I started my role as a graduate publishing editor here at the RSC in November, about 3 months ago. In that time I feel that I have settled into my role well and have met plenty of pleasant and like-minded people - most of whom have been through, or are currently in, the graduate role themselves and are happy to help wherever they can.
Before applying for this role I had been working as a laboratory technician in Birmingham for a couple of years and thus was unsure whether I would be applicable for a graduate role. However, since starting here, I have found that graduate publishing editors have been employed from many different backgrounds from within the chemical sciences.
I have started my training with the peer-review process, where I have been reading manuscripts submitted by chemists from all around the world and sending them to be assessed by other notable scientists in that respective field. I am working for the journal
RSC Advances, which is a general chemistry journal. This means that I have been reading about current developments from many different areas of chemistry and learning about topics that I otherwise would never have had the chance to find out about.
There have also been many opportunities for activities outside of work. For example, I have volunteered to help with the RSC events at the
Cambridge Science Festival which is being held on Saturday 14th March. At the science festival I will be helping at both the climate change and the general chemistry stands with another recent starter (Patrick Hull, look out for his blog posts soon); feel free to come along and say hello! There is also a sports and social club that organises several out of work activities, one of which is a weekly five-a-side football game that I have been playing in: a great way to meet people!
James is working as a Publishing Editor in the RSC Advances team, in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Publishing Department. To see if there are any current vacancies in Publishing click here.