Dr. Girlfriend at Life Beyond the Bench says that despite the frustrations she has experienced throughout her training in molecular biology, "deep down, I still want to be a professor." After all, she enjoys designing experiments and proposing projects — "the best part of my PhD was writing the thesis," she says. But Dr. Girlfriend has "always wished science had a fast forward button for all that tedious, and too often fruitless bench work." At the same time, Dr. Girlfriend acknowledges that being an academic PI can be tough; she's not sure whether the personal sacrifices she and her partner would have to make so that she could remain competitive in science would be worthwhile. Perhaps, in the end, "I think I would be happy doing bench work [at] a reasonably paid job rather than a desperate struggle to publish or perish," she says.