> For neuroscience, where there is relatively little competition Insane take. Neuroscience is highly competitive. As someone in both fields, I would say it is

> For neuroscience, where there is relatively little competition Insane take. Neuroscience is highly competitive. As someone in both fields, I would say it is only a little bit less competitive than AI/ML. I largely agree with the rest of your advice, but I would argue that having multiple extremely positive reference letters from different research experiences are worth more than some middle author publication.