During the first five years following my PhD defense, I wrote various blog posts addressing matters related to my academic journey between 2019 and 2024. Through these posts, I hoped to keep my relatives informed about my professional activities (and perhaps convince that one particular sibling to stop asking when I would finally start looking for a ‘real’ job). Additionally, I hoped my experiences might inspire at least one young academic to take an unexpected, illogical, and/or uncomfortable next step, rather than just following the logical progression.
In the end, I wrote as many blog posts as humans have chromosomes, and an overview of them is presented below. Naturally, I welcome you to read them all, but I suppose it would make more sense to focus on selected ones, such as the one summarizing how my academic vision developed between 2019 and 2024, the one about everything I put my partner through by moving to Switzerland, the one advocating for more frequent celebrations in science, the one sharing the timelines of a (successful) personal grant application, or the one discussing all the steps I did not take. And if you feel like reading a few more, feel free to explore selected posts on similar themes, such as:
• How I became a postdoctoral researcher in the Hopfgartner group in Geneva (No. 1, 2, and 3)
• How my mother’s illness challenged and inspired me (No. 6, 7, and 37)
• How I could return to Groningen as an assistant professor (No. 25, 30, and 36)
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Overview of blog posts:
Track 46: …about time to think and realizing that I should say no more often
Track 45: …about personal challenges and learning from dealing with misfortune
Track 44: …about what I have actually been ‘building’ between 2019 and 2024 (!)
Track 43: …about my self-proclaimed function as data scientist
Track 42: …about ‘what if’ questions and the many career paths I did not walk on
Track 41: …about ‘leaving academia’ versus ‘working alongside academia’
Track 40: …about the imposter syndrome and work satisfaction
Track 39: …about presenting data and meeting academic inspirators at conferences
Track 38: …about the importance of feedback from students to improve my teaching
Track 37: …about my biggest source of inspiration
Track 36: …about being an academic researcher and becoming an academic leader
Track 35: …about missing my life, work, and colleagues in Switzerland
Track 34: …about a false start as an academic turning out to be a good start
Track 33: …about thankfulness and a life-changer
Track 32: …about how sports makes me enjoy my work a lot more
Track 31: …about the timelines of a recent grant application
Track 30: …about starting my new challenge in Groningen
Track 29: …about leaving Switzerland and going back ‘home’
Track 28: …about long working days/weeks
Track 27: …about challenges associated with going abroad
Track 26: …about celebrations in science
Track 25: …about ambitions and an academic career
Track 24: …about studying health conditions in real-world populations
Track 23: …about some great teaching experiences
Track 22: …about how rejections in science helped me in life
Track 21: …about structure in life and stimulating creative thoughts
Track 20: …about sharing experiences and insights as soon as possible to help peer researchers and thus to advance science
Track 19: …about some of the fancy analytical techniques I use and why joining the Hopfgartner group was good for me
Track 18: …about my actual postdoctoral project (finally)
Track 17: …about home office and work motivation
Track 16: …about a successful grant application
Track 15: …about three just accepted papers on completely different topics, all explained in layman’s terms
Track 14: …about a research collaboration which changed my life
Track 13: …about why research technicians are (and should be) your best friends
Track 12: …about how great life in Switzerland can be for an outdoors-man like me, and about urine(?)
Track 11: …about my interest in preventive medicine
Track 10: …about what an honor it is to supervise students
Track 9: …about my interest in lifestyle-based medicine and non-drug treatments
Track 8: …about the environment and becoming a frequent flyer
Track 7: …about an amazing example of personalized medicine which brought much joy to my life
Track 6: …about how hard it can be to live far away from your partner and family
Track 5: …about a great start in Geneva
Track 4: …about my move to Geneva
Track 3: …about the opportunity to join the Hopfgartner group anyway
Track 2: …about the (negative) outcomes of my first two grant applications
Track 1: …about what inspired me to write a grant which would allow me to join the Hopfgartner group in Geneva
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