Jobs
drorzel | July 22, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of David Warman, a computer game system designer.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
Title: Game System Designer. Function: Computer Systems Generalist. I did not know such a job existed until it found me last…
drorzel | July 22, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Mark Hoddinott, a RF circuit designer.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I design radio frequency (RF) circuitry in wireless modems for a mid-sized company. The modem designs I work on use UMTS/HSPA/GPRS/EDGE…
drorzel | July 22, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Rod Charlton, a retired chemical engineer.)
I've been retired for about 5 yrs; perhaps my responses can
reflect some of my overall experiences during my career.... see below:
Also... in my last decade, my…
drorzel | July 21, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Nicole Leuke, a science teacher in Alberta.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I am a High School Science and math teacher. I teach primarily physics and general sciences (grades 10,11,12). I have been teaching…
drorzel | July 21, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of an Australian who prefers to remain nameless.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I'm the manager of a small company that makes high-tech measuring equipment. Most of this is used for monitoring and control in…
drorzel | July 21, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Dr. Hazel Phillips, a communications specialist for a UK government agency.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I work for a UK government agency which operates in a scientific
field. My job involves…
drorzel | July 20, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Dr. Richard Edgar of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory project at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I work for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, which operates…
drorzel | July 20, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Dr. Patricia Crotwell of the Sanford Cytogenetics Laboratory.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I am the director of a clinical cytogenetics laboratory. In the lab, we
culture prenatal (amniocytes, chorionic…
drorzel | July 20, 2009(On July 16, 2009, I asked for volunteers with science degrees and non-academic jobs who would be willing to be interviewed about their careers paths, with the goal of providing young scientists with more information about career options beyond the pursuit of a tenure-track faculty job that is too often assumed as a default. This post is one of those interviews, giving the responses of Dr. Bruce Fowler, a former scientist (now retired) at one of the research labs run by the Army.)
1) What is your non-academic job?
I am going to reply in the context of the position I held prior to retirement,…
drorzel | July 20, 2009Last week's call for non-academic scientists produced a much larger response than I was expecting-- more than 30 people volunteered. Thanks to all who volunteered, and if you're interested, please feel free to contact me-- it's not too late to get involved.
As I said in that post, I plan to post a series of short interviews with people who have science degrees, but are not working in academia. The idea here is to provide information on career options for scientists and science majors beyond the "go to grad school, do a post-doc, get a faculty position" track that is too often assumed to be…
drorzel | July 16, 2009Having spent the last couple of posts talking (in part) about the need to change academic culture, and de-stigmatize non-academic science jobs, here's an attempt to step up and do something direct and productive. No, this won't cost you anything.
One of the difficulties with trying to broaden the usual definition of scientists is that there's not a lot of press for non-academic science. Academic culture is so strongly focused on academic careers that people don't hear a lot about careers outside the usual Ph.D-postdoc-tenure-track-job track. Which helps feed the stress and angst regarding the…
grrlscientist | June 11, 2009tags: worst job ever, massage therapist, humor, funny, employment, jobs, streaming video
This video is an interview with a man who is convinced he has the worst job ever. All I can say is this has got to be satire because I cannot otherwise understand his numerous complaints [1:06]
H/T: TravelGirl.
drorzel | December 8, 2008In comments to last week's rant about the low esteem in which science is held, taffe writes:
Ok then, what should scientists be doing, individually or as a community? Maybe the masses just plain find political info more interesting. I mean hell, you had to use dog fans as a hook for your popular book, right?
One of the maddening things about blogging as a medium is the way its ephemerality leads to repetition. I feel like I've written this before, but it's unreasonable for me to be peeved about it, because there's no reason why anybody commenting last week would've seen the earlier post. So…