Education

I attended a two-day workshop called “What Can You Be With a PhD?” (WCUB) on November 4-5, 2017. This article is published as the first in two-part coverage of the “Teaching and Education” panel during WCUB. What exactly can one do once they are deemed an expert in their respective field? The answer to that question turns out to be: many things!

On November 10, 2017, Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK), in partnership with United Negro College Fund (UNCF), hosted a symposium about opportunities for African American Ph.D.’s and postdocs in life sciences. A total of 15 students (4 postdocs and 11 pre-doctoral candidates (me included)) from all across the country attended the application-based event.

That is the question. The million dollar question! While we may not soliloquize our internal debate like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, we’ve all asked ourselves this question. Going to graduate school for a Ph.D. is not a decision to be made lightly. One must take several factors into account, both personal and professional, before embarking on the epic journey that is a graduate dissertation.

Anyone who has ever spent a summer on campus knows that come July, it is swarming with running, smiling, and laughing youngsters. It is nearly impossible to walk into the Busch Campus Center without seeing someone under the age of 18. This is because of the numerous summer camps that are held each year at Rutgers University.

The newly established Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, in association with Rutgers iJOBs, recently held a workshop titled ‘How to Overcome Common Career Challenges’. This workshop was conducted by Dr. Thomas Magaldi who serves as the Manager of Career & Professional Development at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Identifying the graduate and post-doctoral training experiences as ‘training in humility’, Dr.

This piece was written after attending an iJOBS workshop entitled: How to Get and Keep a Job presented by Nancy Mark from Johnson & Johnson on June 29th, 2017 in Piscataway, NJ. As graduate students and post docs, we work in a semi-professional environment, wearing the uniforms of bright t-shirts, coffee stained jeans, and disintegrating shoes. Transitioning from this scholarly environment to one that requires tailored clothes and dry cleaning can be daunting, requiring more than just a simple trip to Nordstrom’s.

Urmimala talks with Dr. J.D. Thomas, Rutgers' Assistant Dean for Project Management, Communications, and Special Projects about the development of his career in higher education administration.

iJOBS hosted a career panel, on May 22, 2017, in hopes of enlightening students about career opportunities in education and science outreach. The panelists included: Lucille O’Reilly Ph.D. (Science Teacher), Tiffany King, Ph.D. (BioBus), Patricia Irizarry, Ph.D. (The Rutgers Science Explorer Bus), Paul Winslow Ph.D. (Students 2 Science) and Kara Mann, MS. (Liberty Science Center). Many of us are a source of inspiration to the children and young adults in our lives.