By: Jennifer Casiano As a graduate student or a post-doc, we often focus on spending as much time as we can in the laboratory; running experiments, finishing some preliminary data, writing a paper, and so on. All of us know that this can take most of our day. However, one of the best ways to enrich our career is attending to meetings, iJOBS events and talks.

Withering academic prospects and burgeoning alternative career paths are challenging the age-old notion of academia being the only tenable career path for biomedical scientists. However, students and post-docs find it increasingly uncomfortable to broach the topic of alternative career options with their advisors.

Almost a year ago, I had one of my annual thesis committee meetings, and my adviser and committee gave their blessings and said the much-coveted magic words: “I think you’re ready to graduate”. After briefly enjoying the moment, my adviser and I got down to business:

(1) working out a timeline to finish the remaining experiments

By: Fatu Badiane Markey Last month, I started an internship at the Statehouse in Trenton, NJ in the Office of Legislative Services (OLS). The OLS is a nonpartisan supportive office for legislators that provides many services such as general research and analysis, bill drafting, and legal opinions. I’ve been to the state capitol before and I was happy to be back for this new experience.

[caption id="attachment_1573" align="alignleft" width="183"] At my thesis defense.[/caption] I officially became Dr.

By: Chris Lowe Some of our iJOBS participants have been able to complete industrial internships during their PhD studies. We recently had the chance to sit down with Dharm Patel, a 5th year PhD student in Biochemistry, to learn about his internship experience and see what advice he would offer other students looking to transition into industry. This is part II of our 2 part interview with Dharm.

By: Chris Lowe Some of our iJOBS participants have been able to complete industrial internships during their PhD studies. We recently had the chance to sit down with Dharm Patel, a 5th year PhD student in Biochemistry, to learn about his internship experience and see what advice he would offer other students looking to transition into industry. This post is part 1 of our 2 part interview with Dharm.

By: Maria Qadri Universal truth: Writing is HARD. Corollary: Editing is hard, especially without imposing your own stylistic choices. How do we here at Rutgers iJOBS solve that problem? Our model for editing on this blog allows two different people to review any writer's writing, partly to ensure the style of a writer stays the same regardless of our feedback. Before I sign off for my senior editing duties entirely (Ph.D. here I come!), I wanted to share some thoughts and ad-hoc tips about editing/writing for clarity.

By: Maria Qadri The post I intended to write for Thursday was a beautiful thought -- but the missed deadline I self-imposed is the exclamation point on a common struggle throughout my Ph.D. process. I care about the extra-curricular activities I choose to be involved in because I see their value on multiple fronts. HOWEVER, ultimately I'm only one person and I cannot bear the burden of this beautiful project myself. We are lucky to have an excellent team with a variety of opinions -- when one suggested that we let the deadline go by, I allowed myself that tiny breathing room.

By: Maria Qadri As the new semester starts, I would like to share a smidge about what's been happening behind the scenes here at the Rutgers iJOBS blog. First, some history: Just like the process of developing a project into a Ph.D. dissertation, this blog has been growing from an idea into a well-developed repository of our Ph.D. and postdoctoral experiences. It started out in the late spring of 2015 as an opportunity for graduate students to practice their non-scientific writing skills, promote the newly formed iJOBS program, and learn "how-to" blog in a low risk setting.