For me, the question of “what to do after grad school” was like eating an anxiety ramen bowl. Each noodle could have represented a thought: life goal, imposter syndrome, passion, existential crisis, fear, or personal reflection; when pulled upon, the noodles naturally twisted together, ultimately bogging down an obvious career pathway. As a plan-motivated person, untangling and understanding each noodle in an orderly fashion was my initial narrow-sighted approach. But for me at this time, I realized it was best to just assess a few noodle bites at a time, and trust that it would work out. Two things in particular really helped my thought process, one being my graduate research advisor. He thought favorably of graduate students doing internships, and supported my decision to take a summer off from thesis work and intern with a local biotech company (Genentech). This opportunity was extremely useful for me, especially as I had entered graduate school straight from undergraduate schooling. Not only was I able to experience being a Ph.D.-level research scientist for a summer, but I was able to conduct informational interviews with a variety of industrial scientists from a diverse array of backgrounds. Another resource I had was a labmate/friend who, like me, was experiencing the existential crisis of “do I even like what I am doing?” They shared this long, yet 100% worth the read, blog post (spoiler: the author incorporates a colorful “Yearnings Octopus,” which is actually a pentapus). I appreciated the candid writing style, but it was difficult to read at times because I was in a delicate mental state. However, the guided personal analysis was refreshing, and it helped me understand the “career” mindset from a broader perspective. My dad, an avid canoer, told me a good way to orient your boat in a stretch of water is to pick a far off landmark (like a large tree or hill) and paddle/steer towards it. Ironically, this was great guidance for post-grad school as well. My advisor told me to pick a position that I could see myself doing in the future (I was tasked to find an actual title of a job position in a company that I could idealize), and then "orient" myself (skills needed, workflow practice, training, etc) in that direction. With this in mind, I applied to a few biotech companies at first, because I knew I didn't want a career in the traditional academic setting. But, after one interview, I decided that a postdoc in a new/desired research environment would best enable my career development, with the future position in mind. This all being said, I have always found it insightful to hear from others who experienced a similar event. Even though everyone’s experience is unique, I find that perspective from others can help with personal reflection. To this aim, we, the Scholar’s Digest bloggers, want to share our experiences (both longer posts and shorter stories) throughout this "How I found my postdoc" series. Miho, Liwen, and Martina have shared part of their journey here, and we will link subsequent series chapters as they are posted. Best of luck to all those in this decision making process - we hope to add some insight to this journey! --- Miho: I investigated the role of an immune checkpoint molecule in facilitating cancer growth in a lymphoma model for my PhD project. For a postdoc, I wanted to expand my expertise to tackle some of the bottleneck issues limiting the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy. All the labs I interviewed with had their eyes set on one or more of these bottleneck issues, and had really cool experimental systems and resources to address them. I had an overwhelmingly positive interaction with the PI and the lab members of each lab too, so I was excited at the thought of working in each of them, and choosing a lab was the most difficult decision I have made. In the end, I picked my current lab because there was an added excitement that its model system is built on a similar idea that I thought about during my PhD, and it was like a tool I wish had existed magically appeared. Liwen: After conducting theoretical basic science research for a bit, I realized that I wanted to work on clinical research that potentially could be useful in real life cases. I spontaneously entered dementia research, and decided that I would love to explore it further. Regarding my personal experience of job hunting, I have to say, finding positions and finding “the one” share similarities: just the right time, right place, with the right people. Wise advice in general that I got from a senior research advisor was to “stay open, be generous, be positive, and be forgiving.” It took me around 6 months to end up at UCSF, which was partly due to limiting my job search to certain locations. After leaving out the location restriction, things went smoothly, and the job search turned out to be one of my favorite experiences so far. I guess this is a small part of “stay open” -- who knows what will happen! Martina: During my undergrad, I won a scholarship to study neurodevelopment at King’s College London. At King’s I really discovered my interest in stem cell biology, and applied to the neuroscience Ph.D. program, studying molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases. Fast forward four years, and after months of thesis writing, I wanted to be done with researching neurodegenerative disorders. I was still interested in studying molecular neuroscience, so I looked for postdocs in neuroscience, mainly on Nature Jobs. I found a position on an interesting molecular neuropsychiatry project at UCSF. I had been to San Francisco on a trip a couple of years earlier and absolutely loved it. I interviewed for the job and got an offer, but after a few months in my new role, I didn't really like the position. It turns out, my frustration with neurodegeneration research stemmed from personal burnout and exhaustion during my PhD (do take a break between your PhD and postdoc!), not the actual science. However, I was able to switch labs at UCSF and am now working on stem cell modelling in neurodegeneration, and I think I have finally landed where I belong. Photo by Pawel Janiak on Unsplash
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