The postdoc menu. NATURE|Vol 440|27 April 2006

GRADUATE JOURNAL
The postdoc menu
Some people take one look at a menu and know exactly what they want. But atevery table there’s one person who looks at the menu and freezes. They makelists of possibilities, including back-ups in case a dish has run out. They come upwith formulas that take into account their affinity for each ingredient and whenthey last ate a similar dish. Invariably they have a few food allergies too.When you’re a grad student, picking a postdoc is like choosing dinner at aparticularly huge restaurant. The menu is daunting, and factoring in eachingredient just makes it worse. Should you try the new field you keep readingabout (read: Chilean sea bass) or one you’ve tried before (read: salmon)?Should you choose the lab that addresses interesting questions with noveltechniques (read: sous vide) or familiar favourites (read: roast)? Is now the timeto see whether that allergy to cnidarians was just a phase?Choosing a postdoc has one notable advantage over restaurant dilemmas:you can apply to more than one place — like taking a taste of all the dishesthat intrigue you. Graduate school has made me better at making informeddecisions, but deciding on a postdoc isn’t going to come down to a magicformula. Still, having sent out application letters for positions this week, I willinteract with each lab before committing to my future scientific sustenance. ■
Milan de Vries is a molecular-biology graduate student at the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology.