The path of Carol Balfe's career illustrates that it is sometimes not very useful to stick to a blueprint. After a series of very substantial—and unplanned—changes, her present occupation makes use of virtually all her experiences and allows her to do work that she values highly: trying to reform science education on a national scale.
As a young woman, Dr. Balfe joined a Catholic order and began teaching high school chemistry. After a year, she was sent to get a PhD at the University of Wisconsin; instead, she decided to leave the order to return to teaching.
"I taught for 12 years altogether," she says, "in a Catholic school, a suburban school in Illinois, an inner-city school in Vallejo, California, and a school for dropouts. I recognized that teachers didn't know very well how to motivate students because they spent most of their lives either going to school or teaching school. I decided to put my money where my mouth was and get some real-world experience."
She began with a master's degree in chemistry and biochemistry, and then at the age of 36 entered the PhD program in inorganic chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. "By then I had a little more 'street smarts' and world wisdom. My future husband worked for the Department of Employment, so I was very aware of labor market issues. I got fired up to do the research I hadn't finished at Wisconsin, but I was keeping the education issues in the back of my mind."
After earning her PhD, she spent two years at Sandia National Laboratories, where she was one of only two chemists on a team of materials scientists. "This was an opportunity for cross-disciplinary learning you seldom find in academe." Then she returned to the Bay Area, where she was offered a job by Raychem, a materials-science company. "I had wanted to work in industry to learn as much as I could. In graduate school I was told that industry is where the second-rate people go, but that's not true. You can go as deeply as you want in research. But beyond that, industry has different intellectual challenges, personal challenges, the opportunity to exploit a wider variety of your talents."
She continued her interest in education by doing volunteer work. Raychem was helping the schools of East Palo Alto by donating computers, but the equipment was unfamiliar to the teachers. "This was too early in computers. Instead of trying to teach the classes ourselves, we should have been listening to the teachers, finding out what they needed so that we could be a resource for them."
In 1993, her husband died; after a leave from Raychem, her mentor there suggested that it was time for her to tackle the educational mission that she had been contemplating for so long.
"He just stopped me in my tracks; he saw it more clearly than I did. He offered me 3 months' company time to figure it out. I talked and listened and networked with people everywhere. Now I'm out on my own. What I want to do is to leverage my talent and background to make a significant difference in precollege education, especially for children of color and girls. In particular, I want to help industries and professional societies have more effective and strategic roles in public science education.
"This may sound like a 'grand plan,' that I knew all along how I'd bring all my careers together. But the truth is that I have always taken one little step at a time, according to what felt right.
"The most important message I have for graduate students is that you don't have to make all your career decisions now. First, get a solid background and learn to pay attention to what feels right. When you are ready, doors will open. The world needs people who can translate from one highly specialized world to another. Careers that combine interests and expertise are the careers of the 21st century."
