First proper post/ toot - I am an editor with the Royal Society of Chemistry currently.
Interested in #chemistry, #compchem, #publishing, #education and #lgbt.
Most happy to make contacts and also diversify the types of science and research that I see!
@EllisCrawford great intro! How did you find the career change from teaching to editing?
@EllisCrawford thank you so much for sharing your experiences! I'm seeing lots about people leaving teaching at the moment... I'm glad to hear you've got an amazing career still!
@Rws quite strange! For one, I rediscovered evenings and Sundays without marking and lesson prep. It felt like I had a lot more free time. However, getting used to set processes involved in the peer review process was a bit trickier (I could self direct a lot more as a teacher) and it was much harder to know if the mistakes I made were major and there was less of a support network.
As a teacher, there was a lot more support, a lot more discussion about the disasters and working out what does and doesn't work. Metrics of things going well were easier too - you could check grades, get feedback from students and if you ended a week with no experimental disasters it was good!
Both enjoyable in their own ways though and I really missed reading new science and chemistry when teaching. I also didn't like the local authority policies and felt that you couldn't be yourself. You had to be a teacher everywhere.
Being an editor is really fulfilling though, in a different way, and the opportunities for connecting with some absolutely awe-inspiring researchers is much greater!