Industry or Academia?

When I graduated I knew I wanted to stay in science but I wasn't completely sure where in science I wanted to be. When I was offered a job in industry I jumped at the chance to experience being a fully fledged, tax paying member of society with a decent pay packet.

However it turns out I didn't really enjoy my experience in industry. The particular job I was in often meant that just as one project became interesting it was finished (or was pulled) and I had to start on another. The size of the company also meant that although I gained a lot of useful experience in skills other than those related to lab work, I found that not enough of my time was dedicated to research.



There are lots of ways to go in science



And so I quit my job and soon returned to academia to pursue a PhD. Although I no doubt gained a lot from my two and a half years as a 'real person' I can't see myself returning to industry. I enjoy the intellectual freedom that academia seems to give and the feeling that all results are interesting and never overly disappointing in the pursuit of science rather than a product.

As I approach the half way point in my PhD I know that my experience was a one off and worry that my view is jaded and that having the option of working in industry would be useful.

Do you / have you worked in industry in science? Did you enjoy it? Do you have stories that you think could make me consider returning in the future? Or maybe you agree that academic life, although far from perfect, is better. Let me know below!

Science / Skeptical Podcasts

As I spend a lot of my time walking or getting the bus to places and I like to spend that time listening to podcasts. It's a great way to learn and be entertained while having to look where you're going. 



If you want to listen to podcasts on the move,
don't wash your headphones like I did...



Here is a list of my favourite science and scepticism based podcasts, some you will have heard of, some you might not and will hopefully give them a go. Most have great back catalogues to pick and choose from. I listen/subscribe to mine via iTunes but most are available elsewhere and so I will link to their websites and you can take it from there. Let me know if I've missed out your favourites.

STEMinist Interview

I was interviewed for the website STEMinist. It's a site that features stories from women that work in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) with the aim to "promote and elevate the perspective of women in these traditionally underrepresented fields".

My interview with them can be found here.

PhD planning

Not sure what my plans are for tomorrow. It feels odd because I'm normally quite well organised. I have experimental plans for the rest of the week and I also know I need to continue to work on a poster and start work on a talk when not in the lab, but tomorrow, I'm not too sure.

This made we wonder whether I’m as organised as I think I am and whether I can do it better. 

I have a large over-arching plan of my PhD: the aims, the experiments I'd like/need to do, labs I hope to visit, but these broader plans are flexible. I also have a similar, loose but more specific ~6 month plan: approximate times of when I want to finish a particular set of experiments, when I need to start working on posters/talks etc. Most specific are my weekly plans - which particular experiments I need to do, what analysis needs taking care of, what talks/seminars I want to go to. Generally my mid-term plans are now in a list on my iPad and my weekly plans are usually in my head and on a bit of paper.

How do other PhD students plan their time? Do you go for old fashioned post-it notes or have you found an amazing iPad app that I need to know about? Do you, like me, just keep some short term plans in your head?

So far I've found notepad on the iPad useful as you can type out stuff and then draw/scribble on it also adding pictures (I find it handy to add a copy of a graph or table to help remind me what came before a particular experiment for example).

Looking for ideas on how to organise yourself in the lab? Take a look a Happy Science's post