You think you're doing a great job in the lab, while your PI thinks you're slacking off because you text all the time. You thought you explained the structure and hierarchy of your department and IC very clearly to a new undergraduate in your lab, but he still gets annoyed when he is not included in discussions and meetings that take place at a higher level. You understand the needs of fellow students in your grad program and don't understand why their PIs don't acknowledge and acquiesce to them. Whence the origin of all of this conflict?

Thanks to all who participated in yesterday's online chat on careers in big pharma. We had a RECORD 314 visitors for the chat! Our next "A Day in the Life of..." online chat will be held on Thursday, November 18, 2010, from 12noon - 1pm. Stay tuned for the featured career. Today I'd like to share two new NIH resources with you. One is an upcoming online chat for all trainees considering graduate or professional school. The other is a fabulous website with information on genomics careers for trainees at all levels.

1) Next week, on Thursday, October 28 at 12noon EST, OITE will be hosting:

When we left North Carolina 4 years ago, I worried about the impact our move would have on my then three-year-old son. He was very close to a small group of friends, enjoyed his daycare situation so much, and I was worried that uprooting him might be too stressful. My friends and family all shared the same response to my concern: "He's so young, he won't remember a thing!" Well, four years later, he still gets teary from time to time about missing his "friends from North Carolina." Leaving the familiar for the unfamiliar is difficult for all of us. We miss our old friends, familiar haunts, favorite activities.

During the AAAS talk last week on the academic job market, I was encouraged by the opinions shared by current faculty. I imagined that the academic job market was as bleak--if not more so--than the non-academic market. On the contrary...to paraphrase the speakers, "the best people are still finding jobs." Still, you must put your best foot forward to be a standout candidate on the academic market.

While news on the job market is still grim, there are a few areas that are growing in spite of the down economy - some of which have more jobs than viable candidates to fill them. One such sector is regulatory science, a field that has been growing steadily for the past several years. Regulatory science includes:

Let’s see…what happened first? Traveling to my sister-in-law’s wedding in Baltimore, our train hit a downed tree, causing the brakes to go. The train came to a stop safely, but could not resume service and had to be towed away by another engine. Hearing the announcement that this process would take several hours, a few passengers and I decided to hop out and share a cab to our final destination, where I had to catch a connecting train.  We got into the cab, and 10 minutes into the drive hit a traffic jam on the highway due to what looked to be a serious accident.

Many of you may have asked yourselves this question at some point in your academic careers. Which job would give you the most freedom research-wise? More time with your family or for outside interests? Higher salaries? Job security? Science Careers held a webinar on this topic just last week. The panel discussion included speakers from academia and industry who took questions from an online audience of postdocs and graduate students.

Welcome to Postdoc Appreciation Week! I hope that you were all out on the lawn in front of Building 1 yesterday, enjoying your Georgetown Cupcakes. I am sorry I missed that event, I can tell you! Some of you may think that one week is insufficient to recognize contributions made by postdocs. To quell this cynicism, I offer a poem, celebrating all that you contribute as a postdoctoral scholar:

P ostdocs are some of the smartest around - and most of the time, their judgment is sound.