My Ambulance Education continues to sell at a brisk pace. In the past year I’ve been privileged to make connections with people in the trenches, reconnect with comrades from those days and work every day to do research that may benefit patients in the ambulance. I have said many times; working on the ambulance has been an education for me in many ways and still has that affect on me. I’m also working with local educators to participate in educating the next generation of EMS practitioners. So those years on the ambulance have been an important personal growth time in my life.
There is another important period in my life that was educationally significant and that was my graduate education. I spent six years in Lansing Michigan attending Michigan State University to obtain a Masters and Ph.D. The time spent there was a lot of hard work, but as enjoyable as it was successful. I experienced multiple things that I had never experienced before including; getting fired, moving in with a girl friend and matured as a scientist. Yes, getting fired, which I will not talk about now. While much of graduate school in the sciences is parochial it is a distinctly unique rite of passage required for burgeoning scientists.
In the USA there are about 16 million people in college at any given time and a substantial percentage of those will consider going to graduate school. There are, however, relatively few memoirs about scientists going through graduate school. Those few that exist tend to be from Nobel Prize winners who write on their recollections as to how graduate education participated in them getting the most famous scientific prize in the world. I think my book on graduate school will make nice reading to talk about how an active scientist managed graduate school and overcame the relatively typical adversities that occur to many of us along the long road that becomes one’s life.
So if you have not guessed, I’ve written the follow on to My Ambulance Education. It is called, How I Survived My Graduate Education and covers the years of finding a graduate school through the Ph.D. and finding a postdoctoral position. Concerning my postdoctoral position, I worked as a postdoc in Paris France after leaving Michigan and that is an interesting story as to how I got a job in Paris and prepared for the next stage of my life.
By the way, the story about getting fired and bouncing back from that is discussed in detail in How I Survived My Graduate Education.
To tell the truth Book 2, as it is called, is complete. I’m trying to find a publisher for it, and unfortunately the publishing business is suffering from the economic down turn just as fiercely as everyone else. So How I Survived My Graduate Education is having a difficult time finding a home. I’ve resolved to work hard in getting it published for the next eight months and if it is not picked up by a publisher by that time, I will be posting it as part of my blog starting September 1 2010. Do not worry I’ll blog as normal, which is once or twice a week, but will intersperse book chapters in between my regular blogs.
The book has been proofed by several beta readers including educators and graduate students and universally they have said it is entertaining as well as informative. The feedback about how useful the graduate education information is has been extremely positive such that I think it is important to get that information out there. While Book 2 is a memoir it is informative and useful for people, contemplating graduate school or in graduate school. But, it will be a pleasant read at the same time.
So if you are a publisher or have links to a publisher (literary agents included) feel free to make contact with me and perhaps my education series can continue. Or if you have no publishing connections just wait to see what the book looks like, it might be free on line starting in September.
As an EMT with an engineering undergrad degree who works in marketing and has considered grad school or even a whole different career field, I’d be very interested to see read this book, in whatever form. Good luck looking for a publisher!
January 30, 2010 @ 3:30 am