Happenings in Science Careers

By Chris Lowe Almost all STEM graduate students and post-docs are members of professional societies. Why? The member rate for conference registration is offered at a deep discount and when students must travel to present their work on their advisor’s dime, every dollar counts. If you are one of the majority of graduate students or post-docs then your professional society involvement probably begins and ends with the abstract submission followed by a poster or presentation at a conference later in the year.

Image edited from: http://www.enterrasolutions.com/2014/05/stem-education-fuss.html

We know iJOBS is here to expose us sheltered grad students/post docs to the opportunities outside of academia. However, for those committed to the academic track, iJOBS, together with the Postdoc Association, hosted our very own Dr. Samuel Bunting and his wife, Dr. Nina Peel to take us through their two different academic career paths and how they pulled it all off as a husband-and-wife team.

Have you ever had that (dreaded?) experience when someone suddenly springs this question on you: “So, what do you do?” I’ve had all different kinds of people ask me this: a colleague, a fellow graduate student, a prospective housemate, my parents. It seems like such a simple question, and yet it has taken me years to feel completely at ease with my answer.

In keeping with my recent theme, which might be summarized as, “PhD, heal thyself,” I will use this blog post to draw your attention to the current issue of the journal Science.  Earlier this year, Science magazine (via their feed at twitter.com/sciencemagazine) posed the question, “Is the idea of the postdoc position obsolete in today's scientific landscape?”  Before we get into it, I would just like to point out that Science has often reported on obsolescence.  A search of the word “obsolete” on www.sciencemag.org show

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institutes_of_Health#/media/File:NIH_Clinical_Research_Center_aerial.jpg The Rutgers iJOBS program recently had the pleasure of hosting two National Institutes of Health (NIH) representatives for a seminar on job opportunities at United States government organizations.

By its simplest definition, a Medical Science Liaison (MSL) blends business with technical and scientific acumen to promote disease state awareness, foster communication between clinicians and in-house researchers, and conduct educational seminars on behalf of the pharmaceutical company they represent. MSLs play a vital role in the success of a company and their products in this ever-changing regulatory landscape.

By Chris Lowe Kenilworth, NJ – On April 29, 2015 30 iJOBS participants from both Newark and New Brunswick campuses had the opportunity to tour Merck’s Kenilworth facility and learn from a panel of experts from many different walks throughout the company. The theme of the day was “A view from inside pharmaceutical development: perspective on career paths” and it certainly delivered on both counts.

OK, that’s just a little Rutgers inside joke—Bill Nye, The Science Guy, gave the commencement address, representing the “end” of your undergraduate education, at least if you graduated this year. But seriously, the topic of this blog is a website based on two articles that use phrases like:

“…doing nothing is not an option. The stakes are enormous: the current environment is beginning to erode…” (Alberts et al, PNAS, February 17, 2015, vol. 112, no. 7, 1912–1913)

and

With the successful first year of the Rutgers Interdisciplinary Job Opportunities for Biomedical Scientists (RU iJOBS) coming to a close, one of the events I wanted to commemorate was the very first iJOBS Annual Symposium held last April 20, 2015 at the Busch Student Center in Piscataway.