Jonathan Weitzman – Part 2 – Preparing Students For Their Professional Life

In part two of our conversation, Jonathan Weitzman talks about how he envisions career building in academia and talks about different projects he's championed at the Université de Paris aimed at preparing his students for their professional life and empowering them during their graduate studies. Jonathan Weitzman is a professor of genetics at the Université de Paris, founding director of the Centre for Epigenetics and Cell Fate, and director of the Magistère Masters in Genetics Porgram. Join the Papa PhD Postgraduate Career Exploration Group! What you’ll learn about in this episode: Why you shouldn't be afraid of having "holes" in your CVHow interdisplinary projects can enrich your science and open your vistasJonathan's view on the future of academiaThere is no single right way to build your careerThis episode’s pearls of wisdom:“We're experimentalists, we should experiment more with our careers.”“One thing that is really striking every year is that the students want very simple answers to questions like "Do I need to do a PhD or not? Should I do a second master's or not?" And they always ask "do you recruit people with a master's or with a PhD?" And the entrepreneurs always look at them like: "I don't understand the question – we're looking for people with skills".”“There's no golden path. Everyone gets where they're doing differently. There's so many ways to get there and you have to enjoy the journey.”“I really think this is the future of academia, is to create better interdisciplinary. We're seeing it with the whole COVID thing.  It's not just about virology and it's not just about drug development, and it's not just about epidemiology, and it's not just about politics. It's about how these things come together.”Jonathan's links: Twitter – @Epigenetique; LinkedIn.com/in/JonathanWeitzman; TEDx Talk – Who am I ? Learning to read the genes in your unique genome book.g Leave a review on Podchaser ! Support the show on Patreon ! You might also like the following episodes: Chris Kent – Biotech Startup CEO: PapaPhD.com/11Sathy Rajasekharan – Science communication: PapaPhD.com/16Fábio Rosa (PhD student), Gil Costa (scientific illustrator), Patrícia Monteiro (principal investigator): PapaPhD.com/24Margaret Magdesian – Biotech Startup CEO: PapaPhD.com/21 Launching your podcast? If you're preparing to launch your podcast, you may be asking yourself what hosting platform to use. I launched Papa PhD on Bluebrry because I wanted a professional service that would interface with my WordPress website, that would robustly broadcast Papa PhD to all platforms, and that would allow me to grow my podcast in years to come. And these are the reasons why I'm recommending the Blubrry podcast hosting and syndication platform. Click on the button below or use the promo code PapaPhDBlue on the Blubrry website to unlock a one month free trial: Try one free month with Blubrry ! If you are starting a serious podcast project, do consider one of the first podcasting hosts out there, offering state of the art services, including IAB certified statistics, based on years of experience in the podcasting space. Happy podcasting!