March 7, 2018, by Agata

Last year PhD worries? Vol. 2

Are you about to finish your PhD this year? Or you maybe just started your PhD and you wonder how is it to be last year PhD student? Are you thinking of how to ‘bite’ that last piece of your time at Uni? What smart steps you should take to finish it without much stress?

This post is a second part of the post about the plan for last year of PhD!

4. Observe LinkedIn:

If you already built your LinkedIn network now you can be more focused on what kind of jobs alerts you can see on your LinkedIn wall. What recruiters write about. Personally, I check offers and seriously try to think of what job I could really do. From my observations, I learnt that the best time to start looking for a job is 6 months before you are going to be available. It gives you enough time to fill the gaps in required experience in your dream job and see what areas in your CV need improvement (for instance, I just signed up for a course I saw is necessary for my CV before applying to one of an interesting job for me). Remember, looking for a job is a job itself, do not leave it for the last moment when you have no money on your account!

5. Attend conferences:

Conferences are an amazing opportunity for networking and showing off! Especially in your last year when you already hold good quality research, when you are aware of what you have achieved and what you want to achieve. During conferences, you can meet people from other research groups who know of open job positions, you can meet professors who may look for postdocs and finally you can find industry representatives that are worth your attention! Do not skip their stands! Turn your conference mode ON!

6. Write a publication:

I am aware that soon my all data will lead to one closed story that will need to be published. I am aware that whatever I will write already to my PhD thesis will be helpful to create a publication. Writing also makes me realize where are gaps in my experimental data! As I am still fully active in the lab, it is easy to fill up these gaps with some extra experiments. That all may prevent me from doing too much extra lab work after reviewers opinions.

7. Study University website:

Check Uni website to learn what are all the deadlines regarding thesis submission! When I checked it I realized that we are required to upload an informative form to Uni three months before thesis submission! Did you know it? I didn’t! So in order to not forget about this and other deadline, I hang on my wall a big 2018 calendar with all deadlines written on it to not miss any key date and to get motivated!

So… What are the steps you took to prepare yourself for the last year of PhD? ?

Now wish me luck, and I wish lot lots of luck to all LAST year PhD students! ?

Agata

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