Endocrine Abstracts

We all work incredibly hard to produce a thesis that will allow us to sail through our vivas and get that piece of paper, which says we have a doctorate. The next step is to grab hold of an exciting post-doc position, where we can press the “start” button on a rather traditional career path to independence. During the course of two post-docs, the golden numbers of research articles will be written, submitted, peer-reviewed and published, allowing for a fellowship application to be submitted, awarded, and independence achieved. But what happens if your career path is not as straightforward as this? Perhaps, your project takes longer to establish, resulting in a delay in publications. You may get rejected for a fellowship and have to take on another post-doc position. You may even take a career break as you start a family. Does a career path that is a little more indirect than expected mean that we should give up on the idea of becoming an independent scientist and apply for a position in Tesco? The short answer is, No. Teaching is a skill that is often overlooked by PhD students and post-docs in their quest for independence. Teaching can help complement a CV, to show a diversity of skills other than writing research papers. Teaching could involve; presenting lectures, developing direct learning activities, running tutorials, writing exam questions, working with the widening participation department or simply supervising students in the laboratory. There are also teaching courses available to enhance your understanding of the methods used to teach students. Teaching is a fun and rewarding way of developing skills that will show you to be a well-rounded individual, capable of not only being an independent researcher by getting project grants, but also a successful lecturer.