Academia
Jennifer
Reineke Pohlhaus
Who Cares Where You Go?
Who cares where you go after graduate school, or after your postdoc? You may think no one cares, but in fact a lot of people do (see, for example, responses to the PhD Placement Project).There is a huge movement right now in the US to track graduates. There is the thought that tracking placeme...
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Nathan
Vanderford
Visiting goals at year-end and planning for the new year
I’m not a New Year’s resolution practitioner, but what I do like to do at the end of the year/beginning of a new year is to think about my goals. Goal setting is a best practice for all professionals and especially those who are looking to make personal and professional advances. What you have t...
Gaia
Vasiliver-Shamis
Lean Mean Science Machine
When I decided to pursue the idea I had for a better way to keep up with science, aka Scizzle (check it out, I’d love to get your feedback), I really didn’t know where to start. And so, like a good researcher….I went on Google. This is how I came by the lean startup approach – a methodology ...
Nathan
Vanderford
Just Publish!
Do you want to write, be an author, or publish? Well, here’s my advice…but first, some history.
Christine
Zafra
The Art of Picking a Lab: The Pre-Application Stage
Over the past 10 years, I have talked with numerous graduate students that are in the process of selecting a laboratory to conduct their research. One thing that has stood out during those conversations is the lack of homework that students do when selecting a laboratory. With the average time to a ...
Jennifer
Reineke Pohlhaus
The Seven-Year Postdoc
I am on the WICB (Women in Cell Biology) email listserv, which, on occasion, has some real gems of articles that are distributed to the group. WICB is a Committee of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB).
Nathan
Vanderford
PhDs Are Everything
Over 50% of PhDs work outside academia (Science and Engineering Indicators 2012) which means that many PhDs are indeed working in a variety of different jobs, and most importantly, this means that the majority of PhDs are not pursuing tenure track faculty positions. Despite this, a perpetuating stig...
Jennifer
Reineke Pohlhaus
How Much is Too Much?
I recently read this article from the Guardian website, “Are universities collecting too much information on staff and students?”,and I found myself thinking about the question posted in the title. I’m not sure of the answer, but the gist of the article was that the University of Huddlef...
Kate
Sleeth
Getting a Professional Opinion
Today I want to focus on something that I believe a lot of scientists should consider getting – getting a professional opinion. We are all familiar with the idea of being trained by an expert in our field of interest, after all that is what we did with our doctoral degrees, but we don’t se...
Christine
Zafra
It’s OK to be Selfish!
I have a Type A personality (with a capital A), and so, when I face a big decision, I like to consider all aspects, both good and bad, prior to making it. When it comes to my career, part of that process has included talking to others with expertise or experience in the areas I am considering. Howev...