Starting over (venting and lessons)
I am a recent PhD grd from university of maryland focused on computational exploration on physical properties of polymeric materials.
The postdoc market is very bad. I really had to struggle to get a mediocore postdoc and finally landed one in university of buffallo. I published 10 first author papers and won multiple awards. However, all of it came to vain. What I learned is these papers worked against me. My advisor pushed me to publish more without trying new methods (such as reactive forcefields). Publishing too many articles made my cv look repetative and watered down. I should have listened to my co-lab mates who were trying to tell me I should slow down and were giving me valuable feedback. However, I was arrogant and didn't heed or even worked with them due to my advisor's constant praise. All of my sins have accumulated and finally bit me back at my most vulnerable moment. I felt so lost. I guess I was not as brilliant I thought I was it was just smokes and mirrors. My grinding only improved my advisor's CV but it watered me down. I was working with a very dried out, well studied system. In the interview PI's asked me "what new did you do? It seems like an extension of your old PI's work?" I couldn't say much. "The system is well studied" "it seems like your work is repetative!" Whenever I showed them my machine learning skills they slightly smirked and looked at it with disdain, like I was trying to sell them some snake oil. Finally I understand now. It is not just diving into work and publishing. However, you also have to be a people's person to get valuable feedback inorder to tailor your work. Moreover, too much publishing is bad for you too! Your friends and labmates are your anchor. Don't be a jerk to them.
In my new workplace at bufallo under the supervision of a new PI, I will use these lessons to be a better person. I learned my lesson. My ego was too big which made me have a distorted sense of reality. I will be starting in my new place soon from may. Hope someone learns from my mistakes. Life really humbled me!