succeeding in a PhD
There are four major things you can do after your PhD, and success means something different for each one.
- Academia (continuing research, either as a postdoc or professor)
- Universities want grants. Does your work get grants? What’s your plan for getting money to the university?
- Early in your PhD, your advisor will be the one writing and deciding on grant applications. You don’t necessarily need to write grant applications yourself, but you should ask how well your work fits with the kinds of grants that are available. Later in your PhD writing some grants might be more reasonable.
- The number of publications you have (and citations they each have) is relevant, especially in impressing other academics, but it’s not that useful unless you can also indicate how your work will get grant money in.
- Industry: (Working at a company)
- Do you have industry collaborations?
- Is your work related (even tangentially) to the kinds of problems companies face?
- Have you done industry internships?
- I’d even recommend working for a company for free (but make sure you’re getting something out of it, such as data you wouldn’t otherwise have access to and / or a paper)
- Non-profits and the government.
- Admittedly I don’t know too much about this, but it is a viable path.
- Teaching at a university
- How much teaching experience do you have?
- Lecturing?
- Building assignments?
- Working with students?
- Teaching something you’re unfamiliar with.
- It might be worth checking out my note on applying to teaching track positions
- How much teaching experience do you have?
