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I have to do some "interviews" about jobs in science related fields for school and I was wondering if anyone would like to help. I have just a few questions that you don't need to go into great detail about(but may if you so wish).
What sources did you use to find your job?
What was your first job?
If it is different, what is your current job?
What are average starting salaries in your profession?
What are advanced positions salaries?
What sort of skills do you need for this job?
That's it, you can add any other questions if you want, and thanks.
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
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I work in food/pesticide residue chemistry, but my background is in Botany. Would that work for you?
Posts: 173 | Registered: Jun 2002
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Anything science related is good(ie. engineering, chemistry, teaching science, biology, computer, anything that has to do with science).
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
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My current science job is a job I've worked before as I coop student. I called my old boss and asked if she wanted to hire me again, she said sure and here I am.
What was your first job?
My first job was a paperboy My first science job was for Agriculture Canada working in the Pesticides Research division. We were developing pheromone-based pesticides to be used as an alternative to harsh chemicals or bioengineered plants.
If it is different, what is your current job?
Currently I'm a biochemist for a big pharma company in the Preclinical Discovery department. So, basically I design ways to test the new drug potentials to see how good they are.
What are average starting salaries in your profession?
Starting salary for an undergraduate position is around $45,000 (Cdn)
What are advanced positions salaries?
That really depends on what degree you have. If you've only got a B.Sc. you're probably going to find a ceiling of about 50 grand. If you have a Masters or a Ph.D. clearly it's going to be more than that, although, I honestly don't know what that would be.
What sort of skills do you need for this job?
A healthy dislike of rats, rabbits, monkeys and people Really, you need a background in biochemistry (clearly) as well as a strong background in organic chemistry. Analytical isn't so important, but analytical lab techniques are a must. My math skills should probably be better, I don't know enough calculus to do complex mechanism modeling, for example. I guess you should also have taken some pharmacology courses somewhere along the line. But that's just me. We also have a molecular biologist on the team who keeps tabs on the cell cultures, a clinical chemist, a statistician. Pretty much any degree in something sciencey, engineeringy or mathy can find its way into big pharma.
Was that what you were looking for?
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I went to a district job fair. It was run like a giant cattle drive: teachers were sent to classrooms where they were interviewed by principals who may or may not have been looking for a teacher in that field. They asked you questions and took notes on your answers and rated them from one two or three! Later, principals looking for a specific type of teacher could pull up interview transcripts. Unbelievable. I had about eight years of full time experience at this time. My interview was with an Assistant Principal, and it went well, so he had me talk to his principal for a further interview. She and I did not see eye to eye at all. (At the time, all I had was a vague feeling, but later information confirmed it.) So they basically said, "We'll be in touch," and sent me on my way. I was really dissatisfied with this, so I sought out the Assistant Principal of the only school I was really interested in working in. (I had essentially made up my mind to quit teaching, because I was very unhappy in my prior job. I had received a couple of job offers as a programmer in the area, one for Lockheed Martin in Cape Kennedy, which was quite a commute, and one for some other defense contractor. I figured if I could get a job at this one school, I would stick with teaching long enough to see if I got happier.) I told this AP that I was really disappointed, because I really had wanted to speak to him. He took me in and interviewed me, and offered me a job on the spot. If it hadn't been for my chutzpah in bucking the "rules" of this cattle call, I probably would not be a teacer today.
quote:What was your first job?
My first part time job of any significance was as a tutor at my university's learning center. I also worked part time jobs as the editor of the student newspaper, an SAT prep teacher, a university instructor, a summer school teacher, a summer camp head counselor, and a substitute. I very much owe my start, and thus my career, to the old boy network. My father's position in the university (and my high school accomplishments) got me considered for tha first tutoring job when I was a freshman. It was not normally their policy to hire freshmen. Same goes for the class teaching SAT prep, and for my summer school gig.
My first full time job was teaching math at a private school in Miami. Again, it was my contacts that landed me that job. I was unenployed (or, employed as a sub) in South Carolina, and the school year was starting and there were no private school jobs. I was not certified, and did not believe I wanted to work in the public school system. I had a lot of contacts in private schools in Miami, because I went to one and many of my teachers had gone on to adminisrative jobs in other schools, and also through my father. After subbing for a month or two there, I finally landed that first full-time job.
That job was teaching middle school math, which I did for eight years or so.
quote:If it is different, what is your current job?
I currently teach high school math. This year, that's precalculus, honors algebra 2, and probability and statistics.
quote:What are average starting salaries in your profession?
Starting salary for a public school teacher in Miami is around 33 or 34 thousand a year. Starting salary at my old private school is around 27 thousand a year, I believe. Starting salary in my current district is around thirty thousand a year. Experience increases are tiny, so a teacher with, say, four years of experience only earned $200 a year more than a new teacher. The big jump is at ten years, which I will finally hit next year. (Only my full time experience counted in this determination. My experience teaching at Clemson University, and summer school, and SAT Prep, and subbing, did not count.) I currently make just under 32 thousand a year. The median national income for a teacher in the US is 36 or 37 thousand a year, but I live in a very poor area. (In the larger sense. My particular community is wealthy, but the county and the state are not.)
quote:What are advanced positions salaries?
Around here, teaching tops out around 40 thousand or so. I know that in the northeast and in the west, salaries in the 60s are not that unusual.
quote:What sort of skills do you need for this job?
You need to KNOW YOUR CONTENT (I believe), you need to have excellent communication skills, you need to be extremely comfortable in front of large groups of people, and you need to have a sense of how students of whatever age you teach are wired together: how much is appropriate to expect intellectually and emotionally. You should also be more organized than I am.
Current job I found because on my first engineering job we worked with this company, they did excellent work for us.
What was your first job?
First "real" job was as a programmer.
If it is different, what is your current job?
Now I work as an electrical engineer.
What are average starting salaries in your profession?
I'm guessing nowadays around $30k, but you can check IEEE to be sure.
What are advanced positions salaries? Well, if you go the management route, it's unlimited. Whatever CEOs of large corporations make. Millions, I guess. If you stay in actual engineering work, probably around $100k.
What sort of skills do you need for this job? Technical ability. You need to be able to understand how things work. If you took apart all your toys as a kid to figure them out, then you might be an engineer. If you like building things, and blowing things up. Logical games like chess, master mind, othello, go... if you are good at those and enjoy them, that's a sign.
Good communication skills are a great plus, but not necessary. Most engineers can't spell or write worth anything. Drawing skills can come in handy. I admire the heck out of some of the engineers' sketches I see, but that's not necessary either nowadays with CAD. All official drawings are done in CAD now.
That's it, you can add any other questions if you want, and thanks.
Engineering is like science sped up and compressed in scope. The scientific method is very useful in engineering, for instance if a machine is not working and you are trying to understand why and fix it. Over the course of a few hours or days, you will have hypotheses, do experiments, make discoveries, and record the results. The ahas are great fun. It's very satisfying to make something work that was broken, and to figure out a problem that had everyone else scratching their heads. In engineering you get to do this over and over again, in a short period of time.
Science (research) is similar, but the time frame over which you are posing your questions and finding answers is usually much longer. The answers when they come are often more important, though, and have implications broader than your specific application. (In doing science, there sometimes will not really even be a specific application.)
I think I prefer engineering because it's immediately useful. I love learning about theoretical science but it's the application that makes it really cool, for me.
Designing control systems to handle large machines, and hurl enormous masses around is just super fun for me too. As a programmer I pushed electrons around inside a box, and that was sort of fun, but in engineering I get to choreograph the dance of, for example, enormous rolls of paper out the back end of a winder and through a strapper, down an elevator, and tilted on end into the warehouse. Moving enormous things around is just fun.
I do sort of regret that I don't get to blow things up, though. I mean, when I blow something up it's always a bad thing. Civil engineers like Hobbes get to blow up things on purpose. Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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Networked with friends. Was really a lucky find. I had been working as a lead computer class instructor for a private training center while getting my CIS degree and A+ and other certifications.
Another instructor working at the same place, on contract, also worked as a contract instructor for this bank. He told me that bank was looking for an in-house instructor. I applied. The training department said I was way over-qualified for what they had in mind (which was part-time admin assistant, part-time basic instructor) but head of training passed my resume' over to the department head of Technical Support. Said person had just received a two-week notice from someone in his department the same day he received my resume' from Training. So he called me in to interview, and hired me immediately. Position was never even advertised.
What was your first job?
First ever job? First in this field? In this field, first was working for a temp agency inside a local large employer, learning a bit of this and that.
If it is different, what is your current job?
PC Support Technician and Helpdesk for large regional bank.
What are average starting salaries in your profession? $30,000 for help desk, then up from there depending on certifications and experience.
What are advanced positions salaries?
I think our senior tech gets around $72,000
What sort of skills do you need for this job?
Patience for working with users and those not tech-savy. Hardware and networking skills (experience is more important that certification); server knowledge (like Microsoft 2000 Server, or Novell, depending on what kind of system you are working on); an understanding of databases and SQL; And good overview knowledge of how entire networks work.. and the desire to keep learning new things each year as technology changes...
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My first science job was for Agriculture Canada working in the Pesticides Research division. We were developing pheromone-based pesticides to be used as an alternative to harsh chemicals or bioengineered plants.![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Really, you need a background in biochemistry (clearly) as well as a strong background in organic chemistry. Analytical isn't so important, but analytical lab techniques are a must. My math skills should probably be better, I don't know enough calculus to do complex mechanism modeling, for example. I guess you should also have taken some pharmacology courses somewhere along the line.![[Mad]](mad.gif)
Later, principals looking for a specific type of teacher could pull up interview transcripts. Unbelievable. I had about eight years of full time experience at this time. My interview was with an Assistant Principal, and it went well, so he had me talk to his principal for a further interview. She and I did not see eye to eye at all. (At the time, all I had was a vague feeling, but later information confirmed it.) So they basically said, "We'll be in touch," and sent me on my way. I was really dissatisfied with this, so I sought out the Assistant Principal of the only school I was really interested in working in. (I had essentially made up my mind to quit teaching, because I was very unhappy in my prior job. I had received a couple of job offers as a programmer in the area, one for Lockheed Martin in Cape Kennedy, which was quite a commute, and one for some other defense contractor. I figured if I could get a job at this one school, I would stick with teaching long enough to see if I got happier.) I told this AP that I was really disappointed, because I really had wanted to speak to him. He took me in and interviewed me, and offered me a job on the spot. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
If it hadn't been for my chutzpah in bucking the "rules" of this cattle call, I probably would not be a teacer today.
