Preparing for Academics, Research, and Development
I just heard about a conference in DC May 23-25, but its registration deadline was March 1, so none of us can sign up. However we can still think about their design to help young scientists, and perhaps find some of their ideas useful. It's called Forward to Professorship and is specifically directed towards women in STEM fields. If you want to check out the web site, you'll find it here.
The conference will focus on five how-to lessons for the young STEM women:
• Make effective use of your time to tenure
• Secure research funding
• Navigate the tenure-track process
• Apply and negotiate for a position
• Get the most out of teaching
These topics will be covered via talks and also via individual counseling with mentors chosen by the organizers. My question to you is this: how and when did you learn to manage these topic areas? Did you learn ahead of when you needed to know, or were you unaware of pitfalls before you headed straight out into them? If you did learn ahead, how did the message get delivered, in conversation? In a talk you heard? By your advisor?
Cheers,
Laura
This concept is simple but effective. Most likely someone sat down and thought, what do I wish I had known earlier? And then the conference was built around that. Kudos to those who thought it up and organized it, because as Laura says, there's a vacuum out there where useful career advice ought to be, for most of us women in science. MKS
Yes, the gotcha! types are around, and they will laugh if they can. You just have to laugh it off and go on, if you can. I think this conference is a very good idea, and I hope the concept spreads and grows.
Hi ExCS,
Even as a bio prof, I had chem majors in my biochem class who tried to catch me making errors in chemistry calculations in class, and later came to office hours and complained that I didn't fall into their traps. Not so nice, but after a while the noise died down. I feel like no one really gives good career advice to young academics, so this conference sounds great to me!
Cheers,
Laura
I got no good advice and always thought the guys were waiting for me to make the expected mistakes so they could laugh at me. But that's Computer Science. The postdoc org, mostly bio and chem postdocs, had some good sessions on setting up research and getting an academic job, but I was more interested in industry jobs.
I hope you will be able to go to the conference, ChemE_PhD! If not, perhaps they can connect you to videos from the sessions or other resources.
By the way, if any of you know about good conferences I should announce, do let me know so I can post them. I read the whole forum often, so you can just put the info into a comment. I hope to do a more timely job of keeping us all informed. The FORWARD conference is on such an important topic that I hope it will serve as a role model to others considering what to focus on for upcoming conferences.
cheers,
Laura
Thank you for this information! Even though the deadline has passed I still registered with the hopes of being accepted!
Yes, Laura, I've been a guest at some of those "alternative careers" presentations and you probably have too! I think that is good for people to hear, but also How-To's for academia are great presentation topics. I don't think science students realize how very political academic life can be, for example. They see science as pure and emotionless and then the truth is a big shock to some of my former students.
I realize two people don't make a trend, but it sounds like maybe things have improved recently. I've heard about some good training programs through various universities, some via grad student or postdoc associations, to address these issues and also to introduce people to "alternative careers" like being a liberal arts professor, being a science writer, being an administrator, etc. It is good to think today's young women are hitting the deck better prepared than I was!
cheers,
Laura
In my day, people assumed you'd learn as you did things and they weren't addressed in grad school or postdoc much at all. However, I'm glad to see grad student and postdoc organizations at my institution are taking up a lot of these issues and putting on talks and workshops about them. And this conference sounds very good for women who are seriously considering academic careers.
Ha ha! Not there yet. But let's see, have I heard anything about these topics so far? I got good advice on securing research funding in grad school and more during my postdoc. I got to see someone else from the lab apply and negotiate for a tenure track job and we all talked with her about it constantly, on-the-job training? We have support for people who teach courses as grad students and postdocs that helps them get comfortable and become effective. I have used the support systems a little. I think a lot of women are terrorized by the pre-tenure process and that's one reason a lot are thinking about industry or research-only positions, of course in addition to child-related issues.
