The Career Day was organised by a team of coordinators and students of numerous research initiatives of the FME: M. Beyrau, S. Czerney, A. Dirks, H. Dömeland, A. Engelhorn, C. Hedtmann, K. Klinger, L. Kulikovskaja, J. Peters , M. Rosenbaum, I. Sauerland.
The Career Day 2021, which was in fact Career Days, as the programme was spread over three days, had the motto "Your Career, Your Choice". And more than 60 early career scientists followed the invitation and participated in the various events. The first day focussed on the perfect application. Appointments for CV checks and photoshootings for the pictures that should be included in (German!) CVs were quickly booked out.
On day two various scientific career paths and the topic "New work" - not least due to the pandemic very timely - were highlighted during several talks. Prof. Anne Dudeck opened this part with heartfelt words, insisting: "A career in science is challenging, but it´s worth it. But as to why it´s worth it - that is a question that everyone has to answer for themselves." During the lively discussions at the World Café tables some participants for sure found an answer to this question. At this point we would like to thank all speakers: Prof. Dr. Katrin Pittius, Karin Lühmann, Prof. Dr. Anne Albrecht, Dr.-Ing. Melanie Fachet, Prof. Dr. Anne Dudeck, Dr. Anne Maass, Tina Krieger and Dr. Barbara Witter. An unusual part of the morning was the virtual fitness break, Jakob Schröder of the "Pausenexpress" team provided the opportunity to relax and stretch all those muscles that cramp up during long Zoom meetings and enabled everyone to start full of energy into the World Café part.
In the afternoon two workshops on "Time management" and "Development of a promising research proposal" followed. On the third and last day two parallel "Media training" workshops (German and English) concluded the programme. Here the participants learned to speak about complex scientific topics in front of a camera, a particular focus was on the often controversial subject of animal experiments.
