Happiness Outside of the Academy? One year later… see how this former postdoc is doing

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Marianne

This is a follow up on my previous blog post where I described my choice to enter an industrial position: “Academia vs. Industry: A former Postdoc’s perspective”.  I have been in my current position (a management position in a small start-up biotech company in Canada) for a little over a year. It has given me the time and perspective to reflect on how this decision has factored into my current level of satisfaction with my life. And, for the record – I’m very happy! In this post, I’d like to share a couple of reflections on how this was the right decision for me in the hope that it can help someone who is ‘on the fence’ about academia vs. industry.

The Science

One of the reasons I chose to leave academia and go into this particular industrial position is that I believed in the science of the company that I received an offer from. Comfortingly, that has not changed at all – our company does world-class preclinical research and have this year reported positive data from our first clinical trial. We are poised to start another trial in the new year and in my opinion, the level of scientific research is on par with any academic lab I’ve worked in. There is a clear goal to publish the data, and publish it well. One thing I particularly like relative to academic labs is the emphasis on focusing our research questions. In some academic labs (especially the very large, well-funded ones) the research can sometimes wander off in tangents. Of course, this approach sometimes comes up with the real breakthrough discoveries, but it can also waste time, resources and be frustrating to the junior researcher. Furthermore, smaller and newer labs that often struggle for grants do not have the luxury of such curiosity driven research. In contrast, our company has a tighter rein on the research course, with multiple people providing input on experiments both prior to and after their completion, along with the layer of accurate record keeping, standardized protocols, and reports. To many scientists, this can seem unnecessary and stifling, but for me and my personality, I like this focused and methodical way of approaching scientific problems.

The position

Several times in the past year, people have enquired if I miss ‘the lab’, as my position requires me to direct research, but not to do any of the hands on work myself. Emphatically, I answer “not in the least”. While I loved my time doing hands-on research and feel I have a broad background in techniques, I have always preferred mentoring and guiding, and my current position still allows me to sit back and critically assess data in search of that ‘cool result’ that I’ve often heard my former mentors ask for.  I do not think that this is significantly different from an academic position, except that with my own lab, I would have the added stress (and quite likely the joy) of starting a lab from scratch, choosing my own personnel and training them. My current position expands past the preclinical research, and it has been both a learning curve and a challenge to adapt my primarily research background into this position. So far, so good.

The people

I truly think that the reason I enjoy my job so much is because of my work environment. I was fortunate enough to step into a very positive and enthusiastic group of both scientists and support staff in this company. The scientists come from a number of different scientific specialities, and that breadth of knowledge is difficult to beat. Also, it is a relatively young group, and that enthusiasm is contagious. Occasionally, aggressive and sometimes shifting timelines stimulate spirited conversation and even aggravation, but we are all in it for the same goal, and we get there – very cool and (in some cases) very different from academic labs. I can only hope that if I started my own lab, I could assemble a team half as talented as this one – but it would have taken a considerable amount of time.

The compensation

Prior to moving into industry, I had the belief that the main reason to move into a company from academia was ‘for the money’. I’m not sure that’s true. I know that from my original two offers, the compensation/benefits package were comparable, and after 7 years of being a postdoc, quite generous. There is also the issue of stability – and I consider them to be similar between academia and industry. In an academic position, you worry about grant success and tenure. In an industrial setting, you worry about stock prices, trial results and money flow. Nothing is guaranteed – but I think in both settings it focuses you to work as hard and as effectively as you can.  On a side note, I really enjoy the interactions I’ve had in the past year with the stock holders of our company. For the most part, they constitute a group who very much want you to succeed and do not mind holding your feet to the fire. They are also some amazing people.

On a personal level

One of the biggest surprises in the first months of my new position was finding out that I had brought an unexpected souvenir with me from my last position – my first child. A little over 8 months into my new position I gave birth, and have been on maternity leave for nearly 5 months. I am slated to return to work next month. Not the easiest thing to approach so soon in your career, but my company was very supportive and it has been a positive experience. Luckily the way it worked out in my case is that there were a number of significant deadlines prior to my leave, and I was able to step away with the team picking up the slack. I have certainly stayed engaged on a superficial level since I’ve been at home, thus making my transition back fairly easy on a professional level. I cannot see how that would have been quite as smooth if I were right in the middle of setting up a lab, writing grants, teaching and training personnel. Plus, my family is living in an area of Canada that is close to both our families and we love the area that we live in.

All in all, after more than a year, I am quite pleased with my decision. Our company has close ties to academia, so I regularly get to see ‘the other career path’. I can see the path I did not choose, and I’m more than content with where I am. And that makes all the difference. (Apologies to Robert Frost…)

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A deeper look into the “80% of PhDs who do not become professors”

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Dave

In a recent comment left on the site by SubC, a request was made to “look deeper” into the 20% number of PhDs becoming professors.  Specifically, the question was raised as to “how many that wanted an academic career in the first place actually ended up in one” and that a look into postdoctoral fellow expectations might be a good place to start.

My response came in two parts, the first part was that Canada has thus far not done a good job of collecting information on its recent hires in academia or keeping track of its postdocs, which is stimulating the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars to try and address this information gap in order to establish these numbers in Canada.  In the interim, we gain a lot from how things are in the United States as our PhD programs are similarly structured (though admittedly Canada’s “time to obtain a PhD” is not as high as their 7.9 year median).

The second part of the response was to allude to the results of a survey that was completed at the University of California San Francisco to better understand the career aspirations of PhDs and postdoctoral fellows.  While this is one survey at one university, it is an excellent glimpse into the expectations of young scientists at a research intensive university.

Regarding the 20% number – our statements around rates of PhDs who become professors are NOT from Canada.  The NSF in America does collect this data and it can be seen in the following table: Doctorate recipients holding tenure and tenure-track appointments at academic institutions.  These data include social sciences PhD holders which do bring up the overall average (25%), but in the biological sciences and physical sciences these numbers are stubbornly hovering around 20% since 2003.  There were actually increases in several fields (e.g.: notable jumps in chemistry and physics/astronomy) between 2003 and 2006.  Overall though, I think it’s not particularly unfair to use the 20% number for the US and to work to find out what the numbers are in Canada through our national organizations and universities.

As for the expectations of PhD students and PhD holders, I point readers in the direction of this recently published survey from UCSF.  I will encourage a read through the whole article which describes the varied opinions of students and recommends helping students arrive at non-traditional career choices through three recommendations:

  1. Shift academic culture to embrace the branching science career pipeline
  2. Integrate career development into the graduate curriculum
  3. Transform graduate education policy at the national level

Graduate education is a little more structured though and for the purposes of answering what goes on in the mind of a postdoctoral fellow, one needs to dig to supplemental material #3.  Here, we very clearly see that the vast majority of UCSF postdocs want research careers (89%) and the majority’s top choice is a principal investigator in an academic setting (54%) (i.e.: a university professor that does research). In combination with this article’s report that 80% of all PhDs in biological sciences move onto postdoctoral work (from 2011 NRC data), a quick back-of-the-napkin calculation means that just over 40% of those who get a PhD would list an academic professorship as their primary career aspiration .   With this in mind, there is definitely a disconnect:  ~20% of highly trained biomedical scientists in America)1 will inevitably have to face the “you cannot become a professor” music.

The major point of our recent session at the Canadian Science Policy Conference was to get people to recognize that there are many highly trained clever people who (certainly through some fault of their own) are destined to be disappointed and that many of them are languishing in positions that are unproductive for everyone involved.  Ideally people ask themselves sooner rather than later a) Do I want to stay in academia? and b) Do I stand a reasonable chance of being successful in academia?  Maybe a re-read of our Say NO to the Second Postdocarticle will help people along in decision-making.Until then – keep the discussion going, keep the numbers and links rolling in and please do feel free to call us on anything you think we’re under- or over-stating.  The only way we’ll figure out solutions is to fully understand the problem and more input from readers is only going to help.

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  1. if 20% of the 40% who want them get academic posts, there will also be 20% who want them but will not get them [↩]
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University Affairs commentary on our CSPC panel

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Dave

On November 30, University Affairs posted two articles  that summarise and discuss the major issues that came up in our session at the 3rd Annual Canadian Science Policy Conference:

  1. Is Canada producing too many PhDs? Yes, no and maybe
  2. The problem with PhD training in Canada

It was really great to have Léo in attendance at this session as his journalistic eye and his vast experience covering issues in Canadian universities allows him to clearly distil the key points from our session – I strongly encourage a read through.

After reading these, you may ask:  ”What exactly was accomplished?”, and this is a question that I have reflected on myself since the conference as well.  For one, I was very pleased that we could get a stage to present this issue – many people fail to appreciate the resources that get poured into the training of scientists and what an enormous waste it is to have the vast majority of them aiming for something they will simply not become (as opposed to those who train in medicine, law, and accounting who will generally become doctors, lawyers, and accountants).

The second item is one that the UA articles really bring home.  We need to encourage people in PhD programs (and in postdocs) to look beyond academia.  I would not suggest a mass exodus by any stretch, but with a less than 20% rate of becoming a tenure track professor, one owes it to themselves to consider what else they might do with their high level of training.  We need people to actively pursue non-academic careers, and not fall victim to labels of “failing” in academia.

Thanks to the University Affairs folks, as well as to Mehrdad Hariri and his team for putting off a great conference and a special personal thanks to one team member (Marcius Extavour) for helping the Education and Training of Scientists session get organized in timely manner.

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More on Aboriginal Education in Canada

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Beth

In my last blog posting, I discussed “The State of Aboriginal Learning in Canada” report and promised to talk more about potential solutions to the barriers to education faced by Aboriginal people in Canada. To that end, I have just finished reading two reports:

Both reports are quite long and detailed and I highly recommend that you check them out if you are interested in this issue. I don’t purport to be an expert on this issue – in fact, I’m really just learning a lot of this for the first time – but I thought I’d share with you some of my impressions.

One thing that jumped out at me from my reading was that both reports recommended the elimination of a 2% annual cap on spending increases for the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development’s Post-Secondary Education Program (PSE), which provides funding for, among other things, eligible First Nations and Inuit students (but not Métis or non-status First Nations individuals) to obtain a post-secondary education. It was pointed out that a 2% annual increase comes nowhere near the increase in the cost of education since 1996, when the cap was put in place. Nor does it account for an increased number of eligible individuals seeking an education1, nor address the lack of support for non-status Aboriginal people. The Standing Committee’s report is dated February 2007, yet it appears that their call to remove this cap hadn’t yet happened even three years later, as the AFN report, dated June 2010, is making that exact same recommendation. I took a look around the Department’s website and couldn’t find anything to show whether or not anything has happened since that time on this front2.

Of course, it’s a time of fiscal restraint, so calls to increase funding are generally met with “where are we going to get the money?” The AFN report includes a section on “The Cost of Doing Nothing,” which notes that due to the health and social inequities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations “expenditures on First Nations postsecondary education are an investment with substantial returns in terms of reduced costs in social assistance, health care, and unemployment.” It’s a lot cheaper to provide education than it is to incarcerate a person or provide welfare; similarly, health care can be quite costly, but better education can lead to better health3<sup>,</sup>4

Another interesting point in the Standing Committee’s report was:

“Gilbert Whiteduck of Québec’s First Nations Education Council told us that the 2002 Minister’s National Working Group on Education “concluded there were 6,000 reports on First Nations education in this country”. In his view, “It is now time to stop studying the issue and take action, by developing specific programs. … [W]e should really be thinking of the young people who no longer have any hope, and yet would like to make a positive contribution to Canadian society in their own culture.”

And, of course, money isn’t the only issue. Again from the Standing Committee Report:

“We know, however, as Roberta Jamieson reminded us, that although increased financial resources are essential, “problems won’t be dealt with, nor potential liberated, if we just throw enough money at it”.

The Committee believes that government also needs to work in close collaboration with Aboriginal stakeholders in developing a comprehensive, long-term strategic approach to Aboriginal post-secondary education. Immediate measures to address present failings in existing systems in the short term need to be supplemented by the development of medium and long-term measures to ensure the cycle of disadvantage owing to inadequate financial resources is not repeated.”

The AFN report talks quite a bit the right of Aboriginal people “to exercise full jurisdiction over First Nations learning.” And I am again reminded that I’m writing about this issue as a non-Aboriginal individual. Solutions for these complex issues can and should come from Aboriginal people, working in collaboration with others in post-secondary institutions and government, towards a common goal of supporting the learning needs of Aboriginal people.

The AFN report talks about “the need for supporting post-secondary education and skills training for First Nations youth and adults, not only for them to meet their individual academic aspirations, but also that they may contribute to the capacity and nation building required to facilitate strong First Nations governance.” The Aboriginal population is the fastest growing demographic in Canada, with a lot of potential,  and it behooves all Canadians to be concerned about this issue, both from a standpoint of equity, but also with a view to the economic future of Canada.

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  1. The Aboriginal population is the fastest growing demographic in Canada. [↩]
  2. If anybody happens to have information on this, please let us know! [↩]
  3. And this is strictly from a financial point of view. It says nothing about the emotional/mental/spiritual toll of unemployment, incarceration, ill health, etc. [↩]
  4. For an economic analysis, see Investing in Aboriginal Education in Canada: An Economic Perspective by the Canadian Policy Research Networks. [↩]
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Canadian Science Policy Conference – Food for thought

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Dave

For those who will be attending the conference this week and in particular those who will be attending the panel on the Education and Training of Scientists on Thursday afternoon, I have pulled together a list of popular posts on the topics that inspired the composition of the panel:

  1. The changing resources in Academia
  2. Professionals in High Demand
  3. The Rise of the Cookie Cutter PhD
  4. Hire Scientists to do Scientific Research
  5. Old Debate, more participants:  What do 80% of people do with a PhD
  6. Doctors of Philosophy?  I fear not…
  7. Say NO to the Second Post Doc
  8. The future of the PhD
  9. What do we do with all the PhDs?
Looking for to an excellent discussion tomorrow – see some of you there.

 

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Good news from the Border – Keeping international PhDs in Canada

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Dave

QUICK REMINDER:

For those that missed it, I’ll be chairing a session on the Education and Training of Scientists at this year’s Canadian Science Policy Conference in Ottawa next week.  I posted on the topic a few weeks back and would love to get more feedback from people on additional items or proposed solutions to how Canada should best deal with the increase in highly trained specialised scientists and their changing demographic.   (thanks to all those that have sent emails and commented so far – great stuff!)

Good news from the Border – Keeping international PhDs in Canada

Last week the federal government announced that they will expand the skilled workers category to include PhD students in particular disciplines (mostly science and technology) in order to fill gaps in the work force.    This news is most welcome for current PhD students looking to extend their stay in Canada post-degree.  As the CBC article quoted Immigration Minister Jason Kenney “these are folks who are pre-integrated, they are set for success” – so of course it makes sense to let them jump the queue.  It does seem reasonable, however, that the logic being used here could easily apply to PhD students in all disciplines, but for right now, I think beggars can’t be choosers and we tackle one issue at a time.

Where the water is a little murkier is what happens to postdoctoral fellows after their first work visa expires.  A ripple went through the postdoc community when Citizenship and Immigration Canada announced that a four year maximum term was to be instated and must be followed by a four year term outside of Canada before re-application.  From what I’ve been hearing from various administrative sources, it appears that academic research falls under one of the exceptions on their site.  Whether or not research positions will always be viewed as creating or maintaining “significant social, cultural or economic benefits or opportunities for Canadian citizens or permanent residents” remains to be seen.

Interestingly, and moving in nearly the complete opposite direction, the UK government is making it quite difficult for highly trained individuals to call the UK their home – an interesting commentary on this by the UK Visa Bureau is here.  In essence though, the border in the UK is becoming increasingly tight even for highly skilled migrants.

Hopefully Canada continues on the road its currently on and keeps encouraging highly skilled labourers to make their home in Canada.

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A Quick Review of the 2009 “The State of Aboriginal Learning in Canada” report

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Beth

I’ve been doing some work with the Aboriginal Health Program at my day job and it has reminded me of something that I’ve been meaning to blog about here: the rates of Aboriginal people in post-secondary education. Back when Dave and I were grad students and we were sitting around talking about “issues that face trainees” (i.e., those early discussions that originally spurred us on to start this blog), this was something we talked about. We’d heard about the low numbers of Aboriginal students enrolled in university from the Aboriginal Coordinator for some of the science-related faculties and when a group of us were sitting around talking about it we realized that, despite our fairly wide networks of grad students, none of us even knew of a single Aboriginal graduate student at our university.

The 2009 State of Aboriginal Learning in Canada report by the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) provide some stats to back up our experiences:

  • People aged 20-24 without a high school diploma:
    • Aboriginal: 40%
    • Non-Aboriginal: 13%
  • People aged 25 to 64 who have completed a post-secondary certificate, diploma or degree:
    • Aboriginal: 41%
    • Non-Aboriginal: 56%
  • People aged 25 to 64 who have completed a university degree:
    • Aboriginal: 8%
      • First Nations people living on reserve: 4%
      • First Nations people living off reserve: 9%
      • Metis people: 9%
    • Non-Aboriginal: 23%

This report didn’t differentiate which type of degrees they were talking about (i.e., undergraduate vs. graduate), but since we know that only a minority of those who do an undergraduate degree will go on to graduate school, we can surmise that of those 8%, the majority will not have graduate degrees.

All of this paints a bleak picture, because we know that high school and post-secondary education are important both for the individuals who get them (in terms of being able to go onto further education and to get jobs) as well as for society (i.e., building a “knowledge economy”). When a portion of the population is so vastly unrepresented in the academic world, it’s not only unfair to the people who aren’t, for a variety of reasons, able to access education, but it also robs society of the benefits of all the ideas and great work that those minds could have contributed to the sciences and other areas of research.

To add another dimension to the discussion, let’s look at this stat (again from the CCL report):

  • “a 2005 EKOS survey of First Nations people living on-reserve found that 70% of young people aspire to purse higher education.”

That’s a pretty big disparity. 70% of Aboriginal youth living on reserve aspire to pursue high education, but only 41% of Aboriginal adults (on & off reserve1 have completed a post-secondary education and only 4% of First Nations adults living on reserve have a university education. The main reasons given, in that same EKOS survey, for not pursuing a post-secondary education were: “lack of money,” “lack of encouragement,” and “problems with alcohol, drugs or pregnancy.” A 2006 Statistics Canada survey reported the mains reasons for not pursuing a post-secondary education among Aboriginal youth people living off-reserve as: “they got a job or wanted to work,” “financial reasons,” and “family responsibilities other than caring for own child.”

However, this report did highlight that Aboriginal people tend to take a more holistic view of education, and thus understanding and assessing Aboriginal learning requires that we look at the many ways that Aboriginal people learn beyond just the formal education system. Learning is viewed as a lifelong process, from infancy to old age, and occurs in a variety of settings beyond the classroom, including in community, the home, the workplace and on the land). Some of the measures of these other components of learning paint a fuller picture:

  • Youth participating in social clubs or groups regularly:
    • Aboriginal: 31%
    • all youth: 21%
  • Youth participating in art or music activities:
    • Aboriginal: 37%
    • all youth: 27%
  • Youth participating in sports outside of school at least once per week:
    • Aboriginal: 70%
    • all youth: 71%
  • Learning from elders is a very important part of Aboriginal culture and “approximately four in 10 off-reserve Aboriginal youth interact with elders at least once a week (outside of school).”
  • “More than 41% of off-reserve Aboriginal children and 77% of Inuit children reported having someone in the community to help them understand their culture and history.”

So, while there are some less than encouraging stats on high school and university educational attainment among Aboriginal people in Canada, there is also evidence of a culture of, and a desire for, learning. Of course, all this begs the question of how can we get past those barriers to education? That, I think, will be the topic of my next blog posting!

Also, I’m very aware that I’m writing this posting as a white person. I’m interested to hear from Aboriginal people – those who have attained an education, those who have not, and those who aspire to. What do you think of the above data and what I’ve said about it? What are your thoughts on how we can help those who wish to attain a higher education to be able to do so?

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  1. The report doesn’t specify, so I’m assuming they mean on- and off-reserve [↩]
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What to do with all the Scientists… find out at the 2011 Canadian Science Policy Conference

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Dave

In a break from normal lab routine, I’ll be dabbling in the black arts of science policy this November and running a session at the 3rd annual Canadian Science Policy Conference.  The conference runs from Nov 16th-18th and features an excellent lineup of speakers that should result in a fantastic push forward for science policy in our country.  The full speaker list can be seen here, with particular highlights of having both current presidents of SSHRC (Chad Gaffield) and of NSERC (Suzanne Fortier), the founding Director of CIHR (Alan Bernstein), the Minister of State for Science and Technology (Gary Goodyear), as well as Daily Planet‘s Jay Ingram and the Science Media Centre‘s Executive Director Penny Park.

Importantly for people that are considering joining for the conference, this Friday October 21st is the final day for early bird rate, notably very low for students and postdocs who might like to find out more about science policy and get involved in the discussion.

Rather excitingly, for the panel that I’m charged with, I’ve had very positive responses from invited speakers and have a final panel lineup that I hope will stimulate a positive and productive discussion on how Canada can best deal with the demographic shift that has been occurring over the last decade.  The session will feature presentations and discussion from Alan Bernstein (Founding Director of CIHR), Angela Crawley (Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars), Suzanne Fortier (President of NSERC), and Olga Stachova (COO, MITACS) and will be introduced and moderated by yours truly. The major questions being posed are:

  1. Are we producing too many scientists?
  2. What careers can these highly trained individuals undertake and how can we facilitate the transition?
Essentially, we will try to address the fact that substantial resources are invested into the education and training of these scientists and many of them find themselves in their mid- 30s without permanent positions or even any confident notion of where they are going to be in the next five years, despite a decade of highly specialised training.

For our readers who cannot attend, it would be a real treat to hear from you about what you think the major issues are and how we might begin to address them.  We’ve certainly tried to address the points before here, here and here, but this session offers a really nice chance to table some solutions that might just get acted upon.  If you’d rather not post for the world to see, please do feel free to contact me at david.kent@scienceadvocacy.org.

I look forward to hearing from some of you.

 

 

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A Quick Thanksgiving Post on Bad Graphs

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Beth

I’m full of Thanksgiving dinner, so today’s posting is going to be a quick one!

A friend of mine recently passed along this paper to me, as she thought it might be a useful tool in teaching research methods/statistics: Graphs for Dummies: The Troubled Geometry of Tim Hudak’s “changebook” by Jim Stanford. This paper from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives critiques the graphs included in a document that was put out by the Ontario Conservative party in advance of the recent Ontario provincial election, finding fault with all 13 graphs in the document, including such issues as inconsistent scaling that made differences look bigger than they actually were, inaccurate labeling that misleads the reader, and even cases were the data presented are false. The author compares this report to “The Common Sense Revolution” document produced by the Ontario Conservative party back in 1995, which the authors notes “reflected a sober, empirically validated quantitative presentation.”

For me this brought up the importance of having a well-educated population who think critically about what is presented to them. How many people who read the “changebook” document thought to question its presentation of data and how many accepted the graphs at face value? How many times have I looked at a graph (even on something important, like a document that’s meant to influence who I vote for) and not taken the time to check it for accuracy and appropriate presentation? The basics of creating and reading graphs is something that should be covered in elementary school, but given the pleothera of bad infographics one sees, it makes one wonder how many people remember those early lessons.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

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Quarterly Summary: Guest Bloggers are Great!

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Dave

This summer featured our second summer series.  Last year’s “So you want to be a…” was followed up this year by “Notches in the STIC” which navigated through the key points of the Science and Technology Innovation Council’s recent report on Canadian Science.  This autumn should prove to be very busy, we’ll do our best to keep up with the pace of developments – always nice when so much is happening around you.  Interestingly this quarter, our guest bloggers Vancouver Scientist and Marianne Stanford stood out as most popular posts – always looking to increase the number of people contributing, we’d love to hear from you if you have an issue that you are passionate about.

For now, a recap of what was done this quarter:

Articles Written

Beth:

Dave:

Our Other Activities

Dave has continued to write for the Stem Cell Network blog publishing two articles this quarter:

Dave has organized and will partake in a panel at the Canadian Science Policy Conference (a post on this to follow soon) – the session will focus on how Canada should deal with the increasing numbers of highly trained scientists.

Finally, three posts are under consideration for inclusion in the Open Laboratory 2011 collection:

Identifying good scientists and keeping them honest
Reducing medical (science) waste: Thinking before doing…
Professionals in High Demand

Discussion Highlights

  • Commenting on guest blogger Marianne Stanford’s very popular post about deciding between Academia and Industry, Ali shared a personal story about the same decision-making process and emphasized the importance of city and the bonus of not having to write grants.
  • Following Beth’s quick hit on trainee stipends, Sciencegirl started an interesting conversation about the differences between SSHRC and CIHR and what other awards one is allowed to hold concurrently.
  • Fellow blogger Nassif Ghoussoub stressed to us the importance of focusing on issues directly related to trainees.  We’d posted on the NSERC success rates prior to this, but extensive follow up and interesting discussion can be found on his Piece of Mind site.
  • Liz C shared a link to Nature magazine’s story on the Canadian government’s muzzling of scientists in response to Beth’s Science in the Federal Government post.

Popular Posts this Quarter

Links Added:

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