Throughout my career, I have never taken networking too seriously because a job path has been laid out clearly before through the academic system from being a student to becoming a tenured professor.\u00a0 In this I always assumed that networking wasn\u2019t so important since it\u2019s the quality of work that should speak for itself and open doors for moving forward.\u00a0 However, in considering an alternate career path it has become much more obvious how important the network is, and how it could have helped me in an academic career (and is doing so now).\u00a0 For academics, it\u2019s important for gaining ideas on funding, publicizing your work (citations!), getting new ideas, and also knowing how to move on from each step to the next.\u00a0 This last point is where I did not realize I needed the most help, as doing research has always come naturally and being a bit different in my approach has led to innovation, but there are certain expectations at each stage of the game that must be met.\u00a0 Taking a bit of time to network and asking the correct questions, can save an invaluable amount of time wasted from not having a network and working hard doing the wrong things.\u00a0 It\u2019s also a meter of success for how relevant your work is, because accomplishing goals of interest to your network is more likely going to benefit the community than something produced in isolation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Throughout my career, I have never taken networking too seriously because a job path has been laid out clearly before through the academic system from being a student to becoming a tenured professor.\u00a0 In this I always assumed that networking wasn\u2019t so important since it\u2019s the quality of work that should speak for itself and … <\/p>\n