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Our weekly blog posts of seminar presentations have really helped me appreciate the value of science writing and the gift that these writers have. With a topic so close to home, I believe it is safe to say that everyone was looking forward and interested in the presentation brought to us by Jyllian Kemsley on Science Writing.  Broadcasting from California, Kemsley, an associate editor at Chemical and Engineering News, gave her presentation via web cam, a first for us and herself.  The presentation went very well; looking back, it is definitely one of the most memorable for me over the course of the semester.

Kemsley really gave us an insider’s perspective on what it’s like to be a science writer. I was fairly surprised when she told us that a bachelors of Science degree and a two year master’s degree of science writing is all it takes to become a writer. This was definitely something new to me, I previously thought that most science writers needed a doctorate to be a credible source, but in reality the organization publishing the article suffices as credible to the public.  Once a person becomes certified there are many areas of work available, they are hired by newspapers, TV New networks, science Journals, science focused websites, hospitals, government agencies, education institutes, etc.  I hadn’t realized how many different areas of the work force require people capable of interpreting science and being able to relate it in publications to the average person.  Of this partial list of jobs opportunities, the one that stood out the most to me, were the TV news networks.  I was shocked to find out that CNN had recently laid off 18 of its science writers, not because of the layoffs, but because they had so many working for them!  One other thing that I learned (although I could go on forever) was the short amount of time articles are written, edited, and published,  demanding that writers are creative at all times and allowing no room for mental blocks.

Towards the end of the presentation Kemsley told us the personal rewards gained and challenges faced in a career of science writing. She told us what good qualities make up the best science writers and finally gave us a detailed analysis of a typical week lived by a writer. A couple of questions I do have are 1. How reliable is a job in science writing going to be in the future? 2. Can you specialize in school after receiving your two-year master’s degree? 3. And finally what was your favorite story to cover?  All in all I believe this was the most informative presentation and really appreciate the time given by Kemsley.

Thanks again Dr. Kemsley for sharing your time and work with us!

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This week’s seminar was Science Writing.  The speaker was Jyllian Kemsley, the Associate Editor of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN).  She got her bachelor’s degree from Amherst College in 1994 and went on to Stanford University where she received her PhD in 2003.  She took a science writing program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and for the next four years worked as a freelance writer before joining Chemical & Engineering News.  She was an interesting speaker and easy to follow.

One of the new things I learned was that ACS is the world’s largest scientific society, having 154000 members.  Another thing was that C&EN primarily does 4 kinds of stories, feature stories, news items, online news, and blog.  The third thing was that the rewards for scientific writing include intellectual freedom, flexibility, and allows an individual to be highly creative.

The other students seemed to be pretty interested. The question and answer portion went well, there were a lot of questions and the speaker was able to answer them well.

The speaker encouraged me to learn more about the subject, since it seems like it would be a useful skill.  However I do not think I would be willing to go to grad school for it.

The seminar was interesting because it was very different, it was a video conference and the topic was not one that we normally might have in a chemistry seminar.  If I had to describe this seminar to a friend I would say, “benefits of scientific writing.”

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Our guest speaker for the chemistry seminar held on November 5 was Jyllian Kemsley, who is currently an associate editor of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN). This seminar was special because we had a communication with the speaker via online, which was performed as a new form of presentation at Andrews University, and it was done very successfully.

Through the seminar, I learned a lot about science writing. She said that many science writers were recommended to have broad chemistry intelligence. In fact, she had B.A. degree in Chemistry at Amherst College and Ph.D. in bio-inorganic chemistry at Stanford University. Nevertheless, she is still making an effort to keep learning. In addition to science backgrounds, the talent for writing clearly and accurately is needed to be a good writer as well.

Another thing I learned from the seminar was that science writers are working in many more fields than I have thought. With science knowledge and writing skill, they are performing their job not only in science-focused media and publications but also at many different organizations, such as research institutes, government agencies, many companies, and hospital.

On the other hand, she said that science writers often face some difficulties, one of which was that they sometimes have to take care of an unfamiliar field. So, I was wondering during the seminar how she deals with this challenge in more specific way.

I think the seminar was very interesting for me because I could learn a lot from her. Actually, when I try to express my thoughts and opinion in written words, I sometimes have a difficulty. However, I realized that widely reading of scientific papers or local and national newspapers could help me establish a good writing skill. Also I would say to my ‘non-science’ friend or family that science writer can be a great job for one who is interested in writing with science knowledge.

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The seminar that was held on November 5, 2009 was really unique and interesting compared to any other seminar that we had. The seminar was an experimental online video presentation which was really successful. Even though the speaker was in San Francisco and speaking through the web camera, it did not bother me at all. The guest speaker, Jyllian Kemsley, currently works at the Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) as an associate editor and also helps with the publication of the American Chemical Society. As she received BA in chemistry and completed her PhD in chemistry, she developed an interest in scientific writing.

Through this seminar, I learned a lot of interesting and new things on scientific writers. As a biochemistry student, I only thought about being involved as a health professional. However, she gave me a chance to think about other fields of career opportunities as a science major. A typical week for scientific writers involves reading scientific papers, staying on top of local or national news, talking to scientists or other sources, writing, revising and attending conferences.  I was surprised that even professional writers, like her, get their paper revised from at least five other people. Also, I learned that becoming a scientific writer requires some challenges, such as being comfortable with unfamiliar territory and being creative on demand.

Not only that, but she also talked about what characteristics make a good scientific writer. She said that a good writer has to have a talent for writing clearly, accurately, and with an interesting flair. There are also other various fields of career such as online, newspaper, radio, government agencies, science journal and freelancer.

I thought the presentation was really successful and interesting. I had really good time learning about and experiencing new technology during the seminar. I also got to know about the different territories of scientific career. If I have to sum up this seminar to one sentence, it would be “How to be a good scientific writer?”

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On November 5, 2009 the speaker came to us through a new form of chemistry seminar speaking.  The speaker was Jyllian Kemsley and she spoke to us via video conferencing, it was a very exciting event because this was the first time that Andrews University has conducted this type of a seminar.  The event went on without a hitch, Jyllian Kemsley is currently an Associate Editor at Chemical and Engineering News.  She started her career at Amherst College as a chemistry major and then spent 2 years as an analytical chemist at Merck.  From here she transitioned to Stanford Grad School and then went to the University of California Santa Cruz where she took, as she described it, a one year boot camp in Science Writing.  Following her time at the University of California Santa Cruz she spent some time as a freelance writer and finally got a call in 2007 to work for Chemical and Engineering News, where she works today.

Jyllian Kemsley gave us some information on what a weekly news magazine does exactly, they generally write short stories that take about a day or two to write.  There is not a whole lot other than short stories that takes place.  As a science writer she spends a lot of time visiting scientists and talking to them about what is new in there science research and watching the local and national news to get leads on things that are going on in the world.  As easy as this job seems to be there are a few challenges and these challenges vary from being comfortable enough with going into unfamiliar areas of science and finding information about a topic you have not clue about.  It is also asking the “dumb” questions sometimes and juggling multiple stories at one time.  There are many rewards to the job, some examples would be the intellectual freedom and the abilities for high creativity and flexibility in your schedule.

She gave us a few tips at how to be a good science writer.  A person needs to be skilled and interested in Science, it would be great to have a good talent for writing and to remain calm when under pressure.  She said that it takes having thick skin to do well, mainly because people will criticize your writing and you need to be able to handle the criticism. There are many different areas that a science writer can work and most people understand where this is, they are primarily the media and news papers and science journals.  However, other places that science writers can be found is at hospitals and research institutions.  The best way to become a science writer is to write your own blogs and to help write for the school news papers and magazines to get your feet wet and to have a good understanding of writing styles for different medias.

Jyllian Kemsley spoke very well and was extremely polite and friendly.  She stayed within the time restraints and was just an amazing speaker. It was a very interesting talk and gave  good incite into what goes on to create some of these science publications.  She spoke very clearly and made sure to speak loud enough that everyone could hear.  She answered all her questions with ease and pride.  It was an amazing Seminar and the best presentation by far all year.

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This edition of ChemSem brought the never before tried teleconference technology to the presentation amphitheater. Joining us from California was Jyllian Kemsley, a writer for the online and print magazine Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN). She was initially trained as a chemist, and received her Ph.D. in that field before determining that she was interested in pursuing science writing as a career. Though there was not much chemistry to be offered from this presentation, there were several things that we did learn which were interesting and potentially beneficial in terms of understanding and possibly pursuing a career in that field.

Among the valuable suggestions offered by Kemsley was the fact that there were many facets to the opportunities offered by science writing. Online news, newspapers, and other elements of news media are always in need of scientists who can read, understand, and translate works of science into colloquial and interesting language for the average reader. Beyond this, one of the valuable elements is the fact that science writers have the opportunity to gain a broad understanding of the fields of science without actually having to study or research a specific and focused element of the field. In doing so, she admits, science writers do need to have a willingness to “ask the stupid questions.” Given that the interviewee is well versed in the material they are being interviewed about, the writer must be willing, and have the confidence, to get them to break down the information into smaller and more manageable chunks, even if in doing so, the writer seems lacking in understanding. Finally, though there was not a lot of specific information, Kemsley did suggest that an interested individual should endeavor to get some form of science writing experience as an undergraduate in whatever newspaper or periodical for a university they could.

Though I personally don’t find myself drawn to the field of science writing, I do enjoy reading the material and learning about discoveries other people have made. I did find it valuable that Kemsley pointed out the volatility of the field and the fact that quite a few science writers were recently laid off. I appreciated her honesty and her discussion of the topic as a valuable resource in spreading knowledge and understanding regarding chemistry and science in general.

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For this past week’s presentation, we were fortunate enough to have Jylian Kemsley PhD, an associate editor for C&E News. Her presentation was unique and informative because rather than highlighting research like past seminars, she was actually able to give a talk on a career as a science writer. Working for C&E News, she has been able to utilize both her skills as a writer and her expertise in chemistry. Another interesting thing to note about this presentation was that it was in a video conference style, with her doing the actual presentation in California. This actually turned out better than I anticipated because it was almost like the presenter was their as we were able to follow along with her PowerPoint slide as well as see her face.

Throughout this presentation, she gave a lot of great advice and abundant information on a career as a science writer. I was able to learn many new things that would be of great use to anyone who is even remotely interested in this particular field of work. For example, she was able to describe some of the programs that are for science writing as well as getting started as a science writer. She then went on to describe the typical features of her job and the many tasks that she has to accomplish in order for a article to be written. From her presentation I was able to gather that there is a lot of stresses involved with this kind of work. For example, the staff has to stay on top of recent scientific papers and local/national news.

She did a great description on both the challenges and work opportunities for those interested in a career as a science writer. Being able to cope with unfamiliar territory and pressure, while also being pressured and critiqued shows the qualities of such a writer. Finally, we were able to learn the different workplaces that are involved with science writing such as news paper, magazines, online media, trade publication and newsletters, science journals, and freelance opportunities.

Overall, I would say that Kemsley’s presentation was rather interesting and unique because it was a change of pace from what we are typically accustomed to in seminars. She was able to thoroughly describe the aspects of her job, while not even being physically present. Also, she was able to give great answers to the many questions that we had in store for her. The scientific portions of this seminar did not required any specialized chemistry knowledge so an interpretation of it to a non-science friend is not needed.

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The lecture this week was definitely an informative and interesting one. One of the things that made it interesting, certainly entertaining, was the fact that it was done via web conference. This being the first time I have ever been involved in a web conference, I kind of liked it. Another thing that made it interesting was the topic. So far in our weekly lectures the topics have only been on the technical aspects of chemistry, but this lecture was on writing about chemistry.

One of the things that I learned during the course of the lecture was that to be the editor of a scientific news journal or magazine, you don’t necessarily need to have a background in the science that you are editing. According to the speaker, even if you don’t have the background in science, after a while you probably have read enough articles and other news pieces that you could pass for someone with a degree in the sciences.

Another thing that I learned was that most major news programs usually drop their science sections during hard economic times such as the one we are in. The speaker mentioned that CNN fired its whole science wing to make ends meet. One thing that I would like to know more about would be how freelance writing works. Not that I would like writing for a living, but science writing is an interesting topic. To write about something other than literature or history or topics related to those seems like it could almost be fun. If I were to describe this lecture to a non-science friend, I would have to say that it was about writing for a chemistry magazine and how the speaker went about building her career in science writing.

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This week’s seminar presenter was Jyllian Kemsley Ph.D, the associate editor of Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN).  She communicated to us via a video link.  The purpose of her presentation was to enlighten us undergrad students on the topic of science writing.  Kemsley has had experience as an analytical chemist working for Merck.  She is also a graduate of Amherst College and obtained her graduate degree at Stanford University.  At UC Santa Cruz, Kemsley took part in training for science writing before joining C&EN in 2007.

Her employer-C&EN,  is affiliated with the American Chemical Society; which is currently the world’s largest chemical society.  C&EN itself is partitioned into three distinct groups: business, government and policy, and education in science and technology.  Kemsley is one of eleven writers in the education in science and technology group.  A weekly magazine of C&EN includes feature stories, news items, online news, and blogs.

In a typical week the writers read scientific papers, top of the news, converse with scientists and other sources, write, revise, and attend conferences both near and far. They then employ five or more editors and their goal is to produce good stories for readers.  Though the goals of the writers are usually met,  there are still some challenges that come with the demands of science writing. One must be comfortable with unfamiliar territory, creative on demand, and simultameously balance various kinds of stories under various time pressures. Some rewards of becoming a scientific writer are: intellectual freedom, personal creativity, and flexibility in work hours and topic content.

Personally, Kemsley has written stories on breast milk and nutrition and the influence it has on the infants, water plants mixing with sewage, and various types of other topics.  She says that if one is thinking of becoming a scientific writer,  they must have a fascination with science and a drive to keep learning.  However, one major problem that science writers face is that when a company has a tough economic situation, science writers and journalists are usually among the first to be laid off.   I personally thought this was very interesting, especially the fact that CNN laid off all of their scientific staff over the summer, so I would say that if one is thinking of doing scientific writing with a news media,  I suggest they also have a backup plan.

Overall, I have to say that this presentation was very interesting.  I gained valuable insights into the field of science writing.  Though they may not be active lab chemists, I can now see how instrumental science writers are in being the link between scientist and people with no scientific background.  I found Dr. Kemsley’s presentation style to be very informative.  This engaged me and other students, and helped me gain a new respect for the writers of the science articles that I read.

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The guest speaker for chemistry seminar was Jyllian Kemsly. She is an associate editor of Chemical and Engineering News. She earned her doctorate degree in Chemistry at Standford University. While attending doctorate program, she also took the science writing program, which gave her a chance to work as a science writer.

The seminar was held by video conference. Sometimes, when we asked her questions, she answered a little bit later. However, the seminar finished without much trouble. I think that video conference is a good tool to learn and share thoughts between the people whom I can not reach easily and me.

From the seminar, I learned what C&EN consists of, what kind of weekly news there are in the magazine, what makes a good science writer and her life story. Throughout her life story, I could understand writers’ challenges, solicitude and rewards. One interesting thing was that a person needs to have thick skin to be a good science writer. The reason is that everyone has different thoughts, and the writers cannot fit to everyone’s opinion.

She had worked as a freelance for a few years, and joined C&EN. I asked her about the reason why she applied to C&EN. She told me that she had several reasons. One of them was that it was not easy for her to write science things to general audience.

I would tell my friends that the seminar was about science writing skills and if you become a science writer, it involves creativity, flexibility of your time, and intellectual freedom.

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This week in seminar we were privileged to hear from a writer at Chemical & Engineering News, Dr. Jyllian Kemsley. Although she was just an “accidental” chemistry major, she greatly enjoyed the field and went on to receive a doctoral degree. As a employee of C&EN, Kemsley has the privilege of working indirectly for the American Chemical Society, the largest science organization in the world. For those interested in science writing as a profession, Kemsley noted that one does not necessarily need to be a scientist or have a science major to work as a journalist at C&EN, which opens up the doors to a world of outside opportunity.

The presentation was done via webcam, a new kind of technology to the Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Andrews University. The use of this technology went by better than I had expected. There seemed to be other men there that were helping out with the whole presentation as well. Though there were some troubles getting both streams on the screen simultaneously, seminar proceeded unencumbered for the majority of time spent there. During the Q & A portion, Kemsley entertained the students many questions concerning science writing, including non-writing aspects of work at C&EN like science illustrators.

I’ve always been impressed with the writing in C&EN and similar magazines like Nature. The articles are usually very interesting and can be understood by a somewhat wide group of readers. This reputation has been confirmed through the presentation of Dr. Kemsley here today. I give this presentation a 9/10 for professionalism, a 9/10 for chemistry/information content and a 9/10 for student engagement.

To the layperson, this seminar talked about the sort of jobs that are available in science writing and the kind of duties associated.

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Today we had a very experimental seminar, the first of its kind in our amphitheater. Calling us from San Francisco, Dr. Jyllian N. Kemsley talked about her career in science writing through video conferencing. Currently the associate editor of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), Kemsley spent her undergraduate years as a pre-professional student but became an “accidental chemist”. Upon graduation she worked at a pharmacy as an analytical chemist, unsure of entering medical or graduate school. Eventually she continued her education in graduate school at UC Santa Cruz. After graduate school, Kemsley stumbled upon the idea of science writing as a career, joining two skills she had kept very separate before.

After saying a bit about her history, Kemsley went on to talk about what science writing entails based on her experience at C&EN. Including the feature stories and news items in the published magazines, their website includes breaking news and some material only online. There is also a blog which includes a “potpourri of things” such as updates on past stories, extra information that didn’t fit into the rest of the story, or entertaining videos. Working as a science writer gives her a lot of freedom and creativity to work with intellectually challenging work while pushing her into unfamiliar territories.

For our first video conference, the seminar went amazingly smooth. Since most of the students have experience with online video chatting I do not believe that any of us were particularly unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the format. Projected on the screen were two small windows, one of the audience (us) and one of the speaker (Kemsley) adjacent to the main window showing the PowerPoint. Fellow student Gi Hyun Choi noted that all our most interesting speakers engaged us by presence and a lot of interaction (throwing us goodies) so wondered if a video conference would be a snooze-fest. That problem was solved by the camera pointed at us and actually, even without her physical presence, I found Kemsley one of the more interesting speakers we’ve had all semester. While not crazy or laugh-out-loud hilarious, her clear spoken manner, well-organized presentation, and bits of wit and humor made for an educational and stimulating seminar.

Although it was not her field, due to my interest in art, when she mentioned that the publishing company she worked for had artists I had to ask how much science background the artists had. As expected, this isn’t her territory however she did say that most of the work in C&EN was more general processing rather than drawing. She also said that Santa Cruz has a science illustration program (http://scienceillustration.org/) and that most science illustrators work in the area of PR, graphics for research, and covers.

One of the most memorable stories Kemsley worked on in her career is the death of a chemist at UCLA in the laboratory. And one of the most unique stories she worked on is about “Breaking Bad”, a television series about a high school chemistry teacher who after being diagnosed with cancer begins producing amphetamines to secure financial security for his family.

Laymen’s Summary of the Seminar: Science writing is a great job for those with the love of writing and the love of science.  Actually those people who don’t have super science knowledge can still make it! Science writing can be creative and fulfilling, tough but rewarding.

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This week was a very interesting presentation in which, Jyllian Kemsley presented via a video conference. This was an experimental presentation done online, with the speaker in California and her presentation slides were on the screen next to her. Kemsley works as an associate science writer in Chemical and Engineering News. She has received a PhD in Chemistry from Stanford and it was there she found scientific writing to be interesting. Kemsley also provided us with a lot of information about her background. At Amherst College she became an chemistry major and worked as an analytical chemist after graduation. She entered the science writing program at UC Santa Cruz, and became a freelance writer and consultant.

In Chemical and Engineering News they produce feature stories, news items, online news, and blogs as well as perform story updates. In a typical week they read scientific papers, top of the news, converse with scientists and other sources, write, revise, and attend conferences near and far. They employ five or more editors and their goal is to produce good stories for readers. Although this is their goal there are still some challenges of science writing. One must be comfortable with unfamiliar territory, creative on demand, and juggle simultaneously different kinds of stories under different time pressures. Some rewards of becoming a scientific writer are: intellectual freedom, highly creativity, and flexibility in work hours and topic content. Kemsley has written stories on breast milk and nutrition and the influence it has on the infants, water plants mixing with sewage, and all types of things. If one is thinking of becoming a scientific writer they must have a fascination with science and a drive to keep learning.

In science writing, one can still work in traditional media, such as online media, trade publications, newsletters, science journals, etc. I thought it was very interesting that CNN laid off all of their scientific staff over the summer, so if one is thinking of doing scientific writing with a news media I suggest they also have a backup plan. Scientific writing is a good way to set up connections with industries, depending on what their topic of writing is about. Although I found scientific writing to be interesting and a good way of establishing networks, I wasn’t encouraged to do research in science writing. If one is thinking of becoming a science writer they can start be writing features for university publications, star ta blog, take classes in journalism, read widely (Knight Science Journalism Tracker), join the National Association of Science Writers, or attend annual science writers meetings.

I found that many students seemed to be engaged in this presentation and asked many questions at the end. Kemsley was able to answer the questions to the best of her ability and many students learned new things from this presentation. This presentation involved learning about science writing, and what one can do to achieve this goal.

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This week’s online video seminar by Dr. Jyllian Kemsley was done successfully. I thought the presentation was easy to follow, interesting, and helpful to us as chemistry/biochemistry major students. She is currently the associate editor of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), which is published by American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

I learned many things about the job as a science writer. She told us about her challenges and rewards as a science writer, and things that make a good science writer. Challenges included being comfortable to learn unfamiliar information, being creative when it is demanded, and being able to work on several stories at once. On the good side, rewards included intellectual freedom and flexibility of the work. She mentioned that passion and drive to keep learning, writing skills, and ability to deal with time pressure well are the qualities that makes a good science writer.

I thought the presentation was interesting. Its topic as science writing was interesting, because as a science major student, that might be one of the things I might consider doing later on. The content of the presentation was also interesting to learn about science writing from a science writer. However, I felt that she talked too much about her personal stuff, which is not related to the topic of her presentation, such as explaining why she went to such school.

I would describe the presentation to my ‘non-science’ friend or family as this: “Dr. Jyllian Kemsley’s presentation on science writing is a must for those who are considering a career as a science writer.”

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This week’s speaker was Jyllian Kemsley, the associate editor of Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN).  She communicated to us via a video link.  Her presentation was meant to enlighten us on the topic of science writing.  Kemsley has had experience as an analytical chemist working for Merck.  She is a graduate of Amherst College and obtained her graduate degree at Stanford University.  At UC Santa Cruz, Kemsley took part in a “boot camp” for science writing before joining C&EN in 2007.

C&EN is affiliated with the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest chemical society.  C&EN itself is divided into three groups: business, government and policy, and education in science and technology.  Kemsley is one of eleven writers in the education in science and technology group.  A weekly magazine of C&EN includes feature stories, news items, online news, and blogs.  Examples of stories reported by Kemsley include reports on contaminated heparin and a discussion on the quantification of metals.

Kemsley mentioned traits required of all journalists.  They need to stay on top of stories and communicate with the scientists in the respective fields.  Journalists will, at times, need to attend conferences and visit research facilities.  They will also need to research the scientific literature.  Journalists must be comfortable with unfamiliar territory, be creative on demand, and juggle different stories with different schedules.  Obviously, deadlines are very tight.  But, there are benefits to being a science writer.  These writers have intellectual freedom and are allowed (in fact, required) to be creative.  They also have a fair amount of flexibility.  Of course, science writers need to be interested in science.  They need to have some “thick skin” as editors will not always agree with their ideas or writing styles.  One major problem that science writers face is that when a company faces a tough economic situation, science writers and journalists are among the first to be laid off.

I thought that this presentation was very interesting.  I gained valuable insights into the realm of science writing.  Science writers may not be practicing chemists, but they at least have the chemistry background needed to understand the material that they report on.  These journalists are instrumental in bridging the gap between scientists and laypeople.  At this point, I am not interested in taking up a career in science writing, but I am willing to keep my options open.  I have some questions regarding science writing.  First of all, what is the average salary for a science writer?  Second of all, which companies are most receptive to science writers, and which companies are least receptive to them?  Finally, what advantages could there be to being a science writer rather than a researcher?  I think that science writing is at least worth a look.  To sum up this presentation, I would say that is an introduction to what science writers do and what is expected of them.

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I enjoyed our most recent chemistry seminar on November 5, 2009 which took place through a live video presentation. The speaker, Jyllian Kemsley, gave the presentation from her home office in California and we watched it in the Chemistry Amphitheater in Berrien Springs, Michigan. We were able to ask questions and get a response. I realize that the technology for a presentation like this has been around for some time, but this type of long distance learning and communication is still impressive to me.

Jyllian Kemsley received a PhD in chemistry from Stanford University. After receiving her PhD she took a one year science writing program at UC Santa Cruz. She now works for the Chemical and Engineering News, a weekly newspaper produced by the American Chemical Society.

Presented benefits to a career in science writing were always learning something new, the ability to be creative and flexibility. This includes being informed of new developments in the field or an area of chemistry you were previously unfamiliar with. The job provides an outlet for creativity and can be worked around a personal schedule. Admitted challenges to this career were dealing with unfamiliar territory, being creative on demand, and juggling different articles all at the same time.

During this presentation I was highly interested in a career in science writing. It seemed like a job that was too good to be true. The ability to explore so many topics in science as a career is fascinating. However, the more I thought about this as a possible career, the more I realized that it would be much like a continuation of university. The weekly deadlines, necessary reading and writing would carry on the same stresses present in receiving an education. I would be constantly anxious about the projects I had to do without a defined work time. I realized that whatever career I choose, I want to be able to leave my work. This will allow me to have a healthy social and family life.

Describing this seminar to friends and family is the same as the way it was described to me. The seminar informed us on the challenges and benefits of a career in scientific writing.

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