Author: Virginie Adam
Virginie
Adam
Listening to your inner-self to find your professional calling
Have you ever wondered what you would’ve done if you hadn’t gone into science and gotten a PhD? When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a vet or an interior designer. More recently, I wondered if I’d have made a good urban planner or human resources manager! Over the past year, I’ve been ponde...
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Virginie
Adam
Listening to your inner-self to find your professional calling
Have you ever wondered what you would’ve done if you hadn’t gone into science and gotten a PhD? When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a vet or an interior designer. More recently, I wondered if I’d have made a good urban planner or human resources manager! Over the past year, I’ve been ponde...
Virginie
Adam
Creativity
There is one ability that, over the years as a PhD and postdoc, I have come to realize is often undervalued in science (and probably other professions), and yet is crucial for success: creativity. While creativity is a trait typically recognized in painters, authors, musicians and other artists, ima...
Virginie
Adam
MSL: Medical..Science…What?
If you browse job listings on the websites of pharmaceutical companies, it’ll soon become apparent that there are a slew of titles and abbreviations, which often differ between companies…it can get confusing! Sometimes, at Company X an ‘Associate’ scientist has more experience than a �...
Virginie
Adam
Medical writing: uncovered
Last week, at a seminar by the CEO of a medical communications company, I finally discovered what medical writing really is! Although I have spent a significant chunk of my academic career dedicated to writing, I hadn’t considered the possibility that this might lead to a job in itself. When...
Virginie
Adam
Practice makes perfect: showcase your skills during interviews
All those hours spent researching for your thesis introduction…All the time it takes to prepare presentations for lab meetings…All the effort required just to summarize results and draft conference abstracts…Is it all worth it??
Virginie
Adam
It’s not what you know, it’s what you do
Last week I was chatting with some junior graduate students in my lab and the topic of careers outside academia came up. They had heard a vague rumor that a world outside the lab exists, but, being a little science-obsessed, they hadn’t really thought of their lives beyond their theses! Considerin...
Virginie
Adam
Networking: you never know who you’ll end up meeting!
With the start of the fall semester at Penn, On-Campus Recruiting has also now swung into action. Various large firms come out here, giving informational talks (i.e. propaganda sessions) about their work and how to become one of the ‘elite’ who join them. The university also hosts a number of Ca...
Virginie
Adam
Recognition
Over the summer, I have been finishing some work in the lab for one of my main projects. While I spent about a year making and optimizing vector constructs for my experiments, the second phase of my project, assessing them in vivo, went a lot faster. Within a few weeks, there was strong evidence the...
Virginie
Adam
A win-win situation
One of the things I like doing in my job is talking with the more junior students. In my current lab, we host 6-8 high school and undergraduate students each summer. They all get their own mini-project to work on for the two months, and we also organize a series of seminars during the course of the ...
