Digestion
When I talk to biology graduate students about getting into science policy, the most important message convey is to acquire transferable skills. You will have to create opportunities for yourself to do so - volunteering, blogging, teaching, etc. - but unless you seek out those opportunities, you won’t have either the skills or the confidence to make a meaningful contribution away from your model organism and apparatus of choice. Within your research, also, you should focus as much as you can on learning broadly applicable skills - programming, statistics, how to handle large datasets. Later on, your obscure skills will impress nonscientists, but it’s your transferable skills that will make them want to hire you, and help them envision what you could do for their organization.
blog comments powered by Disqus