New faculty, graduate students and newly unemployed pharma chemists get some tips. And the blogosphere welcomes back an old stalwart.

As the new academic year grinds to a start, a couple of bloggers have shared their wisdom with their readers. Professor in Training writes in a post titled 'If I knew then what I know now...' (http://go.nature.com/aktQhA) that she has been asked to talk to incoming faculty and is “wondering how much of the truth I could or should tell”. The 14 points include “what the general expectations are for you in your specific position” and “be prepared to deal with politics at every turn”. Wise words indeed. Ambivalent Academic meanwhile shares “everything I needed to know about grad school...but had to learn the hard way” (http://go.nature.com/3qTvN2). Rule number seven (of nine) is particularly striking: “Adopt a personal mantra.” In Ambivalent Academic's case, this was “Yay! I don't suck!” More wise words.

For those readers who escaped from the grove of academe, the readers of Derek Lowe's In the Pipeline have some advice in 'If you're not a chemist - what next?' (http://go.nature.com/NdkYVu). This is particularly aimed at people who have to rethink their careers in light of the recent rounds of pharmaceutical lay-offs. At the time of writing, there are 188 comments, which it must be said vary in tone from inspiring to depressing. Chemjobber used his blog (http://go.nature.com/JrTUUo) to provide some analysis of the responses and found that the top choices were 'computer-related work', 'business' or 'intellectual property law'.

And finally...if you've been reading chemistry blogs since ye goode olde days of pre-2008 you are probably aware of ChemBark. In Paul Bracher's own words “'something' happened and ChemBark went on indefinite hiatus.” But now it's back (http://go.nature.com/cyKNGW). And Bracher's making up for lost time, with at least 12 posts in the first two weeks, covering the grammar of 'postdocking', shopping around for disposable gloves and the inevitable Nobel Prize speculation.