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I started my research lab back in the Reagan-Bush era when things were really tough for young scientists. There were a group of us at Baylor who were postdocs,
who had all been promoted to assistant professors. We all were going through the same thing. How do we get our grants funded? How do we try to get the money
to do the things that we know we could do if we just had the money? And we just kept going. There are federal sources, there are private sources,
actually one of my friends wrote 17 grants in one year, but five of them were funded. I'm the only one who actually moved away from the laboratory
because I had opportunities to affect people through educational programming. But now, all five of us are full professors, two have endowed chairs,
and all five of us have won national awards for the work that we've done in our respective fields. I think it was that camaraderie and friendship that helped us.
No, we weren't like the crowd on friends who took off work every afternoon and shared everything about our lives, we were busy, we were too busy for that.
What we did do though, was talk to each other occasionally and just help each other stay motivated. That's what I think young people and young faculty
need to do today is realize that the economy goes through cycles. Sometimes there will be a lot of money available, sometimes there won't. But if you keep thinking of good ideas,
when that money is available, now you'll have thought them through and you'll be able to do things. Scientists do manage to keep their work funded most of the time.
It's actually fairly rare that people close their research labs. Most people will find a way; no we don't always have the money to do everything that we want.
I don't know anyone who has that, but we have enough to keep those dreams moving forward. The main thing is just
to keep up some hope, make some good friends, and seek advice on how to write the best grant proposals that you can.