School's prestige / Publication / PI - to be a professor?

microm
Thu, 22 Jan 2009 05:55:03 +0000

Prestige of your graduate (and postdoc) institution is a big deal but then, if you can’t produce any good publications, I dont think it can help you much.

So if you want to be a professor, I guess what will matter the most is your own publications (esp. during your postdoctoral work).I know a lot of well-known professors graduating from not-so-prestigious universities –> but they did their postdoctoral research at prestigious institutions and produced good publications during their postdoc period.

Getting postdoc position at a top university, is at least not as hard as getting into top grad school. Actually I think it’s much easier.

Btw, I heard that doing postdoc research in ‘exotic’ research institutions (in case of bio-related filed:like Whitehead, SLoan kettering, cold spring harbor, scripps or rockefeller) will make you somewhat more attractive.