Career Paths
Sandlin
Seguin
Taking Criticism as a Professional Writer
To be successful in science, you have to learn how to take criticism. This is one of the reasons I left the bench. I didn't like feeling like I wasn't good enough all the time. At that time, I thought that the best coping strategy would be to ignore the criticism. Unfortunately, this left me feeling...
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Jennifer
Reineke Pohlhaus
Top ten email best practices
Realizing that we all live in an age of information overload, – I don’t know anyone who doesn’t complain about having too many emails. Here is my list of 10 DOs and DON’Ts1. DO include a response deadline in the subject● Example: September 24 webinar available2. DO include an action ...
Christine
Zafra
It’s OK to be Selfish!
I have a Type A personality (with a capital A), and so, when I face a big decision, I like to consider all aspects, both good and bad, prior to making it. When it comes to my career, part of that process has included talking to others with expertise or experience in the areas I am considering. Howev...
Jason
Sherwin
Takeaways from the Organization for Computational Neuroscience’s Annual Meeting
Dispatch from Paris: This week was the annual meeting of the Organization for Computational Neuroscience. This year, it took place at Université Paris Descartes. And so, here we were this week – unraveling the mystery of “cogito ergo sum” (In English: “I think, therefore I am”), or at lea...
Maida
Taylor
Cultural Fit: Are You Out of Place @ Your Work Place?
Another blind date. It started with a call from a recruiter. One of my former employers gave me name to colleague who was looking for a department head with women’s health experience. And like match.com (at least, how I imagine Match.com to be), we started the engagement wi...
Kate
Sleeth
Increasing your Professional Perception
Ever since I moved away from the bench, I have been reading new books to provide me with tips and tools for my new “Administrator” role. I have also met with a professionalism coach. Occasionally, the tips I have heard or seen don’t appear to be pertinent to me. However, afte...
Erica
Taylor
Planning my career Part II
This is my second installment in 2013 on this site – for a brief introduction and background, please see my initial entry.
Nicholas
Mitchell
Better the devil you know than the devil you don't
Even though jobs, relationships, and cities make you unhappy or uncomfortable, you stay in them because of loss aversion. Loss aversion keeps you where you are, because the fear of losing what you have is greater than the reward associated with pursuing what you want. Don’t worry– we all do it.&...
Dr
27
The new job, the interview process
In my previous entry, I mentioned that over the last few months I had a lot of changes coming at me, almost all at once. I promised to talk more about the interview process, and how I went from being a staff scientist to, all of a sudden, becoming a full-fledged lab manager. I hope this will be of i...
Sandlin
Seguin
The Amount of Writing it Takes to Become a Writer
“I earned my PhD in drug discovery in 2011, and now I work as a curriculum writer.” When I introduce myself this way, especially to other trainees who are interested in transitioning away from the bench, I always get asked, “How did you do that?” I usually say that I wrote a lot,...