About This Course

The process of completing your PhD and securing your next position can be stressful and the guidelines on how to do this are not very clear. The Strategic Postdoc is a FREE, 3-week course designed to help trainees like you create a plan to complete their PhD training while applying for postdoctoral positions. This course allows you to evaluate different positions and opportunities while thinking about your personal and professional goals. While the content of this course is focused on the PhD-to-postdoc transition, the concepts and strategies in this course can be applied to other professional transitions after a PhD.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Understand if a postdoc is the right next step for you
• Reverse-engineer your postdoc search based on your needs, preferences, and values
• Create a game plan to apply for a postdoc
• Interview, negotiate, and choose a postdoc lab
• Strategize finishing your PhD and moving on

Course Structure

The course includes 3 modules with activities, reflection questions, readings, and additional resources to guide you through your postdoctoral search:

• Module 0: Getting Started: Outlines the structure of the course and how to successfully complete this course.
• Module 1: Positioning Yourself for the Postdoc: This module will help you identify your needs, preferences, and values (NPVs) to reverse-engineer your postdoc search, should it be the best next step for you. Using videos, case studies, worksheets and reflection questions, you will build a game plan to finish your PhD and secure your ideal postdoc.
• Module 2: Applying for the Postdoc: This module will guide you through the process of finding, interviewing for, and choosing a postdoc lab that is a good fit for you. You will also learn how to apply effective negotiation strategies to help you smoothly transition out of your PhD lab and into the next stage of your career journey.

Built with Your Schedule in Mind

We built this course for busy students, researchers, or professionals like you! Each module takes about 1 to 3 hours of work to complete and they can be completed in a leisurely fashion in about three weeks, allowing you to do course activities while attending to other responsibilities.

Requirements

There are no requirements needed to take this course.

Format & Certification

The Strategic Postdoc is a self-paced course. Once you pass the course, you will receive a Course Certificate of Completion and, if you opt-in, a digital badge that you can share on social media. Passing requires you to complete all the required activities for the course, which equals 50% of the total activities.

Course Contributors

(Listed in alphabetical order)

Course Speakers

Course Directors

Mónica I. Feliú-Mójer
Titilayo Omotade
Rosa Veguilla

Platform Development & Management

Daniel McQuillen

Video Production, Graphics, and Editing

Chris George
Maggie Hubbard
Eric Kornblum

Executive Direction

Giovanna Guerrero Medina

Acknowledgments

We’d like to thank the following Science Communication Lab and Yale Ciencia Academy Team members for their support in the creation of this course:

Daniel Colón-Ramos
Doug Koshland
Erika López-Alfonzo
Carolina Machado
Steven Paniagua
Evan Reeves
Alexandra Schnoes

Funding

This work is supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number 2R25GM114000. This course is a collaboration between the Yale Ciencia Academy for Career Development, CienciaPR, the Science Communication Lab, and iBiology.

Frequently Asked Questions

What web browser should I use?

The iBiology Courses platform works best with current versions of Chrome, Firefox, Edge or Safari.

What do I get at the end?

Upon completing all required activities, you will receive a printable certificate from iBiology Courses and, if you opt-in, a digital badge to commemorate your participation in the course.