What is graduate school and what it is eaten with ... (answers of a young Ph.D. to questions of young graduate students)
Let's think about what else might interest young people who have just
graduated from university and become graduate students ...
This text was written by the author N number of years ago in response to questions from the organizer of an e-mail newsletter for graduate students ...
> Dmitry, you are subscribed to the newsletter for graduate students, "no matter what." How do you rate her
> prospects? There are few questions in it. Perhaps it makes sense to attract
> more graduate students and job seekers?
What can I say? Your enthusiasm and initiative is commendable.
Another thing is that it seems that this newsletter is entirely devoted to
questions of philosophy. Of course, it’s not your fault - what you care about is what you
write, and then you spread it.
On the other hand, candidate minimums (CMs) are precisely what unites graduate students, and each one has his own specialization and searches for information on it himself ...
I, too, in the first two years of graduate school did everything, but not
science (attending classes) according to philosophy, English, etc. - it doesn’t count.) Therefore,
you are not the first and you are not the last to step on this rake.
I also have two graduate students sitting next to me - they devote 80% of their time to
philosophy and English.
From the height of my bell tower, I can say that philosophy is not the main thing, and
a year after passing the CM you will not remember what kind of trend in philosophy
Man invented. In general, if I were you, I would examine the question of passing exams.
externally for all KMs except English - an extra practice will never
hurt ...
But if you knock this topic out of your mailing list, you might wonder - what to write about ...
Let's think about what else might interest young people who have just
graduated from university and become graduate students ...
First, why do people go to graduate school? (By the way, you can ask such a question
in the newsletter!) It is interesting to know the results ...
My assumptions are as follows:
1. People have not yet figured out what they want to achieve in life and, by inertia,
continue to follow the proposed road of training ... (20%)
2. Some practical interest ( 60%)
- nonresident - hooks and stay in the "Big City"
- avoid mandatory distribution
- get a respite from the army
- go abroad
3. Conscious - people who are passionate about science (such units) ... (1-2%)
4. Something else. (18%).
I can say that I myself didn’t know what graduate school was when I entered,
what for I need it and the more I didn’t assume that I would be
engaged in science all my life (though I’m not sure about the latter yet, but this is from the
area “The more I know “The less I know.”)
And according to this, according to the latest statistics of one scientific institution of the Academy of Sciences,
30% of all graduate students survive to the end of graduate school, the remaining 70% drop out ... I
emphasize that they are not defending themselves, they simply finish graduate school without presenting the
results of their activities to the world !!!
In universities, I think the situation is not much better, and only because
talented students are reaped there for scientific purposes starting from the 3rd year
(I even tried from the second year ...) and the requirements for the dissertation are lower there ...
After running a couple of years classes (philosophy, English, etc.) and having lived on one
post-graduate scholarship - most simply die out ... As
statistics confirm ... I myself would probably die out if
not for random coincidences - an interesting topic, the opportunity to put into
practice the results (and, accordingly, support the pants without leaving about tons of topics), a
couple of interesting business trips abroad and something else ...
And then there was a certain turning point in the mind ... The fact is that if you constantly
think about some kind of problem, then your brains are rebuilt physically ...
This has been proved by many studies ...
When preparing an experiment, article, dissertation, etc. all your time, your brain is
forced to critically evaluate the results of both strangers and your own ... (Of
course, much depends on the rigor of the requirements of your supervisor
and his approach to your training) ... In short, the so-called
critical mindset is developed ... Maybe it, of course, it is
also developed with age , but I’m more than sure that not everyone ...
You begin to ask yourself questions in everyday life - why is
this and not otherwise? What if? and so on ... This is what
The main value of graduate school in particular and science as a whole. This is
hard to explain. You can illustrate with such an example - after graduating from a university you can
explain to your classmate who went to a factory or
a market after school - what is studying at a university and what does it really provide? (You
really feel how you have grown intellectually in comparison with
your state at graduation). I think it’s unlikely that you will succeed so
convincingly that he will drop everything and sit down for textbooks and prepare for
admission ... There is a similar situation ...
In connection with the foregoing, you can ask the question "If I already got to
graduate school - what should I do with this?"
My personal view of this situation is as follows: Apply the principle formulated by
Dale Carnegie (I hope I’m familiar with the name, if I don’t recommend reading)
"If you got a lemon, make lemonade out of it."
...
So, you are in graduate school - "You are in army now!" © Status Quo
It doesn’t matter how you got to this point, it’s important what you can do in this situation ...
Usually, the first year of graduate students are doing little, especially if:
a) the supervisor (HP) is a great scientist and the same boss. He simply does not have time for you ...
This is generally the saddest case ... For here is your motto - "Saving the drowning - the work of the drowning themselves."
b) you met with your supervisor and research topics a couple of months before entering graduate school.
It also happens. And quite often - especially in recent post-perestroika years ...
c) your leader is in constant trips. Especially in long-term - from 3 months to 1 year, business trips ...
d) you are an applicant, or a graduate student - correspondence. And in addition to your scientific duties, you should plow at the main job ...
e) something else ...
The opposite situation (you can even say the ideal situation) is when
a) you met HP and started working on the potential topic of your dissertation in the 3rd year .
b) you wrote and defended not a diploma, but a scientific work ...
c) by the time you arrive, you already have a couple of publications and speeches at conferences
; d) you are immediately taken to the laboratory for 0.5 MSc rates and immediately connected to a couple of projects,
i.e. question add. you don’t have to make money to make ends meet ... :) (sorry for the pun)
e) you (you) threw (threw) all (all) ... girls (girls) in the world once and for all and hormones no longer bother you
(to be honest, it’s a very sad case ... I don’t wish anyone to fulfill this point) ...
e) you are isolated from all your relatives and old friends ...
e) and in general the meaning of life, except in science, you have no more ... (and this is in 20 seconds kopeks of years ... HORROR !!!!!) Well
, as they say, "started for health, finished for rest" ...
* Note: If someone fulfills at least the first three or four points from an ideal situation, then you can not read further ...
So, the first year, two, three (if you are unlucky) you are left to your own devices ... And except for the change KM there is no sense in graduate school ...
But, in fact, graduate school has its very significant advantages ...
1. As I said, the main plus is the change in the angle of view on the cycle of things in nature ...
2. The development of the ability to communicate their thoughts in public in public ...
3. Development of skills of independent work ...
4. The ability to relatively easily ( about relative to other options) to work, travel abroad and thus see the world with their own eyes, rather than the "eyes Sienkiewicz" (c) G.Hazanov, or someone else has ...
Let us dwell on the pros a little in more detail ...
1. Changing the angle of view ...
If this happened to you (by the way, this does not have to be! It’s just because you went to a scholarship for three years and sat at seminars on philosophy ... There’s generally "no one owes anything to anyone "(C) my wife :).
By the way, the converse statement that this can happen only thanks to graduate school (or science) is not true. There are a lot of smart people without higher education who see how the world works and how it can be used for personal or other (noble) purposes. You don’t have to go far for an example - “tell me what is his name?” - "Boo ....", pah, - "Beale", "Gates" ...
So if this happened to you, then you start to be tormented by various bad thoughts that can even be harmful to a quiet life - “What is the meaning of my worthless (so far!) Life” and something like “If I'm so smart, why am I still not so rich ”...
If the first question prevails, then you will not be doomed to scientific activity - write articles, books and if you are lucky to make major scientific discoveries, up to receiving the Nobel Prize and other similar awards ... Although, I suspect that these are scientific geniuses vanity is not being asked either leaving their trace in the history of kuchkoobraznogo) they are not tortured ...
If the second question is more worrying, then here you have a direct road to various entrepreneurs, inventors, etc. By the way, if you look at the composition of the directorate of the current normal firms (I don’t mean buy-sell firms, but at least something “sell-sell”), then the vast majority of people at the top have a degree has ... By the way, this is weak for Western companies - they have a different training system, and they feed scientists better (their second question is almost not tormenting), but in any case the abbreviation Ph.D. An employee’s profile is welcome ...
In addition, even working at a company, you yourself can evaluate your prospects until retirement and work for one salary is somehow uncomfortable for you, you want some percentage of the positive (hardly a side :) effect of your activity ... And, in principle, you really imagine how this can be achieved. The question is whether you can achieve this - from another opera, we don’t sing it here yet ...
But in any case, I myself can say that “a good splinter is sitting in the ass, comrades” - I want to itch and run, run and itch for one single purpose - Improvement of your own moral state of health ...
"And do you need this?" People tell the truth - all sorrow is from the mind.
2. The development of the ability to coherently express their thoughts in public ...
I suspect that even without the public thought to pose the problem ... An example? - You are welcome. Take a tape recorder, sit in front of it in splendid isolation and record your speech, for example, about “The Influence of Object-Oriented Programming Methods on the General Pace of Progress”, or something similar ... And then prepare a written transcript of your speech on this tape ... I promise, you will learn a lot of interesting things about yourself ...
The topic may be different - the main thing is that you yourself seriously feel the mechanism of the formation of thoughts in your head ... In ordinary speech this does not happen - people rarely think before they say, more often than not It happens the other way around, even less often when it happens at the same time ...
A public speech for an unprepared (horror) and uninhibited person torment, which comes second after the fear of death ...
Remember your defense of the diploma ... By the way, a couple of practical advice on overcoming this fear can be found at the same Carnegie ...
In graduate school (or after - in preparation dissertation to the defense) you will speak. Will make. And they’ll do it right ... For there is nothing to dishonor your colleagues at all kinds of conferences, predefenses, and even more so - on the defense itself ... Ideally, if every quarter you are heard at scientific seminars in your institute, laboratory, group, etc. Unfortunately, this is not always the case ...
But a couple of times at conferences you will definitely speak ... And best of all, if the conference is international and you have to speak in the language that is hostile to you ... Here the most difficult thing is not to speak - in the end, you can always memorize, and after speaking at the discussion you can translate and get into the meaning of those you issues and it is desirable not much stammering give more or less the right answer in the allotted 5 minutes ...
the closer to the protection, the more performances you have to do ... and the calmer they will be held for you ... Although the residual effects of the wave tions and will be present, but to transfer them to you will be much easier ...
In addition, you will understand what it means to be “responsible for your words” in the literal sense of these words ... For science does not tolerate inaccuracies, and for each incorrectly used term you will either feel like an idiot or you will be subtly hinted about it ...
Will not will, but all this develops the habit of thinking about your own words and in ordinary life ... Which, in principle, is good ... The
bad thing is that you automatically think about other people's words ... And your reputation automatically goes to the concept of "bore" ...
"And you is it necessary? " (c) a certain Rabinovich.
3. Development of independent work skills ...
This is the most difficult ... Here you can talk a lot and not say anything ...
In short, if you are not a big boss (which is unlikely), then no one will write you a dissertation ... So you have to invent, set up, describe an experiment, pick your own literature, and do all this without the slightest glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel ... It’s very hard for yourself force, though if there is a genuine interest to see what happens "if this garbage, stir in that solution and set fire ..." then it becomes much easier to work. But all the same, this enthusiasm is not enough for a whole dissertation ... Especially when you need not only to “see how the garbage goes nuts,” but also to “record, describe, analyze, draw conclusions, take into account all the comments, etc., etc. P. .... "
In short, after these torments, you have a very clear idea of what real scientists are, and what are those who have "wool on their ears growing, with green" (c) Strugatsky br ...
4. Travel around the world, including abroad ...
How it’s strange, but most loyal in the whole world they treat scientists ... The attitude is partly similar to feelings caused by some kind of inferior by nature subject. Which, probably, corresponds to the true state of things, because theoretically a real scientist - not from this world, but practically - the percentage of people with various physical and mental deviations in science as an industry, is probably one of the highest ...
So, let's start with the fact that, upon invitations to seminars, conferences, work from universities and other scientific organizations from abroad, some embassies generally do not pay a fee for a visa (for example, Germany), and the vast majority of others take several times less. Secondly, they open this visa for you with minimal time and other costs ... For example, the opposite is the case when applying to the embassy of a young man for a visa in order to travel by hitchhiking to the country of destination ...
There are not so many options for various conferences on your subject - not just a lot, but a lot ... Wherever you want, and when you want - in the Canaries, and in Hawaii and in other resort and not very places. It would be a desire and opportunity. Bourgeois generally have a widespread practice of combining business with pleasure and during conferences the atmosphere is the friendliest and most favorable ...
If you really plowed and picked something worthy of attention, then your work will be appreciated sooner or later. At the same conferences you will meet a lot of people - useful and not very. You will get in touch with someone ... But this is more likely the rule for any professional environment - specialists in the same field usually do not know each other in person, then they certainly have an idea about the existence of competitors ...
And then - the world at your feet. If you want, work in an international team on a common problem, consulting by e-mail. If you want, look for options for internships from a month to three. You can enter the Western graduate school if it is not fate.
After defending your options, you can usually travel and work longer, but here other factors already exist - family, child, old parents, etc.
Well, if you take the last option - leaving our gloomy homeland at all, then you can at least “navigate the area” where you like more and where you are in greater demand. At least in a global sense ...
Although from my own experience I can say that the more you learn about the realities of foreign life, the less the desire to stay there for a long time. In the end, a loaf of bread with butter, and maybe even caviar (as you are lucky) is not the most important thing in life ...
graduated from university and become graduate students ...
This text was written by the author N number of years ago in response to questions from the organizer of an e-mail newsletter for graduate students ...
> Dmitry, you are subscribed to the newsletter for graduate students, "no matter what." How do you rate her
> prospects? There are few questions in it. Perhaps it makes sense to attract
> more graduate students and job seekers?
What can I say? Your enthusiasm and initiative is commendable.
Another thing is that it seems that this newsletter is entirely devoted to
questions of philosophy. Of course, it’s not your fault - what you care about is what you
write, and then you spread it.
On the other hand, candidate minimums (CMs) are precisely what unites graduate students, and each one has his own specialization and searches for information on it himself ...
I, too, in the first two years of graduate school did everything, but not
science (attending classes) according to philosophy, English, etc. - it doesn’t count.) Therefore,
you are not the first and you are not the last to step on this rake.
I also have two graduate students sitting next to me - they devote 80% of their time to
philosophy and English.
From the height of my bell tower, I can say that philosophy is not the main thing, and
a year after passing the CM you will not remember what kind of trend in philosophy
Man invented. In general, if I were you, I would examine the question of passing exams.
externally for all KMs except English - an extra practice will never
hurt ...
But if you knock this topic out of your mailing list, you might wonder - what to write about ...
Let's think about what else might interest young people who have just
graduated from university and become graduate students ...
First, why do people go to graduate school? (By the way, you can ask such a question
in the newsletter!) It is interesting to know the results ...
My assumptions are as follows:
1. People have not yet figured out what they want to achieve in life and, by inertia,
continue to follow the proposed road of training ... (20%)
2. Some practical interest ( 60%)
- nonresident - hooks and stay in the "Big City"
- avoid mandatory distribution
- get a respite from the army
- go abroad
3. Conscious - people who are passionate about science (such units) ... (1-2%)
4. Something else. (18%).
I can say that I myself didn’t know what graduate school was when I entered,
what for I need it and the more I didn’t assume that I would be
engaged in science all my life (though I’m not sure about the latter yet, but this is from the
area “The more I know “The less I know.”)
And according to this, according to the latest statistics of one scientific institution of the Academy of Sciences,
30% of all graduate students survive to the end of graduate school, the remaining 70% drop out ... I
emphasize that they are not defending themselves, they simply finish graduate school without presenting the
results of their activities to the world !!!
In universities, I think the situation is not much better, and only because
talented students are reaped there for scientific purposes starting from the 3rd year
(I even tried from the second year ...) and the requirements for the dissertation are lower there ...
After running a couple of years classes (philosophy, English, etc.) and having lived on one
post-graduate scholarship - most simply die out ... As
statistics confirm ... I myself would probably die out if
not for random coincidences - an interesting topic, the opportunity to put into
practice the results (and, accordingly, support the pants without leaving about tons of topics), a
couple of interesting business trips abroad and something else ...
And then there was a certain turning point in the mind ... The fact is that if you constantly
think about some kind of problem, then your brains are rebuilt physically ...
This has been proved by many studies ...
When preparing an experiment, article, dissertation, etc. all your time, your brain is
forced to critically evaluate the results of both strangers and your own ... (Of
course, much depends on the rigor of the requirements of your supervisor
and his approach to your training) ... In short, the so-called
critical mindset is developed ... Maybe it, of course, it is
also developed with age , but I’m more than sure that not everyone ...
You begin to ask yourself questions in everyday life - why is
this and not otherwise? What if? and so on ... This is what
The main value of graduate school in particular and science as a whole. This is
hard to explain. You can illustrate with such an example - after graduating from a university you can
explain to your classmate who went to a factory or
a market after school - what is studying at a university and what does it really provide? (You
really feel how you have grown intellectually in comparison with
your state at graduation). I think it’s unlikely that you will succeed so
convincingly that he will drop everything and sit down for textbooks and prepare for
admission ... There is a similar situation ...
In connection with the foregoing, you can ask the question "If I already got to
graduate school - what should I do with this?"
My personal view of this situation is as follows: Apply the principle formulated by
Dale Carnegie (I hope I’m familiar with the name, if I don’t recommend reading)
"If you got a lemon, make lemonade out of it."
...
So, you are in graduate school - "You are in army now!" © Status Quo
It doesn’t matter how you got to this point, it’s important what you can do in this situation ...
Usually, the first year of graduate students are doing little, especially if:
a) the supervisor (HP) is a great scientist and the same boss. He simply does not have time for you ...
This is generally the saddest case ... For here is your motto - "Saving the drowning - the work of the drowning themselves."
b) you met with your supervisor and research topics a couple of months before entering graduate school.
It also happens. And quite often - especially in recent post-perestroika years ...
c) your leader is in constant trips. Especially in long-term - from 3 months to 1 year, business trips ...
d) you are an applicant, or a graduate student - correspondence. And in addition to your scientific duties, you should plow at the main job ...
e) something else ...
The opposite situation (you can even say the ideal situation) is when
a) you met HP and started working on the potential topic of your dissertation in the 3rd year .
b) you wrote and defended not a diploma, but a scientific work ...
c) by the time you arrive, you already have a couple of publications and speeches at conferences
; d) you are immediately taken to the laboratory for 0.5 MSc rates and immediately connected to a couple of projects,
i.e. question add. you don’t have to make money to make ends meet ... :) (sorry for the pun)
e) you (you) threw (threw) all (all) ... girls (girls) in the world once and for all and hormones no longer bother you
(to be honest, it’s a very sad case ... I don’t wish anyone to fulfill this point) ...
e) you are isolated from all your relatives and old friends ...
e) and in general the meaning of life, except in science, you have no more ... (and this is in 20 seconds kopeks of years ... HORROR !!!!!) Well
, as they say, "started for health, finished for rest" ...
* Note: If someone fulfills at least the first three or four points from an ideal situation, then you can not read further ...
So, the first year, two, three (if you are unlucky) you are left to your own devices ... And except for the change KM there is no sense in graduate school ...
But, in fact, graduate school has its very significant advantages ...
1. As I said, the main plus is the change in the angle of view on the cycle of things in nature ...
2. The development of the ability to communicate their thoughts in public in public ...
3. Development of skills of independent work ...
4. The ability to relatively easily ( about relative to other options) to work, travel abroad and thus see the world with their own eyes, rather than the "eyes Sienkiewicz" (c) G.Hazanov, or someone else has ...
Let us dwell on the pros a little in more detail ...
1. Changing the angle of view ...
If this happened to you (by the way, this does not have to be! It’s just because you went to a scholarship for three years and sat at seminars on philosophy ... There’s generally "no one owes anything to anyone "(C) my wife :).
By the way, the converse statement that this can happen only thanks to graduate school (or science) is not true. There are a lot of smart people without higher education who see how the world works and how it can be used for personal or other (noble) purposes. You don’t have to go far for an example - “tell me what is his name?” - "Boo ....", pah, - "Beale", "Gates" ...
So if this happened to you, then you start to be tormented by various bad thoughts that can even be harmful to a quiet life - “What is the meaning of my worthless (so far!) Life” and something like “If I'm so smart, why am I still not so rich ”...
If the first question prevails, then you will not be doomed to scientific activity - write articles, books and if you are lucky to make major scientific discoveries, up to receiving the Nobel Prize and other similar awards ... Although, I suspect that these are scientific geniuses vanity is not being asked either leaving their trace in the history of kuchkoobraznogo) they are not tortured ...
If the second question is more worrying, then here you have a direct road to various entrepreneurs, inventors, etc. By the way, if you look at the composition of the directorate of the current normal firms (I don’t mean buy-sell firms, but at least something “sell-sell”), then the vast majority of people at the top have a degree has ... By the way, this is weak for Western companies - they have a different training system, and they feed scientists better (their second question is almost not tormenting), but in any case the abbreviation Ph.D. An employee’s profile is welcome ...
In addition, even working at a company, you yourself can evaluate your prospects until retirement and work for one salary is somehow uncomfortable for you, you want some percentage of the positive (hardly a side :) effect of your activity ... And, in principle, you really imagine how this can be achieved. The question is whether you can achieve this - from another opera, we don’t sing it here yet ...
But in any case, I myself can say that “a good splinter is sitting in the ass, comrades” - I want to itch and run, run and itch for one single purpose - Improvement of your own moral state of health ...
"And do you need this?" People tell the truth - all sorrow is from the mind.
2. The development of the ability to coherently express their thoughts in public ...
I suspect that even without the public thought to pose the problem ... An example? - You are welcome. Take a tape recorder, sit in front of it in splendid isolation and record your speech, for example, about “The Influence of Object-Oriented Programming Methods on the General Pace of Progress”, or something similar ... And then prepare a written transcript of your speech on this tape ... I promise, you will learn a lot of interesting things about yourself ...
The topic may be different - the main thing is that you yourself seriously feel the mechanism of the formation of thoughts in your head ... In ordinary speech this does not happen - people rarely think before they say, more often than not It happens the other way around, even less often when it happens at the same time ...
A public speech for an unprepared (horror) and uninhibited person torment, which comes second after the fear of death ...
Remember your defense of the diploma ... By the way, a couple of practical advice on overcoming this fear can be found at the same Carnegie ...
In graduate school (or after - in preparation dissertation to the defense) you will speak. Will make. And they’ll do it right ... For there is nothing to dishonor your colleagues at all kinds of conferences, predefenses, and even more so - on the defense itself ... Ideally, if every quarter you are heard at scientific seminars in your institute, laboratory, group, etc. Unfortunately, this is not always the case ...
But a couple of times at conferences you will definitely speak ... And best of all, if the conference is international and you have to speak in the language that is hostile to you ... Here the most difficult thing is not to speak - in the end, you can always memorize, and after speaking at the discussion you can translate and get into the meaning of those you issues and it is desirable not much stammering give more or less the right answer in the allotted 5 minutes ...
the closer to the protection, the more performances you have to do ... and the calmer they will be held for you ... Although the residual effects of the wave tions and will be present, but to transfer them to you will be much easier ...
In addition, you will understand what it means to be “responsible for your words” in the literal sense of these words ... For science does not tolerate inaccuracies, and for each incorrectly used term you will either feel like an idiot or you will be subtly hinted about it ...
Will not will, but all this develops the habit of thinking about your own words and in ordinary life ... Which, in principle, is good ... The
bad thing is that you automatically think about other people's words ... And your reputation automatically goes to the concept of "bore" ...
"And you is it necessary? " (c) a certain Rabinovich.
3. Development of independent work skills ...
This is the most difficult ... Here you can talk a lot and not say anything ...
In short, if you are not a big boss (which is unlikely), then no one will write you a dissertation ... So you have to invent, set up, describe an experiment, pick your own literature, and do all this without the slightest glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel ... It’s very hard for yourself force, though if there is a genuine interest to see what happens "if this garbage, stir in that solution and set fire ..." then it becomes much easier to work. But all the same, this enthusiasm is not enough for a whole dissertation ... Especially when you need not only to “see how the garbage goes nuts,” but also to “record, describe, analyze, draw conclusions, take into account all the comments, etc., etc. P. .... "
In short, after these torments, you have a very clear idea of what real scientists are, and what are those who have "wool on their ears growing, with green" (c) Strugatsky br ...
4. Travel around the world, including abroad ...
How it’s strange, but most loyal in the whole world they treat scientists ... The attitude is partly similar to feelings caused by some kind of inferior by nature subject. Which, probably, corresponds to the true state of things, because theoretically a real scientist - not from this world, but practically - the percentage of people with various physical and mental deviations in science as an industry, is probably one of the highest ...
So, let's start with the fact that, upon invitations to seminars, conferences, work from universities and other scientific organizations from abroad, some embassies generally do not pay a fee for a visa (for example, Germany), and the vast majority of others take several times less. Secondly, they open this visa for you with minimal time and other costs ... For example, the opposite is the case when applying to the embassy of a young man for a visa in order to travel by hitchhiking to the country of destination ...
There are not so many options for various conferences on your subject - not just a lot, but a lot ... Wherever you want, and when you want - in the Canaries, and in Hawaii and in other resort and not very places. It would be a desire and opportunity. Bourgeois generally have a widespread practice of combining business with pleasure and during conferences the atmosphere is the friendliest and most favorable ...
If you really plowed and picked something worthy of attention, then your work will be appreciated sooner or later. At the same conferences you will meet a lot of people - useful and not very. You will get in touch with someone ... But this is more likely the rule for any professional environment - specialists in the same field usually do not know each other in person, then they certainly have an idea about the existence of competitors ...
And then - the world at your feet. If you want, work in an international team on a common problem, consulting by e-mail. If you want, look for options for internships from a month to three. You can enter the Western graduate school if it is not fate.
After defending your options, you can usually travel and work longer, but here other factors already exist - family, child, old parents, etc.
Well, if you take the last option - leaving our gloomy homeland at all, then you can at least “navigate the area” where you like more and where you are in greater demand. At least in a global sense ...
Although from my own experience I can say that the more you learn about the realities of foreign life, the less the desire to stay there for a long time. In the end, a loaf of bread with butter, and maybe even caviar (as you are lucky) is not the most important thing in life ...