u/luoyun

I wrote this up for r/Salary and thought I would post here, too.

Salary Progression - 34F PhD aka what I did with my bachelor’s degree in biology

Thought I’d share my salary progression because I finally got my dream job and I can’t tell anyone about it. See also: women in STEM, making the best of an unwise undergraduate major, career trajectories in public health. Also working parents, working single mom. Just all the things.

Education:
2013 - Graduated college, S.B. in Biology
2019 - M.S. in Biostatistics
2026 - Completed Ph.D. in Epidemiology
Salary progression:
2013 — AmeriCorps Member: ~$10,000
2014 — Research Assistant: $24,000
2015–2017 — Clinical Research Coordinator: $37,000
2018–2020 — Chronic Disease Data Coordinator: $54,000
2020–2022 — Same/general career track: $57,000
2022–2025 — Federal Government Statistician: $125,000
2025–2026 — Data Scientist, Public University: $83,000
^ Big pay cut. My COVID-era government funding ended, and I took the first solid job I could find and stuck it out until I found my dream job.
Later 2026 — Biostatistician, Privately Held CRO: $157,500 + 10% bonus

So, roughly:
$10k → $24k → $37k → $54k → $57k → $125k → $83k → $157.5k + bonus

The biggest lesson for me has been that salary progression is definitely not linear. I went from $125k down to $83k because of circumstances outside my control, then nearly doubled my base salary about a year later.

It also took a long time for the combination of my experience + quantitative training + graduate degrees to really translate into higher compensation. I spent a lot of years in the $20k–$50k range before things accelerated.

Current total target compensation with the 10% bonus is about $173,250/year.

**Salary Progression — 34F, PhD**
Thought I’d share my salary progression because I finally got my dream job and I can’t tell anyone about it. See also: women in STEM, making the best of an unwise undergraduate major, career trajectories in public health. Also working parents, working single mom. Just all the things.

**Education:**
2013 - Graduated college, S.B. in Biology
2019 - an **M.S. in Biostatistics**
2026 — Completed **Ph.D. in Epidemiology**

**Salary progression:**
**2013 — AmeriCorps Member:** \~$10,000
**2014 — Research Assistant:** $24,000
**2015–2017 — Clinical Research Coordinator:** $37,000
**2018–2020 — Chronic Disease Data Coordinator:** $54,000
**2020–2022 — Same/general career track:** $57,000
**2022–2025 — Federal Government Statistician:** $125,000
**2025–2026 — Data Scientist, Public University:** $83,000
\^ Big pay cut. My COVID-era government funding ended, and I took the first solid job I could find and stuck it out until I found my dream job.
**Later 2026 — Biostatistician, Privately Held CRO:** **$157,500 + 10% bonus**
So, roughly:
**$10k → $24k → $37k → $54k → $57k → $125k → $83k → $157.5k + bonus**

The biggest lesson for me has been that salary progression is definitely not linear. I went from $125k down to $83k because of circumstances outside my control, then nearly doubled my base salary about a year later.

It also took a long time for the combination of my experience + quantitative training + graduate degrees to really translate into higher compensation. I spent a lot of years in the $20k–$50k range before things accelerated.

Current total target compensation with the 10% bonus is about **$173,250/year**.

Location: Allegheny County, PA

On 5/28 I was served an emergency PFA by my spouse that evicted me from my home and prohibited contact with both my spouse and my child. The PFA was valid until 6/1 at 5pm. I complied with the PFA, retained a lawyer, and got a hotel. The emergency PFA was served to me in-person.

On about 6/2 my lawyer obtained a digital copy of the temporary order which extended the eviction and no-contact conditions until a hearing was scheduled for 6/9. It is now 6/6 and I have yet to be served in-person for the temporary PFA paperwork.

For what it’s worth, I’ve been compliant with the PFA to the letter. I’ve signed a lease on a new apartment and kept my lawyer up-to-date on my whereabouts at all times. The address on the digital version of the temp PFA is one of a friend’s where I stayed for two days while lining up an apartment. As soon as I signed the lease to my new place, I gave my lawyer my new address. I work from home so I’ve been at each location in this process practically all day.

While I’m hoping to negotiate a consent order prior to the final PFA hearing, I’m curious about the implications of lack of service on this situation. My understanding is that by now I should have been served with not just the temporary order but also a petition detailing the allegations being made against me. I hate going into the hearing essentially blind.

Any and all advice is appreciated.

Hi all. I signed my kid up for a camp he’s not super crazy about. The window for refunds is passed and I don’t want the slot I paid for to go to waste. Details below. If your kid is within the age range for the camp (5-12) and would like to attend in my child’s place at no cost, please comment below along with permission to DM. You must provide your own transportation to and from the camp. You must be willing to correspond with me and the camp provider via text message/telephone to arrange the camp transfer.

K-POP Kitchen Quest

5 DAY CAMP

Date: Monday, June 8, 2026 - Friday, June 12, 2026

Time: 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

Camp location: 4655 William Flinn Hwy, Suite 114
Allison Park, PA 15101

Age Group: Lil’ Chef / Tween Chef (Age 5-12)
About: Get ready to shine center stage! In this high-energy K-Pop-themed cooking camp, young chefs will mix, chop, bake, and groove their way through a week inspired by the flavors, colors, and excitement of Korean pop culture. Each day features a K-Pop-inspired menu — from vibrant street-food favorites to sweet treats worthy of a music-video glow-up. Campers will build real kitchen skills while taking on fun K-Pop challenges, team games, and creative plating inspired by their favorite idols. With bold flavors, cool techniques, and tons of personality, this camp will have your kids cooking like stars and dazzling like their very own comeback stage!

Daily Menu Lineup

Day 1 – Debut Day

* Breakfast: Korean Street Toast
* Lunch: Chicken Japchae Rice Noodles
* Afternoon Treat: Homemade Pocky Sticks

Day 2 – Glow-Up Day

* Breakfast: Rainbow Yogurt Parfaits
* Lunch: Korean Fried Rice
* Afternoon Treat: Galaxy Glazed Donuts

Day 3 – Street Food Comeback

* Breakfast: Mini Korean Egg Bites
* Lunch: Oven-Baked Korean Corn Dogs
* Afternoon Treat: Fruit Sushi Rolls

Day 4 – Fusion Dance Day

* Breakfast: Blueberry Mochi Pancakes
* Lunch: Bulgogi Chicken Lettuce Cups
* Afternoon Treat: Strawberry Boba Ice Cream

Day 5 – Comeback Stage Finale

* Breakfast: Korean Banana Milk Smoothies
* Lunch: Mini Bulgogi Sliders
* Afternoon Treat: K-Pop Cake Jars

My kid is 10 years old and both gifted and on the autism spectrum (officially tested for both). He is in public school but I draw from homeschool resources over the summer to enrich his learning. He is a rising fifth grader.

He participates in E-ELA and has since first grade but this year struggled with text-dependent writing responses. For example, these tasks included analyzing character motivation and tone in middle grade readers like The Westing Game. This is a skill I would like to help him hone over the summer.

To that end, I’m looking for recommendations on secular curriculum that would help accomplish this. I do mean truly secular, nothing “neutral” or from any publisher that has a religious bent to it. This is perhaps my only requirement. I’m open to anything that fits that rule. Thanks so much in advanced!

I think people sometimes assume biostatistics is one of those careers where you wake up one day with a PhD and magically become employable.

My path was a lot messier than that.

I worked full-time through grad school. Not “part-time internship while studying” full-time. Actual full-time jobs while juggling classes, research, projects, deadlines, and trying not to completely lose my mind. There were years where my entire life was basically work, school, coding, and caffeine.

A lot of my early career was in healthcare and public health research support roles where I became the person people handed complicated datasets to when something wasn’t working. Missing data, broken workflows, messy longitudinal tracking, geospatial analysis, regulatory reporting, statistical programming… I kept saying yes to harder projects because honestly I didn’t know another way to learn.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped being “someone who knows stats” and became “the stats person.”

I learned quickly that biostatistics is only partly about math. A huge part of the job is:
- cleaning chaos
- figuring out what question people are actually asking
- translating technical findings into normal human language
- explaining why the model broke
- defending methods decisions
- making reproducible workflows so analyses don’t implode six months later

The degrees mattered, obviously. But the thing that got me hired was being able to demonstrate real-world problem solving.

I had experience balancing competing deadlines, working with clinicians/researchers, handling ugly real datasets, and building analyses from scratch instead of only following textbook examples.

I also think working while in school changed how I approach research. You learn very quickly how to prioritize, communicate efficiently, and survive under pressure when your schedule basically requires time travel to function.

Now I work in academic medicine doing clinical analytics and biostatistical consulting, which still feels surreal sometimes because I spent years convinced everyone else had things figured out better than I did.

If anyone here is trying to break into biostats/data science:
- Learn R thoroughly.
- Work on real datasets whenever possible.
- Don’t underestimate communication skills.
- Get comfortable with ambiguity.
- Your first jobs do not have to look glamorous to build valuable experience.
- And honestly? Persistence matters more than raw brilliance in this field.

Most of my career came from being willing to keep learning after I was already exhausted.

Names changed for privacy reasons. My son is 10 and in the fourth grade in a very well-funded public elementary school in PA. He was diagnosed with level one autism spectrum disorder a few months ago following neuropsychiatric evaluation. He participates in gifted/out-of-grade level instruction and maintains As and Bs. He is an only child.

This year has been a tough one for him. It’s like a switch flipped with puberty coming on. His behavior changed very abruptly around November of this school year. He went from an average kid to one with quite the attitude, marked by sarcasm and eye rolls. This sudden shift in behavior led my spouse and I to seek outside evaluation that led to the autism diagnosis. He’s in talk therapy once a week for a hour and a social skills group that meets monthly, both recommendations from the evaluation process. I should note nothing major changed in his personal life as far as traumatic events or similar that would have triggered the behavior change.

His teachers were a part of the outside evaluation process and were informed of the diagnosis as soon as it was rendered, both via a letter and a full diagnostic report.

Two days ago, I received the following email, copied and pasted verbatim with the principal and his entire educational team CCd. Bobby is a pseudonym.

“Good afternoon.
I am writing to share some information regarding Bobby’s behavior in math class today, while I had a sub.
While the class was working on guided math practice, Bobby finished his assignment about a minute early and began playing with dice. When he was asked to put the dice away, he responded with a significant amount of disdain and attitude, stating, "I have nothing else to do." His tone was very disrespectful and not the way one should speak to an adult or any fellow human being.
At the end of the class, the sub spoke with Bobby privately to ask why he continued to be disrespectful. During the conversation, the following was noted and told to me:
When asked about his behavior, he initially claimed, "I wasn't exactly being disrespectful."

Since this sub has known Bobby since kindergarten, she asked if she had been nice to him, and he agreed that she had been.

He was then asked if he had been nice to her, to which he replied, "Not really."

Finally, she asked if there was something he needed to do (meaning an apology). He did offer an apology before leaving the room, but it was done begrudgingly, without eye contact, and in a tone that lacked sincerity.

I wanted to make you aware of this interaction so that you can discuss it with him at home. My goal is to ensure that Bobby understands the importance of maintaining a respectful attitude toward everyone in the classroom.
Best regards,
Math Teacher”

I am of two minds here: of course playing with dice is distracting and shouldn’t be allowed. Teachers have a hard enough job and deserve respect. Autism is not a free pass to be an asshole. At the same time, it’s almost like this particular teacher isn’t well-versed with working with autistic kids and could use some additional perspective on the issue.

What struck me wasn’t even really the original behavior. A 10-year-old finishing early, getting bored, and responding with attitude is not exactly unheard of, autistic or not. What stood out to me was how much emphasis was placed on the performance of remorse afterward: the eye contact, the tone, whether the apology sounded sincere enough, whether he seemed sufficiently deferential during a socially loaded interaction with an adult.

The thing is, those are exactly the kinds of moments autistic kids often struggle with most.

As if this isn’t enough, my son said he first elected to read a book to himself before pulling out the dice, but was told reading isn’t allowed in math class.

I guess I’m asking for the perspective of other educators here. I don’t want my mama bear instincts clouding my judgement more than they already are.

Free to a good home is one balcony ticket and parking for Purity Ring: A Place of My Own Tour at the Roxian Theater tomorrow. Comment if interested.

Edit: gone