By Virginia Gewin
US science and engineering PhD students are losing interest in academic careers because their career preferences change throughout their training, finds a study – not because of limited faculty-job availability.
{credit} Getty Images Ryan Mcvay{/credit}
By Stacy Konkiel
At Altmetric, we provide actionable insights into the online engagement surrounding published research. In early 2017 we asked researchers to share their favorite productivity tips and tricks for tackling their to-do lists, in the hope picking up some ideas ourselves and sharing their wisdom with the wider community. Here are some of their top recommendations.
Good management can make an enormous difference in the success and productivity of any team. Unfortunately, new managers are rarely chosen because they have demonstrated skill at managing people. After 10-15 years of training, many scientists will be expected to run an academic lab or manage a team outside of academia with little experience and almost certainly no formal training. The kind of smarts and the types of skills that it takes to be a good scientist are not the same ones it takes to be a competent manager (much less a really good one). While getting your PhD or doing a postdoc, few science trainees have opportunities to work on their emotional intelligence or to hone their delegation skills.
So what makes a good manager? First, it takes an open mind willing to learn and develop skills. Managing a team is hard and scientists should reject the myth that “it comes naturally” to some. Most good managers have worked hard to learn principles of good management and they continually build their skill set with experience and trying new tactics. Second, being a good manager requires a focus on the goals. I believe the most important goals are to get a lot of stuff done, to produce excellent quality work and to create a team culture that provides a happy work environment. The first two goals may be obvious, but why the third? Happy people get more done and do better work and a positive culture attracts good people.
Here are three areas to work on.
{credit}Wu Li; addgene{/credit}
Are you one of the many PhDs considering a career in data science? I completed a PhD in neuroscience at Stanford three years ago; now I’m a data scientist at Uber. During my time in industry, I’ve found that the skills we develop in graduate school, such as analytical thinking, statistics, communication skills, and – oh yes – tenacity in the face of adversity, make us a great fit for the role.
The co-authorship network of 8,500 doctors and scientists publishing on hepatitis C virus between 2008 and 2012. {credit}Andy Lamb/ Flickr{/credit}
Since the advent of life 3.6 billion years ago, the survival of all species has depended on rapid innovation at the genetic level. As a consequence, our planet has grown rich with evolved technologies.
Traditionally, the dream of harnessing these evolved technologies has been confined to thought experiments and science fiction. Now, the emerging field of synthetic biology is giving engineers the tools required to tap into evolution’s code-base.
This piece was one of two winners of the Science Innovation Union writing competition, Oxford.
“This is downtown San Francisco, our train’s final stop. Can all passengers please detrain? All detrain please. All detrain.” Perhaps it was the heady fug of jetlag that made this broadcast particularly amusing to my UK-English language sensibilities, but I “detrained” all the same and stepped into the crisp morning air of the Californian rush hour.
I was on the west coast to visit two genetics start-ups as part of a whirlwind three-day tour of the US. With a long postdoc and several first author papers tucked into my belt, I wanted to see if these credentials would pass muster in the tech haven of Silicon Valley. I’ve always found the loneliness of solo work-travel to be highly amenable to strategic thought, and this American adventure was an opportunity to reflect on why I was there and what I wanted.
Emma is now Global Medical Affairs Leader for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) in GSK’s Respiratory Division.
As a child, I was fascinated by how things work, especially the human body, and I decided I wanted some kind of career in science. Medicine seemed like the ideal avenue and offered a reassuringly clear path including training and employment prospects.
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This piece was one of two winners of the Science Innovation Union writing competition, Oxford.
“Risky.”
My housemate, now in the final year of his PhD, had a one-word answer to my question “Would you consider working in a start-up company after you graduate?”
Intrigued, I posed this question to fellow PhD students in various disciplines over the following weeks, and received similar answers including “I don’t want to live in uncertainty,” “No job security,” “Academia is more stable,” and, memorably, “I’d rather go bungee jumping.”
Not everything launches so smoothly
Last week, Julia Etulain was sitting in a lobby of a hotel in Paris, far from her hometown of Buenos Aires, Argentina. She explained her research energetically, occasionally apologising for near-perfect, short-sentence, staccato English.
Julia Etulain {credit}Photo via ParaBuenosAires/thebubble{/credit}
When I was in graduate school, I learned to create classes using backward design. Backward design encourages setting goals and then planning a course of action to meet those goals. This strategy can be applied to almost anything in life. “What do I want for dinner?,” for example, can transform into “I need dinner to be quick” or “let’s get rid of what’s about to go bad in the fridge.”
