Changing Careers

Liang
Zhang

Stepping outside of academia in the comfort of your own room – Virtual Job Summit!

You know that an academic life may not be the right one for you, but what do you do now?  For many people, myself included, the academic path has been a straightforward one that offered little opportunity to learn about the other career choices available in the world.  Even as I knew I wan...


Meghan
Mott

Greetings, Bio Careers crowd!

I am excited to serve as a guest blogger for Bio Careers. Please allow me to introduce myself - my name is Meghan Mott, and I am a postdoctoral fellow at NIH. I work in the Laboratory of Molecular Physiology at the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Our lab uses zebrafish to model s...


Sayali
Kale

Chasing Utopia

My post today involves a different flavor. You will come across many instructive articles on Bio Careers and elsewhere on the Internet job search and the current economy, so let me tell you right now, I shall not be talking of any of these.The 14 Steps to freedom, 3 moves to marketing and the ever-g...


Maida
Taylor

What Kind of Doc Do You Want to Be…MD or PhD?

I came to a critical juncture in my career in 1969.  I was pre-med for the first three years of my undergrad studies at Tufts where the environment was toxic and cut throat. Though I never saw such things, it was rumored that students sabotaged each other’s experiments.  In physical chem...


Clement
Weinberger

Just where do you think you’re going?

We’ve all heard that question before. Even if one just answers “out,” not wanting to get into the details, it’s good to have a destination in mind. Some of you will have guessed that this is really a metaphor for life after grad school. Want another one? I saw a cartoon in the New Yorker mag...


Sayali
Kale

Welcome to the Future : A Guide to navigating the Virtual Career Fair and beyond.

A Virtual Job Summit: Meet employers from all over the country sitting at your own desk.Ten years ago, if I might make a guesstimate, such an idea would have not excited the same amount of attention for job seekers or employers. Mainly because the job market was thriving with job seekers that were w...


Thomas Patrick
Chuna

“Getting over yourself is the hardest part”

Hello everyone!As I write this, it is the midst of the Thanksgiving holiday. During one of the many gatherings I was fortunate enough to be invited to, I had the chance to talk with a fellow who said he wanted to change careers, for both personal and financial reasons. His exact words: 


Xiaoli
Du

Pursuing a career in Consulting

In the traditional perspective of postdoctoral training, fellows are expected to apply for faculty positions after several successful postdocs in institutes or universities. However, this classic career pathway meets a lot of challenges today in terms of the limited position openings and tight econo...


Nathan
Fisher

Exploit your uniqueness

I'm currently reading It's Called Work for a Reason by Larry Winget.  In this book, Larry says that the secret to success is to “find your uniqueness and figure out how to exploit it in the service of others.”  Do this, he says, and you will be successful.  Do this, I say, and you...


Maida
Taylor

I miss my old job...

Two weeks ago, I was flying from San Francisco to Newark to do an in-house training with a drug company sales force.  I was comfortably settled into my seat in first class (all those frequent flyer miles = upgrades), about to start eating the [not-too-bad] chicken dinner, when the call came out...