Thanks for your response. Yes from meeting the supervisor I think we'll get on well and I'd definitely say that the PhD is well structured with a lot of support, so in that respect it's a very good option. Thanks for the info of topics too, that is my main concern. I'm sure I'll be very interested in the topic throughout, it's just not quite what I want to specialise in for my future career in academia (although, like you said, that might change as I conduct my project.)

Sorry I'm not sure why some of the message is repeated...

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Hi there,

I've been offered funding for a PhD at an excellent University, but I'm not sure if the project is quite right for me. It's in Biology, which is what I'm interested in, but it's focused on genomics and bioinformatics and I'm more interested in ecology and environmental change.

My concern is that if I take this PhD then it will be very difficult to get a post-doc posistion in ecology and conservation because I've specialised in genomics and bioinformatics. I find genomics incredibly interesting, but I'm not sure if I'm as passionate about it as I am about ecology.

It's a great opportunity that I've been offered and I think I'd be stupid to turn it down, but it's not 100% what I'm after. Can I have some advice please? Can I do a PhD that I'm interested in but not 100% passionate about? Will I be able to go into the area that I am interested in afterwards or will it be be too competitive with the PhD students from that area? I suppose one summary question, aimed at post-docs and academics, is do you generally specialised in the topic your PhD was in for your research and lecturing career?

Many thanks.