PhD comics talks about Open Access

And because there is no such thing as "too much talk about Open Access":

Original video here.

Marie Curie Fellowships

If you are about to finish your PhD or have just finished, you can consider applying to a Marie Curie Fellowship. The main idea of these fellowships is to support researchers to move to a European country to perform top research. The next deadlines are in August, but if you are really serious about this, you should start now.

Here is some advice about these fellowships:
1. Read carefully the documentation to find out if you eligible and what you will need. 
2. Start preparing the proposal early enough: contact your host institution and supervisor in charge and then start writing!
3. Don't be afraid to market yourself in the proposal and make sure you have something written about every evaluation point. 
4. Ask many people to review it: from the field and outside the field, the National Contact Points can also review it...
5. Get the support letters to your proposal (3 if possible).

6. If possible, get your hands in somebody else proposal from previous years...





Official Information can be found here, and unofficial information can be found here.
Advices to write a good proposal here.

PhD: to do or not to do?

Following yesterday's post about post-docs, today I talk about PhDs. Most people finish their Master and want to land their first job, other think there is more than finding a job and feel that they have to learn more. These ones end up doing a PhD. If you should do or not, depends on the professional career you want to have. I have not regret at any moment to do a PhD, but maybe that is just me:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=180743

http://www.urch.com/forums/phd-economics/130858-top-5-reasons-do-not-do-phd.html

http://www.findaphd.com/student/study/study-16.asp

http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/may/03/phd-doctorate-higher-education-love-money

Do you think a PhD is a must or a over-qualification for your career?

Post-doc: industrial or academic?

After doing a PhD, it is time to start thinking what to do next. You can leave research, but if you decide that research is what you want to do, a post-doc is the natural path. You have to think about doing an industrial or an academic post-doc. Both options have advantages and disadvantages and one has to take into account that Europeans and Americans have different views.

I found some interesting articles about this topic, which can be read here:
http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj6989-324a
http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/board,28.0.html
http://blog.1degreebio.org/?bid=54
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2008_06_13/science.opms.r0800055
http://scienceadvocacy.org/Blog/2011/01/06/academia-vs-industry-a-former-postdoc%E2%80%99s-perspective/

What do you think? Do you know people which have taken different paths?