About the Paperwork

While graduate students learn a lot while pursuing their PhDs, how to run a lab might not be one of them. "I felt a doctorate trained me well to be a post-doc. But when I started my current gig, I had a lot of moments where I [felt] I hadn't been warned what I was in for," writes Zen Faulkes at NeuroDojo. While he says that his job negotiation and grantsmanship weren't strong areas, the biggest task he didn't feel well-trained for is bookkeeping and budgeting. "I didn't have to worry about tracking money in any significant way as a grad student or post-doc. Spending money at an institution is not like spending your own money. You have layers of people and paperwork that stand between you and purchases," he writes, adding that "I've learned that I despise trying to keep track of grant money."