IMPRS-ML Retreat 2023

by Yiqi Huang

At the end of September 2023, we had our first ever IMPRS-ML Retreat at the Haus der bayerischen Landwirtschaft by the beautiful Ammersee. Together with coaches and IMPRS alumni from all walks of life, we explored numerous career opportunities within and beyond academia.

What shall I do after I finish my PhD, or, if I don’t finish my PhD? Dr. Nicola Bauer and Meike Rottermann shared their life stories in the opening session that shed some light to this ultimate question of many PhD candidates. This was accompanied by their insightful workshop that helped us find our own strengths and define the skills we acquired during our PhD. We made great use of their advice, especially the one about doing the 16Personalities test, that we soon remembered each other better in 4 letters than real names. In the following talks, we got to learn from Dr. Florian Schopf and Dr. Lukas Bischoff about their typical day as a senior scientist at Roche, and Equity Partner at Meissner Bolte & Partner, and how they reached their positions.

The next day started with a passionate speech from Dr. Imke Helling about her work on generics at Sandoz, followed by Dr. Christian Webhofer, sharing his career path from an IMPRS student all the way to being a team leader at Amgen. We then welcomed our beloved Prof. Danny Nedialkova on stage, this time not proving any scientific theories like in an IMPRS lecture but rather debunking myths about academia. The academia session was further enriched by Dr. Bettina Schnell’s experience of starting her lab at caesar (now MPINB), Bonn. We ended the day with an interesting presentation from Dr. Jonathan Mackinnon, not only for his career development in medical writing at Parexel, but also for the amount of artistic chickens in his slides.

No retreat is complete without a hike – so on the last day we adhered to this tradition and walked all the way to Kloster Andechs to enjoy sunshine and some local beers. We have thought intensively about our future in the past two days and it was the perfect occasion to finally enjoy the present. Needless to say, we’re already looking forward to the next retreat!