iJOBS Blog

My name is Aminat Musah, I am a fifth-year graduate student in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Rutgers University. I work in the lab of Dr. Teresa Wood, where my research focuses on defining the effect of mTOR signaling in oligodendrocyte development. Specifically, my interest lies in the mechanisms underlying mTOR regulation of oligodendrocyte cytoskeleton during differentiation and myelination. Before embarking on my graduate school journey, I attended Delaware State University (DSU) where I attained a bachelor’s degree in Biology.

How’s it going? My name Tomas Kasza, I’m a 3^rd year PhD student in the Neuroscience program at Rutgers University. Although I am studying here in New Jersey , I am originally from California. In 2012, I received my degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from UC Santa Cruz. My passion for research was sparked by participating in an undergraduate research course called Phage Hunters (http://seaphages.org/). In this class, we were tasked with purifying and naming our own bacteriophage, a virus that infects bacteria.

Over the course of attending numerous iJOBS career panels and workshops on different job opportunities for PhD graduates, the one question invariably asked is: “Is a postdoc required for this position?”. Surprisingly, while there are several employers that have no problems answering this question, there are a few who seem to have a hard time committing to a simple “yes” or “no” answer. Which begs the question, what is a postdoc?

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: 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.

By: Ina Nikoleva This blog post is going to be a little different. It is quite excusable, and dare I say, natural, that when faced with obstacles, like the relentless shrinking of scientific funding (especially for what we now refer to as “basic science”), the looming reality of the “post-truth” society, and the heartbreaking phrase “previous experience required” peppering every job ad, that all of us budding scientists have become The future job. The future interview. The next step.