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096: Listener Mailbag – Program Prestige, Changing Careers, and More!

July 10, 2018July 10, 2018 Daniel 1 Comment

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The best thing about the Hello PhD podcast is our amazing audience of grad students, postdocs, and career scientists. We get emails, tweets, and website comments full of thoughtful questions and insightful observations.

And though we try to read and respond to each message, not every question makes it into the show. Sometimes, we can reply with just a few words of encouragement, or a link to a prior episode.

But this week, we wanted to dig into the mailbag and offer a rapid-fire response to some of the burning questions you’ve sent over the last few months.

088: 15 Transferable Skills PhDs Can Use In Any Career

February 13, 2018March 13, 2018 Daniel Leave a comment

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But I have no skills! At least no skills employers would be interested in!

As a career counselor, Melanie Sinche heard grad students and postdocs voice this concern nearly every day. She looked at these talented scholars and saw the ability to think critically, analyze data, and solve problems. To her eye, these were transferable skills very much in demand outside the research lab. Why couldn’t the students see it?

“I felt frustrated by that comment, and motivated to conduct a research study around skill development. I would argue that scientific training, by its very nature, lends itself to the development of LOTS of skills.”

064: A PhD Internship Will Help You Get a Job

January 10, 2017January 10, 2017 Daniel Leave a comment

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You might think internships are the domain of business students and undergrads. You’re training every day in a lab – why would you need more experiential learning?

The short answer is that your laboratory training is a great internship if you want to go on to a faculty position at a major research university.

But what if you want to use your scientific training to craft policy and legislation in your state government?

Or what if you want to work with a Contract Research Organization and help shepherd new drugs through clinical trials?

044: 5 Myths About University Teaching Jobs That YOU Probably Believe

May 15, 2016May 16, 2016 Daniel Leave a comment

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We know that stepping from academia to industry is met with scorn for the person ‘selling out’ and leaving the university, but there’s a subtler form of bias against those scientists who actually like to teach.

The moment you consider applying for a university teaching position, your advisors and peers will come out of the woodwork to tell you what a bad idea that is. It’s unstable, a waste of your abilities, and you’ll be bored in just four days!

And God forbid you mention a job that doesn’t offer tenure.

This week on the show, we talk with a professor who took that fateful teaching job, and lived to tell about it. In fact, she’s happier than she’s ever been.

043: A Scientific Approach to Teaching Science

May 8, 2016May 8, 2016 Daniel Leave a comment

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Every day in a research lab is spent forming hypotheses, designing experiments, and examining data. So it might surprise you to know that the scientific method is only rarely applied in the classroom.

Wouldn’t it be transformative if the methods that professors use to teach science were tested and proven to be effective?

Well, you’re in luck – we’ve found one such scientist who has focused her career on improving science education at the university level.