“The pursuit of science has often been compared to the scaling of mountains, high and not so high. But who amongst us can hope, even in imagination, to scale the Everest and reach its summit when the sky is blue and the air is still, and in the stillness of the air survey the entire Himalayan range in the dazzling white of the snow stretching to infinity? None of us can hope for a comparable vision of nature and of the universe around us. But there is nothing mean or lowly in standing in the valley below and awaiting the sun to rise over Kinchinjunga.”
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Truth and Beauty: Aesthetics and Motivations in Science (1987), 26.
Work Ethics
Work. Work. Work. Do a calculation a day to keep bad spirits away.
Be punctual. Nobody likes to wait. If you value other people’s time, they will return the kindness.
Read. Read a lot. A great part of a researcher’s job is spent reading. Below, you can find some tips on how to guide yourself through the avalanche of papers that comes out daily on arXiv or in specialized journals. As an active researcher, you simply must know what the community is working on and what breakthroughs are being made. Many good researchers start their day checking the arXiv, an open repository where the latest research is published on a daily basis. Check the arXiv daily and read (at least) a paper per day. You don’t need to understand every detail of the work in question. As you read, try to understand the problem that the authors are addressing, why the problem is interesting, and how the authors are solving the problem. Trying to get the gist of the argument is of essence. Even if this is not immediately clear to you at the time, it will provide you with important tools for your work. Knowing what to read is a learning process. The more papers you go through, the easier it becomes to sort the good from the bad. Be active during journal clubs. Finally, checking good pop science magazines can help you in catching important works you missed.
Discuss. There’s a lot of clever people around you. Pick their brains and force them to pick yours. Go beyond what everyone did.
Work. Work. Work. Don’t close yourself in your little bubble. There’s a whole wild work out there. If you’re a theoretician, learn numerical methods and data analysis. If you’re a data analyst, learn the theoretical basis of what you’re doing. Learn new tools, new methods, learn. You’ll soon be rewarded.
Presentations
Public speaking may be daunting, but if you want to pursue an academic or research career you will have to present your work to the community. This means that you need to know how to talk in front of an audience. The most common way to do this is through seminars. Your calculations will not be read nor understood until you convince others that they are important and relevant. Promoting your work is a key part in establishing yourself in the scientific community. A good talk or presentation can be crucial in getting a job or grant offer.
Know your audience. Adapt the content and your speech to the people you are talking to. Take into consideration their level of expertise but also their predisposition to hear you.
Practice. Try to mimic the same conditions you will have in the real presentation. Ask friends or colleagues to give you feedback. Always test the technical aspects before the seminar, such as laptop, slideshow, sound, projectors, etc. Be in the seminar room ahead of schedule. For online meetings, make sure your camera and microphone are working properly before the seminar. Adjust your camera to be at the same height of your face and avoid “overzooming” it in your face. For these meetings, find a quiet room with enough light and no distractions in the background.
Speak slowly and loudly. Prepare very well the beginning of your talk, since a good start will relax you and the rest will flow with ease. Also, know where the “weaknesses” of your work are and prepare for potential tricky questions. It helps you to remain calm and sound more confident. If needed ask for a microphone. Spend time introducing and motivating the work your describing, Tell the audience what you’re doing and why it’s important that they should care.
Keep it simple I. Too many slides will make the flow of the presentation too fast for the audience to follow. Too many topics on one slide will make your message less clear. A simple rule is to have one idea per slide, and never have more than one slide per minute. Slides are meant as a means of supporting what you’re saying, they are not the talk.
Keep it simple II. Avoid equations and technicalities at all costs. Do not explain every detail of your work, even if some of it mentioned in your slides. Do not be afraid to oversimplify something if you’re having problems communicating your message in a short time. This will give room for “easy” questions where you can develop these more complicated ideas further.
Be concise. Select 2 or 3 main points and reinforce them throughout the presentation (particularly in longer talks). This helps the audience keep track of your talk.
Be consistent. Find a template and stick to it. Don’t use different background colors or change font from slide to slide. Use at most two fonts in your presentation. The font size should be large enough for it to be readable at the back of the room.
Be spare. Too many colors can be distracting. Use two or at most three-color scheme. Use contrasting colors for text and background. For example, use a light colored font on a dark background or dark fonts on a light background. Avoid patterned backgrounds, they reduce readability. Go easy on slide transitions and sound effects.
Give credit. For heaven’s sake, always acknowledge the author of images, plots or results that you use. Check if you’re allowed to use it. Just because you found it online, doesn’t mean it’s up for grabs.
Images. Use good quality images and plots. Make sure the presentation is aesthetically pleasant.
Engage with the audience and be inclusive. Don’t turn your back to your audience while you speak, it makes you look insecure and it draws a schism between you and the audience. If giving an online seminar, turn the camera on and show your face. It humanizes the experience and helps to keep your audience engaged. Avoid the use of rhetorical questions and exclusion sentences such as “as we all know...”/”it is a well-known fact...”. There might be someone in the room who actually does not know. In online seminars, it’s ok to pause a few times to ask if anyone has questions. If you feel that no question is coming, move on. Awkward silences break the pace of the talk. It might be useful to coordinate with the seminar organizer on how to keep track of questions and organize these moments.
Respect the allotted time. It is extremely impolite, and annoying for the audience, to have a speaker going beyond their time slot. A well-planned talk is also a show of respect to the next speaker and to the audience.
Applications
To get a career in academia you need a job. To get a job, you need to apply for it. Applying for jobs and grants is an essential part of the life of a researcher. Below, there’s a few tips to help you guide you through this process. Some of them are just common sense, but you may find them useful nonetheless.
Work. This is by far the most important aspect. Do relevant research. Valuable research is not just about solving problems but about solving important problems. After 2 years on your PhD, you should be independent and tackle questions you find the most pertinent for your career.
Showcase your work. After getting the work done, you need to tell people about it. People need to recognize you by your track record. Personal contact with colleagues (and potential future employers) is a key factor. Don’t stick to your department or university. Engage colleagues in other institutions and countries. Make your talks splendid, be enthusiastic about what you do. Conferences/workshops are great but departmental seminars are where you have the best chance to impress someone. Use these opportunities to mingle with people.
Scientific outreach is not only a way to give back to the society. It’s also an opportunity to test and improve communication skills. Sometimes, having to explain your work to a lay audience can help you to have a broader view of science.
Big Science Collaborations are useful and important to get challenging work done. Do not think of them as publication machines and do not build a CV based exclusively on publications with hundreds of authors. The community knows exactly who had an important contribution in this kind of publications.
Know when to stop. This is an extreme option, but it needs to be considered. A career in science is not suited nor possible for everyone. If you’re unhappy or haven’t got any job offers, consider looking beyond academia.
Timescales. Depending on where you are applying to, start preparing applications a year in advance. This is a crucial time to be visible. Book departmental seminars, visit other groups, register in conferences, start new collaborations, ask around for opportunities.
Luck Factor. You will always need to be lucky in life.
CV: a strong and concise CV is important. Update it regularly. Include a list of your publications. Do remember that a CV is just a summary of your career so far, in the end while having a good CV helps, it’s the body of work that counts.
Research Statement. The length/format depends on the type of grant/fellowship/position you are applying to. Again, while a strong research statement in certainly important, no one will hire you solely based on it. Find out who you would be working with and on which topic, and adapt the research statement accordingly. State your research interests but be careful to not sound too narrow, show you are willing to explore different research directions.
Reference Letters have to be extremely strong and you should your referees if they are willing to write such a strong letter. Do not ask someone to write you a letter just because he/she is famous or more experienced. The people with whom you have worked the closest are more capable to transmit good information about you. Ask them well in advance so they have enough time. You will usually need 2 or 3 referees.
Useful links where jobs are posted regularly:
Academic Jobs Online (US centric, but extensive)
InspireJobs (High energy physics focus)