Academia to industry - I need green card badly (Jun/08/2011 )
I am just curious, does anyone successfully change the career from academic (post-doc) to some position at private sector???
I am PostDoc now (beginning my 3rd year) and working really really hard,
but I still don't see paper coming out from my primary project.
Now my lab got funding issue (but somehow my boss keeps hiring new people)
which makes it very difficult for all of us in lab to purchase what we need for experiments.
and there are some other issue as well........
But anyway, my original plan was to have publication ASAP then leave the lab ASAP,
but my boss started to asking me to do some work not related to research (such as organization of lab and so on....)
which I have to spend quite a lot of time every day.
So, I am not really sure that me being here is really helping me to build my carree or not.
Then, quite recently, I started to consider industry as my new direction. (I am getting tired of being in academia)
and probably some of you might already realize from the "topic description," I am in the US but I am not US citizen nor have green card.
So, it is not very easy for me to just quit postdoc and going to industry 
does anyone experience similar situation and successfully change the career to industry???
if so please share your experience here!!! was it good change or terrible mistake?? let me know
Check out the Science Careers forum:
http://scforum.aaas.org/
The Science Careers website has related articles in their archives and the switch from academia to industry is mentioned often in the forums.
If you are not close to publishing, I recommend looking for another postdoc, but take the time to evaulate the position and the lab so that you don't end up in a similar circumstances. You can also look for a postdoc that will be a stepping stone into industry. This will be a lab that has industry collaborations or partnerships or with people who routinely move on into industry.
The top advice that is always given for moving into industry is networking, finding contacts in industry, especially people who have the type of job you want or who hire the type of job you want. This is something you can start working on now -- the Science Careers website has a lot of information on this.
I have a colleague who is foreign, they took a postdoc in an academic lab that had an industry collaboration. The company we were collaborating with ended up sponsoring their visa and offered a postdoc with them. His career isn't quite established yet, but he is in position to apply for a green card, which certainly will help.
Thanks for the info David!
David C H on Thu Jun 9 13:46:30 2011 said:
Check out the Science Careers forum:
http://scforum.aaas.org/
The Science Careers website has related articles in their archives and the switch from academia to industry is mentioned often in the forums.
If you are not close to publishing, I recommend looking for another postdoc, but take the time to evaulate the position and the lab so that you don't end up in a similar circumstances. You can also look for a postdoc that will be a stepping stone into industry. This will be a lab that has industry collaborations or partnerships or with people who routinely move on into industry.
The top advice that is always given for moving into industry is networking, finding contacts in industry, especially people who have the type of job you want or who hire the type of job you want. This is something you can start working on now -- the Science Careers website has a lot of information on this.
I have a colleague who is foreign, they took a postdoc in an academic lab that had an industry collaboration. The company we were collaborating with ended up sponsoring their visa and offered a postdoc with them. His career isn't quite established yet, but he is in position to apply for a green card, which certainly will help.