On October 24^th I attended a Career Satisfaction workshop at the “What Can You Be With a PhD?” symposium, presented by Matthias Birk. The room was fully packed, I had to squeeze together with several people and sit on the floor.

Mattias Birk was a passionate and inspiring speaker. I got good laughs from his humor, but I was also enlightened by his view of career satisfaction. The experience allowed me to realize it is critical to find the balancing point among strength, joy, and value for career satisfaction.

We all started out in the PhD program for similar reasons – we thought it would be best for our careers, we enjoyed doing scientific research, and probably believed that science was our vocation. But what about those of us that end up in labs that don’t suit our needs, or research just doesn’t make us happy anymore? While everyone hits a rough patch in the PhD journey, it is inevitable that some of us will find ourselves downright miserable for months or years in a row.

by: Dharm Patel

By: Maria Qadri

“…one person’s rose-tinted view of their own idiosyncratic story does not constitute “advice,” especially not in an endeavor where we value reproducibility.”

This year’s American Society for Cell Biology Early Career Life Scientist, Vladamir Denic, wrote a brief and honest essay about his journey from average high school student to a successful Principal Investigator at a name-brand university.

By Chris Lowe

By: Fatu Badiane Markey

The theme of storytelling is often emphasized in the field of science. However, it is easy to forget the significance of presenting a clear and compelling story once all the experiments are complete and the hypothesis has been proven. What good are the hours spent in the lab if no one can understand the end result?