A few minutes ago I finished reading:
"Guide to NonTraditional Careers in Science"
by Karen Young Kreeger
(Taylor and Francis, Philadelphia, Pa, (c) 1999, 263 pp., and I think
paperback only, and I have no idea what the price is but T&F have a
website at www.taylorandfrancis.com).
I think the book is pretty good. I'll do a full review and put it on my
website some days from now (it will be bigger than average because there
is a lot of information in the book and it can be used in more ways than
I think the author intended).
The book has shortcomings (which can be useful to itemize and analyze),
but there is more than I expected of useful information and resources.
Essentially, KK interviewed almost 100 "scientists" (mostly PhDs, but not
all, who went into non-traditional careers and have been in those careers
for anywheres from 2 years and on up. Some have been in several
job/careers since the PhD. These careers cluster around some fairly
obvious career categories:
patent work
environmental law
teaching (mainly high school but also museums)
sci and med illustrations
sci & tech writing (& editing and publishing)
informatics (including bioinformatics)
technology transfer
business
law
science policy-advocacy-regulation
A very good thing about the book is that it, like the book _The PhD
Process_ (a book on graduate school by Bloom, Karp, and Cohen, that I
read and reviewed on my website last month) is based in reality. Both
books fully acknowledge the real difficulties in the job market,
traditional or nontraditional, for PhDs. Many of KK's interviewed
scientists spoke openly and freely that intense competition exists in many
of these alternative careers, too. PhDs who sought alternative career also
openly gave one of two reasons for seeking these careers: i) the
competition for academic jobs and grants was more than they wanted to deal
with, and ii) they found out after doing grad school that while they liked
science, they didn't like research (eg. its lonely in the lab and writing
[papers] and writing [grants] didn't thrill them). Nevertheless, the
interviews contain lots of good information, discussion of points not
obvious, and point out both negatives and positives of all of these
alternatives.
There were a few surprizing comments made but I'll save that for the
website review (going up around the beginning of April [or end of March]).
And, of course, some of the other stuff I mentioned will be written and
discussed on the website review.
The book has excellent resource lists, including many hundreds of website
URLs both in the text and more in the appendix (psst ... there may
suddenly appear on my website, in the future, a major expansion of my URL
list, but don't tell anyone), and cites many other books dealing with
career-job issues, including competing books by competing authors. This is
also good because all too often some authors don't mention any other books
as if nothing else on that subject exists. A good marketing ploy but not
in the best interests of the reader.
For example, Cynthia Robbins-Roth has a book "Alternative Careers in
Science: Leaving the Ivory Tower" which is mentioned by KK as having 23
chapters written by 23 scientists that tell of their own experience. I've
been interested in reading that book since I heard of it some time ago.
The book has a forward by Catherine Gaddy, Exec Director, CPST, (which has
some relationship to the [establishment] AAAS.
In the first chapter, KK spends a fair bit of effort talking about
the real problems in the science/PhD job market and cites statistics and
sources. There is no warm-fuzzy here. From there on, the book is low
on hype, high on "nuts and bolts," and I can't remember reading anything
on "have a positive attitude and all will fall your way." There is quite a
bit, on the other hand, of "here's how we did it" and that gives you the
basic idea. The rest is like they say Thomas Edison said, "Its 1%
inspiration and 99% persperation."
Oh ... yes ... nobody is paying me to read & write this stuff. KK is not a
relative and I've never met her except through private email. Last fall
she sent me an email and asked if I would like to review the book and I
said send me a copy and I will. I got the copy about a month ago.
I've got other books to read and review, too.
Art Sowers
http://scientistlifeboat.com
