When we volunteered to organise this conference, our first goal was to remind us all that a PhD is a journey, not simply the making of a final thesis. It is a learning process, a constant challenge, which forces us to master new skills and familiarise with different tasks and environments. It is not just a phase in our lives, but a stage in our career journey.
In fact, this event is not just about careers, but about our journey into the career to which we aspire. From student feedback, we have discovered one thing: we all seem to know where we’re heading, but we do not know how to reach that destination. Thus, we have asked our panel speakers not to tell us what they do, but how they got there, where they stumbled and how they got back on their feet. And there is one thing we have learned from them which we want to share with you today: to remember that the future does not start tomorrow, it has already started.
This conference is our chance to find out what to do next, and, first of all, what to do right now.