How To...

By Jennifer Casiano A year ago, I started my journey to a PhD. Full of excitement and memories, this year was filled with challenging experiences and self-growth. Since the beginning of the summer to now, I’ve been constantly reflecting on what I would have done differently, problems that I heard from friends, and the variety of experiences of this year. Starting a doctoral degree is a life-changing decision with more personal compensation and fulfillment than pitfalls. The majority of people who pursue a research career do so because we love what we do.

By: Maria Qadri

In honor of our recent two-year anniversary, we’re going to get a little meta today and talk about what goes on backstage here at the iJOBS blog. If you’ve ever asked, “how do they find the time to write?” read on!

One of my favorite things about the Rutgers University Biomedical Engineering (BME) building is the fact that it has an "open lab environment". In fact, this is one of the main reasons that I chose to attend Rutgers. In case you have never set foot in the BME labs, what I mean by "open lab,” is that all of the lab benches of different professors are in one large room.

There have been many discussions within the research community on how to best ‘rescue’ the research enterprise from itself; from dissatisfied students, to limited academic positions, to endless post-doc appointments, to abysmal financial prospects for academics (both grants and pay). The problem is that PhD training hasn’t changed all that much.  At its essence, a PhD is like a medieval apprenticeship where you are the trainee of your mentor.

By: Urmimala Basu

This post is first seen on the Atlanta BEST Magazine Summer 2016

The common notion of “Industry or Academia” echoed by millions of graduate students and post-docs when quizzed on their career aspirations might very soon turn into the apparent paradoxical concept of “Industry and Academia”. A recent article in SCIENCE magazine talks about this morphing concept!

From Academic PhD to Clinical Research – How to Take the Leap

By: Sarah Misenko

By: Chris Lowe

The advice to keep unprofessional or embarrassing pictures from Facebook and Instagram has long been impressed on all of us. But why not take it one step further?

By: Yaa Haber

By Jennifer Casiano-Matos It is very common in the Ph.D. and post-doc community to call ourselves specialists. Moving beyond the “specialist” or “graduate student” label is something that we ought to do if we are interested in a job outside academia. We often commit the mistake of not realizing the qualifications and skills that can make us stand out from others.

By: Chris Lowe