"alternative" career paths

[J. Johnson]

Have you considered biotech industry?  There is a big drive for your 
skills in industry.  Best of luck.

Jenn Johnson

On Tue, 19 Nov 1996, Kim Pruitt wrote:

> Deborah Merriam wrote:
> > 
> > Sarah and a couple of other people have talked a little about the
> > "head-in-the-sand" attitude of academics regarding nonacademic career
> > paths and the need for more discussion of the alternatives. Since I've
> > been giving this a lot of thought recently, I thought I'd start the ball
> > rolling.
> > 
> (clip) 
> >I've been seriously
> > considering other potential career paths.
> > 
> > Here are the options I've thought of. Perhaps they can be a starting point
> > for more discussion.
> >         - medicine
> >         - law school (science policy or intellectual property)
> >         - industry (research)
> >         - industry (management, with an M.B.A. perhaps)
> >         - industy (sales rep)
> >         - science writing or journalism
> > 
> (clip)
> > I look forward to hearing your thoughts...
> > 
> > Deborah Merriam
>  
> Hi,
> 
> Another alternative career path that is popular at the moment is
> Bioinformatics.  This requires interest in computers and either direct
> experience in using the various sequence search/analysis programs or in
> writing software.  Some people are retraining and obtaining a M.Sc. in
> Computer Science.
> 
> A bit about me....  I have a Ph.D. and postdoctoral experience in Plant
> Molecular Genetics.  I realized at the end of my postdoc that  a
> mainstream academic career isn't for me so I dropped out of the pipeline
> and started a *small* scientific software company out of my home.  This
> has been an ideal situation for the moment.  My overhead is small as I
> work from home, and I set my own hours (I work a lot at night and send
> my 2 preschool girls to the sitters on a very part-time basis).  I
> realize that I was very fortunate to have had this choice - my husband
> pulls in a reasonable salary and we do not have to depend on any
> particular level of income from my software sales - which were 0 while
> software was being developed (programmed by my partner/husband who works
> on it at night too)...  Anyway, I have learned enough to realize that a
> computer oriented future is the right path for me and I am currently
> looking into doing a second postdoc in bioinformatics and returning to a
> full-time re-directed career path.  If I don't find a suitable postdoc
> then I will join the ranks of Ph.D.'s returning to school.
> 
> Kim Pruitt
> 
>