Post by Elusion on Nov 18, 2021 0:56:19 GMT
[attr="style","background:linear-gradient(to bottom right, rgba(255,255,255,1), rgba(0,0,0,1), rgba(0,0,0,1), rgba(255,255,255,1), rgba(0,0,0,1), rgba(0,0,0,1), rgba(255,255,255,1));margin:2px;padding:4px;border:2px #000000 solid; "]
Cory Carrick hadn't really spent much time on a university campus since she had finished her Ph.D. She had absolutely no interest in being a professor - her interest was in being out there in the ocean actually doing things, not standing around in a classroom showing slides of other people doing things. That, and by all accounts, academia was somewhat of a nightmare to get into, and more of a nightmare to remain in. There weren't enough tenure-track positions, and adjuncts made even less than Cory did on a researcher's salary, and she could barely afford paying back her student loans as it was.
She hadn't really planned to be at this university either, but her research director had been intending to do a talk with the students here, and since he mostly sat on site and managed people - something he was very good at and which Cory was eternally grateful she didn't have to do - he'd thought that the students would want to see someone who actually did interesting things, like go down there on dives. Hence, he'd roped Cory into all of this, which she wasn't particularly sure about, but he was paying for her time, and those student loans weren't going away any time soon.
Besides, he was a good guy, and she owed him one or two. So she'd showed up, as promised, to a room full of college kids who pretty much just wanted to hear about dolphins, because dolphins were cute and popular. Cory didn't do dolphins. Cory did sea slugs. She'd let the director field all the dolphin-based commentary, since she didn't owe him that much, and gone through some slides about her nudibranchs and other sea slugs and talked a little about weird respiratory behaviors and field research, and a little more about actually diving, which was the part that seemed more interesting anyway.
Hopefully it had gone over well enough, especially since this little soiree checked off the box for "academic outreach and enrichment" on a couple of her grant proposals. Eventually the lecture portion was over, and the students were invited to stick around if they had any questions, which Cory knew from her own time as a student that 98% of them wouldn't, unless they were being offered free pizza. Thinking about it, Cory wouldn't have minded if she were being offered free pizza either, and she was supposedly a responsible adult with a real job.
One which, regrettably, did not come with pizza.
She hadn't really planned to be at this university either, but her research director had been intending to do a talk with the students here, and since he mostly sat on site and managed people - something he was very good at and which Cory was eternally grateful she didn't have to do - he'd thought that the students would want to see someone who actually did interesting things, like go down there on dives. Hence, he'd roped Cory into all of this, which she wasn't particularly sure about, but he was paying for her time, and those student loans weren't going away any time soon.
Besides, he was a good guy, and she owed him one or two. So she'd showed up, as promised, to a room full of college kids who pretty much just wanted to hear about dolphins, because dolphins were cute and popular. Cory didn't do dolphins. Cory did sea slugs. She'd let the director field all the dolphin-based commentary, since she didn't owe him that much, and gone through some slides about her nudibranchs and other sea slugs and talked a little about weird respiratory behaviors and field research, and a little more about actually diving, which was the part that seemed more interesting anyway.
Hopefully it had gone over well enough, especially since this little soiree checked off the box for "academic outreach and enrichment" on a couple of her grant proposals. Eventually the lecture portion was over, and the students were invited to stick around if they had any questions, which Cory knew from her own time as a student that 98% of them wouldn't, unless they were being offered free pizza. Thinking about it, Cory wouldn't have minded if she were being offered free pizza either, and she was supposedly a responsible adult with a real job.
One which, regrettably, did not come with pizza.
