How to follow such a lovely introduction? I suppose an explanation of my own motivations for this blog is a good start... I have been post-doc'ing for 6 months now, working with anticancer drugs and improving their delivery (I hope) and I had a rather short-sighted impression that once I finished my PhD (in oligonucleotide peptide conjugation), my career would fall into place. I definitely have chosen correctly for myself by staying in research but becoming absolutely wonderful at it is a whole different challenge.
It is difficult to know what opportunities are out there, what things that you should do to improve your career path. Is it all down to publishing papers? Where and how and who do you start networking with? How can you keep on top of the knowledge? How do you get the ideas that are going to secure you that fellowship?! It is these questions and others which I hope to work through and get valuable input from our future followers as well as blogging on about interesting science articles and issues.
I noticed that Imperial college have a postdoctoral development centre which I think is a tremendous idea. They have 1900 post-docs and everyone is giving the opportunity to attend training and workshops and other kinds of support. The great thing is that external applicants can attend too. If my boss ever gives me the £450 to attend a course, I will blog all about it. Until then let's consider this our postdoctoral development centre!
Sarah
You rock! Great idea for the postdoctoral development centre. We should find out what's available in our area and post it on here.
ReplyDeleteAlso (excuse me for coming over all "Carrie Bradshaw") how easy is it for women to have it all? By which I mean an academic career and home life...
Time to get back to my tea and cake... and research!
You posed the question when, how and who with you start networking with and I have a theory. Which is...
ReplyDelete...surely "networking" is just a science community word for making friends? And as like trying to make friends in any sphere of your life you rely on your current friends to introduce you to their friends. When you are starting to get to know people you just chat about random stuff, although there may be some kind of scientific bent to it although not necessarily. Once you get to know people then you will know who you want to "get serious" with and collaborate or enquire about a job etc. And like any good friendship you have to work at it, spend time just chatting about random stuff and having drinks etc so when you have that foundation of a personal relationship when you start to work together it's a lot easier. And just like it's really hard to randomly chat with someone in a pub or in the street and become friends with them it's hard to chat to someone at a conference in the off chance you have something in common. Which is why discussion groups and smaller more specialised conferences are great as then you kind of know you at least have similar work interests in common.
So my hypothesis boils down to - you're reliant on your friends to increase your sphere of friends so stay close to them at a conference so they can do the introductions and it all boils down to gossip to figure out who's good and who's a bit crazy and best to let drift away.
I can tell you a wee story to demonstrate, I got introduced to a Prof. from Oz at a very small meeting in Dublin (there were 10 of us) by my PhD supervisor and the person who would be my external PhD examiner, there was general joking and piss taking all day as most of the guys were good friends and I joined in where I could being self-deprecating and ribbing my PhD supervisor. By the end of the day I was walking out of the building with the Prof from Oz and said I'd always wanted to visit Oz but it was a long way just for a holiday and it would be great to have a reason to go. I got offered a six month research position within the next month or so. See it's all about the gossip and dropping massive hints lol