Excelling in Your Postdoc

Postdoctoral fellowships are temporary training positions in which individuals who have completed doctoral degrees receive mentored training to enhance their professional skills and build a foundation upon which to transition to independent principal investigatorship or another subsequent position. This chapter discusses the benefits as well as the challenges that come with a postdoctoral position. Several strategies can be employed to maximize the gains from this critical period in academic career development. The skills and experience acquired as a postdoc can be utilized in a wide variety of career fields, and we present some of the professions that postdoctoral graduates often pursue after their advanced studies.