如何做成功的研究生

http://www.jamesandthegiantcorn.com/2012/05/05/success-in-grad-school/

Success in grad school doesn’t come from working incredibly hard.

It comes from setting unrealistically fast deadlines for yourself. And then meetingthem.

Sometimes that means working early mornings, late nights, and weekends.Sometimes it means coming up with a new approach, getting the results in threehours, and sneaking out of lab at 3:30. But the point is the results are what matter. Ifyou can find ways to be unexpectedly productive you’re much less likely to burn outentirely than if you can only ever meet your own deadlines by burning the midnightoil at both ends (mixed metaphor intended).

Working hard for the sake of appearing to work hard (either to others or to yourself)is the surest road to burnout and lack of results.

NESCent - right place to get funding for your independent evolutionary study

http://nescent.org/science/overview.php

nature careers - helpful guides for your career strategy

http://www.nature.com/nature/careers/index.html

tips on applying for postdoc position

http://cteg.berkeley.edu/~nielsen/2012/applying-for-postdocs-positions/

what makes or breaks a Phd student

http://bioinformatics.psb.ugent.be/jobs

Nature published a short career article about what makes or breaks a Phd student. We think the profile below matches our Phdstudents quite well. Does it match you?

• Choose a supervisor whose work you admire and who is well supported by grants and departmental infrastructure.
• Take responsibility for your project.
• Work hard : long days all week and part of most weekends. If research is your passion this should be easy, and if it isn't,you are probably in the wrong field. Note who goes home with a full briefcase to work on at the end of the day. This is acause of success, not a consequence.
• Take some weekends off, and decent holidays, so you don't burn out.
• Read the literature in your immediate area, both current and past, and around it. You can't possibly make an original contribution to the literature unless you know what is already there.
• Plan your days and weeks carefully to dovetail experiments so that you have a minimum amount of downtime.
• Be creative : Think about what you are doing and why, and look for better ways to go. Don't see your PhD as just a road map laid out by your supervisor.
• Develop good writing skills : they will make your scientific career immeasurably easier.
• To be successful you must be at least four of the following: smart, motivated, creative, hard-working, skillful andlucky. You can't depend on luck, so you should better focus on the others!

We'd like to add one more thing to the list:

• It's better to burn out than to fade away. Neil Young