Unofficial Academic Checklist

Graduate school

1. Year 1

• Find a lab with healthy environment
• Take required courses
• Shadow a senior student / postdoc
• Explore scientific questions and directions in the lab
• Learn to read academic publications
• Learn techniques
• Get some data, good or bad, pos or neg
• Mess around and have fun with colleagues

2. Year 2

• Take required courses
• Experiments may not work but keep messing up
• Continue to learn techniques
• Get good at reading papers

3. Year 3

• Find which direction will work
• Master techniques
• Get really good at reading papers
• Bring new ideas to your PI
• Present at meetings

4. Year 4

• Have an idea of what kind of paper your project is going to yield
• Get real data
• Be your own boss
• Present at meetings
• Have an idea of what you want to do after graduation
• If applicable, do interns in summer

5. Year 5-6

• Give talks at meetings
• Write your paper
• Send papers out
• Find next position (industry or postdoc interview)
• Get dissertation done
• Get yourself out of the lab ASAP

Post-doctoral

1. Year 1

• Write a review
• Learn techniques
• Yield preliminary data

2. Year 2

• Know what’s ahead of you and determine if to leave academia after this
• Collaborate on other projects
• Get real data so that you know what to chase for

3. Year 3-4

• Write paper
• Submit paper
• Apply for K99
• Resubmit K99 application

4. Year 4-5

TBD