I trust we all had a great Christmas and New Year and are back in to the swing of a new winter term.  I have, as promised, been doing some reading into the preparation of an academic CV, and no real surprise it is pretty straight forward and with some common sense not really to difficult.  That being said like all things in research experience is key and thus, looking at websites and reading over example documents is the best way to prepare the initial one; which can then be improved upon.  For this purpose I include two links:

1. Western’s Career Centre – a sample CV may be found at the bottom of this page.
2. Vitae – a British resource which has a number of samples depending on level of application and field of study/research.  May be found here.

As a graduate student near the end of my student career I am both nervous and excited about what the next few years have in store and plan to do my utmost to prepare myself for the reality of the current academic and nonacademic job markets.  For me, this means information is key, thus I cannot recommend strongly enough events like the Graduate Career Day for arming ones self with the information to make the decision that is right for you.

I also, highly recommend that we spend a long time deciding which path to take.  Make the academis versus industry decision for yourself.  It wasn’t something I really thought about seriously until my PhD. was well underway, and I spent a lot of time weighing up the pros and cons for me and my family.  For me personally the final decision came when I was looking over the projects that I have had to lay a side, the bits that I am not going to have time to finish in my PhD. research.  As I was sorting the folders with all the titbits of background information and personal data I began to wonder about the possibilities housed in these notes.  It was that juvenile excitement that made me realise that it is not only the science of Stellar Astronomy that is important to me but also the freedom of personal research.  That being said, if I had to choose between research and hands on observing, the telescope would win hands down (but that is for another dicussion, later when I start looking at my options).

Anyway, since I seem to have rambled a little there, I will conclude.  Make the decision for you, not for your supervisor or simply because it is easier to not think about it.

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