I have been entertaining the thought of building my own website for a very long time now. In fact, at the age of about 10 years my uncle – studying information technology at the time – gave me a 500 pages thick book about coding in HTML, which led to me building skeletons of websites, but with no content to share… Fast-forward about 20 years and here I am, writing my very first blog post on my own site. So what encouraged me to finally give it a go?
First of all, I’m in a transition period right now. Finalizing my PhD with the strong inclination of leaving academia means that I’m entering the open waters of alternative science careers. I know that I want to work within the pharmaceutical or life science industry, but haven’t found my place yet. So I’m planning to write here about my journey and discoveries regarding the usefulness of a polymer chemistry background within this industry. I thereby hope to deliver some insight for people seeking to make a similar transition.
Furthermore, I have been following the ongoing discussions about the importance of science outreach, women in science, and the need of role models,[1,2,3] and come to the conclusion that writing about polymer chemistry and my experiences as a woman scientist can help to demystify the topic to a wider audience, but also to demonstrate my knowledge and its relevance to a possible employer and to hopefully inspire other women and girls, who consider a career in science.
That seems like a formidable task.
[1] Why science blogging still matters, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01414-6, 31.01.2018
[2] STEM jobs and gender stereotyping pictured at Davos, http://blogs.nature.com/naturejobs/2018/02/07/stem-jobs-and-gender-stereotyping-pictured-at-davos/, 07.02.2018
[3] International Day of Women and Girls in Science – The importance of role models, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/international-day-women-girls-science-importance-role-london-cluster/?trackingId=%2FgrzfHTWrXIkvK4eY1aXAA%3D%3D, 08.02.2018