I think that readers of this Journal would agree that not only are careers very important to all of us but that mentoring for careers in chemistry is important for teachers of chemistry at all levels. However, a recent search of JCE Online for “career” retrieved relatively few references and most dealt with careers in a more general fashion and were understandably directed at educators rather than students. Any directed toward mentoring were targeted at academic careers. So called “alternative careers” were poorly addressed if at all. A review by Michael Caswell of John Borchardt’s book Career Management for Scientists and Engineers (1) was unfavorable, concentrating on alleged lack of currency instead of content (as also pointed out by me in ref 2).
For several years, I’ve given presentations to both collegiate and high school chemistry students on all sorts of careers in chemistry, not just those in laboratory research or collegiate professorship. Both the one-page outline, “Careers in Chemistry (or Is That Chem Diploma Worth Anything?)”, and a discussion based on it are now posted both on Gary Wiggins’ Chemical Information Sources Wiki (accessed June 2007) and as a link from the resources page for the Careers Committee of the Division of Chemical Information (accessed June 2007). Since it is assumed that collegiate professors at least have more first-hand experience for mentoring on laboratory and collegiate careers, “alternative careers” are stressed. The excellent book by Lisa M. Balbes, Nontraditional Careers for Chemists (3), is also a valuable resource.1
Career mentoring is an important function of educators. I encourage educators in chemistry at all levels to utilize these resources and others cited therein to mentor students about the wealth of careers available to chemistry graduates.2
Notes
I’ve reviewed this book in CHOICE(4). Cheryl Frech recommended this book as part of Summer Reading in the June 2007 issue of JCE (ref 5, p 917).
To help others with career decisions, I make “road trips” to give presentations on chemistry careers topics.
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