I had a recent email conversation with a fellow graduate student who is also a friend:

• Friend: Hey ... question for you. How do you find postdoc opportunities?
• Me: Google "humanities postdoc."
• Friend: LOL. Smart ass.
• Me: I'm not kidding! That's literally how I look!
• Friend: "Oh [expletive redacted], really?"

Really. And that doesn't just go for seeking a postdoc. Finding money for your graduate work in the humanities or social sciences isn't easy, but nor is it rocket science. It goes something like this:

1. Find funding sources.
2. Apply to funding sources.
3. Repeat until retirement.

For the the full article by Royles, click here. 

Isaiah Hankel, Ph.D. for Cheeky Scientist

It was 9PM and I finally finished my last experiment for the day. I made a deal with myself that I would stop working at this time and start sending out résumés. I wanted to a PhD-level job in industry and figured all I needed to do was spend the last hour of each day uploading my résumé to job postings online. So, I sat down, polished my résumé and cover letter, and sent them out to a handful of companies.

I really thought it was as simple as that. Get your PhD, fill out a résumé or CV, get a great job ...the end. I was wrong. I never heard back from any of the industry positions I applied to. In some cases I got an automatically generated email but that was it. I was really confused. And, if I'm being completely honest, I was hurt and angry.How could someone download my résumé and read through it without at least having the courtesy to email me back a simple "no thanks" or similar? I found out much later that I never received a personal email back because no one was reading my résumé. Well, no person was reading it-a machine was reading it.

The Office of Research at the University of Notre Dame is sponsoring a CAREER DEVELOPMENT GRANTS FOR PRE- AND POSTDOCS.  The workshop will be led by Dr. Robert Porter (click here for bio). This will be an all day event and lunch will be provided to attendees. 

• Date: Friday, September 26, 2014
• Time: To be announced, all-day workshop
• Location: McKenna Hall (campus map)

When: December 6-10, 2014

Where: Philadelphia, PA

Travel awards for Postdocs to attend meeting.  For more information visit the ASCB meeting website here.  

Are you interested in learning more about discipline-specific teaching and learning in the university setting? The university offers short credit-bearing summer graduate courses on university teaching and learning in various fields!  Consider taking one of this year's courses.  

For class descriptions, click here.