Book Description

What is out there? Do you believe in life outside academia? For researchers who consider a career switch, the open job market often feels as remote and uncertain as dark wood, or as outer space. To be happy at work, you need to find a job that is aligned with your values, gives you a feeling of belonging, purpose, appreciation, and some level of both safety and excitement. There are so many conditions that need to be met to develop a sense of job satisfaction! How to make the transition, preferably at a minimal level of stress and as smoothly as possible?The purpose of this book is to give you an overview of what you are capable of after completing a PhD (and might not even think of!), and which directions you might consider to develop a happy, fulfilling professional life. This book does not only explore the scope of professions in which PhDs usually excel but it also gives an overview of the tribes that formed on the job market and provides the description of their tribal behaviors. Do you fit the tribe of corporate rats? Or perhaps, the tribe of entrepreneurs? The book contains open questions and self-discovery exercises which will help you in digging into your mind to find the right tribe. You might be up to something really beautiful! Natalia Bielczyk is an entrepreneur, researcher, author, and philanthropist. After graduating from Physics, Mathematics and Psychology at the College of Inter-Faculty Individual Studies in Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Warsaw, Poland, and then went through a PhD program in Computational Neuroscience at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. In 2018, she launched a public foundation, Stichting Solaris Onderzoek en Ontwikkeling, aiming to help early career researchers in finding new careers in the industry. Even though she chose for working in the open market, she is still a researcher in free time--and, she has a strong belief that science and entrepreneurship can get along.