wanna talk about it?

A new blog has just been started that aims to discuss different job opportunities for scientists:
The Alternative Scientist

The about page states:

The Alternative Scientist is a blog about alternative career options for scientists. There are many career paths for a scientist in addition to the traditional tenure track, and the goal of this blog is to provide a forum for open and honest discussions about the various possibilities.

Might be an good blog to RSS if you are a grad student or post doc plus make sure you follow the posters back to their own blogs to get more indepth info.

inspire others and learn about yourself

Sometimes by teaching others, you can find what inspires you…

June 25, 2008
LIT offers free high school science technology camp

As a young girl, Vicki Rowlett had three dreams: to grow to 6-foot four-inches tall; play professional football for the NFL; and go to Harvard and teach college. She achieved one of her childhood goals; Rowlett has been teaching at Lamar Institute of Technology for 16 years.

Although she never played for the NFL, or studied at Harvard and only grew to 5-foot 5- inches tall, she always had a passion for teaching.

As a child, she believed, there was nothing she couldn’t achieve. Rowlett, assistant professor of chemistry and physics, is sharing that sentiment with high school boys and girls this summer through a science and technology camp offered at LIT….

SteP, also known as Science and Technology Preview, teaches students what types of jobs are available within the process industry, specifically in the area of operations and instrumentation. Funded by the Center for the Advancement of Process Technology through a National Science Foundation Grant, the camp is free for high school students.

If you are interested in teaching, working at a science summer camp might help you decide if it is the right job for you.

what would be your choice?

From Comm-oddities

Designer’s ashes buried in Pringles can
Monday, June 2, 2008 The Associated Press

The man who designed the Pringles potato chip packaging system was so proud of his accomplishment that he asked that a portion of his ashes be buried in one of the iconic cans.

Fredric J. Baur, of Cincinnati, died May 4 at Vitas Hospice in Cincinnati, Ill., his family said. He was 89.

Baur’s children said they honored his request by placing part of his cremated remains in a Pringles container in his grave in suburban Springfield Township, Ill. ….
Baur was an organic chemist and food-storage technician who specialized in research and development and quality control for Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble Co.

Just an oddity for the afternoon….

“green” collar work?

More people are thinking about how to get into a “green” career - with all the hoopla about the environment that seems to be the next big boom…
So says:
“Americans put themselves on the path to green careers.
Interest and job openings grow in a variety of eco-friendly fields.“
By Marilyn Gardner | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor / June 9, 2008 edition

…one group seeking eco-friendly jobs – students and recent graduates who hope to join the green boom at the beginning of their careers. A second group includes people in midcareer who want to parlay their current skills into green jobs.

Kathleen Loa first began thinking about pursuing a green career while she was a student at Oberlin College. Now, armed with a degree in chemistry, she is taking the first step in that direction. She’s serving as an intern at the nonprofit Alliance to Save Energy in Washington, D.C. After earning a master’s in energy policy, she’ll find a job.

start ‘em young…

Here is a link to an article about how to “correctly” start your kids’ education:
The Dulwich Mom by Constance Harding, The Telegraph May 23, 2008

She states what she did for her children (tongue firmly placed in cheek):

I have fulfilled my motherly duty to the best of my ability; I played the munchkins’ classical music while in utero, fed them on breast milk, fish oils and organic produce from birth, ensured that they attended every possible educational toddler group from Monkey Music to Yoga Bugs and have been sending them to Suzuki “vile din” lessons from the age of three (they were added to the waiting list at conception), thus securing places at local top independent pre-prep schools.

I have uploaded the children’s Muzzy French CDs on to their MP4 players so that they can be exposed to another language while sleeping. My poppets attend Mandarin lessons (the business language of the future), Kumon tuition and art appreciation at Dulwich Picture Gallery.

At the weekend they complete a full programme of ballet, cricket, rugby, swimming and tennis lessons. Yes, they own a Nintendo DS each, but they are permitted to play only Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training.

But it was not enough it seems

On Friday evening I collected perfect Max and his favourite little chum, Tushar, from school for a play date. Hyper-stimulated Tushar has been swigging Omega 3 supplement syrup since birth and is bright as a shiny brass button….As I was strapping Tushar into the car seat for the journey home, he turned to Max and asked: “Do you know about Osmosis, Mitosis and Cell division?”

Science training needs to come early!! LOL

Turns out they were names of evil villians in a cartoon…

in a nutshell - a very large nutshell!

Check out the May Scientiae Carnival at “A Cat Nap”.

The theme this month is career choices. If you are thinking about careers and want to know if anyone has been-there-done-that, you NEED to read these blogs! Most are written by women from a female perspective but the wisdom is applicable to all.

In fact, check out all the monthy Scientiae Carnivals - they are always interesting and informative.

i-tunes u

If you are thinking of a career change but don’t have the time to go back to school to check it out, I-Tunes U may be your salvation.

I’ve been exploring it and there are courses from all over now online - many of them free to view! (sorry no credits if you don’t register at the university!)

But it can be a great way to learn more on a topic of interest and see if the nitty-gritty of the field holds your interest.

MIT and a number of other major (and minor) universities, in the US especially, have been posting their course notes/syllabi/lecture videos online for a while now.

Now you download them to your computer or even IPod and listen at your convenience.

blogs away!

University of Wisconsin at Madison is changing the way they teach - some computer science classes are losing lectures in favour of online-tutorials and more labs, some biomed courses are using problem based teaching styles. The chem dept is trying something new - blogging:

Tehshik Yoon: A new formula for classroom blogging

Yoon, a chemistry professor, says he has always been concerned about the communication gap between scientists and the general public, especially in his own field. So he decided to borrow a page from colleagues in English and other humanities fields, who are using classroom blogs more and more to encourage the daily habit of writing.

So what’s the initial student reaction to the Chemistry 346 Blog Project? “They hate it,” Yoon says with a chuckle. “They go in thinking it’s just another task they need to accomplish. By semester’s end, they get it and start to appreciate it.”

Yoon uses the LiveJournal blogging platform based on its popularity among younger users. In the first half of the course, students use it to kick around ideas and naturally work their way through some of the tougher organic chemistry challenges. Its value really becomes evident during the second half of the semester, when each student is assigned to an independent project in chemistry department labs. The course and the blog are great bridges into further undergraduate research, since they push students to convey the value of their work.

“One of the things I really like about the blog is students are encouraged to write at a level where their friends and family can read it,” he says. “I thought at this point in their careers, if I can get students who aren’t already enmeshed in the jargon of chemistry to talk about why what they’re doing is cool, it will have long-term professional value.”

Yoon says he benefits equally from the blog project, which is based on “just in time” teaching concepts that provide real-time snapshots of the learning process. “If I find that I’m teaching something poorly,” he says, “it’s always reflected in the blog.”

Sounds like they are creating a student body that can do the research and also explain it to their parents!!! That is certainly a transferable skill to many many other types of careers….

6 in 1!

I went to the ACS meeting in New Orleans at the beginning of April - what fun!

But I was there partly with my Careers Committee hat on and so I attended the session on Careers in Chemical Information chaired by Lisa Balbes and co-sponsored by a number of acryonyms: CHAL, PROF, COMP, CEPA, and WCC.
They had a diverse lineup of people and careers:

F. Bartow Culp, Mellon Library of Chemistry, Purdue University
In the Internet age, isn’t the concept of a librarian outmoded? If easy and almost unlimited information access is available to anyone at the click of a mouse button, why should a chemist consider academic librarianship as a career? Well, there are many reasons, including excellent job prospects, a high degree of career satisfaction, plus the chance to be a central player in the current redefinition of how science is being done. In this age of high-entropy information, the unique combination of abilities that we chemist/librarians bring to our jobs gives us not only the power to organize and access chemical information, but it can also enhance the value of that information and improve the entire communication process itself. We will present examples of how chemist/librarians are integral participants in the advancement of both of their professions.

Brian M Bridgewater, Search and Analysis Services Group

For a Ph.D. chemist, crossing over to a career in Chemical Information Search and Analysis may seem like a strange choice to some after spending nine years in academic and industrial lab-based R&D roles. However, looking back with the usual clarity of hindsight, signposts were there pointing the way all along.

Lynne P. Greenblatt, Chemical and Screening Sciences, Wyeth Research

Over the past two decades, the amount of data generated in research has been increasing steadily and exponentially. The task of transforming this data into meaningful knowledge that can help the researcher to attain scientific and business goals faster and more efficiently has fallen to the relatively new discipline of informatics. Cheminformatics is the branch of informatics that deals with chemical structures and related information. Cheminformatics groups have developed many techniques and tools for analyzing chemical structures as they relate to chemical space, chemical properties, biological activity, ADME properties and so on. This talk will focus on the role of the Cheminformatics group in the drug discovery process at a major pharmaceutical research organization. The presenter will also discuss the career path she took to her current position, and touch on other careers in chemical information within the organization.

Janice E. Mears, Communications, Chemical Abstracts Service

This paper will focus on the experiences of one individual’s transition from working in a clinical laboratory into sales, marketing and communications, first at a fortune 100 company and then at Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS). It will describe the skills and responsibilities of these non-traditional careers and outline how best to prepare for the transition. A discussion of CAS and its role as a global leader in scientific information will be intertwined with comments on other non-traditional careers at CAS.

Ivan Amato, Chemical & Engineering News

Besides encompassing the rules, theories, know-how and equipment by which our more technically-oriented neighbors transform the raw stuff of the world into the constructed landscapes in which we spend most of our time, chemistry is a language. And despite the truism is everywhere in all of our lives, chemistry is a language known almost exclusively by the sort of people who attend ACS meetings. A very small subpopulation of the journalism community has mastered enough of this language to serve as interpreters, translators, and prepared observers, who can relay to various publics those events, developments, concerns, outrages, discoveries, technologies, and other consequential happenings that emerge from the chemical enterprise. I am privileged to be among this group, but when I received my bachelor’s degree in chemistry about 20 years ago, I did not realize that I was opening a way to a career with the luxurious requirement that you must never stop learning.

Justin J. Hasford, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrrett and Dunner LLP

This presentation will provide an overview of career opportunities in patent law, including an examination of the fields of patent prosecution, litigation, and licensing. Recommended and required programs of study will be discussed, and employment opportunities will be described, including options for attorneys, patent agents, and technical specialists. Most importantly, this presentation will explore and emphasize the ability to utilize your technical background in a maximally beneficial manner in the arena of legal services.

The Division of Chemical Information sponsors or co-sponsors as session like this at nearly all ACS meetings. It is worth checking out at the next meeting if you are considering a career change!
Previous sessions can be reviewed here: Archived Technical Sessions

making stuff safe..

How about a job in regulatory affairs?

Google “regulatory affairs chemistry jobs” and you get lots of hits! You can even prepare better for it by taking a one year course at Seneca: http://www.senecac.on.ca/fulltime/RAQC.html

This program is intended to provide students with a basic understanding of the areas of regulatory affairs and quality operations. Students will be prepared for occupations involving drug or medical device submissions and quality assurance functions and roles. The issues of regulatory compliance in Canada and in other areas of the world will be dealt with.

The first semester will provide the student with the fundamentals required in both regulatory affairs and quality operations. Introductory level courses will prepare the student for the co-operative work term placement, which occurs between semesters. The co-operative work term placement will provide the student with an opportunity to apply the knowledge learned in the first semester. Experience gained will allow the student to be exposed to one of the many employment possibilities attainable upon graduation.

The second semester will provide more detailed and specific exposure to the areas of regulatory affairs and quality operations. “