With a little help from my friends

Grant writing is a complete new discipline within science for me… I feel like I have to learn everything all over again. Although I have been writing several papers before, this is so different that I have to adapt my way of writing and thinking. Luckily, I have called for help… several of my wonderful friends are helping me by giving advice, sharing their ideas and proposals with me.

How to figure out what you want to do with your career (if it is not going to be academic research) and where to go?

A while ago I figured I should just take some time off work, stay at home, do some internet searching and think. Also make some appointments here and there to talk to people in other lines of work, that kind of stuff. Sounds like a plan, right?

This week my PI and I decided to definitely go for the deadline application for a grant in September. This makes me very excited and I am glad we are finally going to apply. The longer I wait, the busier I will be and the more difficult it will get to write the proposal. On the other hand, this deadline is already in a few weeks, which means that I have to hurry and spend the most of my time in the lab and during my evenings working on this proposal.

About being a writer, project coordinator and scientist...

During a career as a scientist, you develop a lot of so-called 'transferable skills': not only do you learn how to do labwork, write and read papers, but also (sometimes without noticing) you learn how to lead projects, manage people, organize, teach, explain our research, and be creative and flexible. These transferable skills, and their importance, are becoming more prominent to me now I’m getting  involved in different things next to doing research.

Well, this blog is long overdue. The plus side of that is of course that I can give you a good impression of my first month at the University of California, San Diego. This month started with a depressingly slow beginning due to all the bureaucracy that was involved, but at the same time made me even more enthusiastic about doing research.

Earlier I told you that I decided to stay in science. When I received my PhD I set myself a new goal: get a grant. In my last blog I didn’t completely tell you the truth. I have to confess that in April last year I wrote an application for an STW Grant. I could not apply for it myself (I obviously don’t have a permanent position). So I asked my supervisor and my promotor to back me up in this application and they did.