Hi all— I’m a doctoral candidate in the US within a year of graduation, and had been planning on a TT position at a SLAC as my career target. While this felt like a long shot in the first place, it’s been especially discouraging lately and I’ve considered alternative career paths more seriously.
I’m primarily looking into postdocs for my next step, but have a good chance of being offered a research-adjacent position in my current university. Great benefits, would entail work I enjoy, and would allow me to develop more computational skills.
It seems like a path for more job security in the long run, but I don’t think I’m ready to completely give up on the potential to one day have my own lab. Would holding a research-adjacent position for a year or two after a PhD kill my chances of getting back into the academic side of things?
Comments
About 80% of the PhD grads from top life science program in the US end up doing something other than running a lab. While that is the job most familiar to graduate students, for obvious reasons, it is not the job that will provide the best career. It is well worth checking out what the ones from your program are up to. There will be good ideas there.