Link Round-Up 14th October 2014

Sorry for the delay on getting this post up, yesterday was a busy one! I set up my first lot of students on their lab experiment, went to a careers fair and was a conduit to google maps while I navigated supervisor to Staples. That's not even a joke. 

As one of the useful things I did yesterday was all about graduate recruitment, and as it's the time of year when quite a few firms are hiring, for week's link round up I thought I'd look at some of the different graduate careers websites.

1. Prospects
   Prospects is one of the biggest recruitment websites. The best thing about prospects is that it doesn't just have job adverts, it also has careers advice, career matching quizzes and extensive information on what you can really expect from pretty much any career you can think of. Prospects doesn't just do jobs, it also has a lot of information about post-graduate study, making it a one stop shop for what to do when you graduate! As a tool for searching for work Prospects seems to be a very popular place to advertise graduate jobs as well as industrial placement years and summer internships, so its a good starting point for a job search.
2. Target Jobs
   Target is another of the big recruitment sites offering graduate job listings and internship opportunities. Like Prospects, it has plenty of career's advice and some good pages on applications. They don't have as much information on specific jobs, but it's certainly worth checking out for some extra opportunities and application information.
3. Milkround
   Another of the big recruitment websites, Milkround isn't that great for advice, but it does list a lot of work opportunities.
4. University Careers Website (Leeds)
   Most universities will have their own careers web pages. They tend to have lots of information on choosing a career and on how to make the best application possible. The only downside is that any vacancies they advertise may only be viewable to their own students.

And finally, here's Foxes cover of Don't Stop Me Now from Mummy on the Orient Express. Or, the even more awesome Brett Domino Trio's Doctor Who Song 

How do you choose a degree subject?

I thought today I'd have a look at choosing a degree subject as we're in the middle of university applications season. Fingers crossed I'll provide some useful thoughts how you might go about working out what to do at university.

Choosing a subject if you have a specific job in mind:
You've got a job in mind? Well that's great as it can help simplify things a lot. Want to be a doctor, do medicine. Want to be a nurse, go for nursing. Want to be a lawyer, you don't actually have to do law... So here's the kicker some jobs don't have specific subject requirements. A lot of the big law firms will accept graduates from a range of subjects, why? Well if you get a good degree, it sort of acts like a sign says you are a strong independent learner and that you have vital skills in research and analysis. Therefore, is possible to apply and get a job even if you don't have the most logical degree for it, especially if you do a relevant summer placement or have work experience. As an example, law is actually a career destination for science graduates, particularly in patent law where you have to understand technical documents to assess potential patents. Another good example of not needing to study a specific degree is teaching. To me personally if you want to teach, why not go for the degree and PGCE option? You'll give yourself so many more options and may be more employable as you'll have focused subject expertise. 

Choosing a subject if you have no idea what you want to do after university or if your ideal job has degree flexibility:

It probably goes without saying, but start with the subject or subjects you like the most or things related to them. My favourite A-level was physics, but I was also interested in computer science and engineering courses to begin with. So how do you narrow down that short list? I implemented two main tactics. Firstly, I went through a set of prospectuses and looked at structures of courses I was interested in doing. This was so I could see what the modules were, and I got an idea of the compulsory elements and whether I'd be happy doing them. Secondly, I looked at websites to see what graduates from different courses do. A really great place to look for this information is prospects.ac.uk, which has a section on "Options with you subject" where you just click on a subject and get information on which careers use that degree and careers where having that degree would be useful. In my case, after looking at course details I worked out that computer science or physics would be the right degree choice for me and I made the final decision on which to do based on careers I could pick. I ended up going for physics as it seemed to leave more options open and, as I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, that seemed like a good idea to me!

What if you want to do a subject but don't have the right qualifications?
Firstly, don't panic, you will still be able get where you want to go and there are a few things you can do. The first option is to look for foundation year courses, which allow people who don't have the required qualifications to get onto the degree course they want to do. These courses work by giving you the grounding you'll need to do your degree of choice and you are often automatically enrolled into the first year of the full degree program once you pass the foundation year. Secondly you could stay at school or college to get the extra qualifications you need. Finally, not all universities have the same entry requirements, so if you'd rather just get stuck in to a degree, there might be somewhere with flexible entry requirements that you could go to.

The main thing, however you choose your course, is to never be afraid to ask for help with the decision. Talk to teachers, careers advisers and directly to universities to get the guidance you need to make the right choice for you! 

Link Round-up 29th September 2014

Happy Monday everyone! Here's this week's link round-up:

1. Sexism in Space.
   Ok so I've gone for a slightly sensationalist title here. On the positive side Yelena Serova is the first Russian woman on the International Space Station! On the negative side at the pre-launch press conference Yelena was asked about make-up, her hair and if her daughter would miss her. Well done to the press for continuing to be the problem and not the solution.
2. The heart of the milky way smells like rum.
   Yes that's right, the alcoholic drink! Thanks to radio astronomy it's been discovered that a dust cloud close to the centre of the Milky Way contains molecules of ethyl formate, which gives raspberries their taste and rum its smell. However, the similarities to more earthly rum don't end there. The same dust cloud also contains billions of litres of alcohol! Unfortunately we won't be partying there any time soon as the gas cloud is around 27,000 light years away.
3. 
   
   Too few fellowships of the Royal Society for female researchers.
   On 19th September the Royal Society announced who would be recipients of this year's University Research Fellowships. Unfortunately out of  the 43 awards made only 2 were made to women. Now, could this be due to around only 5% of the applicants being female? No, in fact 19% of applications were from women, which isn't great, but that's almost 1 in 5. On top of this, looking at previous years the percentage of awards that were made to women was more comparable to the percentage of women applying in the first place. In the article above Professor Athene Donald discusses the figures, issues and what could be done to improve things in the future.

And finally... The piano guys are back with a medley of Batman music! 

Currently Reading The Broken Eye by Brent Weeks. The same book as last time because its 816 pages long!
Currently Watching Psycho Pass. In the near future people are constantly psychologically screened to assess their mental health with the aim of catching those with a 'criminal mindset' before they can ever harm society. Psycho Pass follows investigations of the Public Safety Bureau as they try catch both active and latent criminals. Spoiler alert, it's pretty awesome.

It's the Final Countdown...

... will things ever be the same again?

I can't hide from it any longer. In 9 days time I'll got a year to go on my PhD. How do I feel about that? Pretty happy to be honest. I've had a tough few months research-wise so instead of being the panic station this threshold would have been a little earlier in the year, I'm actually pretty relieved.

In many ways, now is a good time to take stock and to attempt to work out what happens for me next in terms of work and even applying for jobs. In many ways this year won't be much different from the others. However, it looks like I'm going to have extra pulls on my time in addition to what I'm used to. 

Firstly, I'm going to be doing 'official' demonstrating work this year. I'm not sure how this is going to effect things for me other than I should get paid for work I was already doing. However, at the moment I am revamping a lab script and desperately trying to remember how I did my 3rd year project; which was 3 years ago. Yeah, that's fun. Beforehand, with my unofficial demonstrating if there were things I couldn't remember I could pass the problem on, where as now... Well, that's not really going to be the case. I think a few days stood in front of the laser going, "Why? Why!? WHY!?" should be enough to help me work out most things. However, I don't feel like I've really got the time to be doing that.

I'm also beginning to look at and think about applying for jobs. I know I'm a year away from finishing, but quite a lot of graduate schemes are already open for applications! Therefore, if you're a final year of degree, beginning to look for work in September and October for the following year is not a bad idea. There are jobs that won't be open for application just yet, but by thinking about this early I'm hoping to be clarify what I want to do (by reading websites and going to careers fairs) and I'll hopefully be prepared for when the right jobs for me open up, or I'll be able to apply before the ones currently open close.  

Then there's that other little thing I need to complete. My thesis. 70,000 words of joy for me to write. I haven't started so much on the words yet, but I do have a plan and a thesis template set up, so that's something, right? I mean I'm ready, I'm prepared, but not quite started yet. I actually don't feel that worried about writing up at the moment. As the day when I stop getting paid looms I'm sure I will be, but right now I'm ok with it. I've written big documents before and I'll have plenty to say, I'm just not looking forward to rewriting things.

So, final year starts here. Roll on next September!

Link Round-Up 15th September 2014

It's September so, it's a time of fresh starts for a lot of people. However, some things aren't changing, like how it's time for a link round-up!

1. The Rosetta probe has a landing site!
   The European Space Agency (ESA) have selected a landing site for the robotic comet lander Philae from the Rosetta probe! The landing area, catchily named Site J, is far from a perfect place to land the robot, but it's the best available option. All being well Philae will land on the comet on 11th November, where it will hopefully make the first ever measurements of a comet, from a comet. To follow Rosetta's progress, pop over to the ESA's dedicated Rosetta blog at http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta .
2. Scotland and Science Funding
   With the Scottish independence vote to be held later this week, the BBC has reported on the discussion about how Scotland leaving the union may effect scientific research. It has previously been reported that a 'yes' vote would end existing funding arrangements, so an independent Scotland will need set up their own funding bodies. As a result it seems scientists aren't very certain that independence is a good thing, with 69% telling Times Higher Education that they will vote 'no'. 
3. After some debate, it looks like the Higgs boson is decaying as predicted.
   Scientists at the LHC can't directly detect the Higgs boson, instead they look at the particles it becomes when it decays. The Higgs decays into photon (light particle) pairs, but the LHC has detected more photons than expected. This has prompted speculation of a second Higgs or other particles being involved in Higgs decay. However, after crunching more and more of the Higgs data, researchers at CERN now think that the Higgs is behaving as current theories would predict after all. 

And finally... if you've not heard of the Lego Academic twitter feed, check out this article on the New Scientist website.
Also, I'm launching a new blog! Overly Excited Opinions is a review blog, so if you want to know what I think about media and literature, rather than science, head on over and check it out.

Currently Reading The Broken Eye by Brent Weeks, the next volume in the Lightbringer series. I'm not very far in yet, but the fall out after the events of the last book is still being felt and it's shaping up to be a great read. I just hope my favourite characters survive!
Currently Listening to The Awesome Mix Volume 1 aka the soundtrack to one of the best films of the summer, Guardians of the Galaxy. Will it make me want to dance around the lab? Why yes, of course it will, and I don't think I'll be able to resist.

Final Thoughts on Photon 14

As a finally summing up about my experience at Photon 14, here's short list of some ideas and thoughts about the conference and what I might do at conferences in the future.

Just in case you missed my original Photon conference diaries, they can be found in 3 parts here, here and here.

So after Photon 14 I think that....

1. Poorly constructed talks really annoy me so I promise to do my best to always construct my talks well.
   At the conference I saw a few talks that really missed the mark for me. Most of the problems stemmed from a very simple sentence, "I'll just skip over this slide for time". Now, to me that smacks of being under prepared and to an extent I think it doesn't look very professional. Another pet hate I had was "Here's a concept that is important to this work but my colleague will talk about that in a few minutes". If its important to your work you should describe it, I might not be here for the rest of the session. Other's peoples talks shouldn't be used to convey your key concepts, as we don't all have the luxury of that and it isn't fair. So rant over, to sum up this means that I think that it's important that you have rehearsed your talk well and that it is fully self contained.
2. Tablets are useful and yet not useful at the same time for note taking.
   I made notes on my iPad during the conference which, on the one hand, worked really well as I didn't have to write them up and struggle with my dodgy handwriting! On the other hand it was actually harder for me to type and listen than write and listen, but I got better at that with practice so I think that wouldn't be a problem next time. Also, there was quite a temptation to procrastinate as there was all of the internet at my fingertips. So, I found the best way to use a tablet was to turn the wifi off and use a note-taking program to help with taking my notes.
3. You should always tell people what you are doing.
   It's well worth explaining what you do to anyone you meet at a conference, as you never know where it might lead. I spoke to a couple of people about what I did and one conversation might well lead to a collaboration. So it's always well worth having an elevator pitch of your project to hand just in case!
4. You should take in concepts in talks that don't necessarily link directly to your work
   I found it was worth really listening in all biologically related talks as it actually helped me notice trends in research and work out where I might fit on the greater landscape of research (and what might make my work stand out). Even in some of the very tangentially related stuff it's worth taking stuff in. I found finding out about the amazing properties of fibre optic cables really interesting. It is something I'll remember and you never know, it might come in handy someday! 

And that concludes my coverage of my last conference of the year! 

I don't know if I'll be going to many more conferences in the next twelve months as I might just be chained to my desk writing. But I hope than my diaries and thoughts on my experiences have been interesting and (hopefully) entertaining too!

Nine Months of BLOGden Blogging

I hadn't really remembered until I saw a message on the Ogden Trust facebook page but, officially anyway, my time as a Odgen Trust Blogger (BLOGden Blogger) has actually come to an end as of 1st September. I started this blog as part of the BLOGden project to hopefully share my experiences as an alumni of the trust with other people. However, just because BLOGden is over, that doesn't mean I'll be stopping writing. Oh no. I'll still be here tapping away every week posting links, new articles about what I've been up to and bits of PhD/Science related information and stories that I manage to conjure out of my brain.

While I'm here, I'd like to say thank you very much for taking the time to read my blog. It's always nice to see that my traffic counter has gone up when I log on and I hope you've enjoyed what I've written so far and continue to enjoy the things I write in the future.

That's the main message done. As I'm a scientist, I can't help but give you some data to sum up my BLOGden time, but feel free to look away now!

Between 31st January & 31st August I have:

Written 33 posts

Had 1337 views (not all of those are from my parents... I hope)

Had an average of 191 views per month

With "I've got an answer, but what's the question again?" being my most viewed (clicked on) post with a grand total of 65 views

Wow. That's pretty awesome! Fingers crossed the next 7 months will go just as well.