Non-Profit Career in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering

Way back when I first started to consider science as a career, I was pretty sure I had it all figured-out.  I'd find some worthy project, some problem to be solved, and I'd lock myself in a lab and think about it and do a few experiments and maybe I'd teach some classes or have to attend some meetings that had nothing to do with research but mostly I'd make a career of tinkering with test tubes, writing-up results.

Then I got a high school internship.  I was feeling pretty good, confident my decisions would be limited to industry, academia or government, and now I could test-drive one of them, would be going to a prestigious undergraduate school, chosen precisely because of its reputation for training women in the sciences.  The only question was which field to major in, but I'd keep my options open, knowing grad school was where the time and place for crucial career defining moves.

Day one I was pretty excited, imagining what kinds of projects I might be assigned to work on.  This was quite a long time ago, pre-internet days, really, so I couldn't really do any preliminary research to even guess what I might do.  I didn't even know the people involved, just the location: NASA.  I was smart enough to realize they probably wouldn't hand me keys to a rocket and say "go to it," but I was a stupid teenager, so the next thought was, not on the first day.  Have I painted enough of a scene to imagine just how disappointed I was on that first day when after meeting my mentor I was not taken to the lab, but to an office, and handed a copy of a grant?

It was dry reading, but the words with which it was delivered have stuck with me all these years and made me want to be a grant writer.  Well, certainly not then, but what did sink in at the time was the message: If you want to go on in Science, you'll need an advanced degree, so you'll go to graduate school and possibly have a career where you will spend much of your time working on finding, writing, and reporting on grants, so you might as well learn how to read one first.

I took that message to heart.  It was dry reading.  I had no frame of reference, no tools to help figure-out what I didn't understand.  I sensed basic concepts from my classroom textbook somewhere, and cutting-edge research from "Nova" and "Scientific American" but I was missing some vital connections.  I wasn't even sure how to form questions.  I did ask a few, but was essentially told to keep reading, eventually things would click, and keep asking questions.  Don't get discouraged.

Does any of this resonate with you, dear reader?  What part?  As a scientist, by nature you're curious, you ask and seek to answer questions.  Think about this a little.  Consider why are you reading this to begin with - chances are you are navigating your own career path and likely are lost in the miasma of choices facing Chemists, Engineers, others.  Writing from the perspective of someone who spent a lot of time reading, writing, processing, and generally wrangling grants for a non-profit foundation, I would like to repeat the advice my mentor shared.

The connections I missed as a teenager were mostly scientific in nature.  It wasn't until after I kept reading papers and took a few more advanced courses that I had a firmer grasp on what I was reading, but the basic principles behind that advice were solid and they are equally as applicable to the process of grant writing and research in general.  You are doing great work.  Whether it's finding a cure for cancer or building a better, cheaper, more efficient battery for electric cars or water purification devices, etc. you still have to explain what you are doing, what you intend to try, why you think it will work (and maybe even why your plan is better than that other lab's, or how you plan on collaborating with them to some extent).

There are inaccurate stereotypes of scientists, like they're not creative.  What could be more creative than writing a grant?  Its essential element is storytelling.  There's a beginning, a middle and an end.  You're convincing the funder that your project is a worthy enough investment and you explain in detail the beginning, part of the middle and how they can contribute to it, and how you both can advance towards the end.  Then back that up with pictures and a budget.

Could you possibly take the non-profit approach to your career decisions?  Be creative in telling the story of what you want your life to look like in 5, 10, 20 years.  Plan it out like an experiment.  Think of what each path might lead to and remind yourself, you can always change paths.