Aleksandar Ivanov
Junior Data Scientist at Faculty AII wouldn’t necessarily change anything. I did what made sense for me at each career stage.
I wouldn’t necessarily change anything. I did what made sense for me at each career stage.
That there will come a day when the rejection ends!
Never underestimate your PhD or your academic skills. You don’t have to retrain. You don’t have to start again. Find the organisations who value what you already have and can do.
I learned to try and be OK with failure. Again, something that not many people have in industry as it is easier to ‘do what they tell you’ than to think critically.
There is always the anxiety of doing something new and the fact that you sail in unknown waters. But, on the other hand, this is what you always do when you are in basic research, so there is not much difference at the end of the day.
I consider myself a permanent student and I am always curious
I would encourage people to think deeply about what they really want – if you truly wish to be an academic, that’s wonderful, but there is no shame in deciding on a different career, even if you have been successful in academia so far.
I had heard that industrial science can be quite restrictive, that you don’t have the freedom to follow interesting science as you do in academia. It may be that I have been lucky in my role, but I have had quite a lot of freedom to investigate what I believe may be interesting biology.
My motto is ‘always choose the hardest battle, never stop looking for the unbeaten path’.
As much as I enjoyed my PhD, towards the end of it I started hearing a little voice in my head that made me doubt if my long-term career was going to be in academia.