Community is the Hidden Curriculum

Meteor

Genuine community and relationships make everything else possible. You want to change something? You can’t change it alone. You want someone to whisper-network vouch for you? As we said in the last episode, you don’t build professional community and relationships by lurking.

But that’s not all of it. There are a *lot* of payoffs to having strong professional ties.

In the interests of being (overly) honest, this week we asked ourselves: what’s the hidden curriculum of the success we’ve had in scicomm?

And…it’s COMMUNITY!!!

But, what’s that actually look like?

This week, we tell you exactly what kinds of good things have come from having strong professional relationships. (And we ponder the downsides of the amount of time, effort, and perhaps money that it may take to build these relationships.)

For example, we cover:

• Working with other people who care about the same effort/outcome/change can keep you going (in good ways and…also…maybe unsustainable ways).
• The material benefits and credibility that can come from working with/inside a given professional community and having strong relationships therein.
• How belonging in more than one professional community can facilitate code-switching that you can leverage for professional growth.

Then, we ask you to dig in for yourself: What’s the hidden curriculum that you think is responsible for your success in scicomm?

Thanks for listening! We’re hoping for a community potluck 🥗🍛: Connect with us on social media (BlueSky, LinkedIn, Twitter, various Slack communities, etc.) or at www.meteorscicomm.org.

P.S. If you missed it, we’re going to try something new next season — guests!!! Deets here if you want to join. And, if anyone listening reading has funding to help us compensate guests, please let us know!