How can I relate to people who seem intimidated by my profession and education?
March 16, 2011 9:57 AM   Subscribe

I'm a scientist. How can I relate to people who seem intimidated by my profession and education?

My job and training aren't things that I usually bring up myself, nor do I usually ask about other people's first. I usually try to find other things to talk about, and I might be having a good conversation with someone else when they ask what I do. What follows is sometimes a stopped conversation. I can say that I'm a scientist, or a biologist, or the field I work in. With some people, this alone is enough to stop the conversation. They will say "oh" and act like they are at a loss for words. With others, it happens soon thereafter. They'll ask if I'm a grad student and I'll say I have a PhD, and then it will stop there. Or they'll ask where I got my PhD and when I tell them where (a fairly fancypants place), that will be it.

I understand that there are probably things I could do to keep the conversation moving more smoothly after this point, either following up with more information myself, or trying to turn it around and ask the other person similar questions. But what I am more concerned about is that at these points the other person, who previously may have been chatting away with me easily, from then on acts like they just realized we have very little in common. I don't think this is the case.

What can I do? Do you have strategies that can help with this? Have you been on the other side of this sort of exchange and can suggest things to reduce the problem?
posted by anonymous to Human Relations (53 answers total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
Maybe you can follow up by relating something that happened at the office that could have happened at any office? e.g. You bought someone's Girl Scout cookies; Word or Excel crashed; you got distracted watching a YouTube video, etc.

Or you could talk about things you actually do as part of work that'll demystify things a bit, taking care to avoid overly technical terms.
posted by ignignokt at 10:06 AM on March 16, 2011 [2 favorites]


I suspect it has more to do with how you feel about it then about the person you're talking to.
But I would think that because I'm a psychotherapist. When I tell someone that, if they react strangely, I say "Is that OK?" They say "yeah" and then we talk about something else.
posted by Obscure Reference at 10:07 AM on March 16, 2011 [2 favorites]


I'd guess it's less about intimidation and more about not really having anything close at hand to say. If you said "oh I'm a teacher" then they can ask what grade, what subject, how you like it, or relate stories about their favorite teachers growing up. If you say "oh I'm a travel agent" they can regale you with stories about their nightmare last trip.

When you say "I'm a biologist" it's not really clear to many people what that means--I mean, what does a biologist really *do* anyway?--and if you don't give them a nice conversational hook to grab onto, they're going to be at loss for words. You should give them a break and come up with a little one-sentence description of what you actually study in a way that's relateable, e.g. "Oh, I'm a biologist so I'm lucky enough to spend most of my days teaching undergraduates about the nesting habits of seagulls" or "I'm a biologist, which means I spend most days squinting through a microscope studying cellular reproduction. It sounds boring but right now I'm working a project studying Parkinsons, which is pretty interesting" or whatever.
posted by iminurmefi at 10:10 AM on March 16, 2011 [32 favorites]


from then on acts like they just realized we have very little in common.

You've hit it right on the head already. What you need to do is to find things you do have in common, regardless of what you do for a career.

I work in research and am in the vast minority in the building regarding not having a PhD and don't have a problem talking to them. (I tend to call bullshit on the socially inept scientist stereotype though.) What do we talk about? Video games. Top Chef. Knitting. A mutual distain for certain local professional athletes. Hatred of traffic/snow/weather. Comic books. That new place across town that has donut flavored milkshakes.

Find a common interest, let the conversation flow from there. :)
posted by librarianamy at 10:11 AM on March 16, 2011 [2 favorites]


De-mystify your job. You know what's relatable? PAPERWORK. Benchwork/fieldwork/clinical work/whatever...those can get technical even if you're describing the more repetitive aspects that if people outside the field were to witness they'd be like 'this job...less intellectually awe-inspiring than I thought.'

But everyone can relate to paperwork. And science is full of papers that need to be filled out, and no matter where you are in the food chain or what branch of science or if you're in academia or industry or what, you will have to fill out some of it.
posted by Uniformitarianism Now! at 10:12 AM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]


I have a friend with a phd in astrophysics. She likes to mock herself a little bit. Dresses up as a mad scientist for halloween. In general conversation she focuses on the aspects of her work that laypeople would find relatable and interesting. I am sure there is far more to what she does, but she comes prepped with interesting little factoids that are good conversation starters.
posted by griselda at 10:12 AM on March 16, 2011 [2 favorites]


"So, are you a Cubs fan or a Cards fan?"

We live in a "mixed-class" neighborhood, where some of our neighbors have PhDs and some of our neighbors are blue-collar workers. I've watched this a lot, been on the receiving end a few times, and the key is really steering the conversation back to a sort-of socially-acceptable, fairly-universally-shared interest. Whether that's Dancing with the Stars, local sports teams, or the latest local scandal is up to you. :) Everyone around here has an opinion on baseball teams, so that's what I fall back on. Also good: "Are you doing brackets for the NCAA this year?" "Do you think the Bears look good for Sunday?" "Did you SEE Charlie Sheen's latest antics?" "Who is selling Girl Scout Cookies? I NEED A FIX SO BAD!"

The first few times you do this; thereafter, having established your bona fides as a "regular guy" who has "normal" interests in addition to brainiac interests, your brainiac status will stop being so intimidating and people will ask you questions about your job or your background and be curious to know about it, but they'll know you're the sort of guy who's easy to talk to and who's not going to act like they're an idiot.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:12 AM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]


I get this sometimes as a grad student in physics. The conversation used to go
-"Oh, so what do you do?"
-"I'm a grad student at ____"
-"What field?"
-"Physics"
-"...."
-"...."

But eventually I realized that people aren't intimidated or anything, it's just they can't relate to what I do so they don't know what to say. My solution is to launch into a quick anecdote about my work to smooth over the conversational hurdle:
-"What field"
-"Well, I'm physics now, and I'm working on this kind of stuff, but eventually I think I want to switch into this field...."

Don't lecture, just give them a bit of context to grab hold of and continue the conversation.
posted by auto-correct at 10:15 AM on March 16, 2011


if you don't give them a nice conversational hook to grab onto, they're going to be at loss for words

This is the problem exactly. "Scientist" or "biologist" is far too vague to act as a springboard for the other person; of course they can't think of anything to say. Can you say where you work instead or give one-line description of what you do that's easy to understand?

Like, I used to be a technical writer, another conversation-stopper because nobody ever knows what it means. Instead I'd say, "I'm a technical writer at [company name], I write and edit training materials for new phone associates." Now I'm a taxonomist at a market research firm, which always makes people think taxidermist instead, so I just say I manage all the cataloging and organization of all the company's research, and throw out a few interesting examples that have crossed my desk lately.
posted by anderjen at 10:16 AM on March 16, 2011


Follow up by asking "what do you do for fun?" That's a way less intimidating and more revealing subject.
posted by Metroid Baby at 10:20 AM on March 16, 2011


When I went from engineering to cooking (and then into analysis) I persisted to people that all jobsets were effectively equivalent.

Cooking was taking a large scale engineering project, and condensing it into a day, and just replacating that engineering project every day. The materials changed, but the organization, strategy, and approaches really didn't. When people asked if they could do my job (half in jest), I generally told them yes, that had they pursued the specific knowledge and skills required, as well as adjust their scope of time, that yeah, being an engineer was a lot like cooking.

This is one reason why engineers think that they know everything - because in essence, almost everything is about simplifying and reducing a given job into understandable components and then testing or reconstructing or monitoring or fixing a process or an object with the right skills. What I'm getting at is, make your (well, their perceived) ivory tower a lot less ivory - describe its similarities with what they do, or with what anybody does.

I dunno though, biology and chemistry are a bit rough, when I describe my high school internship in a genetics lab to people, I just say I took blood samples from mice and shaved rabbit butts. I'll occasionally say that I always wore a cowboy hat when I did western blotting and nobody besides me at the lab got the joke. When people ask why I didn't go into genetics with that background, I generally tell them that chicks didn't seem to dig cicle-cytoskeletosis (if I remember how to spell it) the same way that they dig econometric modeling.
posted by Nanukthedog at 10:21 AM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]


I once had a guy at a bar (who had approached me) literally just get up and walk away after I told him I studied, quote, science. There are certainly those people, but they're pretty rare. I think most people fall into the, "I just don't know what to say next because I don't know what the intelligent questions are" camp that people are talking about here. Some people freeze up, some say, "Wow you must be smart," or, "Oh man, I hated [your field] in high school!" which is really the most awkward one to recover from. In general people respond well to a little self-deprecation, a vague but interesting (and brief!) description of what you do, and the genuine air given off by someone who actually doesn't think they're necessarily smarter or better just because they study science.

FWIW, the best answer I've found to the "I hated that in high school!" response is to say something along the lines of, "Yeah, lots of people do, I was lucky to have a really great teacher early on... but I wasn't really born good at this, I just like it enough to do it every day, and eventually it starts to make more sense!"

Also, for the askers: the best response to "I'm a scientist" is, "Wow, that's cool, what do you do?"
posted by you're a kitty! at 10:24 AM on March 16, 2011 [2 favorites]


I can say that I'm a scientist, or a biologist, or the field I work in. With some people, this alone is enough to stop the conversation.

Solution 1: find social circles where this doesn't happen.

Solution 2: "I'm a biologist. What do you do?" so the person has an opening to talk about themselves rather than be befuddled about your work.
posted by deanc at 10:27 AM on March 16, 2011


'Scientist' or 'biologist' *is* intimidating to some people. Or just boring to others. Accept that part. Don't be surprised that people are pulled to a stop or, what I think is worse and harder to deal with, just overawed and gushing.

My advice, as someone in a similar situation so please don't take this the wrong way, is to first make sure that you don't think that your job is more interesting than something else the other person has to talk about. I give this advice because I definitely found myself with this attitude when I was first a scientist....and I think it is discernible even if you don't consciously thing it. Because your job is not more interesting to *them* day to day or else they would be scientists, too. (I don't buy the argument that they don't have the ability either....at some point, something along the path that one needs to take to become a scientist was less interesting than some other option....even if it was back in second grade)...but I digress. And apologies if you think this sort of attitude applies to you not at all.

Second, as I think others have been saying, rather than just stopping with the very broad and intimidating 'scientist' part, is to be more specific about what you do in order to make your work more of a conversational topic. Nothing wrong with saying you're a scientist....who studies how blood pressure is regulated. Or how bacteria make proteins... If you're a good scientist :) you will know how your work feeds into the larger world that everybody can talk about...
posted by Tandem Affinity at 10:30 AM on March 16, 2011


I am also a scientist with a PhD, and I agree with above comments that it may be less a problem of intimidation than one of people not having common ground with your job. They might not know any other scientists and so they can't always follow up with a comment of their own.

My own conversational deficit was made obvious to me when I was talking to one of my physicians:
Him: "What do you do for work?"
Me: "I'm a scientist."
Him: "Well, we're all scientists."
Me: "Oh. Right. "

So now I practice my "elevator talk," which is a description of your work that could be summed up in one quick elevator ride when a stranger asks what you do.
posted by Knowyournuts at 10:32 AM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]


Oh I feel your pain. Try telling people you're a musician (or even better, a musicologist).
Answer 1: "I'd always wanted to play the accordion" (which in turn leaves me speechless, alas),
and 2: "What instrument?" "harpsichord and early piano" "[offended silence]"

I had a phase where I tried to enliven that silence by making remarks about how it's a job like any other job. Doesn't work. Two other strategies are better:

1) Learn how to anticipate. People have certain conversation patterns. You can often predict those cases where you'll be better off saying as little as possible about your profession, and maybe something about your hobbies (or the weather, food [always great] or your last trip to the antique mall/Walmart/Foamhenge).

2) People often ask about one's job to fill a gap in the conversation, and not to receive any information at all. So just don't give them any information, and be really sweet about it. When I was 17, I once was the weekend guest of a distinguished Baltimore professor of Rational Mechanics (of which I know little, even less then) and when I asked him baldly what that was all about, he smiled and said really nicely: "Well, if you'd ask the cat, she would say "That's what that guy does."" After that, we talked about something else (I think, cooking). Meaning: you can try to keep yourself out of that corner where communication is bound to fail.
posted by Namlit at 10:32 AM on March 16, 2011 [3 favorites]


iminurmefi totally has it. The people you're talking to may or may not be "intimidated," but it seems to me doubtful that that's why they stop talking (though might it be telling that this was your first and only assumption? hmm?). They just lack the script for talking to biologists, as you might be the only one they've ever had to talk to. A little bit more detail about what you do ("I study insecticide resistance in fruit flies;" "I look at mouse brains to understand Parkinson's;" whatever, it likely doesn't matter all that much to the person you're talking to) will give them something to latch onto for the next fifteen-to-thirty seconds while they work to steer the conversation toward something less boring. Unless you do field research with some variety of charismatic megafauna, in which case you can probably get away with showboating for a bit.

(For what it's worth, I was raised by research scientists. I know what you people are like. Just kidding sort of.)
posted by wreckingball at 10:33 AM on March 16, 2011


I hang out with a zillion people from Caltech and JPL (rocket scientists!) and most of them just side-step all the big brain stuff and plunge into the conversation at hand--sports, kids, weather, politics, pop culture, etc. My husband's a chef, and that's usually more of a conversation killer, esp. if there's food around.

Find a way, without being all adorably self-deprecating, to describe your career in terms a smart 7th grader would understand and then move the small topic along.
posted by Ideefixe at 10:34 AM on March 16, 2011


Nthing the conversational hook. "I'm a biologist - I study wolves." "I'm a biologist - I study mushrooms." (Both these examples are real, and both are mefites!) I met a guy at a party once, a guy who was much older than most of the other guests, and we got to chatting and he said he had just retired from his job. I asked him what he did and he said he'd worked at NASA Ames; the little crowd of folks around him were instantly all "You were a rocket scientist?!?! Excellent!" To be fair, it was a pretty nerdy crowd.
posted by rtha at 10:36 AM on March 16, 2011


A lot of people become uncomfortable around the unfamiliar, so you could try breaking it down into activities that ordinary folks understand. If the question is "what do you do?" giving them the label for your activity isn't nearly as responsive as describing the activity of "watching x, and y, and z under a microscope to see if z kills x or y." (Or whatever.)

Some ways of handling this are better than others. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
posted by Hylas at 10:37 AM on March 16, 2011 [4 favorites]


I hope escabeche chimes in here. He's a math professor who has done some cool stuff outside the classroom -- consulting for a TV show, writing stuff in Slate, etc. -- and manages to be a great conversationalist, even when under the influence of low-grade painkillers ;)

In part of my job, I "introduce" professors to the wider public on the Jumbotron :) Trying to boil down "studies the relationship between literature and survival" into a brief, peppy sentence that doesn't turn off thousands of screaming basketball fans is interesting, to say the least. (escabeche was great, but then again he's already ready for prime time.) So I encouraged two things.

1) What's your "dinner party" spiel? i.e., you're sitting next to someone you don't know, who may be snobby or awesome or uneducated or overeducated, and you want them to think you're a fun, interesting person and not bemoan your seating arrangement. For me, it;s always "I work for the office of ___ in ___ Hall. We're the press release people."

2) What ELSE do you do? Sure, you siphon nanoglobules or whatever, but boy was it great when you got to pose in that "Sexiest Postdocs" calendar, amirite? Or you took a research trip to Montana; has your conversation partner ever been to Montana? Or your daughter made a funny drawing of a water droplet, and everyone in your office thought it was great because she really has that molecular structure DOWN.

You are not your job. You don't have to explain your research in depth; you don't have to come up with impressive anecdotes. Just take what you find interesting and have fun with it.
posted by Madamina at 10:41 AM on March 16, 2011


I think being specific can really help, even if it's something weird and hard to understand. Like, "I inject frog eggs with mutant DNA to make their hearts glow," or "I grow breast cancer cells in a dish and try to see what makes them grow," or "I put mice in casts to find out how well they hold on to their muscle mass when they don't get weight-bearing exercise."

If you can then say something even more relatable like, "It's great, I get to work with people from all over the world," or "Most of the time I'm sitting in front of my computer," (no one cares if the computer's hooked up to a cell sorter or a mass spec or whatever), even better.
posted by mskyle at 10:45 AM on March 16, 2011


I agree with those that have pointed out that saying "I'm a biologist" or "I'm a scientist" is too broad for a lot of people to deal with. In fact my response to that kind of statement is always "Well, that's kind of vague. Care to furnish any details?" So you might as well anticipate that angle and go with the extra detail in first place.

Also be aware that talking about work doesn't have to be about the actual work that you do, as you can easily segue into things that are common to all jobs e.g. "I guess I've been working at the same place for, ooh, 10 years now. Which seems a long time.", "The work's boring but the people are great, which I always think is half the battle." So you're giving people an out, but if your conversational partner is interested in the science/biology aspect then it's easy enough for them to ignore the generic stuff and steer you back to the specifics of your job.
posted by MUD at 10:51 AM on March 16, 2011


I am currently studying at an engineering university. It didn't hit me until recently that most of my friends will have PhD.s by the end of our time together while I'm studying for my MA in English. I'm usually the only English major in my social circle and I am hardly ever intimidated by my science, math, or engineering friends. I have very little understanding of science, math, or engineering but we have other stuff in common - food, books, sports (sometimes), travel, language (it's amazing how much people like to talk about language), work, etc...

Others have mentioned moving the topic on to other things. It's great advice.
posted by patheral at 10:53 AM on March 16, 2011


I exploit a silly harmless stereotype that most people outside the sciences don't know, and it gets a laugh, and we move on.

There's this hand motion that almost everyone does when I say, "My degree is in physics." They bring up their hands, palms facing me, almost like they're getting ready to push me away or protect themselves from the fearful THING that is physics. I continue, "This means, of course, that I can do all kinds of math, as long as there's no numbers in it." The person is surprised, the hands go down, the person chuckles, and we talk about something else.

There were all kinds of these jokey stereotypes of the various colleges at my university; the MechE's were thus-and-such, the Math folks were another way, and so on. I don't remember one for biology, but surely there are several?
posted by galadriel at 10:56 AM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]


hey dudes here i am, still on painkillers and typing 1 handed as per earlier elbow surgery ask me threads.

yep, say "i'm a mathematician" and you get basically the same reaction, though i concur with the consensus that resulting silence is less intimidation and more "i have no idea where to go from there." and the truth is that MOST jobs are that way. what would you say to an accountant? or an architect? i think it's a conversational formality that you ask people 'so, what do you do' and respond 'o, cool' or at most 'oh do you know my acquaintance xxxxxx who works there' and then move on to something, anything else.
posted by escabeche at 11:01 AM on March 16, 2011


There are lots of good suggestions here about how to make your field/background more approachable, conversational, etc.

Sometimes, regardless of the smoothness of your elevator pitch or your down-to-earthiness or self-deprecation, some people are going to freak out and be intimicated that you are a scientist or went to Brand-Name U. When that happens, it's about them and not you and I don't think there's a lot you can do about it.
posted by Sublimity at 11:03 AM on March 16, 2011


I'm actually a scientist as well (well, now I'm in Management, but it's still the same field).

Honestly? Own it. Be proud of being smart and doing what you do. Not too many people can say that. If they can't handle it, then who cares? Just don't be uppity/braggity and keep humble - but that goes for any profession.
posted by floweredfish at 11:06 AM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]


De-mystify your job. You know what's relatable? PAPERWORK.

Yeah, this is pretty much what I do. I'm an engineer with a defense contractor, which has the 1-2 punch of being a bit intimidating and also not exactly a liberal-seeming job, so I usually follow up this admission with "My job is 95% Excel spreadsheets."

Also seconding that you shouldn't just say "I'm a biologist" and leave it at that. Talk about what you actually do, like "Oh, I'm a biologist - right now I study why lizards shed their tails."
posted by muddgirl at 11:15 AM on March 16, 2011


For the layman, I try to put things in terms a 15-year old would understand, in the "this is what I do in my work. I think it's kind of neat because of _______" if I'm interested in having the conversation carry on that way. If you want people to ask questions, make it easy for them to figure out what questions they can even ask.
posted by lizbunny at 11:17 AM on March 16, 2011


I think there's (at least) two different reactions people can have. One is that they don't know what you do, and so are at a loss for what to say next. See above answers. But another one -- particularly common if you happen to be female, especially youngish and reasonably attractive -- basically amounts to "woah. You must be smart." THAT one totally indicates intimidation (and/or surprise...) Just say something mildly self-deprecating, and change the subject.
posted by kestrel251 at 11:26 AM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]


Rather than saying "I'm a scientist" or "I'm a biologist", I tend to say "I work in a lab". It seems to consistently get better reactions from people. I think it's because people interpret it as a statement that "I have a job in this sort of place", as opposed to "I am this sort of person". So I'm a guy with an unusual job rather than an unusual kind of person.

I also tend to trivilaise it a bit: "It's mostly good fun, but we've got a big deadline coming up and the boss is really riding us..." - "fun" rather than overly technical and detailed, and everyone can relate to deadlines and an evil boss :).

It can get a bit harder when people ask you what you work on, if it sounds impressive. I work in cancer research but, if I say that, it generally derails a conversation because it sounds Difficult and Worthy. Upon hearing that phrase, a weirdly high proportion of people are either impressed and intimidated or pretend to be. So instead I give a ten-second layperson's explanation of my project (e.g. "I'm helping to try to find a new way to treat this particular kind of cancer...") that makes it obvious that I'm working on a small aspect of one problem in a big field that might, one day... etc. So, as above, I'm a guy working on a team that's sharing a big project rather than some cartoonish SCIENTIST! who's going to find the cure for cancer.

Additionally, if people ask about what you do in the lab, strive to avoid technical terms. Most people -- including many very educated people -- haven't had any science education since their late teens at best, and have probably forgotten a lot of of that. Since then, their only contact with science has been mad professors in bad films or lofty, authoritative talking heads on documentaries. So falling into speech patterns that sound like those caricatures will likely get you put into the same mental box, which is hard to get out of.

To anyone who isn't a scientist: this all sounds mad, but there definitely is a large segment of the population whose only mental image of scientists are either the mad genius types from films or Einstein (white, male, middle aged, eccentric, weird accent) and find it hard to shake that image off. It's much less pronounced among people with professional qualifications, but it is there. At a fundraising event for a cancer charity (all adult families of cancer patients, so very mixed backgrounds), a lot of people were visibly surprised to see that the contingent from my lab were young, mostly female and about half non-white. Photos that I took of my current lab were shown to a few classes of primary/elementary school children, many of whom were literally incredulous that the people they were seeing were scientists... For several of the kids, I was the only one that they believed was a scientist because I was the only white guy in the photos, and even for them I was "too normal looking". Some of the reactions were genuinely heartbreaking, e.g. surprise at seeing non-white scientists and some genuine shock to see that a pretty blonde woman could be a scientist too.

That's a slightly different rant that's not quite on topic, but it demonstrates that a lot of people do have weird expectations about what a scientist should and should not be like. There's a great deal of baggage associated with the term, so introducing yourself as one can sometimes be a very weird experience: you can practically see the person's mental image of you suddenly rearrange itself behind their eyes.

Nanukthedog - I'll occasionally say that I always wore a cowboy hat when I did western blotting...
This is awesome. I'm going to buy myself cowboy hat this weekend.

posted by metaBugs at 11:27 AM on March 16, 2011 [6 favorites]


My sister is a Reproductive Physiologist, with a Ph.D. Many people can't even pronounce that correctly on the first try. If someone asks or has a confused look, she usually says what she is and follows it up with a layman description "I deal with fertility drugs, either get them pregnant or stop them from getting pregnant."
posted by Mister Fabulous at 11:28 AM on March 16, 2011


I was having a conversation with scientists and we were talking about framing issues and I said something about how prevention is usually cheaper than treatment, for example, mosquito nets are probably cheaper than treating malaria. The guy next to me said, actually, I had malaria, it's pretty cheap to treat. Maybe that wasn't the most intelligent thing I've ever said but that one comment made me feel stupid and hurt. So, on behalf of non-scientists everywhere, please don't do that.

In this situation, people feel worried that they're going to look stupid or boring so give them an opportunity to show that they're not stupid or boring by asking good questions. And I agree that being specific is helpful because it offers context. Think about things at your job that are relate-able to others - paperwork, commuting, dealing with annoying people, deadlines. Think about what you actually do, not what your title is - do you do lab work? Are you a professor? Do you spend most of your time writing?

What I like about your current answer is that you don't dance around questions. In having had conversations with people who I imagine are significantly more intelligent than myself, it gets annoying when they are vague ("Where'd you go to school?" "Oh, in the northeast." "Like near Boston?" "Yeah, in the Cambridge area." Just say it.)
posted by kat518 at 11:53 AM on March 16, 2011


If I get the spidey-tingle that someone is just asking or that they're going to get all weird if I give them the "real" answer, I just tell them either

"I work at the university"

or

"I teach at the university."

People seem more likely to put me in the "teacher" bin instead of the "egghead" bin then.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:56 AM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]


Lately I've been going with "I do research." If I get asked more, it's "Physics stuff" with a side of "and if I have to chase down another factor of two I swear I'm going to scream".

I don't actually find it at all useful to talk about travel, except with other people who travel for work, because that too can sound a bit weird. And my hobbies are also a little odd.. might be true for you too.

But one thing always works. Ask about *them*. If you get "oh I hated subject in high school" you can ask "oh, what'd you like instead?"

And yeah, ignore the jerkfaces who stand up and walk away. (Ah, dating as a scientist. Yuck.) What you're after is getting past the pause-- most people pause because it's unusual and you aren't fitting into their small-talk pattern. So, fit back into it, as quickly as possible (by asking them a question they're used to answering, or by changing the subject to a shared interest).

Also as kat518 says, if it becomes clear the person is going to figure out which school you went to, just tell them and move on. I usually go with "Where'd you go to school?" "State". and then if they ask more, just out with it, because they're going to keep asking, and your goal is to get the conversation back into regular small-talk mode as quickly as you can.
posted by nat at 12:16 PM on March 16, 2011


I was having a conversation with scientists and we were talking about framing issues and I said something about how prevention is usually cheaper than treatment, for example, mosquito nets are probably cheaper than treating malaria. The guy next to me said, actually, I had malaria, it's pretty cheap to treat. Maybe that wasn't the most intelligent thing I've ever said but that one comment made me feel stupid and hurt. So, on behalf of non-scientists everywhere, please don't do that.
I'm not going to exactly endorse kat18's advice here, but I will point out to scientists trying to deal with "normal people" that sometimes the point of a conversation is to build relationships, not to exchange information and gain a greater understanding of what you're talking about. The guy wasn't trying to make you sound stupid, but thought he was providing useful information that would help you think differently about something. But that's what the OP is confronting here-- people who are worried that they will feel stupid in front of him, so they have nothing to say. My solution here has generally been to cultivate lots of science friends and/or to move in social circles where I have some other common ground with people.

(the correct response to the guy was to point out that, like food, pills to treat malaria may be cheap and plentiful, but getting them to every village with a steady available supply is probably much more difficult than being able to rely on easy access to mosquito nets, which are non-perishable and non-consumable. At least, that's the reply that would be "expected" in this sort of conversation, but this is about how scientists can deal with the lay public, not how the lay public should deal with scientists)
posted by deanc at 12:21 PM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]


Oh I almost forgot-- lest you think the silly response or total lack-of-response only happens to scientists, have a look at this previous askme.
posted by nat at 12:23 PM on March 16, 2011


I tend not to tell people what I am, but what I do. It's not "I am a chemist", but "I work for such and so. We do this."

There are two problems with announcing that you are a label. People have mistaken impressions of what that means in the day to day---do you have any idea what a dairy farmer does? a merchant seaman? This gets you into tangents about nerdy jokes and talk of Star Trek. They're also not going to have any context to continue the conversation, because, again, they have no idea what to ask you about. They're not going to be able to ask you about the latest cool paper in Science or ask for advice on preping a culture, so the label dump means the conversation has to turn.

People ask these kinds of questions because they're looking for something to talk about with you. Telling people what you do, rather than what you are, gives them an entry into your world. "I look for new planets." "I work on cancer drugs." "I do crime scene analysis." All of those statements give someone something to chat about at a cocktail party, if they're so inclined. Keep the explination short, but make it simple enough that it's comprehensible.

Telling people what you do won't always work. Not everyone is excited about the same things you are. It's more of a conversation opener than just droppping a label though.
posted by bonehead at 12:34 PM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]


Just offer to buy the next round of C2H5OH and you'll be fine.
posted by Soliloquy at 12:36 PM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]


Back when I told people that I worked in high energy particle physics, that shut conversation down because 99% of people have no script for discussion of particle physics (although my now-wife did!). Now that I'm biostat I tell people that I study sleep, asthma, autism, or whatever else I've been collaborating on. Everyone jumps right on sleep, because everyone has something to say for chit-chat purposes.

If you're NIH funded, then somewhere in your grants is a section on relevance to human disease. Say that you study that disease, and many people will have a script.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 12:46 PM on March 16, 2011


I often respond with who I work for (especially good for locals), or cool things my research is related to (not 100% good for the true technophobes, but good to bring in fans of glitz - lasers! cancer research! planets!).

I admit, to my shame, that I will play dumb, or downplay my expertise in favor of dumb things. I hate that this is a viable recommendation, but it does work.

A: You must be really smart!
Me: On a good day, maybe... you wouldn't believe how long it takes me to make my printer work.

A: You have a grad degree??
Me: Yeah, I was at (university name) for 8 years. Most people are done in 5 but they don't know the bars as well as I do.

In any case, the key thing is to follow-up. Show your non-technical expertise at being sociable, and be really super-interested in *them*, and dispel their fear that you will say "well, since you're not a member of SmartClubTM, I will go get myself another drink now." Part of the conversation brick wall is not just their fear/disinterest in science, but their fear that you will think they are dumb. And boring. And what could they possibly say that would interest you? Your job is to ask the same polite, "so what do you do?" question, and no matter what their answer is, get really excited. Ask them a relevant question about the difference between (their job) and similar job title). Ask them if they've ever used their (professional skill) for (non-work thing) or if that's totally crazy. Ask them anything, so long as it requires more than a 2-word answer, and shows that you irrefutably want to keep talking to them.
posted by aimedwander at 12:56 PM on March 16, 2011


I get this a lot. I usually say "I'm a graduate student in neurobiology, I'm studying nerve regeneration." Luckily people are usually pretty into the concept of trying to grow back nerves (everyone knows someone with diabetic neuropathy or a spinal cord injury), so I'm more likely to end up explaining the difference between myself and someone who is qualified to give actual medical advice/try to cure Great-Aunt Louise.

The most common thing I get is the afore-mentioned "Wow, you must be smart" response (probably at least partially because I'm a youngish, pretty-ish woman) followed by an awkward pause, which I generally defuse by saying something along the lines of "Well, I hope I'm not stupid, but research is really more about stubbornness than anything else," and then switch the topic back to the other person and/or something that they want to talk about.

In any case, whenever there's an awkward silence about anything in any conversation ever, I'm nth-ing all the other posters and saying that awkward pause = silent plea for topic-change to something in the realm of the other person's experience so that chit-chat can continue. A lot of getting to know people doesn't necessarily need to involve actual sharing of insight and/or information, instead it entails recounting of shared emotions/experiences/etc. So although the random stupid chit-chat seems, well, random and stupid, it's probably the best way to actually grow a connection between people, which in turn makes you seem more... human, not some Alien Weird Science Monster.

(also... @librarianamy... this:

I work in research and am in the vast minority in the building regarding not having a PhD and don't have a problem talking to them. (I tend to call bullshit on the socially inept scientist stereotype though.) What do we talk about? Video games. Top Chef. Knitting. A mutual distain for certain local professional athletes. Hatred of traffic/snow/weather. Comic books. That new place across town that has donut flavored milkshakes.

You very well may work in my building, hahaha!)
posted by kataclysm at 1:00 PM on March 16, 2011


You need a slightly self-deprecating way of describing your research to laypeople. I knew someone once who was in the final stages of a PhD in...biochemistry, I think? It was about the carcinogenic properties of a particular kind of fern. But when people asked her what she did for a living, she'd say matter-of-factly, "Oh, I torture ferns. I like the way they scream when I smoosh them up." That broke the ice and showed that she didn't take herself too seriously, which made me as a non-scientist feel like I could ask potentially 'stupid' questions without being laughed at. I actually learned a lot about ferns from her, because she knew how to talk about her research in terms a layperson could understand.
posted by embrangled at 1:40 PM on March 16, 2011


Maybe you just need to look at this from a different angle, and ask yourself the question: do I really, really want to engage in conversation with people who have nothing to say to me after I tell them what I do?

I don't mean in an intellectual snobby kind of way, I just mean it matter of fact. Regardless of what you do, unless you're deadly boring yourself as a person (or unless you hate your job and find it boring and don't want to talk about it!), aren't the kind of people you want to talk to the kind who'd be at least a little curious and ask you to explain exactly what you do, more so if they have no idea about it? At least, if you're the kind of person who'd do the same.

Maybe I'm naive, but I think it's fun to find out what it's like to do something that's completely different from what I do - whether it's being a biologist or a carpenter.

One of my friends has a PhD in a specific field of engineering I'd never even heard of. When I met her, and she mentioned what she does, my reaction was 'what the hell is that?', and she explained it in a very practical matter of fact way, I could see the practical use of it, I could see her dedication to it, and it turned out to be quite cool. She is a sociable outgoing person, mind you.

A little self-deprecation or even just being approachable and down to earth about it can be handy too, especially if you studied at a 'fancypants' university. Of course if you say "I'm a scientist" in a pretentious way you're going to turn people off. But maybe they're just uninterested, uninteresting people themselves with nothing to say to you, and they're doing you a favour by shutting up, you know? At least you won't waste more time with them.

People don't need to have a lot 'in common' literally speaking to be able to relate to each other. It's a little openness and curiosity that makes people relate. And lots of other things that have little to do with one's profession or academic career.

But really, in the end, like floweredfish says above, own it. Be proud of being smart and doing what you do. Not too many people can say that. If they can't handle it, then who cares? Just don't be uppity/braggity and keep humble - but that goes for any profession.
posted by bitteschoen at 1:51 PM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]


I face the exact same problem (and I'm a biologist too). Just from experience, I can easily tell if conversation with someone will end as soon as I tell them what I do. In that case I will be intentionally vague about my job and gracefully deflect any questions about my level of education or place of employment.

This is a particularly useful approach if I sense that the person I'm conversing with is republican/super conservative because I know I'll get peppered with Fox news talking points once they find out I'm a climate change scientist.
posted by special-k at 2:51 PM on March 16, 2011 [1 favorite]


I've run into this many times too .. I usually find that when there are lulls in the conversation it's the perfect time to ask them a question ..
"Do you like science?" "What do you do?" .. throw out something related to what you do "Do you know what fruit flies are? the little flies that .. I study what happens to them when you mess with their genes ..."
posted by blueyellow at 3:46 PM on March 16, 2011


I have sort of the opposite problem. I'm a researcher, but in a topic that everyone has an opinion about. As a result, it tends to monopolise the conversation. It's also a bit polarising, so it often results in disagreements between the conversationalists. It's not, in my experience, a really good conversational topic to stray into.

I used to just say something reasonably noncommittal ("researcher", or "public servant"), but as the OP has observed, it's a bit of a conversation killer. These days I'm more likely to respond in sufficient detail that they know more or less what I do, but that it's pretty boring and not worth their time arguing about, and then change the topic as quickly as possible to something else. So far, this has worked reasonably well.
posted by damonism at 6:10 PM on March 16, 2011


Elevator speech. I find the whole idea a little twee and silly, but it's going to be up to you to bridge the gap between what your interlocutors think you want to talk about and what they feel able to.

"I'm a <flavor of biologist> who looks at <interesting and widely observable function or process> to understand how <plants/people/animals> manage to <thing they do>. I want eventually to <serious or semi-serious potential application of your work>."
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 6:36 PM on March 16, 2011 [3 favorites]


It's not necessarily better if your research is clearly understandable. I have a PhD and I study social media, so most of the responses I get are along the lines of "What's up with Twitter?" or "Kids today spend too much time on the internet and are stupid/lazy/isolated, amirite?" I don't really enjoy answering either of these questions, as my research tends to go against the grain of conventional wisdom more than it does confirm it. For example, I've done a lot of research into the rhetoric of "online predators," which I think is bullshit scaremongering, but try explaining why in a nice way to a mom who's terrified of her kids meeting a stranger online.

So now I try to change the topic ASAP to media, as my PhD is in media studies and I consume a LOT of it. Being able to talk about RuPaul's Drag Race or the Biggest Loser covers a lot of ground. If that fails I talk about teaching, which I really love, and always have anecdotes about my smart and funny undergrads .
posted by alicetiara at 9:28 PM on March 16, 2011


Haven't read the replies, so I apologize if I'm repeating anyone.

It sounds possible that the problem isn't that your profession/education are intimidating people and that's why the conversation stops. I think it might be that you are a little self-conscious and worried about intimidating people and being unrelatable, so you drop the conversational ball, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

It sounds like you kind of try to stay away from this subject: "My job and training aren't things that I usually bring up myself, nor do I usually ask about other people's first. I usually try to find other things to talk about" and when it comes up, you try almost try to steer away from it. But that ends up killing the whole conversation.


I can say that I'm a scientist, or a biologist, or the field I work in. With some people, this alone is enough to stop the conversation. They will say "oh" and act like they are at a loss for words. With others, it happens soon thereafter. They'll ask if I'm a grad student and I'll say I have a PhD, and then it will stop there. Or they'll ask where I got my PhD and when I tell them where (a fairly fancypants place), that will be it.


To me it sounds like the other person is making a real effort to keep the flowing conversation going, and you are clamming up with one-word answers.

Imagine yourself in the exact same conversation, but say instead of asking you about your job, they asked if you had any pets.

Person: So, do you have any pets?
You: Dog.
Person: Oh ... how old is your dog?
You: 5.
Person: Where did you get him from?
You: Pet shop.
Person: ... (silence)

Just loosen up! Talk about being a biologist. If you're afraid talking about being a biologist will bore people and put them off, well, clamming up about it is killing your conversations. I'm sure you could come up with some interesting/relatable/understandable things to say about your job. Then you ask them questions about their job too. Just chill out about it yourself, and I think you will solve this problem.
posted by Ashley801 at 10:39 PM on March 16, 2011


Seconding Emperor SnooKlose's little script, especially the part about what the potential application is. Discussing the potential application of your work gives people a bridge to ask you questions.
posted by hungrytiger at 3:58 AM on March 17, 2011


Some other thoughts - if you can connect your work or your field to something in current events, that's helpful - if you were a geologist, for example, following the earthquake in Japan. It puts you in a sweet spot where you're not an expert on that earthquake specifically, so you're not super intimidating, but I could trust you know what you're talking about if I were to ask you about it.

Also, I know it's hard to think of something like this, but I'm sure over your career you have some relate-able story you can share. A good friend is a biologist and her field is infectious diseases so she likes to talk about the time she stuck herself with plague in a lab and had to go to the hospital and report that she had the plague. Something like that can be difficult to come up with but if so, think back to difficult people - colleagues, managers, underlings, whatever. My dad and brother work in science and I don't really understand what they do but I can always ask, so how's that jerk you work with? Is he still super uptight? or something.
posted by kat518 at 12:15 PM on March 17, 2011


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