Did you never talk about your plans after the PhD? It seems a bit odd to me that expectations go this far apart. I would expect that my girlfriend can tell if I plan a career or consider to be a stay-at-home dad. It's a bit like the question whether or not you plan to have children.

I would also not restrict the search to PhD graduates. I think it is pretty natural to lose patience when your partner is about to finish a PhD. This phase just sucks for the partner. With a PhD you might understand that better but it does not make it easier as it will affect your life. People tolerate that only for a limited amount of time. Most professors (male + female) I worked with had a partner with a non-academic job. I guess it just makes things a lot easier with children as academia is very time consuming with often unpredictable working times, frequent relocations and temporary contracts.

I would rather clearly communicate that you are planning a career in academia. Some will like it, others won't...regardless of a PhD ;)

I would contact the group leader. Part-time PhDs are rather unusual in Germany. Sometimes they have the option for part-time but full-time students are generally preferred. I don't know a single part-time PhD student (except for a short period of time in case of pregnancy). Just google the salary group. 65% means you get 65% of 13 TV-KAH. However, every group leader expects you to work 100%. I think 50% is around 1200€ and 65% around 1500€. I would really recommend to contact the group leader. He or she can give you all the information you need.

Depends. Does not matter if it is 400 or 600 but if you are at a University that is ranked high (let's say top 30), it usually attracts successful researchers that often receive more or better grants and often have a really good network. Look at Stanford, Cambridge, Harvard etc. A high amount of their post docs become assistant professors afterwards and that's often not because they are extraordinarily bright but because their bosses are the top of their fields and they no tons of people. Of course not saying they are stupid or less qualified either but it helps if you are coming from a University that everybody associates with cutting edge science.

From what I was told by Canadians, The PhDs in Canada are long and the salary is rather low. I have never heard of that University before so it is hard to say something about it. How is the University ranked? How good is the group you will do your PhD in?

Personally, I would choose a university where I will receive a salary that allows to live comfortably (there are huge differences between countries), where I have 4 years of funding, a good research environment (equipment etc), nice colleagues and experienced supervisors. That were my criteria when I was looking for a PhD. It takes a bit of time to find something like that but I know some people who took the "easy" road and started the first PhD they could get and now complain about too little money, limited resources in the group or a bad atmosphere, so I think it is worth to spend some time on the search. Depends of course on how flexible you are.

These criteria don't guarantee success but they make PhD life a lot easier I guess. If it is in Canada, UK, Spain or France does not really matter. No one will hire you just because you worked in Canada. There are good and bad universities in every country.

Good luck :)

Depends if you are applying for advertised positions or not. Most post docs I know applied for post doc scholarships (Marie Curie, University-specific ones etc.) and there you have some scope to change the area if it is not something completely different. If you can't secure a post doc scholarship it is often anyway questionable if a post doc is a good idea because the competition after that is even higher. At least that's what my professors tell me. So that could be a way if you find a group working in cognitive neurosciences and is willing to write a proposal with you.

I agree with Treeoflife. At least in biology this is quite common. You apply for a funded project, therefore there is usually already a project proposal or at least a rough plan. You might have scope in how you address the respective objectives but it is usually not completely up to you. I think that's fair, as your supervisor is at least paying for the materials you are using to conduct your research. It depends a bit on the supervisors. I also had a clear planning when I started but my supervisors are open to input and some things will be abandoned while other side projects will arise. Simply depending on how it goes. Other PhD students will maybe use stuff I've done or I will help other PhD students with their experiments (really large experiments are sometimes just not feasible for one person) but in return I will then have my name on their publications if I contributed. I think that is pretty common for a biology PhD. Letting other PhD students continue with projects you started is maybe not nice, but it happens. As long as your supervisor acknowledges your contributions to that project by including you in potential publications I see nothing wrong with that. However, especially if we are talking about the establishment of a method in the lab, then this is just how it is. It would be a bit stupid to let 5 people establish the same method. We have one student here establishing Crispr/Cas for a certain organism and I am sure once it is working, other students will use the method as well and use his results to save themselves time.

Ah ok. Didn't know that!

You met someone and got married in the next 15 min? Or does "single" mean something different in UK?

I don't see why that should change anything. Your relationship status has no influence on the application. It's just personal information such as birth date or gender. You could have been married when applying and divorced again by the time you start or sign anything. That's life.

It is a bit unusual to go from single to married in a couple of months but it will not affect the admission.

Right, there are absolutely no pressures of being a father. Do you guys really don't understand how incredibly insulting this whole view on men is? Did it ever occur to you that it is maybe also not that easy for fathers to not be around their kids? That I am maybe a bit pissed when women who never met me and don't know anything about me imply that we don't do anything but focus on work, that this is why our life is per se easier and this way diminishing accomplishments in general? I am not the one who is making ignorant posts here. That does NOT mean that women have easy lives or that it is not difficult to be a mother and have a career at the same time. I confirmed many times that there is a lot of inequality and things we have to work on. We do that, conditions for women in academia clearly improved in the last 20 years and they will probably continue to improve.




I seriously don't know how you cannot be insulted by the OPs first post as a man, but apparently that's just me. I also don't need all that hostility and obviously everybody else is perfectly fine with the content.

So no worries. Last post from me.

Funny. It sounded a lot like you are a bit unhappy and needed a valve to exhale in your first post ;)

Anyway, feel encouraged and virtually patted on the back.

Nice idea, but this will probably never happen, because it is just too expensive for companies. In most countries the costs for daycare are equivalent to "normal" salary. The post docs and PhD students with kids here pay literally almost their whole salary for full-time daycare. There is no point in working for them, other than that they are not out of their field. Financially, there is no point in working. It's the same in companies. This could be only achieved by a lot of subsidies and this would probably reflect in higher taxes. There is no cheap childcare if you want to have a certain standard. In Germany they expanded the daycare offer relatively fast, to enable women to work with the result that there are now tons of reports reporting sometimes huge problems, including sometimes even mild forms of child abuse (tied kids to chairs and things like that). The states often did not make these problems public because they have to meet a certain quota in childcare offers and there is already a lack.

I think it is a nice idea but then the whole society has to decide that we have to invest in that (not just companies) and I am pretty sure that many people wouldn't want that, including people like my grandma who think that you are a terrible parent if you let some external institution raise your child most of the work week to secure your career.

Because a man usually has no chance to get full custody for his kids in court, unless the mother is a drug addict. No matter what you want, the best you get is usually every other weekend because it is generally assumed to be the best for the child to be with the mother most of the time (but some will now probably argue that this is only because they don't care about their kids ;) )



Sure it is. But with trade-offs. If you think just science is a problem, try getting a day off or home office every other week in a normal company because one of your kids get sick, or there is a school excursion you have to join once in a while, kids have to go to the doctor, daycare is closed and so on. I am not saying that this is not possible but for most people it is possible because there are other people in the background helping out. My mom also worked 70% or so and we spent quite some time with the grand parents. Not sure if they would have managed as well as they did without them. It is just easier if one partner has some more time or a job where he/she is a bit more flexible. You are not flexible in responsible positions that are considered as a career.

I think the main reason women leave science is the same reason men leave science. There is just no perspective and most people don't want that risk. Besides relocation every two years and a conference from time to time it is much more flexible than any company job. Most bosses (if they are not assholes) don't care when you do your work as long as you do it. We have several post docs with kids (1-3 years old). If they are sick, they write at home or catch up with literature, data analysis and so on. That is way more difficult in a company that has fixed hours and expects you to be there.

Can you do that as a man (assuming that a man would get full custody of his kid)? I don't see the difference.



How would I do that as a man? Or are you earning less as a female Post Doc?



Well, you can maybe use a milk pump. Of course there are biological differences that we can't do anything about but is this really a point held against men or for inequality?

Most of the things people describe for single mothers applies to single dads. Employers are not keen on hiring single dads either. No employer is keen on hiring someone that causes inconveniences if that can be avoided. I really don't see where this advantage of men is (in these specific cases). The only reason why it was easier for them in the past is that their wives covered for them. Once they are not willing to do that anymore, everyone is in the same boat. We just have to accept that we can't have it all. Career ( for me not "just" working, but climbing up the career ladder over time) and family don't work together and people who say they do usually have someone who helps quite a lot (grand parents, partner who does not work fulltime, nanny, whatever)

Let's think a second why that is, shall we? Is it because there is a woman willing to step down for her husband and be a housewife or is it because of some magical advantages men have that somehow enable them to have a full time career and a full time family without any trade-offs?
Just stop doing that if you think it should not be that way! What are they going to do if you don't accept this antique role model?
The biggest lie told is that it would be possible to have two parents who both have a career (that word has somehow become the equivalent to a job) and still manage to be great parents. It does not work if you want to raise your kids yourself. How you organize your family is up to you. Let the wife make a career, let the husband work part time and in case of a divorce, she pays him for missed career opportunities and not the other way around. Personally, I have no problem with that. There are tons of guys who are not even keen on a career and the competition at the work place. You just have to find a wife that is willing to accept that as well. For some reason most of my female friends look for a rather succesful guy that earns at least as much as they do and are not keen on financing a houseman. But that might be just my friends.

About the professors: Let's talk in 20-30 years. Women have better grades in school, there are more women studying than men and as I said, most universities have already a women's quota and are obliged to hire female professors. I highly doubt that there will be no changes as the changes are already clearly visible. Every professor will confirm this. Just give it some time.