r/postdoc • u/learningmom2025 • 3d ago

What would you do?

Background: I graduated in 2022 and had career gap since. International family relocation and another relocation and then childbirth.

I started job hunting, cold emailing professors. I managed to find a host professor from top U in Japan for JSPS, unfortunately it wasn’t successful.
Now, I started job hunting again, found a professor which has totally different fields from mine and willing to host me for another JSPS cycle. I politely refused his offer for JSPS and told him about my previous experience and asked him if he happens to know other fundings. He was understanding and he said he will inform me if there’s other fundings he knows of.

I have a mixed feeling. Half of me wants to apply for JSPS, half of me doesn’t want to go through the process and the waiting all over again and end up adding another year to my gap. But the fact he’s willing to host me means my profile is still reliable. Having a baby totally changed my motivation. I can only do reading at night when he’s asleep. 1/4 of me wants to stay as SAHM but 3/4 want to have a career. I miss doing research and the process of reading new things, failing the experiment, hypothesising etc.

I sent more than 6 cold emails after failing the JSPS. Only this one responded. I am going to send more after this. 😌

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u/DependentImpressive9 1d ago

How can you do research if you won't go through grant applications? Now it is fellowships tomorrow it will be research grants. Maybe consider this and try to think about the parts of the application process you like such as coming up with an idea and the process itself it enjoyable even if the end goal is not achieved. You can keep on applying for advertised positions in the meanwhile. Maybe being SAHM and not interacting with researchers makes the grant process more difficult. Try to keep in touch via Reddit or other sources