The Evil Monkey has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from a southeastern U.S. university. After a postdoctoral nightmare of Inquisitorial proportions, he is currently working in a laboratory and an adjunct assistant professor at a nearby state university.
Scicurious is a graduate student wrestling with a PhD in Physiology and Pharmacology at a southern institution. She is a nerd, a geek, and also a dork. And yes, that really is her brain.
NotoriousLTP is an MD-PhD student in New York City. After finishing (hopefully soon) his PhD in behavioral neuroscience, he will re-enter the fun vortex that is medical education.
So first off, there's a new blog on Scienceblogs called The Culture Dish! I didn't actually know about this blog (*shame*), until I poked around for the frist time and realized that Rebecca Skloot is the one who's NY Times pieces I devour with eagerness every single time. She is great, and she's writing a cool book on the first immortal stem cell line! Gee, Rebecca, I sure would LOVE to take a look at that...when you get around to it...(pleasepleasefreebooksplease)...*ahem*. Anyway. Check out her blog.
But what I'm really here to talk to you about today is things Sci needs to know. Because Sci knows her Socrates:
Bill: So-crates - "The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing".
Ted: That's us, dude
So I'll go ahead and admit that I know pretty much nothing. Well, that's not quite true. Being that I am a grad student, I can say that I know a great deal about a very very very very tiny sliver of the universe. Very tiny. The rest, I know absolutely nothing about. And even that very tiny sliver, I'm not so sure sometimes. People say that you always feel that your least intelligent in grad school, and I would have to agree.
And so what I need from you are LINKS! I want LINKS! Links on how to get remembered by people at conferences, ask good questions at seminars, impress Dr. Bigshots with my hot science, do good job talks, look for postdocs and jobs, and generally those little science socializing things that do not come so natural to geeky ol' Sci. I've found a couple of treasure troves for this stuff (like the entirety of DrugMonkey), but I would love some more advice! Advice from your personal experiences, professional guides you've found, anything, really. I'd like to have a place where some of this stuff is stored so I can look through it all and glean some wisdom. Public speaking I've got pretty well down, but if you want to put some stuff here for the good to society, by all means, please do!!
I await your advice with ill-concealed eagerness!
Education & Careers
Comments
Hey,
One thing I've found / am finding useful is this series of columns in the JCS: http://jcs.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/121/20/3283
It's interesting stuff.
Posted by: Ne | January 5, 2009 8:00 AM
here are the other parts, I thought they linked through, but alas they don't. Number 2 I found particularly enlightening.
http://jcs.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/121/21/3497
http://jcs.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/121/22/3675
Posted by: Ne | January 5, 2009 8:04 AM
If you'll forgive the self-promotion, my blog (The Open Source Paleontologist) covers many of these issues from a paleontological perspective. The latest series of posts has focused on peer review, for instance, and I've also had posts on listserv etiquette and many other relevant issues.
Posted by: Andy | January 5, 2009 9:28 AM
http://drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2007/11/04/job-talk-juju/
http://drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2007/10/07/short-seminar-skillz/
http://drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2007/10/13/you-call-it-wibble-i-call-it-taking-care-of-business/
Check out these older posts I wrote on the Wordpress DrugMonkey blog. They should be helpful in giving talks.
Posted by: Comrade PhysioProf | January 5, 2009 10:46 PM
http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671027034/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231280853&sr=8-1
Posted by: James Dean | January 6, 2009 5:28 PM
Here are all my job search posts collected under a single repost:
http://bluelabcoats.wordpress.com/2008/09/12/its-the-seasonacademic-job-search-reposts/
I tried to come up with some other specific links for you from my blog but the list is quite long since one of the major topics of my blog is demystifying the system and mentoring... so just take a look at the whole thing:
http://bluelabcoats.wordpress.com
Posted by: drdrA | January 8, 2009 11:09 AM
drdrA: you're looking at me like I don't already read your blog obsessively! For shame! Cause I totally do.
Also: http://scienceblogs.com/isisthescientist/2009/01/how_to_choose_a_postdoc.php
Just for me to remember
Posted by: Scicurious | January 8, 2009 11:14 AM
Sci: You need to get a copy of this book and if you look in the comment section, one of the commenters will send you a hard copy for free.
It has the kind of information that you might not realize you need, until you really need it, like when you're writing your first grant and you need to know the difference between indirect and direct costs - it has things like that. There's even a section on how to name your data files!
Posted by: Sandra Porter | January 8, 2009 1:28 PM
Scicurious-
Sorry!! I didn't realize- I'm glad that you find it useful-leave me a comment once in a while so I know you came by!!
Posted by: drdrA | January 8, 2009 4:04 PM
... but not good enough for the blogroll? :-(
Posted by: drdrA | January 8, 2009 4:07 PM
Oops...oversight on my part...gimme a second...should be better soon.
Posted by: Scicurious | January 8, 2009 4:11 PM
:-), sorry, I don't mean to be a pain in the backside. I notice I'm missing from various blogrolls lately and I'm stupidly sensitive about it. I'll toughen up in like... the next 2 seconds!
Posted by: drdrA | January 8, 2009 5:15 PM