The Working Vacation

Sabbaticals are one of the perks of the academic life. They may seem daunting to implement, but the time away could prove invaluable to your career.

Written byBob Grant

| 8 min read

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AROUND THE WORLD: David Matthews and sons visit the Eiffel Tower during his sabbatical, taking advantage of travel opportunities while away.© NANCY MATTHEWS/SABBATICALS 101: A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR ACADEMICS AND THEIR FAMILIES (NEW FORUMS PRESS)

Medical statistician David Matthews had arranged to spend his sabbatical from the University of Waterloo in Canada overseas at the University of Oxford in 1998, but he and his family nearly didn’t make it to the U.K. at all. Matthews’s wife Nancy had to schedule outpatient surgery three days before their departure. The doctor’s orders to rest went out the window when she returned home to find that the family’s Kitchener, Ontario, house was far from ready for arriving tenants. After some frantic last-minute packing, David and Nancy loaded their luggage and their two school-age children, Lucas and Josh, into the car of a friend who was driving them to their flight, with no time to spare. As they sped towards the airport, Nancy turned ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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