A postdoctoral fellowship should be viewed as an opportunity to develop as an independent researcher, teacher, and scholar. It is also a period of transition between graduate student years and the time you will spend in the workforce.
The following recommendations supplement the yearly professional development plans described below.
- Identify your goals and make plans for achieving them.
- Find diverse activities to support your professional development plan.
- Produce influential research.
- Establish connections and make yourself known in your field, e.g. by attending conferences.
- Think of supervising students.
- A good place to start is by working with a group of undergraduates in the mathematical modeling course (MATH 485).
- You may also want to propose small research projects suitable for undergraduates.
- You could also work with one of your mentor's graduate students and take a leadership role in mentoring.
- Learn how to balance time.
- Determine who you are (an analyst, a geometer, etc).
- Do some outreach.