HOW TO 'SURVIVE' AFTER GRADUATING IN MATERIALS SCIENCE II: BASIC ADVICE

This article summarizes some basic advice for prosp ective and recent graduates in Materials Science (and related disciplines) on how to apply the skill s and knowledge they have acquired in graduate school to finding a job and developing their career in the ‘ real world ’ of science. Since the job market for Science and Engineering graduates has be come increasingly competitive over the last two decades, we argue that the new generation of resear chers should learn to act as their own agents/managers so as to ‘ sell ’ their expertise to prospective employers. Our thr ee basic pieces of advice can be summarized as follows: (i) know yourself analyze your strengths and weaknesses objectively as well as your likes/dislikes and care er aims and make your choices accordingly; (ii) always plan ahead : make flexible short term, medium term and long te rm plans as this dynamic mode will help you seize opportunities as they pres ent themselves; (iii) learn to play from the other side : since anything that matters in the world of scien ce is peer reviewed, learn to place yourself in the mindset of those who are going to evaluate you so as to anticipate their moves. This is the second article of a series, following the first in which w e described how we set up the graduate course on “Survival Skills for Scientists” at INRS.