mind, and so took the opportunity to speak to some of the laureates to find out a little bit more about them, their lives and their careers in science. And in this first podcast as part of the series from the event, you’ll hear my conversation with Brian Schmidt, the winner of 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, he shared this prize with Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess for providing evidence that expansion of the universe is accelerating. I found him an extremely engaging and inspiring character. He was always keen to help those who worked with him, and especially the students and post-docs and other researchers in his lab when it came to careers related issues.

So this conversation came into parts in the first section we discussed his experience and his life. And in the second section, we talked about what he looks for in scientists that he works with in his lab, and what they’ve gone to do after he finished his training with him.

Schmidt：You know the number one concern is not knowing the future of how they are gonna be able to be a researcher, it’s very competitive, we are producing many many more students than there are academic positions available. That faced me as well, but it’s much worse today, so it’s probably 3 times more competitive than it was, even in my day. When I face that uncertainty in my career, I guess I didn’t expect to become a professor. I certainly expected to win the Nobel Prize, but I honestly figured there would be very low probability of me going on and becoming an astronomer. But I did the training as an undergraduate, and a graduate, because it was interesting and I knew I would learn all these interesting things that I could use to an interesting job of some description.

And research is a great job, but it’s not the only job, so I think rather than people getting worried about, oh my god the only thing I wanna do is exactly what I’m doing right now. People need to be open. You know there are many possible ways to go out and do things. And they need to also think about the alternative. The alternative is like getting trained in the things that you are not very interested in, that provides less jobs opportunities when you look at the statistically about how much you get paid vs. how likely you are to have job security in the future, because especially when you get trained at the level of PhD, and the employments are very low, long-term,… and the salaries are very high. They are only as low as they are because a lot of people go into academia. If you are going to industry, you do very well statistically, doesn’t mean everyone’s gonna be happy, but it’s as good as anything.

Gould：You wanted to be a physicist and did physics undergradate, you applied for a job you didn’t quite get it at the beginning. So what happened?

Schmidt：I did my PhD in astrophysics, and I applied for a job, and I got a very good job, and then I applied for another job, because I as married to my wife who was doing a different PhD in economics. We had to find jobs in the same spot, this is a common problem, it’s one of the toughest for two people who are both professionals who have quite narrow areas of expertise. So we ended up moving to Australia. This was convenient, my wife is Australian. I have relatives in Australia from … you know, they immigrated there. So, for me it was very comfortable. And it was a great place to go. But I only had a 3-year job then I had a 3 year and a half project to measure how the universe is slowing down. At the end of two years, I had really spent a lot of time doing the project and I hadn’t produced as many papers as some. I was not terrible but I didn’t end up getting a job to extend my 3 years initially. I applied for a job as lots of other people did. And I didn’t get the job. 3 people were in front of me, so I’m kind of contemplating about my future.

What do you do, I wasn’t happy about it. But on the other hand I was not gonna like well, I’m not gonna suddenly disrupted my life to chase a career into uncertainty. I’m just gonna do the best I can. And in that period of about 6 to 8 weeks came after. I didn’t burn any bridges, just kept working hard. And over that time, 3 people who were ahead of me all turned the job down. So I did get the job, and the job started on the 1st of January, 1998, and on the 8th of January we were sure the universe was accelerating. So I was … within our own group, we started to have indications several months earlier. It’s just so goes to the show, you don’t know what’s really gonna happen. And people would say it would’ve been terrible, you would’ve not made that discovery. The answer is no I wouldn’t have, but science would have moved on. And I would not throw my life into a ditch, chase uncertainty.

So that’s my recommendation to people is revel the moment. Don’t worry about things you can’t control. Do the best you can, and one way another, life will work out for you. And if it doesn’t, you have been incredibly unlucky.

Gould：I can imagine it is quite difficult for scientists if you tell them don’t worry about things you cannot control. How do you try to get your students to sort of relax a little bit.

Schmidt：I had this conversation, that I am having with you right now, with all of my students. As I said, this is the way things are going. These are the types of things you are going be able to do. What do you want to do? How much you are going to sacrifice yourself? I don’t impose my values on my students. I say how much do you want to do? They will have a family. So are you prepared to disrupt your family life? You have to understand their consequences. It often leads to divorce, and leads to unhappiness. So, unless you think that your job is really that important to you. You need to be aware of the consequences. So, you have that conversation. But I also have talked to the students who went on and did other things. And it’s quite interesting, a lot of them, most of them actually, when you say how are enjoying your new job now. And they say I love it, it’s so good. I had no idea. You know you always told me I learn stuffs that would be use, and I didn’t believe you. Actually, you were right. It was really of use. So we have that conversation, and it kind of relaxes people, and there are so many exciting opportunities outside of academia for people who know how to think and have lots of technical capability. One of the best students I’ve ever had this year went straight into the industry, and said that academia does not look that interesting to me. I want go straight to this, and it looks exciting. And you know, I couldn’t disagree with her. There is really exciting things happening in industry, in government labs, and all sorts of stuffs. So, every job is interesting, if you make it interesting.

Gould：what sort of characters do you look for in the people that you trained up? Regardless of what they are doing in the future.

Schmidt：So, for students, I am looking for people who are eager, want to work on the projects that I am good at supervising, rather than just worrying about me being a Nobel Prize owner. I am really looking for a drive, I am looking for balanced people. People who are not going be disruptive. I like people who are prepared to listen, learn, but also be quite proactive. I treat my students as collaborators. That’s not me being the boss, I want someone who’s gonna get in there, and say I think you are wrong. Because I’m usually right. That’s the type of person I want as a student. As a post-doc, I am looking for people who have done interesting work, who have confidence and passion to go out, and want to be a post-doc, because I am really excited about it, the work. Again, I like people who are balanced, and are not gonna be disruptive. And you know, to have the skills to fit in well with my group. I want them to be a success. I don’t want people who are to treat as a kid and father. And I don’t want people who are going be unhappy. I want people who are gonna thrive.

Gould：what do you define as a “success”?

Schmidt：success to me is when the person leaves, and they are happy. Really, I am assuming I will be happy as well. I try to have a chat with people what makes you tick? Normally when people have already done post-doc or something, you sort of have an idea what they are capable of. If they are happy, they produce good stuffs. And I am not super strict about exactly what that is. Almost inevitably, when someone is not scientifically productive, they are not very happy. And then I want to find out why they are not happy, and help them make a transition. Whether they sort decide research is for them which often happens. There is no shame in that. I absolutely want them to be success and happy, and I see that as part of my job is not training just people to write nature papers. It really is to come out as a happier and more developed person, and it is part of my job.

Gould：what are some of the more unusual jobs that some of the people you’ve trained up have gone into?

Schmidt：I would say a lot of them are still in academia. But I have someone doing data mining for a start-up, that’s pretty new. I know someone who’s done a whole bunch of things, risk management, but then is working, developing protocols for, you know, the Australian surgeons, how they manage themselves. I have people working in hard-core biology, systems biology. So you know, there is all sorts of interesting things that people are able to do.

Gould：thanks to Brian Schmidt. So over the next few weeks and month, I will be sharing more snipetts of other conversations I’ve had in Lindau with both laureates and students. So definitely stay tuned. But that’s it for this podcast, if you’d like to find out what more Naure Jobs does and is, you can checkout us online at naturejobs.com we’ve got a blog at blogs.nature.com/naturejobs. We are on Twitter and we are on Facebook, and you can’t possibly miss us. Thanks very much for listening. I’m Julie Gould.【END】

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