Newsletter: Letter from the President

Dear Readers,

I would like to welcome you all to a new academic year, and an exciting year of SBN events. Launching our new season was certainly a series of firsts for the new SBN Executive, and we are looking forward to building our career development skills—and learning about the local and global bioeconomy—along with you.

Taking a proactive approach to career planning can seem like a daunting task, due to the enormous number of career tracks available to sciences graduates, most of which are not immediately apparent. On top of that, we’ve all heard horror stories from talking to recent graduates or watching CNN, which can make it seem like there are no jobs out there for new university graduates. It is important to recognize both that excellent career options are out there to be discovered and that, more than ever, it is important to show potential employers that there is more to you than your degree. This year, the SBN Executive team is excited to present a season of events focused on career development, whether it takes the form of writing that killer resume, going back for a post graduate degree, or taking the initiative to enter the exciting world of local entrepreneurship.   Starting with our annual kick off Building Biotech event on September 19^th, we hope to highlight the variety of innovative biotech on the West Coast through the high quality seminars, networking events, and e-media publications that have become synonymous with the SBN.

A new decade should definitely be marked with new initiatives, and I am delighted to introduce the SBN Socially Integrated Sciences Blog, a space where students and legal, ethical, and social sciences experts can explore what happens to science once it moves beyond the bench. This month, we will be looking at issues around scientific and medical consent, such as what does it mean to consent to clinical trial participation and who is incapable of giving their consent? Through student engagement on this project, we hope to create a greater awareness of the social intricacies of the biotechnology sector on both a local and global scale.

Since becoming aware of opportunities is only the first piece of the career puzzle, our second new initiative debuting this fall is Networking Nights. At Networking Nights, students and industry professionals will have the opportunity to network in an informal setting. I look forward to meeting you all over a glass of wine, and I hope that events like this will help us to build a truly connected biotech community. A good friend of mine, who is a recruiter in the video game industry —a sector similar to biotech in that it employs specifically trained designers and artists—tells me that over 60% of her team’s hires this year have been from internal referral.  So, come and put yourself out there to meet new friends and colleagues.

I also want to take this chance to thank my wonderful team. SBN would be impossible without the hours of effort put in by the volunteer Executive Team.  Already, they have replied to more of my emails than I can count, and I know that I can count on them to help me make the 2011–2012 SBN season our most successful to date.

Finally, I want to thank all of our mentors, sponsors, and members. Your generous contributions make the SBN the vibrant organization that it is today, and I feel very privileged to be embarking upon a second decade of career exploration and community building with you.

Sincerely,
Jennifer K. Choi, BSc, PhD Candidate
President