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Solkanar512 posted:Why isn't the requirement to shoot people who question QA/QC regulations added to the various ISO/IEC standards? I'm loving tired of having to deal with political power plays and short cuts that are going to gently caress us in the rear end come auditing time. So yeah, maybe cause they suck? 
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Mar 12, 2011 03:27
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Solkanar512 posted:gently caress, it sounds like the kind of people that come audit our lab. They almost get a  as hell. They LOVE paper. As long as you show them a piece of paper or a logbook with plausible looking results, and as long as that paper is filled out properly, they're happy. It could be some poo poo you just made up!Lucky we use up most reagents far, far faster than they expire. Again, all of the internal stuff is taken care of completely by the technicians. Maybe they're more hardcore on pharma labs, though.
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Mar 13, 2011 23:37
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when they see an expiration date on a bottle of reagents, but don't know a loving thing about science.
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Soo how many people here use something like LIMS and who still pushes piles of paper around? Which is most prevalent, but I am getting so sick of signing, filing, rewriting when something gets lost. Handwritten lab notebooks are a must but is there an ISO protocol for electronic documents? Are we the only ones stuck in the middle ages?
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Mar 26, 2011 23:50
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Lyon posted:Your posts are my favorite in this thread. Your company sounds so awesomely inefficient based on your posts, it makes me chuckle every time. half of the reports I fill out magically vanish into thin air. Forms get revised with no rhyme or reason, nobody tells anybody this and I get stuck re-writing a stack of 30 papers on a fairly regular basis; I also constantly remind the lab manager that I can't sign off on stuff she is rewriting (ie blatantly faking data) because I wasn't yet working for the company in 2008. I only now got a GLP lab notebook, after begging for one for about a year. Important data is often written on post-it notes and scraps of paper. Expensive pieces of equipment sit gathering dust while technicians do the work manually at 10% of the speed because the lab manager is afraid of trying anything new (then why buy the drat extraction manifold in the first place?!). We haven't seen anyone from QM for over 3 weeks. All of the documentation is perpetually anywhere from 2-6 months behind and I am still getting documents to file for early 2010...  The actual lab work is pretty interesting for this type of job, though.
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Mar 28, 2011 20:05
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chienism posted:I realize that this thread is not terribly active, and that my question is quite off-topic-- but I was wondering if anyone in this thread would please allow me to interview them over email for a paper I must write about the "discourse community" about the job I want to eventually have, and to analyze its aspects. What may I ask drives you to take such interest in the lives of us poor slaves of science?  Also I love SA but I do find funny that you think you'd get LESS creepy results from goons than the craigslist crowd... especially science goons
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Apr 7, 2011 08:37
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chienism posted:I'd love to interview you too, but I can only use one person for my paper in the end. So I can definitely interview you both, but I can not say for sure who I will use for my paper. Thank you for volunteering your time! Just to reiterate I'm a "lab rat"/lab drone/QC slave/analytical chemist/QC chemist, early in my career (3 years post graduation) working in the cosmetics manufacturing industry.
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Apr 10, 2011 03:09
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Favorabilis Solitud posted:1) I have technically been the supervisor for this tiny lab(under a lab tech title). The thought of more working under me who could be more academically qualified scares me. Should I really be nervous or is this just the standard jitters at a promotion/more responsibility? If you're only used to basic wet analysis and your new job requires instrumental skills, good luck. But I do also think your old boss knows enough about your current position not to interview you if the tests are much more advanced than what you currently do. It's not clear -- did he get promoted to a different plant within the same company, or to a new company? If the latter, be extremely careful. Even practices within the same industry can vary sharply between labs in different companies. Our lab has quite a few people who "never needed no book learnin'". These people are typically incompetent at chemistry. My boss, although nice enough if you can deal with her crazy moods, has no idea how to solve any problems or fix anything, and her story reminds me of yours (no formal education, just kind of worked way up from a tiny lab when the company was small). In a mid-size chemistry lab of 11 people, precisely 3 have any idea how to troubleshoot any instrumental or chemical problem, explain basic chemical principles and operate instruments, and those 3 (that includes me) are respected and enjoy job security, but are also swamped ALL THE TIME. Not surprisingly, these 3 have a BS (and one has an MS) in chemistry. This situation also leads to constant clashes between the people that know science and the people (like my boss) who don't. Expect very high turnover (training new people every 3-6 months) if your employees are on a higher level than you. And if you do learn to trust their judgment, your boss will probably be concerned that your employees know much more than you. Be careful. The only reason my boss is still my boss is because she's been there for 14 years and nobody has the heart to let her go. They even hired a competent chemist (another one of the 3) at a very decent salary to handle all of the science problems, since my boss doesn't know anything. At 3 years you will be replaceable if one of your underlings is ambitious enough and demonstrates enough knowhow. If this is something you're going to turn your life upside down for, think long and hard and ask difficult questions at your interview. This is all hypothetical though. I (and generally any employer) am a fan of experience over education any day. But a good education in science is invaluable for learning the principles. If a person has both, or can at least prove themselves over a couple of years be an excellent & ambitious scientist and a talented problem solver... watch out. 2) It is extremely dependent on where you live. Pay for a QC lab supervisor can range anywhere from 35-75K depending on where you live and your experience. Cost of living, and hence, salary, is much different in Bumfuck, Alabama and Boston, Mass. You don't have to specify the company or even the city (I wouldn't), but what region of the country are you considering relocating to and will they pay for your relocation?
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Apr 14, 2011 06:56
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MrDutch posted:Managers already outnumber actual workers 10 to 1
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May 1, 2011 22:41
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soupy posted:I'm a lab rat! I work at an organic synthesis lab. We make reference standards and certified reference standards! I graduated back in December 2009 and have been working there for a bit over a year. It is fun, I enjoy it. Get to do a bit of everything which is what I enjoy. The job search sucked, though.. Not looking forward to doing it again. About to start because we are moving to Houston from Austin and I'm not sure where I should be looking... Uhg. You are right to move, there like 1 synthetic chemist job opening every 3 years in Austin and like 1 every 10 years for a senior (PhD) synthesis position.. Do you do any NMR?For synthesis (if that is what you are interested in) Houston sucks too. There will definitely be more jobs there though than Austin due to the size and less competition from fresh UT grads willing to work for jack poo poo. Austin just sucks rear end for ANY field because everyone wants to stay there after graduation. However if that is truly what you want to do and are willing to relocate you really want to be looking in New Jersey or Virginia. NJ might suck and no place in the country is as good as Austin, but it can't be any more of a shithole than Houston (I lived in Houston area for 15 years). I will go on the record saying I absolutely loved doing organic synthesis. I swapped for analytical/instrumental chemistry after graduation because there is a ton more jobs (BY COMPARISON, not absolute terms) to organic/inorganic synthesis, and I really do love instruments.
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May 1, 2011 23:08
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soupy posted:Yes, you are correct! And I do all of my pre-submission NMR. I am competent with Proton, C13, COSY... So yeah! But really, I just want a job that pays more than I am paid now which isn't Too much. It would be great if it is synthesis, but if it is analytical or whatever I really am not too picky. . One thing you only learn from the school of hard knocks is that if you fold your arms and limit yourself to one field without a whole lot of experience, your rear end will be unemployed a long time. I hate those C&E News statistics (what's that? physical chemists make 50K starting whereas organic chemists make 45K and analytical chemists only make 38K starting?) They omit certain facts like that there is a 100:1 ratio of analytical to physical chem positions and that all pchem people do some achem and vice versa, and you'll see that means gently caress all. Just search Indeed.com for "physical chemist" vs "analytical chemist", seriously. If you love synthesis but have an interest in analytical chemistry as well, or just open to different fields, I would highly suggest you try to get a background in instrumental analysis (QC labs are your best bet - they hire tons of early-career chemists and I have not seen even a crappy QC lab without at least a HPLC or GC or AA). Push your NMR skills heavily - NMR is insanely expensive and while it is rare, it shows you can handle a 250K$+ instrument with 200$/hr LN2/LHe requirements.If you really want to get into materials/energy engineering, don't let your degree hold you back too much and start edging your job experience towards those fields in any way you can. That's easier said than done, and it will take years not months. Again, instrumental work rather than wet-lab work (titrations blah) will help you a lot here as instruments are very very technical in the traditional engineering sense. As an example I am just a QC lab drone whose first job was actually for a university, but I've gotten calls (and am interviewing) for a field-service engineer position for an instrument manufacturer. Now, it's not an engineer in the usual sense at all (it's really more of a mechanic position, they just like to call it engineer rather than "technician" bc of the serious education and experience requirements), but my instrumental experience led me to interviews for that position and if I get this position (fingers crossed), it will unlock many more new doors. The real world is NOT NEARLY as segregated as the academic world where everyone hides in their lab researching obscure topics many of which nobody cares about. Your degree does matter, don't get me wrong, but it gets less and less important as you get more work experience. The job market is just that - a market, whereas university education is not a market - you can do whatever it is you want as long as you fork over tuition money or cheapass labor as a grad student. I'm glad to see you're discovering that -- the sooner you learn it the sooner you will start making real money and going places you want to go with your career. People with chemistry degrees AND enough experience get hired for engineering positions, and some people with Chem-E degrees work as lab chemists (usually in higher positions than just drone though) instead of doing fluid process analysis or whatever the bloody hell it is they are trained to do. seacat fucked around with this message at 00:42 on May 2, 2011 |
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May 2, 2011 00:39
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Bastard Tetris posted:Recruiters don't know what the gently caress when it comes to specialty positions. I keep getting offers asking for unrelated Ph.Ds for field repair engineer positions at fairly stupid salaries. The vast majority of scientists I've met in both industry and academia agree: if you get a PhD, don't do it for the money. The money loving sucks for giving up 4-6 years of your life (and earnings), valuable work experience, and possible your sanity. Of course there are some superstar scientists who land a sweet gig on 140K$. This is like 1% of the total PhD holders. I guess if you really, really, REALLY, REALLY love science, or are independently wealthy, go for it. I'm pretty unique in that I love instrumental analysis and equipment repair, both of which are break-into-able with just a bachelors in a technical degree (in my case chemistry) so I guess I lucked out there. PS: Yes, recruiters don't know what the hell. Most recruiters I've met are biologists. Why did everyone in industry who doesn't know wtf they're doing major in biology?!
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May 5, 2011 07:19
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Solkanar512 posted:The only folks I run into on a regular basis that are dumber than recruiters are auditors. "Holy poo poo I found the expiration date on the bottle but gently caress me if I can tell you what's inside". We actually have to WRITE OUT EACH AND EVERY SINGLE CALCULATION because the ISO goons and FDA goons can't be hosed to learn how to calculate acid value from a simple KOH titration or to at least send someone who's had 2 semesters of college chemistry. Also it seems the volume of poo poo we're required to record on our paperwork doubles every 6 months. I can understand lot numbers and expiration dates of important chemicals, but indicators? Balance calibration dates? Really?
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May 5, 2011 08:31
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plasmoduck posted:Also, I've always pushed myself for good grades (yay Asian), but I have the impression that to the industry, grades matter less than, let's say, experience with lots of assays/techniques. For example, my bachelor thesis project involved the ubiquitin-proteasome system and I loved it, so for my 2nd master project I applied to a Japanese lab also in this field (other master project was peroxisome biogenesis). It's super interesting to me, but I'm a bit worried that by indulging in this preference, I'll miss the chance to learn more new techniques and it'll hurt my prospects in the future... HOWEVER, I sometimes wish they would look at grades a little more. Assuming you come from a respectable school (it doesn't have to be Harvard, any accredited school with a rigorous curriculum), a high GPA implies a good understanding of that backing science. I've trained numerous people who have been doing HPLC for years and still have absolutely no understanding of how it works; hence, when a problem is encountered, they come running to me for help and distract me from my own poo poo. For an entry-level position I would almost prefer a fresh college grad who understands the principles behind a technique to a monkey that knows how to flip switches and push buttons because he's been doing it for years, but doesn't really understand what those switches and buttons do. The ideal candidate will have both. Obviously the hiring manager/lab manager will go with the person with experience even for a lab drone position because OMGEXPERIENCE makes them look better to their boss/HR/whoever. Think long and hard about your choice of doing a Master's in those two things you mentioned. If you want to start as a lab grunt and work your way up to make that $$$$, find some people in the industry you want to work in (cosmetics, food, pharma, whatever). Ask them what techniques they use the most. Find a way to perfect those techniques and understand them well while you are in school (it looks like you already have a bachelor's, so let it be the focus of your masters). Bam, now you have something to talk about in a job interview that makes you look like a badass. As I mentioned above ITT there are tons of people who did their graduate work on some obscure poo poo and only like 5% of them are actually doing industry work in their niche topic. TBH, I don't think the academic scene is that much better. Sucks, but that's just supply & demand for ya. Unless you're lucky, the only time you REALLY get to pick your project and study/research what you love is when you are an undergraduate/grad student willing to work for subpoverty wages.
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May 5, 2011 18:05
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Sundae posted:If you are stuck on the student-loans-from-hell boat like I was, industry is great for making them disappear in a hurry. Academia is awesome (but has its own problems with lab politics) if money isn't an obstacle. Academia, due to the low salaries, has never been an option for me. My student loan payments are simply too high for the salaries offered.  this is my exact situation as my student loans are obscene. I considered being an academic but realized the beard-stroking ivory tower culture just wasn't for me, and coupled with piss poor salaries for all but the Tenured (that most elite of castes which shrinks every year as the ever growing University Administrator/Bureaucrat caste realizes they can get adjuncts for 10% of the price of a FT tenured professor), I said gently caress IT. Yes, I'm just a lil bit bitter Shame, I was really counting on those $80,000 salaries :P But even as a QC drone I am managing to make my loan payments and am currently interviewing for a position that pays $15,000 more. *fingers crossed* My sister on the other hand fled to grad school doing a PhD in computational biology as her $80,000 in private student loans (5 years of private university) grows and grows and grows (no, there is no deferment for student loans, although you don't have to pay while you're in school, the interest still compounds and builds!) She is on her 4th year. I fear to ask what her balance is.
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May 5, 2011 18:43
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you're living in the netherlands and you want to move TO the US? You need your head examined find a new boyfriend pronto. Also I didn't know you were European; I assumed you were American so consider my advice above null and void. I have nfi what grad school in europe is like. Edit: so wait, what country are you a citizen of...? I'm assuming not the US if you got four yrs of "cheap" university education... seacat fucked around with this message at 21:19 on May 5, 2011 |
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May 5, 2011 21:17
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Scientastic posted:What? Is that similar to industry's money-grabbing, profiteering culture? Or could it be that both are stupid stereotypes? Speaking of where you at, not all industry labs express the money-grabbing, profiteering culture (that is mostly big pharma). Many government labs, light manufacturers, small analytical labs, small synthetic labs, medical testing labs, don't conform to the BigPharma stereotype of horrible management/high salaries/insane layoffs. Nobody's been laid off from my company in many years (people have been fired for incompetence, but they deserved it). So I guess what I'm trying to say is both ivory tower academics and money-grubbing industrialists are stereotypes, but although stereotypes do exist for a reason, there are many exceptions so I'm sorry if I offended anybody. Maybe my department was particularly bad with unwashed neckbeard holier-than-though sarcasm-loving grad students and ancient professors who couldn't even communicate in English, much less in applied advanced calculus while plugging MY RESEARCH every lecture.
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May 7, 2011 03:29
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Bastard Tetris posted:My company went through a complicated split and acquisition and not a single person got laid off. I think I'm happier in industry, people are more willing to listen to colleagues without Ph.Ds and I like making more than 20$/hr. Postdoc salaries are even more laughable. All in all, I made $38K last year which is absolutely nothing to brag about, barely over the US median, but most of my workweeks were 40 hrs with an occasional 45-50 hr week with paid overtime at $28/hr. I don't make much by anyone's standard but it's enough to pay my bills (even my rear end raping student loans), and I have enough time to eat dinner with my wife and go to the gym and read books and watch TV and waste time on the internet and go out to the bar with my friends and do work on my car/house and visit with my family and volunteer at the hospital and do all the other things that make life worth living. One of my good friends that graduated with a PhD in 2009 is postdoc'n at UT-Austin for $32K/yr as a materials research scientist. He makes less than me with 6 years more education, and I only work 40 hours a week most weeks. I had to go through scheduling hell just to have lunch with him because he literally spends 60-80 hrs in the lab. (By the way, you can get the salaries of all the employees in your department via an Open Records Request). Here is a lovely website which compiled the data for UT-Austin for 2009 and 2010: http://www.collegiatetimes.com/databases/salaries/university-of-texas-at-austin Please note Mack Brown, football coach, is at the top of the list, although I hope his salary dropped recently due to our latest 5-7 season Oh yeah, adjunct professors. Those people are loving hosed up the rear end with no lube. Would you go through an extra 4-6 years of an education being someone's bitch, just to be someone's bitch part-time with no benefits, hoping that being such a bitch for long enough and teaching 5 different classes at 3 different colleges on a contract basis will let you claw into a permanent position someday? I don't want to burst anyone's bubble here, but many more PhDs end up on this track than end up with a reasonably paid ($60-80K) tenure-track job or a cash money bling bling industry job. To many universities, if you aren't hired right away, your research/thesis wasn't interesting enough you're washed up and will be adjunct'n for years in a market where most tenure track jobs are for fresh grads with interesting research. So, welcome to the adjunct track. Again, my pathetic $38K salary is more than what these people make, and I work 8 (maybe 9-10 sometimes) hours at the same place M-F and enjoy excellent health insurance, FSA and 401(k); not driving insanely to make my next Chem 101 class at three different community colleges before coming home to grade 10,000 papers (no, adjuncts aren't paid by the hour). I said it before, but once again: contract basis, not permanent employment, no health insurance, hosed up the rear end. BTW, almost every company goes through layoffs at some point, that's just a fact of life. This is particularly true in this recession. Lots of people lost their jobs in DFW. Some companies, like mine, are lucky (or their executives have enough business sense) to avoid layoffs entirely. But it seems BigPharma is the only segment of the industry that has been consistently laying off scientists by the thousands in the past few years (please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). Is this any worse than the furlough days (forced unpaid vacation) imposed on state employees at UC because the state is too loving broke to pay their employees? (Yes, if you work for a university, you are a state employee). Is this any worse than the University of Texas explicitly freezing pay raises while useless dickhead President Bill Powers makes deep six figures/yr in salary alone? Just saying, private corporations, as much beef as I have with them, aren't the only ones with financial woes that get passed on to employees. Edit: just clarifying, I am NOT at all bragging about my situation or salary (I know fresh-out of college nurses and engineers that make at least 20K$ more than me and I am cool with that since I have no interest in being an engineer or nurse), nor am I at all gleeful about the crappy PhD earnings situation despite that I feel I dodged that particular bullet. These people SHOULD be making at least twice my salary for their investment vs mine (4 years vs 8-10 years) and enjoy job security and good health insurance, bonuses and retirement plans. Some do. But many don't. TL;DR: Think long and hard before going to grad school in science, unless you know you will be studying techniques that are not only useful now, but will still be useful in 5 years when you graduate. If you are OMGSCIENCE!!! and don't care about the cash, go ahead and go, I guess. The money sucks, and the chances of financial success are low. seacat fucked around with this message at 11:08 on May 7, 2011 |
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May 7, 2011 10:53
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I must, btw, note that I am only talking about SCIENCE (chemistry, biology, astronomy, physics PhDs ITT). Humanities have it much., much worse.gninjagnome posted:You can't just look at the income while getting the degree. Getting a PhD is necessary for certain long term career goals in industry and a requirement if you want to be a professor. I can't imagine anyone without a PhD becoming an associate director or higher in the R&D group at my company. I don't have a PhD, but 80% of my department does - it took me 8 years to work my way up to the level of an entry level PhD in my company, which puts me about 3 years behind them. Also, they start off with a higher base salary then my current salary by at least $10K, and after 3 years of working, would have been promoted at least once - in this case the promotions is a pretty big bump in benefits (doubling of targeted bonus and start of getting stock options). It's at least 3-5 years before I would get promoted to that level (and I'm now directly competing with them for promotions). I did get to make more money for the 5 years they were in school, but I have a good 35 working years ahead of me, so they will still net more money over their career, especially if they end up in management positions that I am blocked out of. But consider how many of these associate director of R&D, director of R&D, director of analysis, whatever openings are there in the country vs the number of grads pumped out every year? How many openings do you think early in the USA.. 500? 1000? When I walked with my BS in chem 2007, the ceremony was pretty much the whole College of Natural Sciences lumped together. I saw about 50 PhD's walk, about 10 of them with a PhD in some sort of chemistry, the rest seemed to be in biology or astronomy or nutrition (why was this in the CONS?!!?!?) or something. It doesn't sound like much, and is definitely a large number because huge state school, but weighted-multiply that by the amount of accredited colleges cranking out these degrees in the country. Also consider the huge amounts of scientists laid off in this recession - how can a fresh grad compete against an experienced scientist? How many positions like the ones you mention exist vs amt of fresh PhDs? I don't know, but I used to work with a lot of graduating PhDs, and according to LinkedIn, only about 1 out of 13 has a job like the one you described and none have tenure-track jobs. The rest are postdocs, adjuncts, or blank (presumably unemployed). It's a terrible gamble with 4-6 years of your life. quote:Being a post doc isn't supposed to be a career either - it's to pad your resume so you're more marketable afterwards. Your trying to publish as many papers as possible or learn new techniques, not make a ton of money. quote:Jobs wise - it sucks for everyone out there, PhD or not.
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May 7, 2011 21:45
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Solkanar512 posted:This may be true, but all I hear from the business world is how few highly trained people they have, and how we need more people in the math and sciences to graduate. Of course the business jerks who own everything and have all of the country's wealth complain about not having highly trained people. It encourages more and more people to become highly trained thus driving down the salaries of these highly trained people. The universities are more than happy to accept your tuition dollars (undergraduate) or give you extremely low wages for the amount of work you do (graduate). After extreme amounts of PhDs are pumped out, the corporations then can offer you some ridiculously low salary because you are ridiculously replaceable. Ka-ching! Cheap labor.
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May 8, 2011 01:32
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gninjagnome posted:I agree, it definitely is a gamble but you don't get anywhere without taking some risks. 5 years isn't that long in the grand scheme of things. Despite the hours, most of the PhD's I know look back pretty fondly on grad school. Maybe it's because they could land jobs. I haven't talked to that many people that couldn't get one, so I can see that being extremely frustrating. Definitely agree with you on the risk thing. I just wish people understood the odds better. I know all too many people who have never worked a day in their life who think they will basically be handed a high-paying corporate/tenured academic job along with their PhD. quote:Probably the best way to go is to have a company pay for your PhD. Then you know management likes you, and you have a job once your done. At my company getting 60% of your salary plus tuition covered while working on your degree is a pretty sweet deal. Having no tuition costs or stipend costs to the university makes applications way easier as well (universities love the idea of having access to our departments resources if needed as well). Plus you have a guaranteed job for three years (although you can't quit either). quote:The PhD glut is going to be even worse in 5 years, once everyone that went on to a higher degree because they couldn't land a job graduates.  Like I said before, university education is not a market system. It is not nearly as difficult to get into graduate school as most grad students/professors would have you think.EDIT: So, sorry about the gradschool/nogradschool derail. Here's some content: I was doing some paperwork at my desk and overheard my boss (who doesn't understand basic chemistry) try to train a new technician (a microbiologist who also doesn't understand basic chemistry) to do an acid value titration. This is like the simplest wet chemistry thing you can do, yet she: - Claimed the endpoint was a rich magenta color (with phenolphthalein, it's the first permanently pale pink color - any more and you are in pH 8+ territory) - Used a two-digit balance instead of an analytical balance to weigh out ~0.02 g of material. - Used the worst possible solvent for the material (a nonpolar ester of stearic acid). She used DI water. - Didn't even neutralize the water (our DI water is pH ~5.5). - Ignored the fact that the material didn't dissolve AT ALL. - Obviously it took only one drop of KOH to neutralize the water with undissolved material swirling in it. Her result? 0.034. The CoA said? 1.8. It's like the simplest thing we do and she hosed it up in about 8 different ways. I had to work hard to restrain myself from (a) correcting her (b) cracking up and laughing uncontrollably and (c)  . An unofficial part of my job is to keep her away from the expensive equipment. seacat fucked around with this message at 23:10 on May 8, 2011 |
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May 8, 2011 22:48
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stab stabby posted:Quoting this post from a few pages back because I'm in the exact same boat. I'm graduating with a degree in microbiology in June and have ~ 2 years of mol bio lab experience. Somehow, I'm completely invisible to potential employers. QC lab work for BS or even MS-level scientists is like fast food for teenagers/high school graduates. Nobody wants to do it and nobody is interested in it, it's just where everyone starts out cuz that's where the entry-level jobs are. If you really are invisible (having no luck), and nepotism has gotten you nowhere, and a new grad, your best bet is to go to a scientific staffing agency (I recommend Scientific Careers or the Lab Support division of On Assignment). They will call you in for an "interview" to talk with the recruiter about possible opportunities. They will give you a background check and drug screen to make sure you don't steal TVs or shoot skag. It's cool to tell them you are a new grad just looking for a place to start out. The recruiter will then try to find you an entry-level job, typically on a temp or temp-to-hire basis with a company in your area. You will be working for the temp agency technically until the company hires you or ges rid of you. For some lovely companies (I'm looking at you, Alcon, Pepsi, Coca-Cola) you will temp for up to 2 years with low pay, no health insurance, and no chance of actually getting hired. Sounds lovely? Well, it is, although not that bad in this economy. However, the pot of gold at the end of the poo poo rainbow is that even just a year of professional QC lab work will qualify you for the better, more interesting positions like the ones you imagined while your university fed you bullshit about what a special snowflake you are. QC work is tedious, repetitive, and can drive you insane depending on the company. Stick it out. If you can prove that you can stick it out for a couple of years your options will open since you are now an experienced scientist, not a worthless new grad.
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May 9, 2011 01:01
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Vladimir Putin posted:I dunno I consider getting a Phd one of the best decisions of my life. Also no decent postdoc pays 32k. You start out at 40k with imcreases if you live in a big city. That's still not that much though, so I concede its not for everyone. He's pretty unhappy because he works for an extremely asian dude who he doesn't click with at all, and he's treated more like a lab monkey than a collaborator. Are you saying there's actually decent postdocs out there? I've never really heard of a happy postdoc
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May 10, 2011 15:39
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polyfractal posted:Hey industry biologists/chemists, how much do you guys use the academic biomedical literature? A lot? Sometimes? Never? Do your companies provide subscription access to journals? Some of the better companies like our sister company do have access to academic journals like JACS, though. However I would doubt in any industry lab it's like at a big university where you can go to a library and access anything you want. It's usually only poo poo directly related to your industry.
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May 20, 2011 03:50
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polyfractal posted:(That said, if any of you industry folk have a burning need for a certain type of software or web service, feel free to let me know. I'm shopping around for ideas quote:Generally speaking, it's too bad you guys don't have access to primary literature. I always assumed industry was voraciously reading what academics were writing since it is basically free R&D, guess that was a pretty naive thought Primary lit is some ideas scientifically demonstrated to work in a very controlled environment, that you pay for, basically. Applying it, whether in manufacturing or in medicine or whatever is a whole different story.SIDE NOTE: This rant applies only to USA. I have no idea what science in other countries is like. Industry does what industry has to do to make money. The good R&D / process&scale chem / high purity standard manufacturing / analytical chemistry divisions absolutely subscribe to and read academic journals related to their industry that might improve their methods of either making money (by doing better work or pretending they're doing better work) or increasing regulatory compliance, yes. I would say the directly applicable papers will be read by someone that's making or analyzing something somewhere. But most people don't really give a poo poo about obscure theories on molecular orbitals or the ring strain energy of some compound nobody's ever heard of or (outside of chemistry) astrophysics or evolution. They're not devouring scientific literature about every topic as you envision. The primary purpose of universities is to "create" knowledge, applicable or not. The real world uses whatever the real world needs at the time. Another problem though is that it's hard to speak of "industry science" in general because there are so many vast very specialized fields. Whenever people speak to me of "chemist in industry", I think manufacturing (making poo poo) or analytical (measuring poo poo, whether it be human blood or fertilizer or water or whatever). For manufacturing, whether you're making cranberry juice or toothpaste or explosives or drugs, maybe 1 in 100 academic articles will actually have something useful to you, and then you have to adapt that method to your facilities, prove to management that it's worth whatever you have to pay (not just for the journal subscription but for any equipment, reagents, whatever). Also consider most university research is obviously done on a small lab scale, which is fine for analysis, but scaling up processes to make poo poo in industry-sized batches is HUGELY different from the lab. I don't know if pharma is different since the amount of active ingredient in most medications is generally on the ug-mg scale-- maybe Sundae can comment. It seems that with the incredible (well, maybe not so more -- offshoring of manufacturing) amount of stuff that gets made in the whole of the USA, every scientific article would have a purpose SOMEWHERE. But there are a lot fewer jobs than there are university students cranking out papers, and the jobs that require scientific and technical knowledge (OUTSIDE of medicine) are getting fewer while the amount of managers and bureaucrats keeps growing and growing. Remember, universities are not a market - you can research whatever the gently caress you want as long as you pay tuition (undergrad) or provide vast amounts of cheap (and possibly free if you are on say, an NSF fellowship where the university pays nothing) labor and TA and grade papers and also even possibly pay tuition (grad). Tons of poo poo at our plant gets shipped to other companies for testing just because it's often much cheaper to pay someone who only tests for compound X or does calorimetry on Y type of product than to research journals (which we dont have access to LOL), have a senior scientist develop and validate a method, equip your lab, write up the necessary paperwork to have the method be government-compliant and hire competent educated people to do the analysis and write up the results in an ISO:9000/cGMP compliant way. Much easier to seal a sample, send it to a certified facility, and not to have to worry about any of that poo poo because they are a certified lab and the CoA they send you proves their compliance and you can just slap those results onto your product directly. There are also some private companies "hybrid" R&D fields like medical research, alternative fuel research, which are funded either by rich fuckers who aren't bothered by some small amount like $10,000,000 for a potential huge payoff, or by venture capitalists, but these opportunities are terribly, terribly few into and generally require more than a bachelors or masters science degree (think MD/PhD) or some hell of experience or connections. Most likely you'll be working on some boring rear end poo poo and you won't see a scientific paper for the first couple years of your career. I personally think that the majority of literature produced by academia goes unread and unused by most people in industry. But to put a silver lining on that cloud, you never know what tidbit of knowledge COULD be useful in the future (although if it's over 10 years old, it is probably in oblivion). I am young in my career so if anyone wants to contradict me please feel free, it would prolly make me feel better. I'm 100% sure that nobody has ever read or quoted any of MY papers TL;DR: Use of academic literature in industry is an incredibly convoluted topic and I'm pretty sure most papers that are published don't get read. seacat fucked around with this message at 06:02 on May 21, 2011 |
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May 21, 2011 04:27
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Harold Ramis Drugs posted:1.) How useful is having a second Bachelor's degree? All the random biology credits I needed for my food science degree put me about 60% complete for a B.S. in Biology at this school. During my unemployment I applied to several graduate schools but I wasn't accepted anywhere and I came to the conclusion that my lovely grades were poisoning my chances for success. I'm enjoying taking classes again and learning a shitload, but I can't help but be concerned that a second B.S. won't do me any good in the job hunt. I'm hovering at around a 3.5 GPA this time through and I'll be graduating by this time next year. Short answer: 1. Depends. If you honestly made a huge mistake with your first degree I don't think that anyone would hold it against you assuming you can explain yourself. Your experience (well, except the job you got fired from) will be a much huger plus than any second bachelor's however. Why did you major in "food science" and why aren't you going to make the same mistake again and how would you pay for it? If you're going for another BS, do better than Biology. Biology majors are a dime a dozen, our lab is flooded with them and they usually don't know dick. The better choice would be grad school but it seems you're not having much luck with that. 2. Completely worthless. Even what you majored in doesn't matter as much as you think. Minors matter even less (i.e. not at all). If you are worried about jobs, major in chemistry or CS even if it takes longer and costs more, because nobody gives a gently caress about your minor besides you. Actually if you are worried about jobs, stay the gently caress away from science and do engineering, accounting or nursing, or trade school. 3. Completely worthless. Even academics don't care much about your TA job. I have never been asked about my TAing at a job interview, ever. I guess it could close the gap, sure, but if you can do something useful, do that instead. 4. Mostly worthless, nobody really cares. Do whatever it takes to pass and intern your rear end off and learn useful poo poo. That said, I have questions for you! What exactly do you learn majoring in "food science"? I haven't heard of anyone from a US school doing this major. Is it like nutrition or something? That said I work with a "food science" major from China and while she doesn't know what the gently caress is going on with regards to chemistry she can do gruntwork and follow directions quite well. What courses do you take in that major exactly? seacat fucked around with this message at 09:08 on May 23, 2011 |
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May 23, 2011 08:54
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Radd McCool posted:I'm double majoring in biochem and biology with a math minor. Have you seen applicants along those lines, with a more specialized degree? Do they fare better than the general bio majors? Surprisingly enough, I haven't run across any biochem majors applying to our positions. I didn't say this, sorry, but I am a QC(mainly HPLC/GC/IR, analytical) chemist (BS in Chem) and I work for a cosmetics/food/nutritional supplements light manufacturer (yeh weird combo I know, but we really do make all three), so maybe the techniques just don't mesh at all for our lab or something. I'm sure if you asked someone that works at a Forensics lab or a genetic disease screening lab or a sperm bank that person would interact with a lot more biochemistry majors I am also tempted to say that it's also because most Biochemistry majors tend to be the fo-real-science people and go on to grad school (and hence I don't know them because most people I work and network with just got a BS), whereas a lot higher proportions of Bio and Chem majors stop at the bachelors level (Bio because they have a mental breakdown when 99.99% of them don't get into med school, Chem because you can actually make a living (not a fantastic one, but a living :P!) with a BS level chemistry job). But that would be completely anectodal to say that on my part.Our lab has extremely high turnover (I've seen no less than 35 people working here in about 2 years). Of those people, about 15% were actual chemistry majors, 60% people with some sort of biology major, and 25% people with some weird and/or completely inapplicable degree like food science or theoretical astrophysics or double major in pharmacology and French poetry or something. The chemistry major people blow everyone out of the water (I'm truly, honestly not being biased here, there have been about 5 chemists here including myself and they all kicked serious rear end, although I'm sure there are lovely ones out there). The bio people are mostly useless but what do you expect, they haven't really studied the principles and most just complain that they didn't get into med school/that they have to work this lovely job. The weird degrees people don't know the principles either but they can generally be trained well enough to not be a nuisance (maybe they're happy they just got a job). YMMV I can see how someone in school (or a crappy career counselor lol) might make the case that your math minor would suggest mathematical literacy. In reality, your math minor is completely useless except as recreation to you if you really like math. Now, if you had a minor in computation coupled with actual computation experience (like undergrad research, or internships), that would be much better at suggesting literacy in a useful profession. I do not think a minor of any sort would help for grad school unless two candidates were COMPLETELY IDENTICAL IN EVERY WAY and one had a minor in whatever and one did not. A double major would help, e.g. someone with a double bachelor's in biochemistry and CS would make a fantastic candidate for a graduate program in bioinformatics. However I am no grad school admissions counselor, and have not gone to graduate school, although I do know, correspond with, and used to work with a fuckton of graduate students, so take my advice with a grain of salt. From what I understand the things that matter most to graduate programs are (in this order): (1) Undergraduate research -- how long you did it, what you did research in and what papers you published (2) Undergraduate GPA/courses, especially graduate courses you took as an undergrad, (2) GREs, (4) everything else. Yes, there is a tie for second. I'm not meaning to rail on you guys or anything, I hope I don't come off that way, but you asked. It's just that I think your time (and money) is probably better spent -- all a minor really says is "meh, I took a few extra classes", and some might even see it as "meh, I'm kinda interested in adding this to my resume but I too lazy to actually do undergraduate research in it and would rather just take a few extra classes". If you want to try to get into grad school, hit that undergrad research and try to take some graduate-level classes (if your school allows it, I do not know of any that don't). If you want to get a "real" job, I'll give you the advice I give everyone: (a) accept that the economy right now SUCKS rear end and nobody is hiring and EVERYONE has been laid off and so prepare that you might not be doing exactly what you love and might even be doing something you hate and (b) rather than focusing on what coursework your degree requires, focus on what industry you want to work in (manufacturing? pharmaceuticals? health care? forensics?), hit up everyone you know and everyone they know until you find some people in that industry, get them to tell you what techniques are the most used, and find a lab, either working part time doing undergrad research, and/or preferably an industry lab where you can intern, where you will learn and master those skills. Real world science and real world jobs in general at any career stage are not nearly as compartmentalized as the university world where you can pick-and-choose-and-mix-and-match what you do to get the ideal experience. Academic jobs on the other hand are not as "controlled" by market forces - if you are successful (ding tenure-track), you will generally have a lot more freedom to pick what you want to do and what you are interested in researching and you will rarely have to wear a suit and tie or drum up business or watch your language or shave, rather being forced to do what the market demands (although there will be great pressure for funding). You just have to talk to people in both to decide what you want. There are fantastic labs in academia and incredibly lovely labs in academia and fantastic labs/companies outside academia and INCREDIBLY lovely labs/companies outside academia. I know people in academia that are miserable and hate it and people there that couldn't be happier and can't imagine doing anything else and I know people in industry that are miserable and hate every tedious repetitive dealingwithfuckingmanagement day of their lives and also people in industry (like myself) who love their jobs despite whatever insanity THE COMPANY lays upon them every day. Focus on what you will be doing every day (this is why I stress talk to people that work in an industry/graduate students in a certain academic field), and go from there. The bulk of my 2+ yrs of undergrad research was in organic synthesis and I was shooting to be a supermegamoneymaking bigshot chemist in BigPharma after my bachelors, with my extreme bachelors level knowledge or round bottom flasks and fractional distillation and poo poo, than I learned that like 3% of industry jobs are in organic synthesis and they only hire PhDs LOL. So I shifted my focus a bit and switched to something else I have a passion for, instrumental analysis & repair, and it's (solely) due to that experience with my university that I have a non-retail/food service job now and I genuinely do love my job. It's a complicated world out there
seacat fucked around with this message at 09:02 on May 27, 2011 |
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May 27, 2011 08:38
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Bobatron posted:So I got a temp Job working R&D at a Biotech Company that develops Diagnostic machines. I have noticed that the company itself is like 80-90% temps is that the state of the industry or is it just this company? That is one thing I will say about my job which is laughable in some ways. We DO hire every one of our temps that isn't a total fuckup, and they DO get good (not fantastic, but good) health insurance, 401(k) with company match, etc etc and are not strung along as temps for months to years.
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Jun 1, 2011 03:42
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gninjagnome posted:At my company, they took them away so you have to go to medical and get it looked at, no matter how minor the injury. Get a paper-cut - trip to the medical. Luckily our safety/EHS person quit months ago (she knew gently caress-all about anything anyway), but now we have nobody to report injuries/accidents to. They haven't replaced her. I wonder who even updates that "This plant has worked X days without a recordable accident" sign, or if that sign is just random made up numbers. The only person who tries to limit REAL dangerous behavior in the lab like heating explosive and flammable poo poo on the bench (not in the hood) without safety glasses is me and another chemist. quote:My pens kept getting stolen so I BOUGHT MY OWN and labelled them with my name and they still get stolen.
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Jun 8, 2011 06:39
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Sundae posted:This is certainly the case at my company, at least.
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Jun 12, 2011 04:54
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Appachai posted:Hey thread, I'm a postdoc at a big pharma company. My project is crystallizing membrane proteins. You didn't think this thread was going to get less depressing, did you? Also, you can't drop a bomb like that without following it up with some stories. Also, outside of BigPharmaChat thread is really not that depressing, at least most people seem to have jobs.... Check out the lawyer thread for depression. The first post literally says no jobs, become an alcoholic, die alone.
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Jul 17, 2011 10:32
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Sundae posted:I'm gone. My entire line got cut, even the managers. (This even goes for my old company, which was horribly mismanaged but still nothing like what you've described)And if you do like formulating lotions etc (I don't know your gender, tends to be a girl thing) all the better!
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Aug 16, 2011 21:41
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Kinetica posted:So how bad is it for jobs in pharmacology? Ive been working in a lab for the last several years, and I really enjoy the research. I still do have time to go and change my major right now- I'm biochem at the moment, but I suppose I could switch to chemical engineering, or go to med school... PS, they also said pharmacy school is becoming the new law school (no jobs die alone) so unless ya REALLY want to be a pharmacist I wouldnt go that route. If youre interested in medical science there are four year programs in Clinical Lab Science that actually provide job training. My friend did one of those and is making 56k at a hospital (against my low 40k with my Chem degree) Job openings for newly minted PhDs are pretty scarce in any field. The schoolz just got greedy and cranked out too many of them. Careful with biochem. It limits the employable techniques you learn, a lot. My sister went for a PhD in computer science because she heard horror stories about unemployment among BCh PhDs. Sorry this is all anectodal evidence. I hope someone contradicts me and there are some fields hiring like mad out there right now. Congrats to you for thinking about this sort of stuff BEFORE graduating and being screwed
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Aug 17, 2011 22:38
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Appachai posted:Yeah Material Science isn't a life science. Kinetica posted:conference where everyone is hiring Call the gently caress out of Dr. Carpenter, and get his opinion on your situation. However also take that with a grain of salt because the science PhD SuperGods that make 6 figures publishing dozens of papers a year at universities love pushing people into their career tracks (because they think everyone can be as successful as they were, when in fact they are anomalies). If you love biochemistry, you'll probably hate chemical engineering and any sort of engineering. Engineering and science are closely linked and they're both very technical and difficult, but they are NOT the same. I started off in electrical engineering and ended up as a very happy chemist. I'm not bashing EE or ChemE at all, that stuff is awesome and those guys make more money than I do fo sho, it just wasn't for me. Check out http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3424239 as well, it has some interesting info, including content by me. I don't know enough about med school to tell you what your chances are but tanking your freshman year, even due to an illness, is a major black mark on a med school app. Sorry dude, I know that sucks, but there are going to be 500 applicants that got 4.0s their freshman year. If you do seriously decide on med school swap your major. There are 1,000,000,000 biochemistry majors applying to med school and all of them have done research and published papers, pick something that makes you stand out more. As far as SCIENCE (not engineering), I think that at the bachelor's level, chemistry is the most employable of the natural sciences (astronomy, physics, geology, biology, etc). Well, actually, materials is awesome, but I don't know of many uni's offering programs in material sciences. If you do swap for chem you'll definitely be a lab monkey for the first few years but assuming you don't suck there are lots of options after you do your time. Chemistry degrees are pretty much the same curriculum wherever you go, and there arn't many options, but this is actually a plus to employers: as long as you did reasonably well they know what knowledge they can expect you to have. Oh yeah, don't do synthesis. If you're concerned about jobs, do analytical chemistry, unless you absolutely dread it. I did undergrad research in organic synthesis for 2 years, was published, had an excellent gpa, the whole 9 yards. I tried hard to get a job making molecules. I failed miserably. Compared to the number of people who specialize in it, there are very few synthesis jobs outside of BigPharma (and for the state of that industry just check out the rest of this thread). Many jobs are being outsourced to China and India along with the rest of the USA manufacturing base.
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Aug 18, 2011 02:06
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teardrop posted:Resume help? (cross-posted from the meeting interviewers thread)
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Aug 31, 2011 15:43
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Solkanar512 posted:I'm hesitant to even suggest this because I know what it's like, but find a sketchy lab with high turn over. They always need people and once you have a year or two of experience employers won't care that you don't have a BS in Microbiological Applied Food Safety Sciences or whatever bullshit they're scamming the government
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Sep 27, 2011 15:19
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I hope I'm not derailing the thread too much but TouchyMcFeely/ascii genitals I would love to know more about your jobs. I've been highly interested in being a field service rep since holding a job at my university as a low-level instrumentation repair guy (basically helping students run the instruments and repairing minor problems like clogs/leaks in HPLCs, replacing capillaries for CEs, changing out gases/lamps/etc, finding workarounds to ever-present software quirks, simple stuff like that). I really loved that job but it paid diddly squat. Since moving on from that into industry I have been working almost exclusively with Waters HPLCs and a few different brands of IRs. I would be really unhappy working in a chemistry lab that did not involve instrumentation. I do love chemistry and science in general, but I really love equipment (also a car repair nut) and it is incredibly satisfying to me to diagnose and repair instrumental problems. Normally I would jump all over your companies' postings but I started a new job fairly recently (9 months ago) with a much higher level of responsibility (and stress) which I hate to leave so early, since they pay pretty well and I am learning an incredible lot. And we're in the middle of a FDA response I'm a huge part of, so leaving right now would pretty much nuke all contacts/future networking opporotunities I could have at that company. Also due to some poor choices during school and the economy postgraduation my credit still sucks and will for a year or two and that is a big thing due to expense accounts.. luckily my driving record is perfect and I have nothing else bad in my background check. How satisfied are you guys with your jobs? How happy are you salary-wise? Is there more potential for advancement being a FSE as opposed to just being a lab chemist? How is your work-life balance? Is it exciting to get to travel, or tedious? Any information you want to share would be greatly appreciated. 
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Feb 5, 2012 19:43
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Sundae posted:My guess is a combination of "the midwest," "engineers and their general masochism," and that the job pays a good 2-3X what most jobs in Indiana pay. Even if they understand that the boat could really use a good rocking, they probably can't afford to be the one rocking it. Cynical side of me coming out here, but never underestimate an engineer's ability to keep a straight face while stating that he, himself, is not deserving of anything other than what he explicitly signed a contract for.
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Jun 23, 2012 17:46
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Sundae posted:They're lumping it under salaried-exempt, just like IT companies (try to) do.
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Jun 23, 2012 21:04
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SSundae posted:So here's a THING.
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Jul 3, 2012 03:03
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Solkanar512 posted::chorus:HI ASHWAT:chorus: Solkanar, what you did seems to be a fusion of metrology and management. Quality experience does really translate well because it shows you can (a) deal with high levels of stress (b) deliver results on time and (c) pay extreme attention to detail and (d) (EDIT) multitask like hell.
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Aug 15, 2012 14:03
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