Career Paths

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 ...


Kate
Sleeth

What is your Worth?

I haven’t been on Twitter a lot recently, but imagine my surprise when I glanced at my news feed and saw all the scientific bloggers I follow, talking about the same subject.  This is unheard of, and they were all very unhappy.  They even had a hashtag specifically for it #istandwithDNLe...


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...


Maida
Taylor

Foreign Intrigue: Does outsourcing jobs mean outsourcing ethics?

The drug giant, Glaxo Smith Kline, has a lot of explaining to do.  This month the company has suffered a public relations storm with charges of  bribery, arrests of executives in China,  and allegations of falsifying research results, to name a few. Here at home, GSK is also in hot wa...


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...


Sandlin
Seguin

Taking Criticism as a Professional Writer

To be successful in science, you have to learn how to take criticism. This is one of the reasons I left the bench. I didn't like feeling like I wasn't good enough all the time. At that time, I thought that the best coping strategy would be to ignore the criticism. Unfortunately, this left me feeling...


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...


Jason
Sherwin

Takeaways from the Organization for Computational Neuroscience’s Annual Meeting

Dispatch from Paris: This week was the annual meeting of the Organization for Computational Neuroscience. This year, it took place at Université Paris Descartes. And so, here we were this week – unraveling the mystery of “cogito ergo sum” (In English: “I think, therefore I am”), or at lea...


Maida
Taylor

Cultural Fit: Are You Out of Place @ Your Work Place?

Another blind date.  It started with a call from a recruiter.  One of my former employers gave me name to colleague who was looking for a department head with women’s health experience.  And like match.com (at least, how I imagine Match.com to be),  we started the engagement wi...


Kate
Sleeth

Increasing your Professional Perception

Ever since I moved away from the bench, I have been reading new books to provide me with tips and tools for my new “Administrator” role.  I have also met with a professionalism coach.  Occasionally, the tips I have heard or seen don’t appear to be pertinent to me.  However, afte...