What is a postdoc supposed to do?
Research? Career development? Supervision? Job hunting?
Research whatever the PI wants? Develop your own project? Write papers? Read papers? Think outside the box? Finish old projects? Start new projects? Find collaborations? Do what you want?
Go to Seminars? Attend workshops? Network? Tweet? Join linkedIn? Researchgate? Lablife? Get an MBA online?
Supervise PhD students? Interns? Technicians? Develop their projects? Listen to their stories? Dry their tears after committee meetings? Give everybody advice and chocolate? Order things? Make the cleaning roster? Organize lab meetings?
Apply for jobs? Find your own funding? Apply for grants? For your PI? With your PI? By yourself? Apply for fellowships?
It is confusing to become a postdoc, all of a sudden you are alone and nobody cares about you; no committee to meet, no supervisor to please, no student office demanding money and to know when you graduate.
But now here we are: new challenges and new chances.
That’s what we want to write about on this blog.
Every postdoc at BUMC is invited to add their thoughts either in the comments or in posts. If you want to contribute, just email me julianeh@bu.edu and let me know what you would like to do.