10 Brutally Honest Lessons About Doing A Post Doctorate [PostDoc Advice]

After years of being a PhD student, the transition to navigating PhD careers has been eye-opening. As a post doc, the landscape seems both familiar and uncharted, with the freedom to explore my own research interests within the framework of tech research.
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The leap from student to postdoctoral researcher requires a shift in mindset. You're no longer just absorbing knowledge; you're expected to contribute to it significantly. It's exciting but also comes with a high level of responsibility. One aspect of this journey that's particularly interesting is how post doctorate supervisors treat you.
his period is about deepening your expertise, becoming a recognized expert in your chosen field, and preparing for the eventual leap into a more autonomous role in academia or industry. It's a time for serious tech research, where the work you do can set the tone for the future contributions you'll make to your field.
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▼ ▽ TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Sh#t Postdoc
01:30 Failing to deliver
02:44 Postdoc treadmill
03:46 Supervisor sees you as a paper machine
04:35 Talk 'the language'
05:47 The thing about grants
07:09 Nomadic Lifestyle
08:43 Find your niche
09:52 The Expectations
10:44 Skills You Need
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[@DrAndyStapleton]

Discover the untold secrets of thriving as a Post Doc and learn how to turn challenges into opportunities: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rn25hXyNf8aSnc0

[@lukejay5460]

You should do a video on presenting posters!

[@garethbilton9934]

Love your style Andy 😍🌈 (and the content of course!)

[@user-tn1vc1xz5d]

We weren't allowed to apply for our own grants as PI.....you needed funding to get a lectureship but needed a lectureship to get funding. We also only got 80% of the calculated full economic cost. Our postdoc forums got shut down as we all complained so much.

[@justaname999]

We had the same regulation and were told the 80% is for OUR benefit. For all the freedom we would get having 20% "off". In reality, after teaching, meetings, supervision, and other time consuming tasks, this 80% regulation meant, I would have been able to devote maybe 2 days worth of research work to the project I was hired for. So that freedom was the freedom to work 200% for the price of 80. Needless to say, we all felt extremely valued as colleagues /s. Our early career meetings were also cancelled and we were formally asked to not talk "negatively" about our work life to phd students because it would cause a "bad atmosphere". On a brighter note, though, the department I eventually ended up at in my first non-postdoc position was much better and treated postdocs and phd students as actual human colleagues with some intrinsic human value. It was refreshing.

[@TvehX]

After realizing I would never have enough grayhairs retire from my field to leave an adjunct professorship I decided not to go on to a PhD.

[@deusvult1268]

You can also go to industry depending on the subject you studied.

[@timhsvwalkinsha]

Our accounting practices are incomprehensible. Imagine you downloaded last quarter's bank statement today and then downloaded the same statement again in a week's time and it was completely different. That's what happens in your previous institution. It's predominantly incompetence; our lab has had occasional windfalls due to mistakes, including one that doubled our grant funding. There's nobody at the wheel.

[@venturabay]

Your Beard is impressive....going to take years for me to reach the Phd status for beards...Congratulations

[@Jsimmons80]

Did I hallucinate this or didn’t he once give beard tutorials?

[@zornslemon]

My PhD is pretty academic, so I’m thinking of doing a 1 year “shit” post doc for someone more industry adjacent as a pivot.

[@masterchief8646]

Your Videos are super hepful in a way but I don't think I am the only one experiencing massive FOMO on AI tools right now. I am spending more time on researching possibilities with AI tools than on my actual research as I fear to waste time. And this in itself could be considered a waste of time

[@cedriclothritz7281]

There are two typos in the list: treadmil->treadmill and nomatic->nomadic. How on Earth did that happen?

[@MiroLogie]

Andy I wanna ask you , I started writing my literature review I followed your tools which helped me a lot thank you , but there is a problem I wrote every single word my own depending on several papers but still the online ai detector, detects a percentage of ai I don't get it why !!! And then I tried to paste older paper writing from 1989 and it detects ai as well in this paper 😂 that's hilarious

[@samsonsoturian6013]

In my field post docs don't exist.

[@sirmclovin9184]

So people get professorships or leave straight away after PhD?

[@username42]

the first advice and the only one you need is just don't do any postdoc :)

[@briannjoroge2344]

oh how I hate academia!!!!!!

[@rainydayz7]

I find academia nauseating.

[@suchismitakar2154]

The trauma never leaves you

[@johnsmith1953x]

*If you're a Post-doc, you're flagged as incompetent and/or a failure* Sorry....

[@Lavabug]

By who?

[@johnsmith1953x]

@@Lavabug It means your research and/or publications and/or your advisor was not good enough, so you have to do a Post-Doc to get that. Everyone knows this.

[@luigiacerbi6202]

That's nonsense. It heavily depends on the field. In many fields doing 1-2 postdocs is the absolute norm before applying for a PI position. The problem is when it becomes a treadmill.

[@johnsmith1953x]

@@luigiacerbi6202 Completely disagree.

[@Lavabug]

@@johnsmith1953xthat isn't true. Every successful academic in my field in the last 30 years had to do at least 1 postdoc. Even the Ivy league graduates with the best connections. The last time anyone got hired for a permanent job out of grad school was in the 1970's. Physics.