Doctorate - now what?

After completing his doctorate in 2015, Philipp Schwedhelm initially pursued a career as a neuroscientist and remained for another year as a postdoctoral researcher in Stefan Treue's Cognitive Neuroscience department. During this time, he successfully applied for a research grant from the German Research Foundation (DFG), which he took up in 2017 at the CIMeC – Center for Mind/Brain Sciences in Rovereto, Italy. At the end of 2018, Philipp took up a postdoctoral position with Botond Roska at the IOB – Institute of Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel and returned to the DPZ in spring 2019, where he took over as head of the junior research group “Visual Circuits and Repair,” a collaboration between the DPZ and the IOB. For family reasons, he also took up a part-time position as a research assistant in the “Animal Welfare and Knowledge Transfer” department at the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) in Berlin at the beginning of 2020 and handed over the leadership of his junior research group at the DPZ to Daniel Hillier in July 2020. Since August, he has been working full-time at the BfR in the “National Committee for Animal Welfare Law (TierSchG)”. In his role, Philipp advises German authorities and animal welfare committees on matters relating to the acquisition, keeping, and use of animals in scientific procedures. Ultimately, he deviated from his original desire to be actively involved in science. According to him, gaining a foothold in science also requires a bit of luck, which he did not always have. In addition, a successful scientific career also requires major personal compromises, which he was ultimately not prepared to make. However, he does not regret leaving applied science, because he finally feels at home in his new job.

Towards the end of his PhD in the Cognitive Ethology Department in 2015, Philip Wadewitz decided to change direction and leave his scientific career behind. Although he enjoyed research and had offers for exciting postdoctoral positions in prospect, the career ladder for researchers often ends in management positions, where bureaucratic tasks eventually take over and little time remains for research itself. Since Philip had always enjoyed teaching, he decided to become a teacher and inspire children and young people to take an interest in biology. After completing his doctorate, he spent two and a half years in Cologne completing a bachelor's and master's degree in sports—his mandatory second subject, which is necessary to work as a teacher. He then spent a year and a half doing his teaching internship at a high school, which he successfully completed in October last year. Philip is currently a substitute teacher at a comprehensive school, but plans to find a permanent position by next summer. Philip is very happy with his career choice, although he emphasizes that teaching at schools cannot be compared to teaching at universities. For this reason, Philip also warns that teaching should not be seen as a stopgap solution for researchers who are simply looking for a career change but have no passion for the profession.

At the beginning of his PhD, Rijk in't Veld was still undecided about the direction his career should ultimately take. However, while working on his doctoral thesis (2012-2016) in the Department of Neurobiology under Hans Scherberger, he discovered his passion for data science and machine learning. He therefore decided to specialize in a career as a data scientist and completed an excellence program at the Dutch company Dutch Partners in Assistance (DPA) in 2018, where he learned the ins and outs of machine learning and the relevant IT tools. Since January 2019, Rijk has been working at the Dutch Financial Markets Authority, or AFM for short. As a data scientist, he uses the latest data analysis techniques to analyze and monitor financial transactions and identify cases of market abuse. Rijk particularly enjoys the combination of advanced analytics and working for a good cause in his job.

Lennart Pyritz never had a fixed career plan, and his heart beat equally for science and journalism. He combined his two passions early on, writing articles about his travels abroad during his studies in Bolivia and blogging for Spektrum.de when he traveled to Madagascar to collect data for his doctorate in the Department of Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. It was only towards the end of his doctoral thesis that he made the final decision to pursue a career as a science journalist. After completing his doctorate, he completed a three-month internship in the science editorial department of the Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich, followed by an internship at “Quarks & Co” at WDR in Cologne and a several-month internship at ZEIT Wissen in Hamburg. From 2012 to 2015, Lennart completed a science journalism traineeship at Deutschlandradio and then became a junior program employee at Deutschlandfunk. In the same year, Lennart began working as a freelance editor, presenter, and author in the science editorial department at Deutschlandfunk, where he still works today. Lennart does not regret his decision to pursue a career in journalism rather than science. His work is very varied, as he presents and edits various programs, produces features and reports on a range of topics, and travels extensively for research and interviews.

Robert Niebergall successfully completed his doctorate in 2010 under Stefan Treue in the Cognitive Neuroscience Department. After completing his doctorate, Robert spent a year as a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University in Montreal, where he had already collaborated on his doctoral thesis. However, even during his doctoral studies, Robert began to have doubts about whether an academic career was the right career path for him, and ultimately decided against it. At a conference of the Society of Neuroscience, he gathered information about non-scientific positions and potential contacts. In 2011, he found a job as an account manager at a Dutch company (Noldus Information Technologies) that specializes in the development of software and systems for behavioral research. In this position, he was responsible for customer service and provided training in the use of the systems. Robert particularly enjoyed the latter aspect and successfully looked for positions with a similar focus. Since 2016, Robert has been working as a customer consultant at the scientific publisher Elsevier. His responsibilities now include supporting customers in using various scientific databases. He also acts as the interface between customers, sales, and product development, working with many different people both inside and outside Elsevier.