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Ask HN: Help me figure out suitable work for my young stay-at-home wife?

1 points by a-saleh ↗ HN
My wife has just finished her master studies in molecular biology, and we are expecting our first child in few months.

While for now I have a decen't salary, and she is quite looking forward to be a stay-at-home mom for a few years, we can't help bu wonder about her future employment/income posibilities.

It seems that in her area of expertise, there are no other career paths than PHD -> PostDoc, and from what she has seen of the academia, it doesn't look compatible with raising a child.

She is a decent language learner and reasonably skilled artisan/painter.

What would you advise us?

10 comments

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bavcyc
Can she (and you) find a way to do research/development at home in her field? Or possibly figuring out how to combine her area of expertise with computing, specifically simulations.
pskittle
Congrats on the baby , I would say look for positions that allow remote work . Additionally , developing skills that could help her work as a freelancer (web dev, big data etc) with applications in biotech of-course
merrua
Write a book on molecular biology? Start learning programming after the baby is old enough moving into scientific computing? or software designed for the molecular biology field? Take the time out of the academia rat race and work on one of the great problems? Again might result in a book or a position. Art book of molecular biology references? Start a blog on reviews of papers for biology? Start a blog on reviews for biology books? Develop a small startup for open science for easy, accountable peer review?
pmtarantino
Congratulations on the baby.

I like this approach. If you could help her with the "computing problems", maybe she could 1) write a book, 2) while she learns more about scientific computing and come with ideas about mixing molecular biology with sc. comp.

a-saleh
This was my first suggestion as well, unfortunately, her encounter with statistics in their undergrad course was so terrible, that she doesn't want to touch anything that would require it with a ten foot pole. What is pity, we even have a systems-biology research group in the town we live in.
merrua
There is online courses that go through the maths with you. Which are usually better teachers than most undergraduate courses.
a-saleh
Thanks for suggestions! She really liked the "molecular biology artbook" idea :)
merrua
Cool: Post the link to hacker news when its published so we get a chance to buy it.
jeffmould
If she is interested in getting into academics, she may consider doing remote teaching. For example, many of the professors who teach at University of Maryland University College (http://umuc.edu) are from across the country and only teach part time while either holding a full-time job or being retired. The majority of the classes offered are all done entirely online so there is no travel commitments by the professor to go to a classroom every day or week. I am sure that there are other similar opportunities at other colleges. Just a thought.

Congrats on the baby!