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Consulting in Optics

by Guest Blogger - Sapna Shroff


Written by Sapna Shroff, Guest Blogger - Imaging Lightly

Hey everybody.. Today I attended the Minorities and Women in OSA meeting at Frontiers in Optics. They had organized a talk by Jennifer Kruschwitz on consulting as a career. Jennifer is always positive and fun to meet.. so it was a great to have her for the early morning breakfast event!

Jennifer has worked in both industry and academia, and consulted through it all. Today, she spoke about her perspective and experiences consulting and working in the optics industry.

Her most emphatic advice to anybody considering a career in optics consulting was to make sure we work on articulating and communicating well. Good communication skills are necessary in any job and must certainly be invaluable while consulting. Good communication is not just about being an extrovert. We need to really communicate solid technical content, maybe altering the level of detail that needs to be discussed, to anybody from any background, having any level of technical skills.

She mentioned consulting requires a stout heart. There are periods when there is no project and then bursts when there is tons of work! It requires a good support system at home, a plan-of-action for the down periods, a good amount of patience and persistence.

She advised wise investment of time and money.. such as acquiring skills and experience which may help in the future, publishing, writing and volunteering to get positive exposure and choosing the right projects to ensure you are on the track you want to be in the long run.

Some people just like owning their own work, setting their own path and really prefer to consult than work for someone. Some folks are simply faced with career dilemmas managing a young family or a two-body problem. Certainly consulting is a great option for all of the above. Setting about it with a plan and long term goals in mind, like Jennifer suggested, was certainly great advice!
 

Thanks, Jennifer for the great talk today! Anybody interested, Jennifer Kruschwitz works on thin films and optical coatings.

Cheerio and thanks for reading!

 

Posted: 16 Oct 2012 by Guest Blogger - Sapna Shroff