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For some applicants, just competing for the Pathways award was a valuable experience.

"Admit that sooner or later you need to be yourself when you're at work--and that's when you'll start to enjoy it."

Several friends have left research science for very rewarding careers and never looked back. They merely reasoned that science had become an expensive hobby that they could no longer afford to indulge.

Correcting the problems and inequities that bedevil postdocs will require changing the culture of labs and universities across the country, and the National Science Foundation can and should take steps to catalyze reform.

"Brought back down to earth sharply when I realise that it will take the insight of Einstein, the prose of Proust, and the spin of Alastair Campbell to turn this mess of half-baked ideas into any kind of story."

My fellowship has given me the opportunity to collect research experiences from different disciplines, meet a lot of interesting people, and understand the problems I've dealt with from various viewpoints. And by doing so I've had a lot fun.

"The upcoming shift in focus toward large-scale screening of small-molecule collections will provide both opportunities and challenges for graduate students and postdocs wishing to explore this new domain of academic research."

"Our main target ... is [for] the postdocs being trained to go out and get jobs of their own. There are so many different types of jobs that it's hard to provide a good training environment that's right for everybody. So we're trying to figure out what types of things people would like to have." -John Lipscomb

"Research potential is the dominant factor in the Biology Department when we are recruiting new faculty." --Daniel Bush, chair of the Biology Department at Colorado State University

You are asked a particularly awkward question after your conference presentation. Do you: a) Blurt out 'I was afraid someone would ask that question.'

"Cost of living adjustments? Nobody's getting those," says Shawn Hayes, chair of the statewide University of California Council of Postdoctoral Scholars and a postdoc at UC Davis. There's also discussion of "the possibility of a 10% across-the-board salary cut for everybody, including faculty."

"We at PdOC are trying to provide a support network for postdocs and contract research staff."