As part of the PhD Club at the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, I was able to organise a career day event on the 12th April, 2024.
I will defend my dissertation at the end of this year, so I needed to start thinking about what I wanted to do afterwards. I also wanted to have more experience in writing grants, so I applied for one through the Biodiversity Center at WSL, and received it. We had a little over fifty attendants, so I like to think it was very well-received!
I will defend my dissertation at the end of this year, so I needed to start thinking about what I wanted to do afterwards. I also wanted to have more experience in writing grants, so I applied for one through the Biodiversity Center at WSL, and received it. We had a little over fifty attendants, so I like to think it was very well-received!
Dr. Elena Plekhanova, a postdoc at WSL, a fantastic researcher and a great friend of mine, talked about practical and emotional parts of job hunting after a PhD.
💭
"The only path to success is to carefully think, decide and build your career step by step"
Actually, it's usually a lot of randomness
- Elena Plekhanova
I was also the moderator for an expert panel session. We had a wonderful collection of experts from research (Dr. Paul Haverkamp) government (Dr. Bianca Saladin, Dr. Lukas Widmer and Dr. Maitane Ituratte-Garcia) as well as from industry (Dr. Samuel Wirth). It was quite the experience to serve as the moderator for the first time.
It was really fascinating to see the differences there between the fields and against academia. For example, in Switzerland, especially if you want to work in government, it is increasingly important to speak at least one national language. Often as researchers, we're used to working in English, but this simply doesn't suffice.
At the end, I'm still not sure if I want to stay in academia, but at least I have some time to figure it out, and I got to meet some amazing people!
At the end, I'm still not sure if I want to stay in academia, but at least I have some time to figure it out, and I got to meet some amazing people!
