Skip to content

Library Book Information

Guide to Nontraditional Careers in Science by Karen Young Kreeger

For the past several years the scientific press has been filled with headlines of the overproduction of Ph.D.s and growing unemployment and underemployment of researchers. Packed with practical advice and stories from dozens of scientists and professionals, this guidebook aids the reader in evaluating and finding career opportunities in nonacademic research fields. By demonstrating to the reader that choices are available, this resource provides many examples of fields (e.g., publishing, law, public policy, and business) in which people use their scientific training to nurture a satisfying professional life. Yet it also acknowledges that there are trade-offs involved with any veer from the traditional path. Resource lists tailored to science, along with close to 100 one-on-one interviews with people who have taken various career paths, add to the book's strengths.

 

[back to Library Listings]

Alternative Careers in Science…Leaving the Ivory Tower edited by Cynthia Robbins-Roth

About the Author: Cynthia Robbins-Roth is a professional in both academic and industrial research. Her career began at the laboratory bench, but she has since established herself as an independent operator. Her time is divided between editing Biopeople and consulting for venture capital companies.

Synopsis: You can do more with your science degree than you ever dreamed. In this book, readers will meet
scientists who evolved into Wall Street analysts, science policy gurus, patent agents, journalists, and
top-flight sales reps. Each chapter covers a different career track and shows why having a graduate
degree in science gives you an edge.

Description: Alternative Careers in Science describes the various career tracks available to scientists and gives the inside scoop on the skills and personality types suited to each profession.  It also contains important information regarding career expectations and salary potential. This book will allow scientists to compare career opportunities. Each chapter covers a different career track and includes the basic job description, qualifications, responsibilities, and what career opportunities stem from each position.
Key Features:

 

Reviews

 

[back to Library Listings]

Don't Shoot the Dog! The New Art of Teaching and Training by Karen Pryor

Description: "Whatever the task, whether keeping a four-year-old quiet in public, housebreaking a puppy, coaching a team, or memorizing a poem, it will go fast, and better, and be more fun, if you know how to use reinforcement."--Karen Pryor.
Now Karen Pryor clearly explains the underlying principles of behavioral training and through numerous fascinating examples reveals how this art can be applied to virtually any common situation. And best of all, she tells how to do it without yelling threats, force, punishment, guilt trips--or shooting the dog. 8 methods for putting an end to all kinds of undesirable behavior. The 10 laws of "shaping" behavior--for results without strain or pain through "affection training." How to combat your own addictions to alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, overheating or whatever, how to deal with such difficult problems as a moody spouse, an impossible teen, or an aged parent. Plus. . .House training the dog, improving your tennis game, keeping the cat off the table, and much more!

From the Back Cover: "In the course of becoming a renowned dolphin trainer, Karen Pryor learned that positive reinforcement (the only kind useable with dolphins, who can't be reached with leashes, bridles, fists, or yells) is even more potent that prior scientific work had suggested.. .This new book looks like the very best on the subject--a full-scale mind-changer."--Stewart Brand, The Coevolution Quarterly.

 

[back to Library Listings]

The Academic Job Search Handbook (2nd Edition), by Mary Morris Heiberger and Julia Miller Vick

Synopsis: Takes job-seekers step-by-step through the process, including participating in conferences, using the Internet, handling telephone interviews, and cultivating contacts, and offers sample curricula vitae, cover letters, abstracts, and more. Original. UP.

Review by David Wakefield from Los Angeles, CA: This book provides a wealth of information that orients graduate students who are unexperienced with the academic job market with the intricate process of securing an academic position. It doesn't provide discipline-specific information, but it DOES give an overall plan and breakdown of what you can expect during your job search. I found the sample curriculum vitaes and cover letters invaluable guides.

 

[back to Library Listings]

Career Renewal…Tools for Scientists and Technical Professionals by Stephen Rosen and Celia Paul

Synopsis: Suffering from career burnout, career regret, or job dislocation? Learn how to measure your own "career health" with "Career Renewal"--the only guide available to professionals who find themselves in career limbo. Throughout the book the authors provide numerous real-life career placement success stories along with step-by-step career wellness exercises to help readers explore new options. These tools ensure long-term career health and well being and improve your career attitudes and beliefs.


Review Chemical & Engineering News: "Although job search books are never a one-size-fits-all proposition, I hope this book's subtitle doesn't deter nonscientists and nontechnical professionals from picking it up. Its exercises and inventories are applicable to a wider range of professions. Many people find this book a useful road map in negotiating their way to a more satisfying career." - Corinne Marasco, Co-author of Careers for Chemists: A World Outside the Lab


Review, The Sciences, March 1998: "'Career Renewal,' a compendium of self-help ideas, checklists and case histories compiled by two professsional consultants (one former astrophysicist), is designed to help people in the sciences who are less than happy with where their education has taken them. It should appeal to a wide range of readers. Recent graduates can benefit from its sensible advice on how to assess one's talents and interests, how to go about looking for jobs, and how to handle the business of resumes and interviews. Baby boomer scientists, floundering at midlife, may find ways to regain their elan in a new and challenging field...Their book is full of thoughtful suggestions and useful tools, helpful to anyone whose ambition to unravel the secrets of the universe has been tempered by the need to pay rent." -- Laurence A. Marschall, Professor of physics, Gettysburg College, Author, The Supernova Story

Other comments:

 

[back to Library Listings]

A Devotion to Their Science — Pioneer Women of Radioactivity by Marelene F. Rayner-Canham & Geoffrey W. Rayner-Canham

Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Book

Biographical essays on 23 women who worked in atomic science during the first two decades of the twentieth century, including Marie Curie, Lisa Meitner, Irene Joliot-Curie, and a host o lesser-known women scientists whose life stories have never been told before. A Devotion to Their Science reclaims the first generation of women researchers in radioactivity, provides new insights into the contribution of women to atomic science, and dispels the myth that this field was essentially a male preserve.

 

[back to Library Listings]

Women in Chemistry: Their Changing Roles from Alchemical Times to the Mid-Twentieth Centuryby Marelene F. Rayner-Canham & Geoffrey W. Rayner-Canham

Though rarely noted, women have been active participants in the chemical sciences since the beginning of recorded history. This thought-provoking book brings to life the many talented women who - besides the universally respected Marie Curie - made significant contributions to chemistry. The Rayner-Canhams examine the forces that have defined women's roles in the progress of chemistry, observing that many were thwarted from capitalizing on their achievements by the prejudices of their time. Their book discusses women chemists from as far past as the Babylonian civilization but focuses on professional women chemists from the mid-nineteenth century and later, when women gained access to higher education. Read this book and learn about the chemist-assistants of the French salons, about independent researchers in the nineteenth century, about the three disciplinary havens for women in the twentieth century, about how war helped bring women into the chemical industry-and much more!

 

[back to Library Listings]

Help! Was That a Career Limiting Move? by Marjorie Brody & Pamela J. Holland

Description of Book: Winner of the 10th Annual International Self-Published Book Awards contest, sponsored by Writer's Digest magazine! Brody and Holland 's book was chosen from more than 300 entries in the nonfiction category. Judges from the contest said, "Help! Was That a Career Limiting Move? is a very clever, handy and what-could-be very helpful little guide for those on the business fast track -- or anyone wanting to succeed at his/her job. The content is complete, covering business-related situatons -- what to do and what not to do, how to avoid professional career limiting moves." Gain valuable insight about the secrets of success to know now what is has taken others their entire careers to learn. Some topics covered include:

 

About the Authors:

Marjorie Brody, MA, CSP, CMC, an internationally recognized expert and motivational speaker on career enhancement and corporate etiquette, connects people to potential. She grooms corporate leaders in savvy communication and polished presentation skills • Marjorie has appeared on CNBC, Fox-TV, Oxygen Network, and been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today, People, Glamour, BusinessWeek, Fortune and many other national publications. She is author of 15 books, including Speaking is an Audience-Centered Sport, and Professional Impressions ... Etiquette for Everyone, Every Day.

Pamela J. Holland, Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Brody Communications Ltd., comes from a background of extensive sales, marketing and HR involvement at one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies. She also serves on the Board of Directors for two Philadelphia-area private educational institutions, and writes articles for a variety of business publications. Pam has appeared on Bloomberg Business TV, Fox-TV in Philadelphia and on ABCNews.com. She has seen many a young professional falter for lack of recognizing the "little things" about business behavior that make a big difference.

[back to Library Listings]

Women Don't Ask — Negotiation and Gender Divide by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever

http://www.womendontask.com/

Book Description From Amazon.com: Men ask for what they want twice as often as women do and initiate negotiation four times more, report economist Linda Babcock and writer Sara Laschever in the footnoted but engaging Women Don't Ask. With vivid research examples drawn from cradle, classroom and playground, the authors detail culture as the culprit in discouraging women from negotiating on their own behalf.


Men, socialized in a "scrappier paradigm," learn to pursue and energize their goals at work and home. The two key elements are control and recognizing opportunity. For example, girls, rewarded for hard work, learn to see control as outside of themselves while boys are urged to take charge. Boys are schooled to recognize opportunity and girls to choose safe targets.


Several chapters are focused on prescription; how women can decrease anxiety, anticipate roadblocks, plan counter-moves and resist conceding too much or too soon. The authors shine in their examination of culture and gender--and their optimism about how women can counter the culture. They falter whenever they adopt the "sexes-from-a-different-planet" fallacy. Most notably, in a chapter that details a "female approach" to negotiating. Overall, the authors have created a smart summary of research and used it to affirm every woman's urgent right to ask. --Barbara Mackoff

From Publishers Weekly: Babcock and Laschever, contrary to their book's title, do ask a series of questions: Why do most women see a negotiation as an automatic fight instead of a chance to get what they deserve? Why are women afraid to ask for what they want in the workplace? And perhaps most importantly, why don't women feel entitled to ask for it? True to their academic backgrounds, Babcock (a Carnegie Mellon economist) and writer Laschever seek their answers in a series of gender psychology and economics studies (some done by them, most done by others). They cite numerous studies indicating that women are socialized to feel pushy and overbearing if they pursue their ideal situation when it spells potential conflict with employers or co-workers. The authors also use anecdotal evidence to support their claim that women are taught to feel like every negotiation is a monumental threat to a personal relationship, rather than a fact of business life (the view held by most men, they say). Their argument has important practical ramifications: the authors cite one study that estimates "a woman who routinely negotiates her salary increases will earn over one million dollars more by the time she retires than a woman who accepts what she's offered every time without asking for more." Babcock and Laschever's work is a great resource for anyone who doubts there is still a great disparity between the salary earnings of men and women in comparable professions. Alas, it isn't as successful at eloquence as it is at academic rigor. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

 

[back to Library Listings]

Ask For It: How women can use the power of negotiation to get what they really want. by by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever

http://www.askforit.org/

Book Description (from Amazon.com): In their groundbreaking book, Women Don’t Ask, Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever uncovered a startling fact: even women who negotiate brilliantly on behalf of others often falter when it comes to asking for themselves. Now they’ve developed the action plan that women all over the country requested—a guide to negotiation that starts before you get to the bargaining table.

Ask for It explains why it’s essential to ask(men do it all the time) and teaches you how to ask effectively, in ways that feel comfortable to you as a woman. Whether you currently avoid negotiating like the plague or consider yourself hard-charging and fearless, Babcock and Laschever’s compelling stories of real women will help you recognize how much more you deserve—whether it’s a raise, that overdue promotion, an exciting new assignment, or even extra help around the house. Their four-phase program, backed by years of research, will show you how to identify what you’re really worth, maximize your bargaining power, develop the best strategy for your situation, and manage the reactions and emotions that may arise—on both sides. Guided step-by-step, you’ll learn how to draw on the special strengths you bring to the negotiating table to reach agreements that benefit everyone involved.

This collaborative, problem-solving approach will propel you to new places both professionally and personally—and open doors you thought were closed. Because if you never hear no, you’re not asking enough.

 

[back to Library Listings]