With moving in and adjusting to a new schedule and new courses this past week I haven’t had much time to spend on job searching or GRE prep. I have, however, started to think about how all of my new classes will give me skills which are useful in the job market and in neuroscience research in general. In a lot of ways it makes classes even more exciting; in biostatistics I’m not learning esoteric ways of processing data, but learning real techniques that I will be using to analyze and assess my data before (hopefully) publication. In CS 5 I’m learning basic programming skills and ways to analyze step by step problems, which is sure to be useful later on in my career.
Thesis is the most obviously applicable course, since it is first hand experience doing research. One thing I’ve been trying to work on is presenting my research clearly and effectively. I’ve tried to practice on friends and family (when they’ll listen) figuring that it is important to be clear and confident when describing my research to potential employers. Today I had another great chance to practice at the JSD Summer Research Symposium. I get really nervous when speaking to a group, especially if that group is composed of people who have more knowledge about the topic than I do. In spite of that, I think my presentation today was at least coherent, and possibly even fun and interesting (I hope.) While I realize that it is a rare occasion that I will have to present a PowerPoint as part of an interview, I appreciate the chance to practice discussing my work in front of a friendly audience.
Something else I have begun to think about is the trip I will be taking to Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting this year. I am hoping to present as part of a poster session, and I’m also hoping to meet people within my field and potentially meet future employers. Before the meeting I need to come up with several strategies for ways to best use the meeting to find job opportunities. I’m also hoping to use the meeting to further narrow my interests within the field (down from electrophysiology, neurobiology, and/or neuropharmacology… that is to say, just about everything.)
Other than that, I just need to find a way to balance looking for work, studying for the GRE, and my current academics. It seems like it will be too easy to fall into traps where I focus too much on one or the other. I’m thinking I need to figure out an amount of time to devote each week to all of the above, and then block it out in a schedule so I don’t give too little time to any one activity. The trick is figuring out how much time that should be. I think I’ll start with an hour a week for GRE and two hours a week for job hunting… I’ll post about how that works out next week.