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by Jennifer Casiano In 2007, Larry Page, co-founder of Google stated, “Science has a serious marketing problem.” Ten years later, we are still struggling. We just haven’t learned how to effectively communicate science. We publish our results and present at symposiums, sure, but what about the non-scientific community? What are we doing to communicate the importance of our results to them?

This past February, nearly fifty graduate students and post-docs braved the winter weather and attended a four day long workshop called SciPhD to learn how to frame skills gained in academia to be marketable towards careers in industry.

Your success as a graduate student depends on the quality of your mentorship. Often times, we choose a mentor based on our interests, or just to get into a lab that has money. Choosing a lab should be meticulously planned, the same way a great dance involves a planned order of steps.  Here is a quick guide to help you plan the steps you should take before you dance:

Last Earth Day, scientists from all over the world came out and took part in the March for Science. The march was primarily in protest to the current US administration’s seemingly anti-science stance; however, during the months leading up to the march, people in the March for Science Facebook page posted their own additional, personal reasons for wanting to attend.

I am going to go bold here and state for the record that writing a grant is the single most important undertaking you should devote yourself to during graduate study. Sure, developing and evaluating a testable hypothesis is what consumes most of your waking (and sometimes sleeping- gosh darn it!) hours.

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?

By: Jennifer Casiano

Withering academic prospects and burgeoning alternative career paths are challenging the age-old notion of academia being the only tenable career path for biomedical scientists. However, students and post-docs find it increasingly uncomfortable to broach the topic of alternative career options with their advisors.

By: Fatu Badiane Markey

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.