Saturday, June 28, 2008

Grand Opening

Welcome to The Alternative Scientist!

I guess I'll start out by introducing myself. I am non-tenure-track faculty in a biosciences department at a medical research center. I got this position about two years ago, when I decided not to apply for academic tenure-track positions and was casting about for other things I could do with my PhD. So far, I'm very happy with my choice!

The impetus to start an alternative careers blog came from both my own struggles to find the right career path for me, and the observation that open discussions about alternative career options are still relatively scarce in academia. I'm thrilled to be joined by several other excellent science bloggers who have their own experiences and ideas about alternative science careers to share. They are listed on the sidebar with links to their own blogs, so go check them out!

Pretty much any topic that is relevant to alternative science careers is fair game. However, this is not a forum for attacking or criticizing someone else's career choice--we all have the right to make the career decisions that work best for us.

So take a look around and feel free to suggest topics for us to discuss. Since we are just starting out, I'll make the first suggestion. Fellow authors, introduce yourselves!

13 comments:

Cath@VWXYNot? said...

Thanks for setting this up! I'll try and write my first post sometime in the next few days

ScienceGirl said...

Excellent! Love the quiz, can't wait to hear about the jobs on the list!

Mad Chemist Chick said...

Great idea for a blog! I look forward to reading the community's contributions to it.

Mad Hatter said...

CAE--You're welcome, and thanks for participating! No rush...I think an advantage of having a group blog rather than a carnival, as we had discussed before, is that everyone can post as their schedules allow. After all, we all have other blogs to maintain! :-)

ScienceGirl--Thanks! Not sure if we'll be able to cover all of those job categories, but hopefully we'll eventually find science bloggers with experience/info on most of them.

Mad Chemist--Thanks for visiting, and for the link on your blog!

The bean-mom said...

Thanks for the grand opening! Like CAE, I'll try to post soon...

Anonymous said...

Sorry I'm a little late to the party- grant writing. I'm looking forward to reading and writing...!

Mad Hatter said...

Bean-mom--You're welcome!

DrDrA--Hey, it's a party with no ending time, so it's never too late! Good luck with the grants.

Anonymous said...

Regarding discussion topics, I would like to see discussion on *how* to break into various "alternative" careers. How does one leverage the skills used to get a PhD + academic postdoc position into a job in tech writing, or IP law, or whatnot? We don't really learn stuff like that in academic research labs.

Kevin Zelnio said...

Great idea for a blog, I'm in the midst of completing my Masters degree (from a Phd that wasn't working out for me) and have applied for and am pursuing several different paths in science. I will be following this closely.

Mad Hatter said...

Pam--Great topic suggestion. Getting a foot in the door can be the hardest part of seeking an alternative career, and that's certainly something we'll be writing about.

Kevin--Welcome and thanks for visiting!

,PhD? said...

Hi people.

I can't believe how perfectly narrowed this blog is for me.

I'm finnishing my engineering, and I'm chasing a PhD (feel free to read my blog, i has just a couple of posts). And... I know that I want the alternative way.

Thanks in advance.

,PhD? said...

(Sorry for double posting)

"i has a couple..." sounds very cheezburguer... I meant "it has a couple..."

Mad Hatter said...

,phd?--Welcome and thanks for visiting!