A year of Industrial Experience

I started my very first job on Feb 6 , 2017. Here is how it went and what I learned.

Even though I strongly believe continuity is super important, I had to leave from my first job after 8 months because of not very pleasant conditions. At my new job that I am working for a little over 3 months now, thing are better in some cases and worse in some cases. What I learnt from this is if you don’t like your first job (I strongly don’t mean financially) take risk and move on to another job. Some things will be better, some will be worse. It is all part of learning process and building your career and network.

When it comes to finances, even after 8 months of short experience I had very strong skills to negotiate. I moved from a big city to smaller one. Even though for same job I would get 25% less than my first job I am getting 7% more. For this city’s standards that’s 33% over the average. If I decide to change job in same city I will have more strength to negotiate further.

As long as you don’t change industry or continent, the field you are working in and the technical knowledge of your co-workers will be very similar.

Similar to previous one, if you are in a Mediterranean country, their way of work ethics and efficiency in work hours won’t be same as let’s say it is for Americans. Yes, culture makes a huge difference even in offices.

One thing I can compare my job is to my grad school experience in Texas while I was conducting research. In grad school or research (real research) your advisor will wait until you come up with solution (good or bad). In industry however you need to get the job done before it is due, even if you don’t come up with a solution.

Even though I have this big passion for academia, I didn’t have a bad year at all! I learned so many things I probably never can in school. I also enjoyed free evenings and weekends (until I went back to research). My advice as someone in beginning of their career, and honestly not being sure about which path to take (industry or academia as my blog title makes it very clear), I highly recommend taking a year off and trying the un-tried path. You never know what life has for you.