Through your reflection and planning you will have prioritised the skills, knowledge, and experiences you wish to develop and know why they are important. The next step is to think about how and where you will do develop them. You will find plenty of activities by doing your own research, but you can also take some inspiration from our example activities.
I think the reality is that to some extent some things are self-selecting. If you're the kind of person interested in these things, you are just more open to finding them. But at the same time there are lots of things that you can do: signing up for regular emails and different events, activities, even things like reading the posters in elevators. More organically, when I speak to people, I ask “what are you reading and what events are you going to?” So I get to learn about things, and becomes ‘self-feeding’. When you follow certain people on Twitter and LinkedIn and those kinds of platforms, things reach out to you from the noise.
- Dr Richard Kelwick, Postdoc in the Department of Infectious Disease
We have given suggestions in different categories so that you can create a varied and interesting set of development activities. On top of generic lists of activities to investigate (you will easily be able to find your own examples) we have also included spotlights on some very specific activities to illustrate the diversity of experiences on offer. Throughout the spotlights we have included quotes from researchers saying how they have experienced or benefitted from the activities.
Note that these examples are illustrative of the variety out there and are not presented as an exhaustive list. There will be overlap and repetition between the different categories as many activities address lots of different skills and learning styles.
Plan your development from two perspectives: