{"id":1089,"date":"2026-08-17T14:06:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T14:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/?p=1089"},"modified":"2026-08-27T13:51:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T13:51:15","slug":"postdoc-survival-success-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/2026\/08\/17\/postdoc-survival-success-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Postdoc Survival &amp; Success Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_1044\" style=\"width: 171px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/fellows_staff\/xukai-zhang\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1044\" class=\"wp-image-1044\" src=\"http:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/03\/Xukai_Zhang-700x938.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of Xukai Zhang\" width=\"161\" height=\"215\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/03\/Xukai_Zhang-700x938.jpg 700w, https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/03\/Xukai_Zhang-250x335.jpg 250w, https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/03\/Xukai_Zhang-768x1029.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/03\/Xukai_Zhang-1146x1536.jpg 1146w, https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/03\/Xukai_Zhang-1529x2048.jpg 1529w, https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/03\/Xukai_Zhang-120x161.jpg 120w, https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/03\/Xukai_Zhang.jpg 1695w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 161px) 100vw, 161px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1044\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Xukai Zhang, PhD<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Starting a postdoc in the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) is exciting, but it can also feel overwhelming. Between research expectations, career uncertainty, relocation, networking, and adapting to a new environment, there is often a steep learning curve that nobody formally explains. With input from fellow postdocs and drawing upon existing resources, I&#8217;ve created this <a href=\"http:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/08\/Postdoc-Survival-Success-Guide_8-17-26.pdf\">Postdoc Survival &amp; Success Guide<\/a> to help incoming postdocs transition more smoothly into life at MIT and the broader Boston\/Cambridge academic ecosystem. The guide is highly practical, honest, community-driven, and will continue to be updated by postdocs. If you&#8217;re starting a new postdoc, or you&#8217;re a current MIT postdoc looking for resources and advice, I encourage you to check out the Guide below:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/08\/Postdoc-Survival-Success-Guide_8-17-26.pdf\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1090 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/08\/Cover-image-e1786974116455-700x574.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"574\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/08\/Cover-image-e1786974116455-700x574.png 700w, https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/08\/Cover-image-e1786974116455-250x205.png 250w, https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/08\/Cover-image-e1786974116455-768x630.png 768w, https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/08\/Cover-image-e1786974116455-1536x1260.png 1536w, https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/08\/Cover-image-e1786974116455-120x98.png 120w, https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/08\/Cover-image-e1786974116455.png 1545w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starting a postdoc in the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) is exciting, but it can also feel overwhelming. Between research expectations, career uncertainty, relocation, networking, and adapting to a new environment, there is often a steep learning curve that nobody formally explains. With input from fellow postdocs and drawing upon existing resources,&#8230; <a class=\"view-article\" href=\"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/2026\/08\/17\/postdoc-survival-success-guide\/\">View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":1044,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1089"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1103,"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1089\/revisions\/1103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/cee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}