<p>Just trying to learn about the academic world that I've seemed to have tripped and fallen into. A few questions about Post-Docs. Sorry if these seem stupid.</p>
<p>-What exactly is a Post-Doc? More specifically, how does a Post-Doc differ from being a graduate Student?</p>
<p>-Why are Post-Docs under the Education part of a CV? This makes no sense to me. Are you considered a student as a Post-Doc? I'd think you'd put them under work experience, but what do I know....</p>
<p>-How long do post-docs usually last?</p>
<p>-How much are you usually paid as a Post-Doc?</p>
<p>-Where does the money come from to pay you? Does it come from a Professor's grant?</p>
<p>-I've seen that most engineering profs have Post-Docs after grad school and before being a prof? How is this beneficial?</p>
<p>-I've heard that Engineering Post-Docs can be either in the Academic or Corporate World. What is the Difference between these type of Post-Docs?</p>
<p>Any thoughts or discussion would be appreciated?</p>
<p>In some fields, postdocs are practically necessary. In others, they are completely optional.</p>
<p>Postdocs are not grad students. They have their PhD in hand. A postdoc is usually a “first job” or “advanced paid internship” for new PhDs. It is simply the convention to list them under “education” on CVs in most fields, primarily because one’s education in the field is continuing as a postdoc, and since postdocs are not yet professors. Salaries vary widely according to field, according to location, according to “prestige” of postdoc, etc.</p>
<p>Postdocs can be funded in many different ways. Sometimes they are funded by a professor’s grant, other times by a university, by a department, or by a foundation. Some postdoc salaries are close to equivalent to first year TT hires, some are much lower.</p>
<p>Some postdocs are one year appointments, others are longer. Some are renewable. </p>
<p>During a postdoc, one gains experience. Sometimes this experience is in the lab, sometimes it is in grantwriting, sometimes it is in the classroom.</p>
<p>I cannot speak specifically to engineering postdocs.</p>
<p>To follow-up on Prof X’s comments on post-doctoral fellows, I offer the following.</p>
<p>Post-doctoral positions are extended training before your “first” position. They are a time period for you to develop your CV under the mentorship (and under the financial support) of an established investigator in your field. Your salary (stipend) is often the least of the costs associated with your research!</p>
<p>These positions are listed under education because you are still gaining training. You may be choosing training in a related field as your doctoral studies. You may be choosing training in new research methodologies that you would like to apply to your long term research goals. So it is not just convention, it is a period of training. Hence post-doctoral fellowships are training grants and NOT research grants. They are rated on the potential for you to receive training to take you to the cutting edge of your field. </p>
<p>It is exceedingly rare for the university to fund post-doctoral fellowships. However, professors may submit and become PIs on training grants that are designed to university. My recommendation is to always try to get your own independent funding.</p>
<p>In engineering, post-doctoral positions prior to obtaining a position in industry is rare. It is more common in this field for those wishing to pursue academic positions.</p>
<p>Thank you for your follow-up, ParAlum. Our perspectives reflect differences between the sciences and the humanities, I think.</p>
<p>In the humanities, for instance, it is most common for universities to fund postdocs, particularly if they are associated with a “Center for the Study of X” or a “Humanities Center.”</p>
<p>I agree that in engineering, post-docs prior to industry are rare for US citizens. All the university labs where I applied had several international students doing post-docs, for various reasons. I was told in at least one case that there were a few US students as well, bolstering their cv’s prior to academia.</p>
<p>Thanks this is really helpful info. How many papers does the usual pos-doc get in a year or two? What is meant by independent funding? For example, let say I wanted to do a post-doc at Cal Tech(a stretch…but the first place that came to mind). In a few years once I’m about to get my Ph.D., does one first apply to get independent funding and then go to professors at the University where you’d like to work and say “I have independent funding. Can I work there?” Do you first contact the professors at the University you’d like to work out and say “I want to be a Post-Doc. Let’s work together to get me funding?”</p>
<p>To my understanding, funding for post-docs is much like funding for grad school - most people will be funded by a department (in return for some teaching work), a professor (in return for research help), or by an independent party like the US government. I do not believe that there are as many independent sources as there are for grad school, and they are generally field specific rather than general - you would need to check within your discipline to see what was out there. Otherwise, I would indeed suggest that you talk to departments and/or researchers and see if they have any openings.</p>
<p>A cynic would say that in the biomedical sciences- postdoc positions are the only thing a Phd qualifies you for. Recently, health insurance became widespread for postdocs. Also, the NIH scale salary for a first year postdoc has risen to about 39K. Many but not all universities offer free classes and paid vacation time for postdocs. </p>
<p>Some people spend upwards of 5 years working in a permanently transient state as a postdoc. If your postdoc goes really well, you can get a better postdoc position, a tenure track faculty position or non tenure track faculty position. About 20 percent of postdocs end up in tenure track faculty positions. About the same end up in non tenure track faculty positions. Postdoc experience makes or breaks scientists entering industry (difference between entering as scientist 1 or coming in as asst director). It is just another crappy stage in our career progression.</p>
<p>In engineering I know of some professors that get a tenure track positions without a post-doc or a good research based industry job. This is a small number though. It is about 15% at my institution and it is only from berkeley or MIT and nobody else. My observations are that these types of professors struggle with publications though, and they are more likely to be let go. Is this normal?</p>
<p>In my field, there are plenty of independent sources of funding - most of the places that give grad school funding also give post-doc funding (NIH, NSF, Ford Foundation, many other government firms/organizations). Salaries vary wildly but are generally in the $40K range - although there’s one very prestigious, highly coveted health-related post-doc in my field that pays $89K for the first year and $92K for the second :)</p>
<p>My fields are psychology and public health. In social psychology it’s less common - I mean, post-docs are pretty common, but it’s also not unheard of for students to go straight from their graduate program to a tenure-track position (especially from my Ivy League R1). In public health it’s much more common to do a post-doctoral research fellowship for 2-3 years and then get a position as a professor.</p>
<p>There’s generally a very favorable outlook on post-doctoral fellowships in my field, in that graduate students may not have published like they would have liked to and the post-doc gives them the opportunity to publish, work on research without having to worry about teaching, and even give them some paper fodder to push out during their first three years on the tenure track.</p>
<p>As prof X kindly pointed out, the answers to the questions being raised by the original post and subsequent posts will be field specific. My comments are directed at post-docs in the sciences. </p>
<p>One generally applies for post-doctoral funding after a post-doctoral mentor has been identified. Then based on the research problem being attacked, one can apply (in the sciences) to NSF, NIH, various other federal and state agencies as well as disease advocacy foundations.</p>
<p>One final comment: if the post-doc period feels “crappy” and is not meeting your career objectives, you need to cut bait and find a new mentor and/or environment. It takes passion and hard work to succeed in most fields requiring doctorates. Its worth leaving a bad situation to find one that will help motivate and support your entry into the next stage!</p>