In September 2014, the NIH Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training (BEST) Initiative awarded Rutgers University with a grant to initialize and establish the Rutgers Interdisciplinary Job Opportunities for Biomedical Scientists (iJOBS) program, which aims to better prepare biomedical students and postdocs for nonacademic careers. As we reach the two year mark, let’s take a brief review of the successes and challenges so far, and then follow up with a sneak preview of what is coming ahead.

It is hard to break from academia, and yet it is not impossible. To realize and decide that an academic career was no longer for me was difficult and daunting at the same time. Breaking from academia means leaving behind an entire life, the only one I have known for the last 18 years.

One of my favorite things about the Rutgers University Biomedical Engineering (BME) building is the fact that it has an "open lab environment". In fact, this is one of the main reasons that I chose to attend Rutgers. In case you have never set foot in the BME labs, what I mean by "open lab,” is that all of the lab benches of different professors are in one large room.

Hi there! My name is Paulina Krzyszczyk and I am a 5th year PhD student in Biomedical Engineering. My project is based on a collaboration between my advisors at Rutgers, Dr. François Berthiaume and Dr. Martin Yarmush, as well as Dr. Andre Palmer from Ohio State University. Dr.

There have been many discussions within the research community on how to best ‘rescue’ the research enterprise from itself; from dissatisfied students, to limited academic positions, to endless post-doc appointments, to abysmal financial prospects for academics (both grants and pay). The problem is that PhD training hasn’t changed all that much.  At its essence, a PhD is like a medieval apprenticeship where you are the trainee of your mentor.

By: Urmimala Basu

This post is first seen on the Atlanta BEST Magazine Summer 2016

The common notion of “Industry or Academia” echoed by millions of graduate students and post-docs when quizzed on their career aspirations might very soon turn into the apparent paradoxical concept of “Industry and Academia”. A recent article in SCIENCE magazine talks about this morphing concept!

By: Ina Nikolaeva

One career that science PhD’s have only recently been made aware of is the Medical Writer. I myself only found out about this entire career path about a year before I graduated, even though I quickly realized it was word-for-word my dream job description. If you want a more in-depth summary of how I ended up deciding that MW was for me, please read the short paragraph at the end of this post, titled, “My Personal Decision-Making Process”

Who should you be to be happy as an MW?

From Academic PhD to Clinical Research – How to Take the Leap

By: Sarah Misenko

In late April, Rudy Bellani, founder and CEO of Oystir, came to Rutgers and gave career advice and information about his company. For more about Rudy, see Myka Ababon’s interview here.

By: Chris Lowe

The advice to keep unprofessional or embarrassing pictures from Facebook and Instagram has long been impressed on all of us. But why not take it one step further?