Today marks two months of me living and working in the US for the first time ever! So how have things been going? For this blog I’m writing something a little different than I usually would, although there is still very much a clear link between me being in the US and my interest in digital biology - it’s this interest that got me to the US in the first place.
How did I get here?
It all started in October 2022, when our research group got in contact with the Joint Genome Institute at Berkeley Lab. One of my supervisors casually (but seriously) proposed that I ‘perhaps should go visit the Berkeley Lab after my PhD’. That was the initial seed that would end up in me coming to the US to continue my research on digital tools for phage and bacterial research. We started by looking into our options to make this happen, and that’s how we found out about the Fulbright organization and its grants. So I got to work. I wrote the most exciting proposal to follow-up the work I did during my PhD, in which we would combine research and development, leaning into the entrepreneurial culture of the Bay Area. Fast forward a few months, my proposal receives the green light from the Belgian Fulbright Commission and the mission is on to get all the administration ready to be able to depart to the US!
Now it’s December 2023 and I’ve been here for two full months, living and working in the Bay Area and enjoying the Californian sun (hell, a sunny Christmas surely hits different compared to the cold and dark winter periods I’m used to in Belgium). I definitely don’t have a complete look at everything that makes the US, the US; but I’m starting to pick up some interesting ways of American living. Below I’ll dive into a number of these, and I’ll try to give you specific examples along the way (related to digital biology where relevant).
Everything is bigger in the US
This is an obvious difference you could say, but it really only becomes clear when you actually are here. The roads are bigger, the shopping malls are bigger, the cities are bigger, the science is bigger, the entrepreneurial culture is bigger, and the list goes on. However, bigger does not always mean better. I actually prefer the smaller, packed European cities compared to the spread-out cities here, because it adds a lot of charm and enables you to move around more easily with a bike or local public transportation. Everything being bigger here also drives up the cost of living (which is quite a bit higher on average compared to Europe)!
But if you’re talking about doing science, the Berkeley Lab is pretty much top-notch. A very specific example is the difference in size of the supercomputers available to researchers here versus in Belgium: the Flemish Supercomputer Center houses around 200 Nvidia A100 GPUs (to my knowledge), while the Perlmutter system at Berkeley Lab has a total of 6,159 of those GPUs!
People tend to communicate in a direct manner
From the meetings I’ve had and the seminars or conferences I’ve been to here, it strikes me that people have a direct but respectful way of communicating. It seems like there’s a stronger urge to ask for what you want or ask about something that wasn’t clear; which is an effective way to move things forward.
I can’t speak for all Europeans, but this is definitively something I personally do not always do. Maybe I didn’t full understand something but I’d rather figure it out on myself instead of asking again; or perhaps there is something I don’t agree with but I’ll let it slide instead of making an argument. But I have come to realize that the real goal of any conversation or discussion should be to increase our mutual understanding (yes, one of the Fulbright principles). And the easiest way to do that is to communicate directly in a respectful way.
You’ll always meet people
What was really interesting to learn is how many internationals come to the US each year to live and work here. In Belgium, I felt like one of the few, but being here I realize I’m actually one of the many. Which is a good thing! I think I’ve met more people from around the globe in these last two months than in the rest of my entire life. As long as you’re open to it, you’ll definitely meet new people with diverse backgrounds and origins. And that’s nice, because different perspectives can help you see things in new ways.
As an outsider, you never have a complete picture of something
Perhaps the thing that struck me the most is how the typical stereotypes of the US don’t really reflect reality. While the US certainly has its problems (you know, guns and bad healthcare and stuff), those problems are not all that defines life here. There’s a reason why so many people migrate to the US every single year. But when you live outside of the US, you mostly only hear about the bad things going on. In contrast, when you’re here, you also see all the good stuff the US has going on. So yes, you really can only see the complete picture when you are actually here!
And I guess this goes the other way around as well. Americans might not think very much good about Europe and its inhabitants. But there is so much to love about Europe, that’s just true! And that’s really what the Fulbright mission is all about: providing the means for people to travel to and experience the US and send them on a mission to increase our mutual understanding. That’s so important, even more so in today’s world. So that’s what I’ll be doing. Seven more months to go, and I’m going to make each moment count!
Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate it :)