MythBusters: The Thesis Committee

  • May 23, 2017
iJOBS Blog

To continue (somewhat) a thought I touched upon on my previous blog post on the juggling act that is grad school, I wanted to highlight something that most grad students find annoying at best and terrifying at worst: the thesis committee, and the annual thesis committee meeting.

Pointers for Those Curious About Careers in Industry

  • May 18, 2017
iJOBS Blog

  In my experience, one of the more common responses after asking current graduate students what they plan on doing after graduation, is “find a job in industry.” While the transition from academia to industry can be challenging, a recent article by Angela Hopp and Rajendrani Mukhopadyay aims to outline some pointers for those that might be interested in a career in industry. The article is based on an interview with Kenneth I. Maynard, a member of the National Institutes of Health Common Fund’s External Scientific Panel for the Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training program.

Wanna GLP with me?

  • May 16, 2017
iJOBS Blog

This piece was written after attending an iJOBS workshop entitled: An Introduction to Good Laboratory Practices presented by Melissa Elliott from Envigo on May 8th, 2017 in Piscataway, NJ. Good laboratory practices (GLPs) are a series of regulations which standardize the quality of research used in clinical trials, or food development. Before human consumption, or treatment, there are several stages of research: exploratory, preclinical development, clinical trial, and manufacturing. The latter three stages are all federally regulated.

The Art of Communicating Science to Non-Scientific Groups

  • May 11, 2017
iJOBS Blog

by Jennifer Casiano Social Media In 2007, Larry Page, co-founder of Google stated, “Science has a serious marketing problem.” Ten years later, we are still struggling. We just haven’t learned how to effectively communicate science. We publish our results and present at symposiums, sure, but what about the non-scientific community? What are we doing to communicate the importance of our results to them?

SciPhD: Recognizing the Industry Skills that the PhD is Nurturing

  • May 9, 2017
iJOBS Blog

 

SciPhD Training LogoThis past February, nearly fifty graduate students and post-docs braved the winter weather and attended a four day long workshop called SciPhD to learn how to frame skills gained in academia to be marketable towards careers in industry.

The Mentor-Mentee Dance

  • May 4, 2017
iJOBS Blog

Your success as a graduate student depends on the quality of your mentorship. Often times, we choose a mentor based on our interests, or just to get into a lab that has money. Choosing a lab should be meticulously planned, the same way a great dance involves a planned order of steps.  Here is a quick guide to help you plan the steps you should take before you dance:

How do you SciComm?

  • May 2, 2017

Last Earth Day, scientists from all over the world came out and took part in the March for Science. The march was primarily in protest to the current US administration’s seemingly anti-science stance; however, during the months leading up to the march, people in the March for Science Facebook page posted their own additional, personal reasons for wanting to attend.

The Three Love Languages of Scientific Journals: A Brief Reminder

  • April 27, 2017

It is the dream of every researcher to publish in a journal with a high to decent impact score, for your research to be deemed of high quality, and for the number of citations of your paper to skyrocket. For most PhD students, not only do we begin this journey with the delusion…I mean…aspiration of finishing in as little as three years, we ALSO aim for the highest-impact journal. While there is nothing wrong in dreaming big, and in fact it does work out sometimes in a very fast-paced lab, our dream withers as the years go by.

NEH Next Generation Grants: Revolutionizing the American PhD

  • April 20, 2017

By: Tomas Kasza