The Alternative Scientist

Careers in Clinical Laboratory Science

2010-09-10T13:20:00.002-05:00

Received the following in an email today:When you're looking to move up the career ladder, look to ASCP's Online Career Center. It's the place where you'll find hundreds of jobs with top employers in your field.Recruiters from top laboratories and hospitals like ARUP, Abbott, Roche, The Johns Hopkins, Beckman Coulter, Spectrum Labs, Cleveland Clinic, and many local facilities are there looking

Cool site for alternative careers: Biocareers.

2010-06-29T22:01:00.000-05:00

Check out Biocareers for a wealth of information on an impressive array of alternative science careers. The job boards are restricted to affiliated universities, but the career articles are free!

Call for posts! Call for ideas and suggestions!

2010-03-24T10:39:00.000-05:00

Nearly two years ago (and I can't believe it's been that long!) a blogger named Mad Hatter hatched the idea for this site. Since then, we've had some great posts on a variety of topics--non-tenure track positions in academia, government positions, marketing, scientific writing and editing. We've had discussions on career angst, offered support and personal stories, and listed job opportunites

Link to a perspective on leaving the bench

2010-02-26T20:47:00.000-06:00

I just read this beautiful post on leaving the research bench by Ian Brooks, "Meandering Scholar" at Nature Network. Go read. He doesn't hide the pain and turmoil he felt in leaving the standard career track, but it seems that he has found his own happy ending.

Another science writing internship opportunity

2010-01-28T20:17:00.002-06:00

This was passed on from a friend of The Alternative Scientist:The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is looking for an intern, to bebased at its Washington, DC office, to help with the production of one ofthe Society's journals, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment(www.frontiersinecology.org). Frontiers is published ten times a year(both in print and online). Ecologists and environmental

Science writing internship opportunity at Argonne (for undergrads)

2009-11-29T21:31:00.003-06:00

A friend recently alerted me to a science writing internship opportunity at Argonne National labs. It sounds like a great opportunity. Unfortunately, it is limited to undergrads only, but perhaps some undergrads do read this blog?The following description is from Argonne's web site http://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/Internship/index.html "Argonne National Laboratory's Communications & Public

The thoughts of 17 science writers (and public policy experts, journalists, educators, editors, etc)

2009-09-30T22:15:00.006-05:00

Emily Monosson is an independent toxicologist, writer and editor. You may have heard her name—she is the editor of the recent anthology, “Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory: Women Scientist Speak Out.” I urge anyone who is interested in work/life balance or alternative careers to seek out this book; it’s not just for mothers! Although many contributors to this book have indeed managed

Colorado's Industry Scene

2009-08-23T13:40:00.002-05:00

If you live (or want to live in CO) there are a great number of small bioscience companies along the front range. Visit the Colorado Bioscience Association website to learn more about the awesome job opportunities that CO has to offer. The CBSA puts on numerous networking events as well to help people bridge the gap over to industry.

A truly alternative career

2009-07-30T21:53:00.003-05:00

Today the New York Times featured an article on a truly unusual "alternative career." A Neuroscience Professor Makes her Move to the Racetrack. Dr. Michelle Nihei left a career in biomedical research to become a horse trainer and is aiming for the highest levels of the sport.Yup. If you want, you really can walk away from it all. From all of it.

Stimulus Money - Laboratory Professional Training

2009-07-28T13:25:00.003-05:00

Received the following in my email. If you're considering becoming a Medical Technologist/Clinical Laboratory Scientist, you might ask around.Department of Labor (DOL) Announces Health Care Sector Grants: Laboratory Professional Training Programs Urged to ApplyOn July 23, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced the availability of approximately $125 million in new grant funds authorized for

Chad Orzel delves ...

2009-07-27T10:19:00.003-05:00

... into non-academic science positions with a new series of interviews he is conducting. The interviews can be found on his website. Some of them interviews can be found at these links: here, here, here, here, here, and here. Dang, there are a lot of them, so check out his site. Here is his blog entry soliciting potential interviewee candidates.

Alternative career profile: Rachel Carson, scientist and writer

2009-05-25T21:38:00.005-05:00

I thought it would be fun to start posting profiles of people in alternative careers. Recently, I ran across a very interesting such profile in the publication, "Science Editor", the monthly journal of the Council of Science Editors (I'm a member). April’s issue had an eye-opening story about Rachel Carson, the environmental activist best known for her book, “Silent Spring.”I admit that I’ve

"Tell me about yourself."

2009-05-13T12:48:00.001-05:00

A general question re: interviewing:How do you typically answer the "Tell me about yourself" interview question? It's pretty common, but I'm never really sure where to start. I've read a few books suggesting one should tailor it to the position, but I'm not really sure what that means.I'm particularly interested in how to handle issues of changing careers or interviewing for jobs that are

This week is ...

2009-04-20T15:02:00.005-05:00

National Medical Laboratory Profesisonals Week!

Science policy fellowship links

2009-04-10T09:05:00.002-05:00

Sheril Kirshenbaum over at The Intersection has posted links to a number of science policy fellowships through various organizations.I haven't had a chance to look through all of them, but there is certainly a wide variety. If policy is something you're interested in, these will probably be a great resource!

Webinar!

2009-04-08T17:07:00.004-05:00

There is a "Nontraditional Careers: Opportunities Away From the Bench" Webinar being held on April 28th, 2009 by the AAAS/Science Business Office.Registration is free, but mandatory to participate.Please visit this website for more details and to register!

Alternative Careers workshop

2009-03-09T11:33:00.004-05:00

For those of you in the Toronto area, you may be interested in this workshop: Exploring Career Options: Tracks Don't All Have to Lead to Tenure: This HCTP professional development workshop is designed to explore various career options for those who wish to pursue alternatives to the tenure-track positions offered

Medical Technology Blurbs

2009-02-19T11:46:00.002-06:00

A couple of interesting bits concerning Medical Technology/Clinical Laboratory Science.1. Went to Monster.com today and typed in "medical technologist". This brought up 575 hits. Not all of them are Med Tech jobs, but a large portion of them are. As I've said before, it's a job which does not have a lot of people competing for those positions. As of a recent study, over 15,000 Med Tech positions

Looking for an Alternative Science career?

2009-02-02T15:57:00.002-06:00

Now might be your chance! While lots of jobs are being lost elsewhere, the US government continues to hire.A report released in January by Christina Romer, head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, an economic policy adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, predicted that more than 90 percent of the 3 million to 4 million jobs that Obama proposes to save or create

An amusing take on the biotech experience

2009-01-09T19:13:00.004-06:00

Richard Grant of The Scientist blog recently posted a highly entertaining three-part series detailing his experiences as a senior scientist in a small UK start-up.Part One covers the application process, the project, and the first warning signs that "would have made a more mature head send insistent ‘run away, quickly’ signals to its legs and ‘scream, loudly’ signals to its mouth."Part Two

On leaving the bench

2008-12-22T23:23:00.005-06:00

This is cross-posted from my personal blog. It seemed appropriate, and this blog-space seems a little empty of late. It was inspired partly by a post that Thomas Joseph put up.It’s surprising how much I still feel like a postdoc. I still go to work in the usual postdoc uniform of jeans and sneakers. I still go to seminars, journal clubs, lab meetings. I sit at a computer right in the middle of a

Why do we work the job we work?

2008-11-28T12:10:00.004-06:00

Over at my blog, I posted a new entry which basically answers the question of why I work the job I work. For me it is a matter of, and I quote ... What keeps me going is that paycheck I receive.Which is why the entry is labeled Pragmatic Me. It's also part of the reason why I'm in what can be considered an "alternative scientific career" as opposed to what I view as the endless tedium of academia

Medical Technology - Part Deux

2008-11-24T12:00:00.004-06:00

A while back, I was asked the following question: [How comparable is a] BS/MS in med tech vs a BS/MS in straight chemistry or microbiology?Two of the four major disciplines within Medical Technology are Clinical Chemistry and Microbiology, so there is definitely some overlap. However, I'd say that there is probably a fair bit of difference between a Chemistry major and the discipline of Clinical

Science Journalism...

2008-11-17T19:24:00.002-06:00

...I ran across this blog entry by Matt Brown on Nature Network and he did a nice write up on how you get into science journalism that I thought I would just pass along for those who are interested. He outlines 1) Why you would be interested in it, 2) Some myths that are associated with the career, 3) Some skills you will need, and 4) Some tips on how to get into science journalism.Also...I

More on scientific writing/editing (thoughts from a novice)

2008-11-02T18:28:00.003-06:00

Jennifer said in a comment to my last post: I am interested in pursuing science writing, but am not fortunate enough to know anyone in the field. Do you have any advice on starting to freelance without such connections?Okay, I’m not an expert, but I’m going to give this a try….Getting the first gig.(1) Cold-calling/cold e-mailingThere are a number of online editing services geared toward the

Performance Evaluation Strategies

2008-10-26T14:55:00.004-05:00

Cross-posted from my other blog. Apparently, aspects of the performance tracking system I've developed might be useful to a wider audience than I'd anticipated!Here's the text of an email I sent to a brand new (and very bright) graduate student recently. The student had asked me to "have a quick look at" a one page proposal for a small internal stipend competition.---------------------"Hi [name]

Project management in the non-profit research services sector

2008-10-18T10:23:00.000-05:00

So what do you do if you think that experience in conducting formal interviews might be good for your future career development, and you also happen to write for an alternative science careers blog?You interview people with cool alternative careers, that’s what you do! (And you start by practicing on your friends). I get good experience, you get to read about a

How I landed my alternative career in science writing

2008-10-16T23:14:00.003-05:00

When I first started talking to people and reading about alternative science careers, I quickly realized that there is no set path. People find themselves in editing, writing, or policy positions by any number of round-about ways. Personal contacts are often key. This can make the prospect of “breaking into” an alternative career quite daunting. Academia is hard, but at least we’re all

New toy, new career?

2008-09-22T19:40:00.001-05:00

Purchased this lunchtime Note Nature Network sticker on my keyboard. I'm such a geek.What could I be doing with this tonight?All will become clear... eventually.

Praxis: new blog carnival

2008-09-18T16:42:00.004-05:00

Readers of this blog might be interested in a new blog carnival called Praxis. It's billed as a carnival about "the academic life", and while the most recent edition focused on purely academic issues, Coturnix* did include some alternative career-related posts in the inaugural carnival.So go and check it out while my co-authors and I work on our next posts! I know it's been a bit quiet around

A note about targeted letters of reference

2008-09-04T09:28:00.000-05:00

I was looking through some old emails this week, and came across some correspondence with my PhD supervisor. Our emails are infrequent but very friendly; I like to keep him updated on my career progress - although he sometimes seems more interested in my (non-existent) sailing progress - and he in turn likes to pass on any news from his lab and department. So when I applied for my current job,

I wish I was witty

2008-08-29T17:03:00.011-05:00

As then I could come up with a funny way to introduce myself, but I'm not. What can you do, eh?This is my first post, and I have to admit that I have been very nervous to post something here. Partly because I am currently a PhD Student (at least for the moment) and I find it just a tad bit intimidating to be part of this amazing group of contributors. However, I wasn't always a PhD student, nor

Executive Scientific Officer

2008-08-28T01:47:00.003-05:00

That's the official title of my new position.OK, I forgot to introduce myself before posting here. But Mad's previous post let me think that it's time to describe my job. I don't know if there are many "executive scientific officer" around the world but it might help Scattered Scientist to see that this kind of position exists.Let me tell you a bit about the framework first. I am working for a "

Reader's Question

2008-08-26T22:51:00.000-05:00

It's been quiet around here lately. I hope you aren't all waiting for me to finish my academic research careers series before posting! :-)Anyway, Scattered Scientist asked a question in the comments on my last post to which I don't know the answer, so I thought I would re-post the question here:I'm interested in something that would involve a lot of grant writing and data analysis/experiment

Academic Research Careers, Part I

2008-08-14T09:22:00.005-05:00

Part I: What are the options?Drugmonkey has a recent post on stable, non-PI positions for PhD scientists in academia which makes a good starting point for a series of posts I will write about non-tenure track academic research careers. If you love research and enjoy the academic environment, but don't think the tenure-track path is for you, what are your options? Is it PI-dom or bust in

Medical Technology - Q&A Part I

2008-08-13T13:45:00.005-05:00

maddox22 asks: ... what's your take on how long it would take someone who already has a graduate degree (although not in chemistry or biology) to complete such a program? To test for a license from the ASCP Board of Registry, ASCP provides several routes. These are listed on the following page (you'll need to scroll down some). Route 1: A baccalaureate degree from a regionally accredited

Greetings Earthlings ...

2008-08-13T09:46:00.014-05:00

... how do you actually introduce yourself on a new blog? Obviously I don't know ... so I came up with something cheesy. At any rate, here I is. My name is Thomas Joseph (which I'm using as a pseudonym - though it's technically my first and middle name, just not my last) and I am the author of the blog (It's a ...) Micro World (... after all). When I'm not wasting my time blogging, I'm a

Finding the alternative within academia

2008-08-09T12:31:00.002-05:00

As with networking, the best time to prepare for your next career move is NOW.But what if you don't really know what you want to do after your degree / PhD / postdoc?Well, NOW is also a good time to start figuring that out.Identify the things you enjoyThe great thing about the academic experience is that it exposes you to many different tasks and experiences that are relevant to careers outside

blogging = networking....right??

2008-08-05T01:06:00.006-05:00

My fiancé has been reading and participating in various physical therapy blogs for about two years now...and for the longest time I couldn't figure out why. I honestly thought that blogs were around to allow people to discuss what they had for breakfast...or how they saved a kitty from the pound. I was surprised when he told me that people wanted to meet him at conferences because of his blog

Freaking. OUT.

2008-07-31T08:15:00.004-05:00

I'm assuming a part of this blog is to track our activities, as we embark upon our alternative careers? Or at least, engage in activities that will hamper our primary careers, and throw our lives into disarray?:DAbout a month ago i actually signed up for the 2 Fall Term classes i will need, as part of my first year in the Masters' of Education i'm enrolled for. This program i chose specifically

Hi Hi Hi Hi Hi...

2008-07-25T21:38:00.006-05:00

Boy, it's kind of intimidating to post on this site due to how well it has taken off! Hats off to Mad Hatter *chuckles* for setting everything up and coming up with this wonderful idea!! And thank you for inviting me to contribute.So. Who am I?? Whelp, unlike other posters on this blog...I have yet to experience the real world. Officially, I am a PhD candidate in microbiology...getting ready

Networking Nuts And Bolts

2008-07-25T01:23:00.008-05:00

I wanted to follow-up on the excellent networking posts by CAE and Bean-mom with a few more thoughts on the specifics of how to network. Professional society meetings and other organized scientific events like the ones CAE and Bean-mom describe are fantastic ways to get started in networking. But what if there are no such events near you, or the alternative career you're interested in isn't

Advice on Freelance Science Writing

2008-07-23T16:03:00.010-05:00

Caveat: I am writing this advice from the perspective of an editor who regularly works with freelance science writers. However, the market in which I work may not be the same as some of you out there work in, or want to work in. Therefore, I can guarantee that following the advice below will endear you to K-12 educational publishers (and to companies like mine who work for educational publishers)

Applying for jobs in big companies

2008-07-23T13:47:00.005-05:00

Here is a couple of things I've learned from a friend managing a research lab in a big private company.1. In these companies, when a job is posted, the applications are first screened by HR departments. They have no idea what science really is. They can not guess that if you did -say-"bioinformatics" it means you are good at data mining. Unless you explicitely write "skills: data mining" in your

How drugs are made: part I

2008-07-20T22:24:00.002-05:00

Should I ever be invited to give one of those "Alternative Careers" talks at one of my alma maters, I plan to spend a fair amount of time explaining how the drug development process works. Even for people with no intention of working in the field, it seems like something you ought to understand if you believe that your research ultimately contributes to it.Here's how academic biologists think

Networking in science writing/editing

2008-07-18T22:43:00.004-05:00

I’d like to piggyback here on CAE’s excellent, excellent post on networking.Professional societies in your field of interest can offer invaluable opportunities for networking. If you are interested in scientific writing and editing, there are three organizations you should know about:National Association of Science Writers (NASW) American Medical Writers’ Association (AMWA) Council of Science

Hello!

2008-07-16T19:36:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Mad Hatter for creating this space and inviting me to post, and apologies for the tardiness of this introduction! My "alternative career" is in management consulting, although I'm currently on an extended maternity leave spending time with my 4-month old daughter. (My time on the computer has decreased markedly, but I am following the conversation with interest!)I have actually had

Networking: the basics

2008-07-15T18:47:00.004-05:00

WHAT is a network?People. People connected to you and to each other. Even if your primary network is quite small, each person in it will connect you to others who you may never have met or even heard of.WHY is my network important?In the context of moving into an alternative career, I think there are two main reasons:Gathering general informationIf you're a typical academic scientist, or are just

The Google Challenge

2008-07-15T12:00:00.003-05:00

I completely agree with some of the comments on a recent post that Googling your name should not produce anything you don't want a potential employer to see. However, I have a couple of questions for general consumption (one of which probably applies only to me, but hey...)1. Should you be concerned if a Google search turns up nothing about you? I.e., if there aren't any web pages that actually

Better Late Than Never

2008-07-15T11:00:00.001-05:00

I have been invited to contribute, and accepted the challenge. However, my career path is somewhat unlike anybody else's here, and is also very much in the middle of radical change at the moment. Lastly, i'm not a blogger at all, but a prolific commenter. So i feel very much out of my depth.Regardless of all that, i do feel obligated to write the introductory post about myself, and explain why

The career crisis and the CV

2008-07-13T22:18:00.010-05:00

I'd like to rebound on Mad's previous post.I always had a CV updated. Well, maybe not always, but in the last 2-3 years I didn't let my CV unupdated for more than a couple of months. I also got one online. I even googled my name to see what websites were popping up first. Was this information that I wanted my next employer know? If not, learn the lesson: never put your name again on such a

Do As I Say, Not As I Did

2008-07-13T21:43:00.002-05:00

As more authors introduce themselves, I'm realizing that my own self-introduction was rather brief and sketchy. So I thought I'd provide a few more details about my career path in the context of a piece of sage advice Bean-Mom provided in her first post:I didn’t start seriously researching “alternative careers” until very late in my postdoc. In fact, I waited until the push came to shove—when my

A Story

2008-07-12T12:05:00.006-05:00

A female Ph.d. I know held a research post in a respected company – a position that was arguably comparable to a faculty position. She had good writing and management skills in addition to research skills.Slowly she started getting all the writing tasks - proposals, marketing reports, and what not. To cut a long story short, when she objected she was fired (well not exactly fired, but told put up

Admin: Questions For Authors

2008-07-10T08:41:00.004-05:00

Fellow authors, I have a few questions/comments for you regarding how this blog is run and thought it would be easier to write an “admin post” than to send mass email. Apologies to readers—we shall return to our regularly scheduled programming shortly.Would you like me to set up an email distribution list containing all the authors' addresses for future group communications, or is everyone

Marketing: the good, the boring and the ugly

2008-07-09T21:13:00.006-05:00

As promised in my introductory post, here are some thoughts on my time as a marketer.I don't want to identify the company I worked for by name on this blog (and please don't try to guess - all attempts will be deleted from the comments), so all I'll say is that "my" products comprised various ranges of kits that we sold to research labs. Marketing pharmaceuticals to doctors and their patients is

Another helpful site

2008-07-09T20:54:00.002-05:00

Maddox22's question about disclosing salary reminds me of another useful site I wanted to recommend: Science's career forum. It's part of a much larger collection of resources (browse upwards and outwards) that I mostly haven't waded through, although Tooling Up also looks useful.The forum does have a somewhat weird vibe, but it's an excellent place to ask questions when, say, you need to know

Resume, cover letter, and salary requirements

2008-07-09T14:59:00.003-05:00

So, as I've been applying to various and sundry jobs, I have occasionally come across requests for salary requirements. (One employer even wanted to know my salary for every single job on my resume.)I'm curious about others' thoughts on the salary requirement. I think this may not be something that arises in academia. It might be something that business-school graduates learn about, but I

Hi Y'all!

2008-07-08T23:06:00.009-05:00

I thought I would take a break from my lab and come over to chat for a while. First of all, thanks to Mad Hatter and Bean Mom for starting the Alternative Scientist blog and for the invite to post. As someone who had no real guidance in her career decisions, I was happy to read that someone was trying to get information out on the subject of alternative careers for scientists. Well, I

Joining in

2008-07-06T18:15:00.002-05:00

Thanks to Mad Hatter for getting this forum rolling! I'm not a blogger, but when she posted the original list of participants here there didn't seem to be anyone from the Big Pharma side, so I thought I'd chime in.I did my PhD in a model system molecular biology lab. By the time I finished, I'd already decided I wanted to pursue a career in biotech or pharma. I looked into those options then, and

How poor are they that have not patience

2008-07-06T05:31:00.027-05:00

"Thou know'st we work by wit, and not by witchcraft;And wit depends on dilatory time."3 days ago I got a skype job interview. It went very well. At the end, I was offered my dream job. It is not a professor position. Not anymore.5 months ago, I lost patience. The following lines are a free translation of a post I wrote (in French) during this period on my own blog. I believe they are still

A kind of risk analysis

2008-07-03T15:00:00.000-05:00

Thanks Mad Hatter for starting this blog and inviting me to post.I've been thinking a lot about taking risks, so I'll make that my first post. One reason why the tenure-track is considered good is that it leads to a tenured position and that provides a certain amount of job security. There's also some freedom to pursue longer term projects (to a point). It is a relatively stable low risk career

Same Old Shit

2008-07-02T23:53:00.004-05:00

I wasn't going to post again this soon because I didn't want to hog the airwaves, so to speak, but I just have to write about this before my head explodes. DrugMonkey wrote a post on Nature's recent not-so-objective review of PLoS. It's a great post, but in the process of venting his spleen on the Nature article, DrugMonkey also decided to take a dump on scientists who chose alternative careers

If it's Pittsburgh, it must be Wednesday

2008-07-02T14:12:00.004-05:00

Well, I guess it's my turn to do the introduction thing. As a preface, let me say that not only is this my first post on this blog, it's also my first post ever, on any blog, anywhere. Yes, I'm a noob. Please educate me on blog-iquette (woohoo! I coined a word!) as necessary.So, the short life story: I have a Ph.D. in geochemistry, which I earned in 2005 from Cornell University. (My mother was

Another day, another introduction

2008-07-01T15:55:00.009-05:00

First of all, many thanks to Mad Hatter for setting up this blog, and for inviting me to post on it!I feel like my "alternative career" might be "professional blogger", since this is now the third site I contribute to. Unfortunately I'm yet to make a single penny from blogging, so you get to hear all about my real-life alternative career instead.(An aside: this post will include several links to

The Dreaded "Alternative"

2008-06-30T22:32:00.005-05:00

Citronella asked a really great question on Bean-Mom's post, one which I think deserves a longer reply than would fit in the comments. So here is Citronella's comment:I am not very definite about what I want to do when I grow up (and get my PhD) but I'd hate to be thinking about the career I might embrace later as a plan B or a backup plan... it still makes it sound as if the academic tenure

Introducing myself

2008-06-30T10:39:00.002-05:00

Okay, I’ll take the baton now…Bean-mom, here. I’m so thrilled that Mad Hatter set up this website, and graciously invited me to join. I am a cell biologist by training, and spent years (grad school and a postdoc) immersed in the world of academic research. For almost two years, however, I have been off the bench, caring for my two young children at home. I’ve been off the bench, but not

Grand Opening

2008-06-28T12:27:00.005-05:00

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