I am a product of an American academic institution imbued with only two centuries of scientific tradition, for even though Georgetown University is the oldest Catholic institution of higher learning in the United States, ours is a young country. While English is my second language, I learned it at a young age and thus speak it without too much difficulty. This skill was put to good use by teaching physics at my alma mater, first as a graduate student and subsequently as a postdoctoral fellow. Unlike the Russian scientists with "doctorat nauk" degrees Goldmacher mentions, I will not be able to do considerable research beyond my Ph.D. because the number of applications for each assistant professor or postdoctoral position at even the least prestigious U.S. academic institutions is in the several hundreds.
While most of my U.S. colleagues (many of whom are first- generation Americans themselves) possess far nicer c.v.'s ...
