I am a postdoc in human-computer interaction and digital health, but how did I come to this? How does one become a postdoc?
Short answer: "You get your PhD and stay to work in academia," but here is my long(er) answer. I share it to show that a path leading to academic research in human-computer interaction (HCI) can be very different, and mine wasn’t straight and smooth.
Two weeks ago, I had an excellent opportunity to talk about my computer science career with young people from Kazakhstan interested in IT. I have shared my educational experience and the path that led me to my academic position. Talking about it and answering the questions, I have realised that it's not always clear what IT researchers do and how our work in Academia is different from the work in IT companies. I decided to write about it, but then I had an even better idea. As my experience can be biased and non-generalisable, I decided to run a little survey among my friends and colleagues who have both: academic and industrial experience in computer science. Next, I describe the main points that came up from our reflections.
