My career path over the years has veered in directions I never would have guessed. As an undergraduate, majoring in chemistry, I thought that engineering sounded completely unappealing because of all the math involved. I also refused to take a single biology class because my mother taught high school biology, and it amused me that my dislike of biology irked her. (That totally counts as rebellion, right?)
Escape Velocity: Non-Research Oriented Careers
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Did You Want a Career in Academics? Oh, Sorry.
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When pursuing research as a profession, it often seems our options distill down to two choices: 1) a career in academics, or 2) a career in anything else. While ‘anything else’ includes a tremendous number of exciting opportunities, it’s not unusual that researchers might feel a bias towards academics – especially early in their careers. After all, the academic environment is where most of us start out and as a result, our professional role models are likely academics.
Send Email Without the Worry: Training Your Autopilot
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Work is filled with moments where our minds drift off on vacation, leaving the body carelessly going through the motions in autopilot mode. Nowhere are the consequences of a poorly-trained autopilot more damaging than in email. Mess up an experiment, you can repeat it. Send an angry email to your boss, you can start browsing the classifieds.
When Do Top-Tier Publications Lose that Lovin’ Feeling?
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Publications have long been viewed as the currency of scientists. They impact everything from job offers to funding awards to ego boosts. However, in last weeks’ poll (How Valuable is a Top-Tier Publication) an overwhelming majority of scientists thought it was a better career move to finish a postdoc in three years with an average publication than it was to stay for six years and finally land a home-run paper. If the data suggest “Glamour Mags” have lost their appeal by six years, then when does that transition actually takes place?
Ombudsmen: The Best Conversation that Never Happened
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Dear Dora,
I have an issue with something going on in the lab and it could have serious consequences for my PI. Someone recommended I speak with the ombudsman for advice, but I’m worried it will get back to my PI somehow. Are ombudsmen really safe to talk to?
-Anonymous, Grad student
Having a Business Card Doesn’t Make You a Douchebag
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The business card is a staple in most industries, but they are much less prevalent in science, particularly in the academic community. For many of us, the thought of handing out business cards congers up images of slimy douchebags at cheesy networking events. Yet, the reality is far from that fear. The business card is a powerful professional tool that deserves serious consideration among scientists. The douchebag, on the other hand, is a different kind of tool and should be avoided in the interest of career development…
Postdoc Risk-Reward: How Valuable is a Top-Tier Publication?
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One of the most challenging aspects of performing research is knowing when to pull the plug on a project. This is particularly true for postdocs, who have a limited amount of time to obtain the results that will act as a springboard for their career. After graduate school, many of us walk into our postdoc dreaming about the huge paper we’re going to publish and the flood of career opportunities and funding awards that will follow. No wonder it can be tough to wake up from that fantasy…
An Essential Video Setting: Deinterlace
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The “deinterlace video” setting is one of the easiest ways to improve video quality and it requires nothing more than a click of a button. Understanding how video is recorded and displayed provides a solid foundation for documenting your laboratory techniques as well as for looking cool when talking about high definition tvs…
Thanks for Making it to Our Meeting. Oh Wait, You Didn’t.
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Here I sit, 5:48pm on a Tuesday. It’s exactly three hours and 48 minutes after I was supposed to have the weekly one-on-one meeting with my boss. What have I been doing for the last four hours? Let’s review.
3 Scientific Products that Would Change Your Life
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We know how hard research can be so we’ve been working hard in the BenchFly Labs to develop a few scientific products we think will significantly improve the lives of researchers in the lab. Excited about the prospects, we’ve leaked news of these products in our new newsletter we launched a few weeks ago. Due to the tough economy and limited resources, we can only scale-up production on one of these, so let us know which product you’d like to see on the shelves at your local store.
