I joined the PhD program in Biomedical Sciences at University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth, Texas (Twitter: @UNTHSC). For my doctoral thesis, I investigated genetic basis for inverse comorbidity between Alzheimer’s disease and cancer, and syntropic comorbidity between Alzheimer’s disease and hypertension.
I am currently pursuing postdoctoral training in psychiatric genetics at Yale School of Medicine. In the last year of my PhD, I decided that postdoc was going to be my next step. I had a month between defending PhD and joining as a new postdoc.
Yes, PhD has helped develop my career, but also made me realize my talents and areas where I would like to improve. The biggest impact from my PhD was getting better in genetics, which was a passion. The training helped me develop my expertise in my passion of interest. Additionally, I believe, PhD is the only time where as a student you develop the ability of tracking multiple projects as you build your sense of independence.
I am one of those people, who has a lot of ideas for almost anything. The PhD experience refined my prioritization skills, where I could pursue several ideas, complete them without losing interest, and maintain independent thinking.
Finding a mentor who believes in you, is of utmost importance. If your working style and expectations don’t match with your prospective PI, the training period of 4-6 years will seem like forever, and you will lose interest.
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