My First Months in Academia

Upon graduation, the painful period of job hunting starts, filling in endless application forms for advertised jobs, in the hope of securing a first position after the completion of doctoral studies. This may have seemed like a straightforward task, as you prepared your entire life for this next step, however, it was anything but that. You first needed to make the difficult decision of whether to leave academia and embark on an industry job with a good salary or stay in the academic field and pursue your dream of making it as an early career researcher and faculty PI by first undertaking a postdoctoral position. This was perhaps the most challenging aspect of life after postgraduate studies, as there were a number of factors to consider, and therefore take a while to arrive at the next step in a career.