Sally and Kayla GRADUATED! What were some highs and lows of graduate school? What did they wish they had known sooner? In this episode, Sally and Kayla reflect on their experiences while pursuing a PhD as well as share exciting updates for the next season of Double Shelix.

Are you a recent or soon-to-be graduate stressed about recruiting and how you will find your first "real" job?
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In this episode, Kayla and Sally talk to Entrepreneur, Career Agent, and Advocate - Fatoumata Fall (Fatu) - about how graduating PhDs can optimize their job search experience. Fatu is a co-founder of Ralph, a company specializing in tech industry negotiations. They have supported over 130 STEM Ph. D.s in their negotiations, as well as their career decision-making and transition from Academia to Industry. In the episode, Fatu shares what she learned about the job search process from advising the most successful Ph. D.s. She also shares her own experience as an entrepreneur as well as her insights into the efforts tech companies are making to recruit underrepresented candidates.

What do you study? Whether it's to a leading faculty in your field or to your aunt's best friend, you have probably been asked to explain your research many, many times. How can you make your answer count without reciting an entire review paper? Sally and Kayla discuss how to craft an effective research “pitch" and then test their skills in real time. Spoiler alert: practice matters.

Sometimes bad projects happen to good people. Kayla and Sally discuss how to identify if your project may be in trouble, talk about these challenges with team members, and say good riddance to a bad project. We also talk about letting go of a good projects that come to an untimely conclusion due to circumstances outside your control - lost funding, changing priorities, or, you know, a global pandemic.

Requesting, writing, and stressing about letters of recommendation? Been there! Kayla and Sally cover all these letter of rec worries and more! We get into the weeds like what to do when a recommender asks you to "write the first draft for me" and how many "friendly reminder" emails are too many. Finally, we walk you through writing your first letter of rec about a trainee. It's the first of our Skill Share series - hope you enjoy!

How involved should graduate students be in activities outside of lab? Sally and Kayla discuss how to strategically choose personally- and professionally-fulfilling extracurriculars while still budgeting time for life.

Science policy panelists Andrew Bremer, Stephanie Mack, and Kathy Shield join Sally and Kayla again to discuss how scientific research is funded with a focus on the process of allocating and distributing government funding. The panelists also share how graduate students can be involved in this process and impact research funding for years to come.

Links:
Journal Science Policy and Governance
http://www.sciencepolicyjournal.org/

National Science Policy Network
https://scipolnetwork.org/

Science Policy Group of Berkeley
https://sciencepolicy.berkeley.edu/

Twitter tags:
@STEMvotes
@UCB_SciPolicy

When her first career dreams were absolutely dashed, Dr. Maria Artunduaga reinvented herself, founded a company, and learned to thrive.Trained as a physician in her home country, Colombia, Maria dreamed of coming to the US to become a pediatric plastic surgeon and hustled to make it happen. When blatant discrimination and subsequent litigation forced her out of medicine forever, she felt stuck. Eventually, she trained and studied to become an engineer and entrepreneur. She founded Respira Labs and is using acoustics to identify COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) flareups. Maria shares her journey, her advice for others going through career hell or facing discrimination, and lessons learned as a CEO. We are honored to share her story as part of our Journeys series.

Find Maria on Twitter @DrArtunduaga and Respira Labs @RespiraLabs or RespiraLabs.com.

Subscribe to Double Shelix and tell your friends! Find us on Twitter @doubleshelixpod or email us - doubleshelixpodcast@gmail.com.

Thanks to the Berkeley Student Tech Fund for supporting the series and to Joel Wanek for editing and production.

Skydeck, UC Berkeley’s startup accelerator program, has created a new model for funding education. They provide resources and funding to help university-affiliated founders go from idea to startup, and profits from Skydeck’s venture fund go directly back to the University. Double Shelix is delighted to welcome Caroline Winnett, Skydeck’s Executive Director, to discuss her path from concert violinist to MBA grad to startup gamechanger. We also discuss some of Silicon Valley’s systemic issues and what needs to change to make entrepreneurship accessible to everyone. If you have a startup or are thinking about thinking about starting one, Caroline will inspire you to absolutely go for it!

Berkeley Skydeck – https://skydeck.berkeley.edu/
UC Berkeley Entrepreneurship Resources – https://begin.berkeley.edu/

Thank you to Joel Wanek from Mind Space Time for editing and production of this episode! http://mindspacetime.squarespace.com/

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Science policy has created some of the biggest research initiatives of our lifetimes, like the Human Genome Project, the Cancer Moonshot, and even the Original Moonshot. It also dictates more mundane (but vital) aspects of scientists' lives like grant funding, and how graduate students' tuition stipends are taxed. Science policy panelists Andrew Bremer, Stephanie Mack, and Kathy Shield join Sally and Kayla to discuss their work bringing a grad student science policy group to UC Berkeley and how science policy impacts all our lives. They also share tips for interacting with elected representatives and advocating for science policies you're passionate about. Finally, we chat about career opportunities in science policy and how scientists and people passionate about science and research can get involved and stay informed.

Stay tuned for another episode with our amazing science policy panelists coming soon - we'll go deep on how taxpayer money leads to new technologies!

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