Survey Results from WIB 2005: Envision Your Possibilities

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Survey Results from WIB 2005Envision Your
Possibilities
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Q1 WIB 2005 attendees by employment type
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Q2 How attendees heard about WIB
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Q2 Number of WIB attendees by age range
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(No Transcript)
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Workshops I II
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Workshop III IV

• General comments
• Fewer responses from afternoon sessions in
  general (people might have left a little early
  at least those that turned in questionnaire)
• Any question with no response was not counted
  in data

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Workshop V more general attendee questions
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Career Track Workshops
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Personal Development Workshops
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Hot Topics
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What other topics are of interest to you?

• CRO career development
• developing technology leads
• How to stand out during job hunting
• careers in clinical medicine
• space science
• neuroscience
• more alternative career tracks in science
• personal relationship management
• grant, fellowship, paper, scientific writing
• licensing, patent (IP), stem cells, siRNA
• biological research in industry
• getting into career after a gap of say 10 years
• public speaking workshops
• helpful ways to organize your life (not acronyms)
• Law and Science
• How to handle the men in our lives
• Studying while working to further your career
• obesity
• Medical devices

• Speakers from universities for undergrads
  (liberal arts colleges)
• autoimmune diseases that predominantly affect
  women
• Hands-On workshop on negotiating a raise
• Diversity of women in science in global economy
• Academics to industry transition
• Science and the White House (Policy making,
  current climate, etc)
• Bad bosses/mentors What to do as a grad student,
  You're not alone!
• What to do after college (from an undergrad)
• What to do if layoffs/reorgs happen
• Teaching methods/theory
• Women communication vs men
• Transition to faculty (from a post-doc)

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Other comments plenary speakers

• the plenary speakers were very good
• I really enjoyed the keynote speakers - the best
  part of the conference
• Would it be possible to post Tammy Dwyers
  PowerPoint slides regarding preparing and getting
  a job at a PUI on the AWIS website?  It was a lot
  of useful information.
• Plenary speakers more broad topics would be
  better so they apply to everyone not just people
  in academia, e.g. financial management,
  networking professional success
• The plenary speakers had topics that were too
  narrow. It would have been more beneficial to
  have topics that were applicable to everyone (ie
  time management, leadership). The audience that
  would actually benefit from the two speeches
  today was too small.
• Joanne Silberner is brilliant! Such economy of
  words and an incredibly effective communicator
• Plenary speaker could be more general interest
  Tammy was a good speaker but the career path is
  not one that I'm pursuing. I enjoyed talks with
  practical emphasis at least included the most esp
  "7 steps to successful postdoc Joanne Silberner

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Other comments workshop speakers

• Linda Smibert not good as speaker
• Although I do not remember all of their names off
  the top of my head, there were some extremely
  good speakers at the leadership conference I
  attended at Claremont McKenna College-Eduardo
  Salas from Old Dominion Ian Midroff from UCS
  and another one who spoke specifically on
  science. I will send an email with the contact
  info to awissd_at_hotmail.com
• If you are going to have a panel discussion about
  family careers, at least have panelists willing
  to talk about problems--not couples intention
  saying how wonderful their lives are--probably
  better to just have women.
• Speaker for Essence of Effective leadership did
  not really direct the talk to the audience. No
  women issues raised, not science/research issues
  discussed. Science of Professional Success
  speaker was excellent! Loved it!
• Speaker for "organize your life" is horribly bad!
  ( I did not learn anything practical about
  organization skills. I'm sorry! I'm so upset by
  this workshop it wasts my "time"!!I also find the
  title "science of professional success"
  misleading. I didn't know it was to be about
  communication.
• The balancing career family workshop would have
  been better if there was a psychologis type on
  hand and possibly couples or others who actually
  had really hard issues to deal with. It seemed
  too nice and little of substance was addressed in
  any structured manner.
• The organize your life speaker was awful! No
  practical information at all. Waste of time.
  Most everything else was great. Plenary speakers
  were very interesting.

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Other comments - facilities

• Lunch was very tasty!! Really, really liked
  having speaker recommended books on the list and
  available for purchase. Saves time and gives
  references for learning more. Maybe next time,
  speakers could put together a list of useful web
  sites re topics. organize your life a waste of
  time  left workshop
• when I registered, the attendance was going to be
  limited. When I arrived, there wasn't enough
  seating in the foyer and in the Parkers room.
  There needs to be better management of
  attendance.
• Thank you for providing ample vegetarian food!
  Also, good job keeping workshops, etc, running on
  time.
• Please include diet drinks.
• it was difficult to hear what the speakers had to
  say at the Alt. careers because there was a lot
  of background noise!!

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Other comments workshop topics

• Second "Climbing the corporate ladder" talk not
  relevant, belongs in Workshop 1.
• Handouts should be given out for all
  presentations! \
• I particularly like the combination of
  social/non-scientific intro with the detailed
  scientific research summary. Would have gone to
  stem cell research but too many academic (usually
  long-winded) speakers. Sorry I had to miss the
  CSI talk.
• Some sessions seemed targeted very specifically
  to one level of career (ie post-docs) it might be
  useful for a talk about a successful post-duc to
  be broken into 2 - one for grad students looking
  to post-docs 1 for current post-docs, etc.
  This was excellent! Weekday meeting would be
  helpful to women with families.
• relating to topics The experience of working at
  a for-profit, non-profit, academic or
  government-run research institution
• Likely due to the large presence of biotech in
  SD, there seemed to be a predominance of
  scientists from industry on paels. I would have
  liked to hear from more academic scientists,
  including dual academic scientist couples (no
  tenure clock issues could be addressed)
• Personally I felt this meeting is trying to cover
  a lot of issues in one day. Therefore, a lot of
  interesting things, such as networking, was not
  covered well. It may or may not be true that
  most participants are post-docs and graduate
  students. The meeting didi a good job in
  covering the alternative career choices. But I
  would like to know more about how to prepare for
  interview and how to judge or evaulate your work
  load versus your life. Besides, I think the time
  management course is really wasting time.

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Other comments workshop topics (continued)

• Cost seemed a bit high when I registered, but
  considering the number of workshops/speakers was
  reasonable in retrospect. Time management
  session was too broad-I enjoy "how-to" and
  resource oriented talks much better.
• I would have liked the first speaker be someone
  speaking on a broader topic such as
  leadership/networking that most of the audience
  would identify with.
• Science of professional success was "awesome
• more focus on non-PH.D. required stuff
• I feel that Insight into Drug Development was a
  waste of my time and I wish I would have attended
  a different workshop.  The actual talks in
  climbing the corporate ladder were not very
  helpful, but the Q A was good.
• Insights into drug discovery  good info,
  slow-moving after lunch, too detailed, some
  repeat areas

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Other comments workshop set-up/format

• Needed more time for stem cell research
  seminar-important topic
• I tried to attend the alt careers, but missed the
  point that to participate I needed to be at one
  of the right tables  I got there very early and
  was then forced to leave.  A woman next to me
  left the conference altogether in a huff.
• I was a little disappointed that I could not join
  the discussion of the "courage to change - alt.
  careers" just because I sat at the wrong table.
  Which I was told that I should be in the
  "reserved table" section. Please let us know
  first if there is such an arrangement next time.
  Thank you!!
• I really enjoyed the small "workshop" approach
  used in session 4, alt. Careers allowed a lot of
  interaction. I'd like to see more of this type of
  format in future conferences
• The format of "Courage to change.." workshop if
  informed ahead would have made it less hectic.
  Everything else is great!! There was another
  biotech-related conference going on at UCSD. Did
  they know about AWIs? This it conflicted? I
  wanted to go to that one as well but I chose awIS
  as I registered for it first.
• Unfortunate that I had to choose between the
  excellent workshops and could not attend some of
  the other ones.
• In the alternate careers seminar, the science
  writing and venture capital topics were
  especially good

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Other comments workshop set-up/format
(continued)

• Science of professional success needed a bigger
  room
• Conference is a bit too long-consider changing to
  four workshops or even three
• Regarding balancing career and family-industry
  was a bit overrepresented
• Conference provided a good mix and wide range of
  topics
• Would like to have more time with the presenters
  the program was excellent - so many topics to
  choose from
• Please instruct speakers to allow more time for
  questions after talks  very important!  
• Would have liked more time to visit other
  panelists for Alternative careers workshop
• Regarding the "road to success", good handout and
  worksheet regarding the "7 steps to a successful
  postdoc", helpful advice regarding "science of
  professional success", great motivation
• Excellent conference-I really enjoyed it and
  learned a lot. More tables at lunch would have
  been good-although it was beautiful outside.

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Other comments workshop set-up/format
(continued)

• Great job organizing and bringing together some
  excellent speakers.  If I were to change the
  format, I would rather have 2 morning sessions
  and 2 evening sessions with the time running from
  9AM  2PM with only one keynote speaker.  I like
  having the 10min break times in between each
  session as it provided time for chatting and
  meeting new people. This is my first AWIS event
  and Im very impressed with the turnout and
  quality of presentations.  Well done!
• great networking ops during breaks!

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Other comments - miscellaneous

• I would like to see more men at this event. They
  can offer a different perspective that can help
  us promote women in science and business. The
  2nd plenary speaker was fantastic good
  personality and speaking style, especially for
  after lunch when people start to get sleepy.
  "Climbing the Corporate Ladder" was disappoint.
  While the speakers gave interesting talks, the
  content did not address breaking glass ceilings,
  getting promoted and recognized in mostly male
  environments, etc. I was hoping to hear stories
  about and advice on working for promotions,
  getting deserved recognition, self-promotion,
  asking for raises/promotions, etc.
• It would be nice to have a reduced membership
  and/or conference fee for unemployed and
  stay-at-home parents.
•  Cant afford the AWIS membership fee as a
  post-doc
• It would be advisable to instruct the scholarship
  recipients in advance on the proper attire to
  wear when being recognized in an awards
  ceremoney. Two of them were wearing jeans--and
  another had green hair! Very unbecoming for this
  distinction and honor.
• In order to join AWIS, I would prefer monthly
  newsletter or emails first after having greater
  exposure, I would join.

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Other comments - praise

• I very much enjoyed all the sessions today -
  thanks so much!!!
• great conference as always
• beautifully run, excellent sessions, great
  atmosphere. I'm terribly impressed. Thank you
  for an amazing day!
• Thank You!
• Thank You for putting together this conference.
  It was very inspirational and motivational
• I am moving back to Europe and I wish to find an
  organization like AWIS )
• Great!
• Thanks! I will certainly come back next year.
• Great conference
• A job well done  this is the best conference I've
  attended
• Very informative, again!
• Fantastic conference - very well organized
• I recommended this to a colleague and she came
• Great conference. I was very happy with the
  variety of information provided
• Since I am from Los Angeles, I am going to pursue
  starting an AWIS Los Angeles chapter
• please keep up the good work. Thank you
• I was very impressed with the WIB conference. It
  was very well organized and the topics covered
  were relevant and informative.
• I would join, but will be leaving the US soon. I
  found the "real-life experience" of speakers
  concerning career/family issues especially
  interesting-great conference! (from a post-doc)
• Great job, thanks so much!