Some of you reading this article are about to start your first round of graduate schoolinterviews this spring. Many of these interviews will take place during what is known as recruitment weekend. However, this is a much different process than your standard job interview and you should be aware that there are some key differences between the two. While much of this advice comes from my own experience in the sciences and will vary according to your program, there are some basic themes to be aware of. Continue reading Rock Your Recruitment→
Mentoring a Demography trainee (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
One of the most important aspects of graduate school is choosing a good mentor. Who you choose can dramatically impact your experience in both graduate school and your ensuing hunt for employment or postdoctoral positions. How do students new to a department find those faculty members who will be good mentors? What makes a good mentor in the first place? These are important questions to have in mind before choosing laboratories for research rotations and your eventual thesis. Continue reading Picking a Good Mentor→
Hello readers! I have started contributing articles to the Gradhacker website in order to share some of the things I learned in my first year of graduate school. This month I’ve written an article for those of you about to start graduate programs and how to choose the best laboratory rotations for your personality and interests.
I’m happy to say that this week an article I wrote was featured on the Gradhacker website. This is a great site with a wealth of resources for graduate students ranging from how to navigate conferences successfully to how to de-stress and maintain your sanity during graduate school.
So, if you wish to get some basic guidelines on how to transition from an undergraduate to a graduate wardrobe please check out my article Dressing for Battle: Academic Armaments over at Gradhacker.
There has been a growing concern among scientists on how to train the next generation of researchers. This last month I came into contact with an article by Ferric C. Fang and Arturo Casadevall in Microbe magazine titled Reforming Science as well as the editorial Next-generation training in Nature. As a young researcher just beginning what I hope will be a lifelong career in the sciences this article hits on so many areas that need to be addressed. Three points in this article stood out to me and I wanted to address them from the perspective of someone who is just starting out and looking for training opportunities that will prepare me to work in the modern scientific field. These areas are the broadening of the scope of knowledge of new PhD trainees, a realignment of the culture to support quality of work over quantity, as well as the call to generate more flexible career pathways for young scientists in order to prevent attrition from the sciences. Continue reading New Training for the New Science→
K.D.Shives 