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Can Anyone Get ANY Work Done from Home? Sorry for this rant post, but I can't possibly the only one who can't get any work done from home. I feel like the only way anything is going to get done is if I start waking up at 4am, but I normally don't go to sleep until 1AM or later, so I'm not going to be in a good mood. I can rarely get work done in the evenings, because I'm just exhausted.

I have two kids, ages two and five. It's hard. Really hard. It started off as an opportunity to spend more time with the kids, but now it's just ruining my career.

Do humanities / social science academics ever get wealthy? Is it consulting? Speaking fees? Books? What earns you money when the academic salary isn’t glamorous? Yes, I know, academics aren’t necessarily in it for money... But I’m not saying that!

While I was an older vet on the GI Bill undergrad, my mentor asked if I could pick a next step of my choosing, what would it be. This was at an Ivy-adjacent university. I responded with "easy, master's in public history, park ranger at a historical site." "Why don't you do that?" "Because I want more than $40k to live on a year." "Well, your parents would help out with expenses, right?" And right about then I realized my life experiences were very different from theirs. I knew this beforehand, but it was a stern reminder. If you want to be wealthy as a humanities academic, it helps a lot to be born into money.

Access denied to the last version of a paper when I am first co-author I worked in a lab with a toxic PI until the end of 2020 and we try now to publish a paper with my work. We wrote the manuscript and at one point, the PI deleted the Dropbox we used and send me a pdf version of the article saying that the submission will come very soon and that there are some formatting issues to address but he will manage it alone. I received few months later the notification from the journal to accept that I am a co-author of the paper. I accepted (but I didnot have access to the version submitted). Now we have the comments of the reviewers and the PI ask me to answer to the comments but, despite my request, he is denying me access to the version that was submitted. Do we agree that it is illegal and unethical ? My suspicion is that he tries to hide the fact that he changed the positions of my authorship (from co-first author to second author) but I have no proof of that. What can I do ? Many thanks for your advices.

Illegal—no. Unethical—yes. In breach of the journal's publication requirements—almost certainly. Check the journal's "Instructions to Authors." There is almost certainly a statement or statements about authors agreeing to the submission and having seen the last version. If the PI is not in a retaliatory position, you can be quite tough on this. The PI almost certainly had to make a statement that all authors agreed to the authorship listing during the submission process. Lastly, you have a 100% right to NOT approve the submission until you are happy. You can make that clear to the PI, and if they proceed without your consent, you can get in touch with the journal.

Why is expertise often disregarded by the general public with regard to the humanities? Serious question, btw. I’m relatively new to academia, and my area of study is in the humanities, specifically critical theory and literature. I teach humanities as well. I find when I talk to people about what I do, they often seem to feel like just about anyone who has a heartbeat is an “expert” in the humanities. I don’t mind it really, because I love talking about my work and a subject that I personally care a lot about. But why is it that this same thing doesn’t happen to people with degrees in, say, physics or mathematics? Or does it?

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” —Isaac Asimov, Newsweek column (January 21, 1980)

For Those on the Academic Job Market This Year: How is it Going? How many applications have you or do you plan to send out? How is it going? How many shortlists/interviews/campus visits are you getting? What are your overall thoughts on this year's market? Anything to celebrate? We all know it's rough out there.

This is my first year on the market. I have already successfully defended my PhD and earned my JD. I am an interdisciplinary scholar and have applied to everything for which I am qualified, totaling 106 applications with 32 rejections. I had three first-round interviews but received rejections afterward. I requested feedback and was repeatedly told that my CV is strong and my interview performance is good, but the market is competitive. For one entry-level position, the committee head told me they decided not to hire at the entry level at all, and that I was competing with full professors with 10+ years of experience. At least a couple of positions were canceled due to lack of funding, and I get the sense that several positions are waiting to conduct interviews until they know whether they will be able to hire anyone.

4th Year Phd...My Advisor Was Denied Tenure... Hello everyone! I found out this morning that my advisor was denied tenure. His contract runs through May 2020, which is conceivably when I should graduate, but I have so many questions. I very firmly do NOT want to switch advisors, he's the most supportive professor I've ever met and has been helping me develop my research all 4 years of the program so he is very familiar with my work and is supportive despite my fairly controversial dissertation topic (I'm doing applied stats in a political science program). I'm his only student. I don't know what happens next...has anyone been through this? What happens now? I'm devastated.

Make plans for a co-chair. It doesn't matter if you don't want to switch—your advisor may be gone before 2020. And let this stand as a message to all the earlier-career students out there: Don't pick something only one person at your department can conceivably chair, and don't pick pre-tenure faculty to chair (alone) a dissertation committee.

PhD advisor wants me to prepare a graduated undergrad’s thesis for publication Tl;dr: I helped an undergrad complete their thesis to graduate. PhD advisor wants me to try to get it published with the undergrad being first author. The methods used in the thesis is sloppy and I had to completely redo everything. Undergrad is unenthusiastic about publishing now that they are graduated and possibly ignoring me. Unsure how to handle situation because I’m busy with my own work and this project has no impact on my PhD progress currently. I’m a PhD student in a STEM field and I was working with an undergrad for the last year and a half on their project. The undergrad is in a different but adjacent STEM field and joined our lab to write a thesis which is required for them to graduate. My advisor assigned them a project that is similar to my work and basically uses the method I’ve been perfecting and developing for the last 3 years. I gave them some of the data I collected to work with so they can analyze it using my method which is mostly computer work using my code. The project is not contributing to my dissertation progress and I was pretty much just mentoring them for their thesis. Since they started when things were mostly online, I made video tutorials and wrote up detailed instructions for them to follow. The entire time, the undergrad did not show much enthusiasm towards the project but I thought it was just their personality. When things came back in person, they never attended group meetings (excuse was they scheduled other things during our group meeting times) and in general never showed up. However, they did perform the calculations over time and texted me when they needed help. I would pretty much help rewrite parts of the code for their specific use and clarify parts of the code. About 2 weeks before they graduated, they came to me saying they needed me to help rewrite the method section of their thesis and add some more analysis portions. I was very busy with my own stuff at the time so I referred them to my methodology write ups and previous papers using similar methods because I didn’t think I should do their work for them but I knew there was no way they would be able to get everything together in the last 2 weeks. In that same meeting, they mentioned that my advisor wanted to get this published but they did not trust their numbers. When I asked if they wanted to publish they said they don’t care too much because they already got into grad school (for a different field). They eventually submitted the thesis and graduated. My advisor now has tasked me with getting the thesis to publication quality and said the undergrad was willing to work on it (undergrad would be first author). I took a look at the thesis and the entire analysis needed to be redone because the written portion of the methods was completely wrong and based off of previous papers, which makes me not trust the results. Pretty much the only thing from the thesis that might be taken is parts of the intro and background portions with heavy edits. I had an online meeting with the undergrad and they admitting that they quickly wrote up the thesis in the last few weeks and just submitted it at 3 am to be done with it. They still seemed unenthusiastic but said they can work on it. I gave a list of things I would do such as recalculating all the numbers with my method, making figures, and writing the methods and parts of analysis section. I asked them to read over my comments, write up a conclusion and review formatting for publication. It’s been 3 weeks since and I haven’t heard back. They’ve ignored every email since with my updates. I told my advisor this and he said something like it’s our job to “clean up the plate”. I have spent 2 weeks recalculating the results and analysis but now I’m very hesitant to proceed with writing. I have my own PhD projects to work on and tusks now taking up a lot of my time considering it would not contribute to my PhD progress and I would not be first author. I also feel it is not right for the undergrad to be first author their end contribution at this point but I’m not quite sure. My advisor seems to want to just push it out as a paper and I do think it’s worth publishing the results if everything is done right. However there’s just not a huge incentive for me personally unless it’s incorporated into my progress in some way. I was thinking about asking the undergrad if they really intend to do any more work and if not, I can take over and they can be second author which I think is fair. In this case I feel a little bad because it feels like I’m just “stealing” their paper but realistically I feel like I’ve been doing essentially all the work. I’m also thinking about asking my advisor if this could be incorporated as part of a chapter of my dissertation (and I drop part of another part) just to take the load off of my plate. It’s kind of an awkward situation for me right now and I’m not sure if I’m just overthinking this so any insight would be great!

It's very unclear from this how much you've discussed this with your PI. It sounds like you've told them the student isn't responding, but you haven't said anything about the quality of the work, your concerns about its accuracy, or the amount of redoing you need to do. If this were me, I'd use my next 1:1 to go through all the work in detail. I'd break the paper down into all the individual tasks that need doing, assign the amount of time I think each task is going to take, and give a RAG (red, amber, green) for how close each task is to completion, and possibly put in a timeline. The visualization of the number of tasks and the RAG might help convey just how much work there is to be done and how little the student has done.

How common is it to pass a PhD defense with conditions? I passed my defense last week “with conditions”. Are conditions the same as revisions? I have an official list of things to address, it’s much more work than I was hoping to have to do after defending. Honestly I feel pretty downtrodden meanwhile everyone around me keeps congratulating me for “passing”. My advisor has stressed that what I have to do is par for the course but he’s also not super great at interpersonal relationships so I never know how to interpret what he says. I don’t disagree with anything I’m being asked to do necessarily. I’m just a bit overwhelmed. Plus I’ve already started a full time (non academic) job.

Conditions are revisions if they are requesting changes to the thesis and are near universal. A pass with revisions is still a pass. Examiners feel like they have to request some changes to justify their role, and nothing is ever 100% perfect anyway. Minor revisions is as good as it gets. Congratulations. You got a PhD, Doctor.

Professors of Reddit- Do you dislike students who perform poorly? To the Professors of Reddit, I was wondering what the general opinion was of poor performers. Is it dislike? Indifference? If someone who had an F or a D came to office hours in the middle of the semester, would this annoy you?

I can honestly say some of my favorite students of all time were "C" students. They were funny, interesting, and I usually got to know them as humans in smaller classes, so they were more than just a letter grade to me. They just weren't great at studying and/or turning in all their work. But I really enjoyed them as people. The "bad" students I don't like are the ones who don't own their own failures. The students who come in mid-semester or even late in the semester and somehow manage to blame me and take zero personal responsibility for the situation they are in. I actually have respect for students who say, "Look, I fucked up, and now I'm trying to fix it," particularly if there is more than two weeks left in the semester to fix it.

In an academic job - but still struggling with academic writing Hi everyone. I am in a research-oriented job, essentially it's all about public international law. So basically, one of the criteria in my job is to write and publish articles in peer-reviewed journals. Now, I have tried writing, with help of a colleague and we got one paper published also. I have written few blog posts as well. But somehow, my writing skills are still at a sub-par level. Now highlighting my issues with writing a. I don't think I have fancy/interesting enough of an issue to write. b. When I actually do start writing, I get a giant mental block, My body literally revolts at the process. I shut down and I just cannot type anymore. c. I feel highly incompetent and underconfident. I have tried the Pomodoro method, I have tried setting word count limit for the day to write. I have literally forced myself to write anything. But I just cannot. Now the thought of it makes me want to vomit. I know to improve my writing skills, I need to write. But I can't write. I procrastinate, sleep, watch movies, etc, Meanwhile, I can write memos for my legal work. But that's it. I know my memos can also be more brilliant if only I can get more writing practice under my belt. For the past two months, I have been toiling with the idea of starting my own blog on a topic I like. But my brain shuts down at the thought of it. If anyone can provide pointers or some sort of advice to get out of this funk. I genuinely want to be more disciplined about my writing because it is about career progression. But I just don't know how. At this point, any help is welcomed. Thank you.

Look, this is hard, and you’re not alone. But if you’re not exaggerating the scale of your reaction to writing, you seem to be experiencing great anxiety, which a therapist may be better able to help you with. Honestly, it sounds like you’re putting a lot of judgment and value statements behind the act of writing, and shooting yourself in the foot before you can start. You might want to explore why that is and how to mitigate it. As for my own strategies: - start with an outline. Every bullet is a point you want to make. Once you have those in order (I find I have to reorder things a lot), you can expand each point into a paragraph. - talk at someone. Writing is asynchronous communication, but communication nonetheless. It’s easy to get bogged down in words and forget about the audience. Telling someone directly about what you are thinking helps with that. I will sometimes play out giving a talk on a subject because my brain works like that. - give yourself permission to write a shitty first draft. The first version doesn’t have to be polished, or even good. Just write. DO NOT give into the temptation to stop and edit, or even read what you write. Once you have some terrible text down, you can go and edit it without the blank page problem.

My boss wants me to start my postdoc without pay I know this pandemic is a weird time, but there's somethings that's hitting a little weird about my situation. I just graduated my PhD, and my boss has me starting a postdoc after. The problem is the HR arm of the university is stalling applications, so it's going to be about a month before my new contract begins, and a little longer before I get paid. My boss wants me to continue to do the weekly meetings, and several pop up meetings a week. All of this would be without pay until my contract begins. I've raised the possibility of an independent contractor position as a holdover, but that hasn't happened. So I'm not sure what to do. I don't want my boss to jettison my new contract because I don't want to work in the meantime without pay, but also I don't want to work a lot without pay. My lab is the type to not really be concerned about people working without compensation for short periods, and I don't want the work to pile on just because I agree to a few meetings. Does anyone have any insight about how I should handle this? Should I just bite the bullet and do the hours?

I would ask him how you are supposed to pay rent and eat during that period. My university actually would not allow this if we knew about it. We would make him backdate your start date to whenever you started working. That's what you should ask for.

What do faculty members expect when meeting with a potential graduate student? I'm an undergraduate senior currently applying to PhD programs. In my field (Theoretical Ecology), it is common (and for some schools required) to reach out to potential advisors before applying so that they can support your application and accept you into the program as a student in their lab. So lately I've been reaching out to potential advisors and doing zoom meetings with them. However, I feel a little intimidated and confused by this process of basically committing to an advisor and *then* getting in to the program/starting a PhD. For one, while I've written up a strong research proposal (for NSF GRFP) and reflected on potential research questions, I'm definitely not 100% sure of the exact project I would want to pursue in my PhD. Also, while I have a general idea of the subfield I'm interested in, I'm eager to learn more about the other subfields and understand how various subfields relate to one another before becoming specialized in a single area. So my question: what are these faculty members expecting when I reach out as a prospective student? Are they expecting me to have a clear, specific research question and be able to explain how it relates to their current projects? Or are these meetings usually more about generally discussing backgrounds/interests, getting a feel for the prospective student's curiosity and intellect, and seeing if the prospective student/potential advisor get along and communicate well.

From my experience as a prospective PhD candidate and interviewing incoming PhD candidates, generally the main thing faculty members look for is a fit—is your research style in line with theirs (independent or do you require constant supervision)? Are you a good fit culturally? General vibes. After chatting about your background and general interest, they may introduce a project to you to see whether or not you'd like it. Even though this can be one of many projects you work on throughout the years, it should be your deciding factor (in my opinion) to join a lab or not. Your starting project will definitely set the tone of your PhD career, and usually subsequent projects will be around the same concept, so choose wisely!

How to ask critical questions nicely at a conference When I ask a question after a conference presentation, sometimes it’s critical in nature, but I don’t want to sound too aggressive or hurt the presenter’s feelings. So I want to sound as nice as possible and add comments like “thank you for your presentation, it’s very interesting…” before getting into the question. But sometimes this feels too superficial, and I was wondering what would be a more natural way to sound nicer when asking a critical question at a conference.

Go into it with the assumption that they considered what you're about to ask and have a good reason for having done it their way instead. Instead of essentially phrasing "I think you should have done Y instead of X" as a question, ask "Can you elaborate on your rationale for doing X instead of Y?" or "What are your thoughts on also attempting this via Y?" or "What do you think are the pros and cons of doing this via X vs. Y?" I've seen questions asked this way a lot, and answers ranged from a jovial "great idea, let's collaborate" to a thorough explanation that probably left the questioner feeling quite stupid because they were wrong (lol), to an interesting discussion about data availability/integration issues (I attended a lot of talks that are studying very large public datasets) that is helpful for many in the audience and occasionally helpful to the author as well.

Why do we hate Elsevier so much? What exactly don't we like about them? And are they really that much worse than other publishers? I've always heard people don't like them, but I've not really heard much about why.

Oh, where does one start? The core issue is that they have been lobbying and pushing against open access. In my opinion, they have done so with both direct and indirect means. Direct means include submitting evidence in policy meetings, claiming how open science is “bad science,” and spending millions in lobbying. They have been exploiting their dominant position—which is further established through indirect means—to push up prices. Sweden and Germany couldn’t reach an agreement with them and have canceled subscriptions. If I’m not mistaken, they are the only major publisher we (Swedish academics) can’t pay open access fees through our national OA scheme. They have sued ISPs to block Sci-Hub and overly engaged in an overzealous campaign to keep everything behind their paywall. Indirect means include pushing tools like Scopus and CiteScore for an overall “quantification” of science that has led to people preferring existing non-OA journals and venues with high impact factor. This, of course, has other consequences in the lives of academics as we are now playing a MinMax game every time we apply for a promotion or a new position. Do other publishers use a dubious paywall model exploiting academic labor? Yes, they do. Do they go around to enforce their paywall to the same extent as Elsevier? No, they do not—at least, not to my knowledge.

Got invited for a phone interview for TT position! What should I prepare? I am so excited, I got my first bite from the applications I sent in for TT positions in STEM. I've been shortlisted, and invited to a phone screening on zoom for 20 minutes. The people who invited me are related to my subfield. What should I prepare? Any tips greatly appreciated!!!

I always prep a Word doc that has all the relevant info I need. I have the mission, vision, etc., on there. I have the data on the department (number of students, majors, research areas, etc.). I especially make a list of every faculty member in the department and their research, and I write out how we can collaborate. Any other info I can find on the school, I put down as notes. Then I write out every question I think of so they are there, and I don’t forget them. Usually, they answer 99% of the questions. Interviews are every bit as much about you getting to know them as them getting to know you. So don’t stress too much. I have had interviews I felt like I nailed only to be told I wasn’t selected for the next round. I’ve had interviews I thought I fumbled through only to find out I made the top 2. A lot of it comes down to match. I was on two searches last year, and being on the other side definitely makes me wayyyy less stressed about it. Good luck! Edit: Also, ask questions!!! Not asking is a red flag.

What's the difference between calling someone "Dr. Name" vs "Professor Name" This might be a stupid question, but I'm that meme of the guy being like "I don't know what xyz thing is and at this point I'm afraid to ask." I did my MA at an R1 public university, where all the faculty I encountered had doctorates. We called them by their first names after we had been invited to do so, but the polite, formal thing was to refer to faculty as "Dr. Name." Now, I'm doing my PhD at a different R1 public university, where all the faculty I have encountered have doctorates. Again, we call them by their first names on invitation, but the formal thing to do is to call them "Professor Name." Is this just a department culture thing? Or is there a functional difference?

These are two different titles. Now, it depends a lot on the country (I'm Italian); however, usually someone has the title "professor" if they are either an associate professor or a full professor, while everyone who has a Ph.D. can be called "Doctor." This is the basic explanation; however, as I mentioned before, a lot depends on the country (for example, in Italy, even people with a bachelor's degree can be called "doctor," which in my opinion is ridiculous, but that's a different topic...).

Is it normal to still make silly mistakes as a postdoc? Started my first postdoc position three weeks ago. It's a bit of a shift for me; my PhD was in protein-RNA interaction biochemistry and crystallography, very in vitro, and I'm now shifting to a cell culture and bioinformatics lab. Well, I was doing great, but yesterday I made such a DUMB mistake... I generated six CRISPRi knockdown lines, and I was subculturing at the end of the day when I mixed two of them together in the same flask. So now I pretty much only have four CRISPRi lines for downstream experiments. I have lentivirus in the -80 so I can just reinfect and have the two lines ready within the upcoming week. But I just feel so dumb and so awful. I haven't told my PI yet as this happened Friday evening, I definitely will let him know on Monday. I don't know him that well and he is a little bit intimidating, which he is aware of and told me not to be intimidated by him. But I just feel so stupid and so scared to tell him. I know that he won't yell at me or anything, I just feel like he might regret hiring me. How bad is this?

If you can generate the cell lines again within a week, then why do you even need to tell your PI? I know some PIs are more involved than others, but even as a PhD student, I only really go to my boss with results; she's not interested in every little technical problem I have along the way that I can easily solve myself. I wouldn't lie about a mistake or actively hide it if asked, but everyone makes mistakes—it's not a big deal. No need to broadcast them, though.

Do you ever feel like your research is pointless? Hi everybody. I'm in the middle of writing my Masters dissertation (in International Relations) and I'm feeling pretty hopeless. Do you ever feel like your research is pointless? Or not worth the time you've given it? Are your expected outcomes obvious, or just not that important anymore? Feeling down. Need a pick me up. At the very least, it'd be nice to know I'm not alone.

“No single raindrop feels responsible for the flood.” — Douglas Adams. Though this quote originally most likely had a different meaning or intention, it makes me feel better that my work may be a part of this ‘flood.’ Just being a part of this upward march of humanity gives me more satisfaction than working to help a company make a profit ever could.

Interested in teaching, less interested in research Currently pursuing a master's degree in media that is heavily research-focused. I have no problem with my research or the field I'm in, but I prefer plain old teaching over teaching and research. I was contemplating applying to schools for a PhD once I graduate, but I'm wondering if I need to. Can I teach at the university level without one? I understand PhD programs are heavily rooted in research, which again I have no problem with doing, but I'm wondering if this path is necessary if I'm interested more in teaching.

Take this for what it’s worth as I’m speaking from a social sciences perspective. I’m an academic who strongly favors teaching, and I knew that since I was in grad school. In my field, it is increasingly, and already very difficult, to obtain any sort of teaching gig without a PhD. With higher ed finances the way they are now, I don’t see this changing. I was hired about 4 years ago on the tenure track at a teaching-focused university. They still expect us to be professionally engaged in research (although the expectations are very different than what you would find in a research-focused school). Even though teaching ability was central to the hire, all serious candidates were involved in both high-quality teaching and research. I’ve seen a lot of friends with strong teaching and research abilities struggle to find jobs, so the competition is very strong. My research centers on student engagement/learning, so I’m able to intertwine the two to an extent and still enjoy both. Even if you’re not looking for a tenure-track role, full-time lecturer positions are hard to find and very competitive. The other option is to adjunct, but those positions are being cut, increasingly competitive, and not stable at all—every semester is a crap shoot as to what classes you might be assigned, and if you’ll even get any classes. The pay is an abomination to the amount of work you do, and you’re not guaranteed great benefits. With the market the way it is, I expect higher qualifications from adjuncts and other part-time lecturers. The most success I’ve seen from people moving into full-time lecture or “more secure” adjunct work is from people who invested greatly in the teaching they do at the institution where they are working toward their degree. And after time, securing the golden egg lecture position created for them to stay (this is anecdotal).

This might sound really stupid, but can I still submit abstracts to conferences call for papers after graduating and no longer being a graduate student? Please forgive me if this is the wrong space to post this. I finished my MA degree a few years ago, and I have been doing work unrelated to my degree since. Today my former second reader professor forwarded me a call for papers for a special conference about a very specific niche, on which I wrote my MA thesis. I really want to be a part of this conference, but I only submitted and presented papers while I was a student, and I no longer belong to an organization or school. Is it allowed for a regular "no-longer-a-student" person to participate? Will they welcome my submission? The call for papers said, "Early career scholars and graduate students are very welcome."

Go for it. There's usually no requirement that you have a current university affiliation to present at a conference. It's not extremely common for a variety of reasons, but people do present papers and publish as "independent scholars."

How do I come up with a research topic for my PhD? I want to start a PhD but I am having trouble with coming up with a research proposal. I have a vague idea about what I want my research to be about but I can't come up with a concrete research topic. All suggestions are welcome!

Hello there! Research is a matter of momentum (or inertia, if you will); topics will come to you by themselves while you keep reading literature. You can't find a topic by sitting at a desk and asking yourself what to write. If you ask your mentor, you'll probably end up with a topic you aren't really curious about (and believe me, curiosity is very important for a PhD thesis!). Think about a general topic in your area, even an abstract one. Start to read without a real purpose; just read what you want to read. If something catches your attention, go deeper. Rinse and repeat. Keep doing this, and you'll have more than one topic in no time—and these will not be just any topics; these will be the ones that keep you interested! Edit: Thanks for the hug! :)

Sad about plagiarised papers Do you also get sad when your students hand in plagiarised papers? Or is it just me?

When I was still teaching, I learned there were lots of different reasons why students plagiarized papers, so I learned to talk to the student and figure out what was going on. (Not necessarily take what they say at face value, but at least try to figure it out.) Many of them were just lazy, or they waited until the last minute to write the paper, so they just copied and pasted, thinking I wouldn't figure it out. Whatever. With a few, I learned they were so scared of writing—or had gotten such bad marks on their writing in the past—that they simply didn't know what else to do besides plagiarize. This isn't an excuse for it, and there's heavy overlap with these kids and the ones in the first group, but in a few cases the student genuinely wanted to learn how to write better (or were at least interested when I offered to help them learn). Some simply did not see the point of learning how to write because they didn't see the overlap between writing a paper analyzing a novel or exploring a research topic and writing emails at work or other kinds of business communication. While those students were also largely in the first group, it *did* make me modify my approach a little when I taught writing. I drew more parallels between the types of assignments I gave and "real work" and also gave a wider variety of assignments. This improved interest at least with the serious kids. Then there were the rare one or two who genuinely didn't know they weren't supposed to do that. These are not the kids who turned in someone else's paper or copied large unattributed sections from Wikipedia—these were the kids who would copy like four lines and then cite it, thinking that put them in the clear, but they would do it all throughout the paper. Often it was because they'd gotten poor writing instruction in the past; I once had a social studies teacher in middle or high school who taught some really poor writing skills that would engender this type of behavior (I distinctly remember her telling us that a paper should be mostly quotes with citations behind them. Not just that you should cite your work—that the bulk of a paper, like 80%, should be literal quotes from other works).

Being a professor and the "gay voice" and manneirism (26M gay) I've always had a concern abou my voice sounding too gay but only about dating and hooking up. Now I have this concern about the classroom too. Is it something bad to have a gay voice while being a professor? Read something about it being unprofessional and makes you being disrespected. I have this memory about all my male teachers and professors being a bit feminine even thought they're all straight. So is it ok maybe?

Pretending I don't have a "gay voice" is exhausting and never worth it. If others don't like it, too bad. I'd rather lead by example for other queer folks (and non-queer folks who may share similar traits).

Those who came up with their own PhD topic/subject, what process led you to discover your specific topic? Currently I'm reading mid 2020 publications of authors in my field to discover problems and ideas that may be at the basis of my own PhD proposal in early 2021. I feel like there is some exciting stuff here that could work for me and I'm making notes on interesting questions / issues. To know if I'm on the right track or if I could improve what I'm doing, I am very curious to hear about the process and things you did to get to your (accepted) PhD proposals!

I dreamed big and identified the steps to reach my end goal. Then I chose a fundamental step that hadn't been solved yet. I restricted the problem so that it seemed solvable within a few years. The end goal gave me my "why." Choosing the step gave me my "what." And restricting the problem provided me with my "how."

Is it really awkward or unusual for someone outside academia to attend an academic conference? I only completed undergrad, but I'm a curious person and I like learning about things. And I've had interest in going to some, though the fees seem intimidating. Would it be gauche to attend one on my own? Are there any issues with being there without representing a school?

The fees can definitely be steep, especially for non-students, plus additional expenses if travel is required. But all conferences I’ve seen, across many disciplines, have been open to anyone wanting to attend as long as they pay the fees. Institutional support is only expected when you submit work you intend to present (e.g., to ensure an institutional review board was involved, to credit financial and mentor support, etc.). There may be a slot when buying a pass that asks for your institution to display on a name badge. But you could just enter “unaffiliated” or something similar. I actually encourage you to attend. Being a lifelong learner is great for the brain and broadening your perspectives. It’ll also come in handy should you decide to pursue graduate or professional school in the future. Good luck and enjoy!

University surveying whether to go pass/fail. What are the benefits for students? What are the risks? For what are probably obvious reasons, my university is surveying grad students to see if we prefer a pass/fail grade. This is my second masters, and I hope to go into a PhD afterward. I felt like taking a pass/fail was the obvious choice, but people have given me doubts. What do you think? How would you evaluate a pass/fail grad school metric for next year's PhD candidates?

Ours went this way: students have one week after getting their final (A-F) grades to decide whether to turn them into P/F grades. If they decide to do P/F, the course still counts as a requirement for majors, but does not contribute to their GPA. This is all mandated from above so professors don't have to choose. I think this splits the difference somewhat nicely. It's basically saying, "courses are still real courses," but "if you don't do as well as you'd hoped, you can make the course not count toward your GPA, but still get graduation credit for it." I'm also glad it doesn't make me pick; I'm not the good guy or the bad guy here. The students, if the Reddit forum for our university is to be trusted, seem to like this option as well. (I've talked to my own students about this; most seem very happy with it. My honors freshmen worried a little that this will require explanation for grad or med school admissions, but I've assured them that the admissions people are going to understand that this was a weird semester and they'll hardly be the only ones in this situation.)

Do you believe academia is worth pursuing for reasons other than getting a job? Sorry, I'm going to rant a bit as to the reasons why I'm asking this question, but I do genuinely want to know your answer. **Start rant:** I want to get a PhD in English, probably concentrating on Comp & Rhet or Critical Theory/Cultural Studies. I want to do this because I find it fulfilling, point blank. I feel like that upsets a lot of people. With the job market like it is, it's like people resent that you might want an advanced degree in something that won't immediately or directly translate to a job, and pursue it for a reason other than getting a job. I have 9 years of experience in editing and writing for the web. I'm not worried about making decent money. I'm hoping that getting a PhD will make me more qualified for other types of work--like editing a scholarly journal, becoming a professor (even an adjunct while I have a second job), doing editing and/or writing for an organization like the UN, or writing for a more academic/scholarly-type website--but at the end of the day, I want to better my scholarly skills. I want to be better at doing research, better at writing, better at thinking, etc., for its own sake and for my fulfillment. And I want to do what I love to do: write and do research. Am I going to get into a lot of debt for this? I don't think I'll pursue it unless I get a tuition waiver and a decent stipend. I'm not going into a humanities degree with rose-colored glasses. But nor am I shunning it because I might not need a PhD for whatever job I end up getting or because the academic job market is bad (right now, not necessarily forever. I'm 26, and hopefully my life will be long). **-end rant** How many of you believe in pursuing academia for reasons other than getting a job? There used to be the idea that the pursuit of knowledge was noble for its own sake, or to advance the mind of the person pursuing the education. Is that sentiment dead?

We can't tell you if it's right for you or not. Only you can know. > I feel like that upsets a lot of people. With the job market like it is, it's like people resent that you might want an advanced degree in something that won't immediately or directly translate to a job and pursue it for a reason other than getting a job. That's not really resentment per se; it's just good sense. Instead, what you're experiencing probably stems from two things: 1) People are anticipating you getting through this and finding it does nothing for you, and then complaining about it. You wouldn't be the first, and you wouldn't be the last. 2) Often, a lot of the people who pursue a doctorate for "intellectual" reasons tend to have a wildly romanticized view of how academia is, and when they end up learning how the sausage is made they end up complaining about it. You wouldn't be the first, and you wouldn't be the last. So in both cases, the resentment isn't toward what you want to do, but instead is pointed towards who we anticipate you'll become. Alternatively, you're asking for advice, disregarding that advice, and then being surprised when people are annoyed at you for wasting their time. > But I'm not shunning it because I might not need a PhD for whatever job I end up getting or because the academic job market is bad (right now, not necessarily forever. I'm 26, and hopefully, my life will be long). It's going to remain bad for a long time, likely for the remainder of the century given the instability that's likely to occur and the resulting flood of educated individuals into developed/stable nations.

Does anyone have any positive experiences of getting a PhD and working in academia? I’ve seen so many articles and posts about the negative aspects of getting a PhD and finding a decent job in academia (particularly the humanities). All of the struggles and downsides seem completely valid, but surely there are those out there who have more positive experiences. Anyone willing to share?

I work at a tiny liberal arts college, and I love it. I’m absurdly underpaid, but I live simply, and what I make is enough for the bills and a decent retirement. Best of all, I genuinely look forward to getting to work every morning, and lots of my former students morph into (admittedly far-flung) friends. It’s a good life.

Completing PhD in 3-4 years? How do some people end up completing their PhD (in the USA) in 4 years? I've seen people in Chemistry and Materials Sciences complete their PhDs in 4 years directly after their bachelor's and that too without compromising the number and quality of publications. What traits set these students apart and what skills need deliberate practice to follow their footsteps? PS: I'm not talking about PhD programs in the European universities where the length of PhD is much shorter in general. But that is an interesting topic too. The students in the European universities also produce similar works like that of US grad students but they take much less time to complete their PhDs.

They have a well-defined research plan that's approved by their advisor and committee in the early stages. Their work doesn't involve making new tools (e.g., they're applying an existing computational or bench technique to a new material or sample). They start doing real experiments while taking their core classes, possibly because they're very quick or are otherwise well prepared (e.g., they received strong coverage in undergrad). They either aren't very curious about their technique and results or they resist this curiosity and avoid doing a lot of characterization and blue-sky experiments. They get lucky with their results or are able to convincingly identify the successful aspects of their failures. They write the papers and make the figures as they do the experiments. They use the papers as chapters of their thesis, adding only introduction and conclusion chapters. They assertively manage their advisors to review manuscripts quickly and to not ratchet up expectations. They have one or more committee members who apply pressure on the advisor if necessary, not to delay the defense. (Coming from someone who took 5 1/2 years but had a few very disciplined colleagues.) EDIT: This seemed to click with a lot of people, so I wanted to add a few more shared characteristics of the individuals I worked with: - They had a concrete plan for their career for after graduation; grad school was a means to an end and not a space for exploration. - They had a limited tolerance for "what-if" discussions and mostly wanted to get back into the lab and work. - They didn't necessarily have the most supportive advisor but did know what levers to pull to move forward (e.g., different adversarial styles or networking to pull in high-clout individuals to support them against the advisor). - They didn't necessarily feel that they were very smart, but they did feel that they could attack any challenge and prevail. They didn't get sidetracked long by an experiment going wrong or a piece of equipment not working; that would certainly be on the top of their mind until they addressed the issue, but it wouldn't shake their confidence in their research. They weren't overly confident or egotistical in their progress or successes either. In other words, they weren't married to their research; they just *did the work every day* as the units of progress accumulated. So: dispassionate, tenacious, steely, organized, savvy, and lucky.

Why do we continue to give high-stakes tests, especially when they are counter-productive to both students and professors? While this may seem like a cringingly naive question to ask this, however, the consequences of colleges that continue to unquestioningly to give hair-pulling exams aren't. It becomes more costly to the school and to the student to retake a class and postpone their graduation date, and extensive grading of these exams take away research time from professors and graduate students trying to get their foot in the door, and not to mention that even the most well-motivated students can succumb to life-tragedies in their semsters that cause them to bomb the exam entirely, thereby repeating the first sentence.

Many of us—I haven't given an in-class exam in over 20 years—agree that the pedagogy of testing in general isn't well suited to the sort of learning we seek to develop. I am not interested in a student's ability to memorize information or to perform under pressure; for me, analysis, synthesis, argumentation, and clear communication are my primary goals. Information they can look up, just as anyone who is not an expert in a given field will do. I understand why some fields still use exams. They just aren't an effective means of teaching or assessing learning in my field, especially compared to the many alternative assessments. Further, not having exams means I don't have to invest class time in giving them and I never have to grade them. Win-win in my book.

Is it realistic to want to be interdisciplinary? My favorite Wikipedia pages are the ones that say “John/Jane Doe was a philosopher, scientist, historian, sociologist, mathematician, and artist.” Those are the kinds of people I look up to. Those are my role models. But there’s a lot of information out there. More than there was 100 or 200 years ago. Which means it takes longer to become an expert in a discipline than it once did. Are there still polymaths in the 21st-century?

Being a 16th or 17th century style polymath is difficult, if not impossible, but interdisciplinary studies are basically required at this point. Where do you draw the line between computer science, biology, and chemistry in genetics? Where is the line between biology, chemistry, and psychology when you're working in neuroscience? Toss in some physics for flavor when you're talking about acoustics, or fMRI, or...

Does anyone know any case of a PhD student that failed their PhD defense? If yes why and what happened next? Also have you ever heard of anyone having a panic attack during their defense?

I have witnessed this happen three times. In two instances, it was the student who was forcing the defense against the advice of their advisor. During these "defenses," they presented and went through the entire song-and-dance. Then, during the closed-door session with the student out of the room, the professors decided (in these two cases) that rather than a "defense," they had just held a committee meeting and came out with a long list of things the student needed to do before they would formally defend. In the other instance, this poor guy had what I might describe as the world's worst advisor. I witnessed the prior two as a graduate student. I worked with this guy during my first job, and he was "finishing" his dissertation while teaching at a small liberal arts college. As I learned more, it became clear that his advisor seriously misguided him and then left the university after he "defended" but before he "graduated." He received a new advisor and formed a nearly completely new committee after she left for another university. His new committee and advisor disregarded the prior defense and have been asking him to endlessly make revisions. It seems like they are waiting for him to quit.

Is it appropriate to ask a Professor you’re doing research under if they know how to get academic books for cheaper than market price? Sorry for confusing wording. I will start working on a thesis project (MA - humanities) under a new professor which I do not yet have a relationship with (we have exchanged many emails but I have never met them - not even via Zoom). A brand new monograph covering important parts of my research topic has just come out from an academic press but is quite expensive to buy through the press and on Amazon etc. Would it be appropriate for me to ask this professor - who I don’t really “know” but under who I will be working for at least the next year - via email if they have access to the work as it also pertains to their sub-field and/or if they knew how I could get it for cheap (market price is over $100)? I feel like it is a fair question for an academic supervisor/mentor but don’t want to break some academic social protocol that I am unaware of. Thanks!

I think this is a better question for your school's librarian than a professor. Your school can either buy it for their collection or can search any inter-library loan networks they are a part of to get a copy for you. I would reach out to the library first, then email your professor letting them know that you're looking for the manuscript and have emailed the library. Then ask if they have any other suggestions. That way it doesn't look like you are expecting them to personally track down reference materials.

Idea: Is reading papers on mobile in high demand? Researchers, scholars, PhDs, graduate students, bachelors, and students: Does anyone like to read papers when commuting on mobile? If I am planning to make a new product to read in a lightweight way, would you like to use that?

For me, no. The issue is that I need to be able to see the overall page, which is not really possible on mobile because the text would be too small. My fields are math, engineering, and life sciences.

PhD Supervisor missed a deadline, now candidate has to pay $15,000 and wait months before graduating Hello all. I'm asking this for a co-worker. He has been working a full time job and writing to finish his dissertation in Linguistics. He completed and submitted well in advance of the deadline. However, his supervisor was supposed to submit it to the doctoral committee before the deadline, BUT DIDN'T! Now, the school is telling him that he needs to wait until the next semester to graduate, and he needs to pay an additional $15k for that semester since he's no longer in the country (I don't know how that part works). So, because his supervisor screwed up, it's going to cost him thousands of dollars and waste a significant amount of time. Is there anything he can do?

There's usually a process either within the department or at the college/university level for "special consideration" or a "request for exemption" or something similar. However, these processes usually require the advisor to be involved and to be a real advocate for the student. If I had done this to one of my students, I'd be in the grad dean's office, falling on my sword, and trying to see what I could make happen. If your friend's advisor isn't doing that, then either a) his advisor isn't very good, and your friend is probably in trouble, or b) you don't have the full story, and there may be a totally legitimate reason why the advisor didn't forward the work.

How do I tell my supervisor I want to do a PhD somewhere else? I'm a year into my 2-year Master's. I like my field a lot but I want to move to do a PhD somewhere more central where I could get more experience. I consulted a former postdoc about leaving the lab and they said they had a really hard time leaving, with my advisor trying to manipulate them into staying for another year + until the very last moment, even sabotaging their search for a faculty position. Another former master's student told me that my advisor tried to delay their defense and get them to do more work even after their thesis was already written. They both told me that the best approach is to frame me leaving as beneficial for my advisor. So... How can I present me leaving the lab as a good thing for my advisor, and still get their support and do good work while I'm there? So far I have: * I'd like to continue working with the lab, even collaborating from a distance (which is true but not something I can promise since I don't know where I'll end up and my advisor is already well-connected) * Leaving the lab to a more renowned university will improve the lab's track record (which also doesn't hold that well since my lab's alumni have a pretty good track record)

I don’t know what field you’re in, but in mine, it is common and expected to conduct your PhD at an institution separate from your MS. It’s about broadening your horizons intellectually and, given that we often operate in relatively small fields, socially. Those obtaining their degrees at a single institution do themselves a disservice.

Got revisions to do on a paper but I graduated and left, PI pushing me to do revisions but I have a full-time job and don't need the paper We submitted the paper to a journal and preprinted it, then I graduated and took a job. I don't need the paper for my career but obviously it helps my PI. My PI keeps bugging me about getting the paper resubmitted and I don't want/have time to do it. I'm the only author along with PI, PI older and pretty hands off. How do I tell my PI I can't work on the paper anymore? Feel hostage.

My suggestion would be to consider the investment your advisor put into you and helping you get your degree. My advisor always said that it felt like each of his graduate students takes a small piece of his soul with them when they graduate. My point is that completing the revisions and resubmitting could be a nice way to reciprocate the trust and effort your advisor showed you when they took a chance to bring you into their research group. Otherwise, I would do everything you can to make sure your advisor has what they need to complete the revisions themselves.

What does your research look like as a non STEM Researcher Hello there! I am an experimental condensed matter Physics PhD candidate and I was wondering what a day in the life of a non STEM researcher looks like. All of my academic career has been in STEM and my work solely revolves around physically conducting experiments. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no clue what the research process looks like for the rest of academia and would love to know more about how y’all conduct research and what your average day looks like! Thank you for your time!

I'm a historian of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Central Europe. Most of my 'active' research involves grappling with manuscripts in libraries and church archives in Germany. In between, I spend a lot of time studying and practicing languages, which I need to have a mastery of in order to do my research—i.e., Latin, Middle High German, Czech, Dutch, etc.

Is Academia really as bad as it can be made out to be? Is there any benefit to going into academia? I stumbled across this sub a few weeks ago and had been browsing popular posts and comments that all appear to highlight the negative aspects and stresses associated with an academic career. For context, I’m an Australian that completed my undergraduate at the end of last year and have been working clinically in my sport and exercise role for almost 12 months but have been very keen on getting into academia via masters by research or mPhil with either a subsequent or upgrading masters to PhD (either in public health, cancer research in relation to exercise or more specific. (Honours is not a financially viable route fo me). I have tried to start transitioning into the space with some other projects and research assistant work on the side but reading through some of these experiences have really given me some cause for concern about my desired career choice.

We mostly come here to whine and seek advice when in trouble. Like others have said, don't take what you see here as our daily life. If you are interested, I'd say pursue a master's; it's 1 or 2 years (depending on where you do it). You'll get to do research, the skills can be easily transferable to regular jobs, and you'll be able to decide if you want more or not. I decided to pursue my PhD with the certainty that I wanted to do science until I grow old and retire. I really like what I do. However, as years passed, and this is my sixth year in academia (2 years master's, 4 years PhD), I now know that I want stability and comfort more than I love science. My area, unfortunately, does not have as many options as in the past, plus there is zero possibility of me finding a research-only position; everything is mostly focused on teaching, which I really dislike. This made me "broaden my view," and I started to look "at the other world," of regular jobs, industry, and whatever. Basically, this rambling is more to say that no, life isn't as bad as it seems, and yes, you might enter a master's or a PhD and you might change your mind due to whatever reason, and that's okay too. It won't mean that your master's or PhD was a complete waste of time/money, really.

Professor I am interested in working with has only ever worked with Chinese students and researchers. Is this a red flag? There is a professor who is doing research in an area that I am very interested in but when looking at all his research I became a bit concerned. He has only worked with Chinese students and various Chinese researchers from industry and other universities. Looking through all his work, it doesn't seem that he has ever worked with a non Chinese person. Also, every summer he invites 5 students from various Chinese universities to work with him fully funded. As a non-Chinese student I feel like I may just be wasting my time contacting him.

It could be entirely random. It could be one of the following: - The faculty has a demanding supervising tendency that is not usual for graduate students from other (read: Western) countries. - The faculty, while comfortable with writing, is not quite comfortable with communicating in English. To make their work go faster, working with students from their native country is much more productive. - The faculty is more likely to be able to obtain funding from China, which requires (unofficially) them to supervise Chinese students only. - These students come from specific training programs in China that make them uniquely suited to the faculty's research.

Anxiety and academia Hi all! I’m a PhD student in my final year who struggles with anxiety after hitting the wall during my master’s. I really enjoy my job, but I struggle a lot with sending my work out - as, for example, in working papers for conferences. I know that anxiety is a common mental illness in academia and I was wondering if this group might have any advice for how to deal with these aspects of the job? They’re extremely important, of course, so I know I need to do it, but crippling anxiety hits me every time and it would be nice to find some way to deal with it. To note: I’m already on anxiety suppressants and I do have a therapist I visit regularly, so this is more about ways you might deal with anxiety as it relates specifically to your tasks and any tips you might have on how to deal. Thank you!

I also have anxiety and struggle with similar issues with sharing my work. Here's what I try to remind myself: no one will remember the details of what you wrote or said. At least, not as much as you are fearing they will. If they remember anything substantial, it will be the general idea of your work, and/or they'll remember your demeanor. But no one will study your work as closely as you do when writing it.

Is it still impostor syndrome if you’re objectively not good enough? I like to think I do good work, but my group just had 6/7 submission rejected for not being good enough. I’ve put in nearly 20 years, but my citation count is still only as high as fresh PhDs. I can act like I fit in with peers, but the objective measures clearly show I don’t. Anyone else face this? Any advice?

The fact that you have put in 20 years would suggest that someone values something you are doing, as they have employed you for that time. Seven recent submissions would suggest considerable productivity, but 6 out of 7 rejections for "not being good enough" would suggest that you are aiming your submissions too high. I do hope that those 6 submissions have been revised and resubmitted elsewhere. The supposedly high productivity coupled with a low citation rate is a bit of a poser, but maybe that is field-specific. Maybe have a look at your field-weighted citation index.

8 Classes Cancelled My boyfriend is in the first year in ON, Canada and his prof has canceled 8 classes this semester...that's four weeks of content that is still going to be on the exam still...is this allowed? I've looked at by-laws but the focus is on students and their academic procedures. Some of the classes she was in a conference, some she was sick and I understand shit happens, but all of them were canceled with less than 24hrs notice. 2 of the classes, the students were in class and she just never showed up. I'm an upper-year and I have never had a prof cancel more than twice. I just don't think this is professional or okay at all, but he doesn't know what to do.

8 is a lot, which is always concerning, but in over 2 of the classes, the students were in class and she just never showed up. This is the biggest, biggest issue IMO.

Reviewer pointed out non-existent grammatical mistakes, the best way to respond? Just got reviewers' comments from a journal submission. Interestingly, one reviewer pointed out "grammatical errors and misuse of language" in the manuscript, and listed a few problematic sentences. However, our PI and two other native English-speaking colleagues don't find any problems in these sentences. In this case, what's your opinion on the best way to politely respond to this comment? Should I rewrite these sentences even though they are grammatically correct? Thank you very much.

Often, by the time we submit a paper, we have read it so many times that awkward phrases or slightly strange sentences just wash over us (and anyone we’ve asked to read drafts). I know I’ve had things accepted and later looked back and thought, “Why on earth did I phrase it that way?” I’ve reviewed papers and found sentences that, while not grammatically incorrect, make the statement incredibly more difficult to understand than it needs to be. Try handing the paper to someone completely unrelated who has never seen it before and see what they say. Try to look at your paper as a non-specialist; it might make sense to you and your colleagues but be difficult to understand for someone slightly out of your specialty. Don’t immediately see the reviewer as unnecessarily combative; they’re bringing up stuff they legitimately have issues with, and being open to those changes ultimately improves the paper.

Consulting as a side job: how does one track the "hours"? I've been asked to do some quick consulting for a company interested in my research. We agreed on a hourly rate. And... How on earth do I find out how many I spend to do something? How do I track how much time I spend "thinking" about something? Do I actually meter the time with a clock? What about the time it takes me because I get stuck on something that needs debugging? Time it takes to do stuff is like the least mentioned issue in academia. Also, I have bad ADHD, so I could honestly say that the same activity takes me either 20 minutes or 2 days, according to how I account for distraction...

Try to separate your academic mindset from the business mindset; this isn't an exact science. No one is going to track the exact minutes you work on something. No one but a few scummy companies is going to audit your computer to see how much time you spent. It is a common business practice that your estimate will always be on the higher end. A business wants to know when you will be sure to have completed something, not when you *may* have completed something. It is always better to under-promise and over-deliver than the opposite. Agree on a set amount of hours for a task (estimate how long you would take at the max + tack on 20% overhead) and a going rate beforehand. Make sure the boundaries and deliverables of the consulting task are clearly defined. If the task becomes out of scope for the hours set, let them know well ahead so they can adjust or re-evaluate the contract.

I am having an IBS flare and have been asked to attend a 4 day group retreat. What the hell do I do? This is literally my nightmare. I am coming to the end of my PhD and, as is the tradition in our group, we have a group retreat every spring and people present their research there when they're close to finishing. But right now, I have to shit every 2 hours, loudly. Even if I manage to get a hotel room by myself (which is not a guarantee--I will probably have to room with someone else, and while I like my colleagues, I sort of don't want them to hear me shitting 8+ times a day) it will be a horrible, horrible experience for me. The group retreat is structured so that we have presentations in the morning (deargodno), and outings to the lake or hiking in the afternoon (hellnaw), for 4 days. I cannot do this. I also have severe anxiety and didn't really enjoy the group retreat much as it is. PIs of AskAcademia: what the hell do I do?! The group retreat is sort of "mandatory", but all I want is to be able to do my work in peace in the lab, never far from a toilet... (I honestly enjoy my work and would just be so happy if my PI told me I could stay in the lab with my little cell buddies listening to music.) I have had this health issue before and I'm on meds but they take some time to kick in. I don't have it as bad as some people, my labmates have no idea I have health issues, and I'd like to keep it that way. I can totally function but this retreat would just be a nightmare for me. Please help

"I am having a flare-up of a chronic medical condition that means I will not be able to join you on the retreat. If it is possible to Zoom in to some of the morning presentations, I would be interested in exploring that option. But I hope you all have an excellent time on the retreat!" Said or emailed with a tone that conveys this is a perfectly reasonable thing to say (because it is), and of course your PI will understand and not be an ass (because they shouldn't be). You do not have to disclose what the medical issue is. If they express concern, say that you're managing the condition with the help of your doctors and appreciate their concern. Do not give in to the temptation to explain in greater detail. If they push, you can offer to get a note from your doctor and work with the accommodations office, but emphasize that you're hoping the professor will understand your desire to keep your private medical information private.

I'm a miserable and inadequate PhD student, should I drop out? So, I'm at the end of my second year in a nationally-ranked Microbiology program (USA). I got a conditional pass on my qual last month, and my revisions are due in a couple days and I really have doubts about whether they will be accepted by my committee. I'm going to put in my best effort for this revision, but even if I pass, I still think I need to leave..Here's why: I've always been kind of behind the curve when it comes to academics, but since I managed to get as far as a PhD program I kind of assumed it was just imposter syndrome. Fast forward to now, and I've barely made any progress on my projects despite a very supportive, hands-on advisor. I consistently make careless mistakes, forget to record experimental notes, etc. and I am in general just not a good researcher. My advisor has had several, very nice, but still "scary" talks with me about this, and I always say I'll improve, and genuinely try to for a few weeks, but it doesn't seem to stick. I've seen a few psychs, tried taking antidepressants, ADHD meds (all prescribed) and in the end none of it helps. I dread going to lab, reading papers, coming up with research ideas, all of it. Basically, I think that I just don't love scientific research enough to discipline myself to be good at it. I worked for two years in industry before starting my PhD and those were the happiest, most carefree years of my life, despite not making a ton of money. I got really good at the few experiments my job entailed, and looking back, I could have definitely climbed the ranks to achieve a comfier salary. I just thought I had to get a PhD because that's "what everyone does". Looking forward, I think I'd be much happier back at a 9-5, making enough money to save a little each month and invest, getting official paid vacation, etc. My program is kind of stingy about mastering out, so I doubt I'd be able to leave with a masters, but I still feel so much relief when I think about quitting. Tl;DR: Has anyone quit a PhD and not regretted it? How did you go about finding a job, and when did you tell your supervisor and your peers? The biggest things I'm worried about are 1) hurting/disappointing my supervisor and feeling like I utterly wasted her time and funding 2) being judged by my peers 3) not being able to find a job without listing my supervisor as a reference. 4) regretting the decision several years from now. TY in advance!!

You said you were in industry for a couple of years before and were happy doing that, which is great because it means you have some experience and can jump back in. You haven't failed, and you don't need a PhD to be successful in life.

How do I calmly approach having my defense downgraded 48 hrs before? [x-post from r/gradschool] So I was to defend this Friday afternoon- dissertation had been sent off to committee two weeks before, everyone except PI had okayed the time, I had slides ready and everything, many people were invited (managed to snag an online defense) and etc. Then yesterday afternoon, I got an email I didn't see till the evening cause I was busy practicing from my PI that read- >After consulting with your committee, I am writing to let you know that we are treating this Friday strictly as a committee (annual) meeting. You are well aware of my concerns with the state of Chapter 3 and the associated studies. I propose to use Friday as an opportunity to focus on Chapter 3 only and to allow the committee to help you with the scientific steps needed for inclusion in an acceptable dissertation. The committee is in agreement with this plan and copied in this email. So afaik, this happened relatively recently- at least as of Monday, two committee said they were looking forward to the defense, etc. What is the best approach to having a 48 hr notification that the defense is being downgraded with no prior notification to me? I assume the typical solution is to go for the committee, but PI seems to have sidestepped me on that regard, so I've hit up the next highest people I can think of (associate dean of college, chair of department) to get their input. Also trying to approach this as calmly and diplomatically as possible, but it's been a struggle :) Some additional context * Chapter in question is one we have fundamental disagreements on, since the crux of it is based on the reproduction (or lack thereof) of calculated numbers from the 1980s and 1990s, respectively. I maintain there's no way to reproduce them (can get close, but never exact) and can't know why, cause 1) don't have inputs, 2) the program versions from back then are probably different, and 3) there's papers published talking about how they can't reproduce them * This is not the first time someone from the lab has had a messy graduation. In fact, everyone (4 PhDs, two MS) all had to fight to get a defense date, and the case of one PhD, they were forced to pay out of pocket after their funding ran out and PI refused to pay from grant. There's general knowledge that having difficult graduations is a pattern in the lab, but this might be the worst so far.

I have to ask, was your dissertation signed off by your PI before you sent it off two weeks ago? Because that affects how unreasonable their seemingly sudden interference is. Don't get me wrong, from everything you've written it does sound like your PI is out of order and has a history of being so. But I also recognize that this is the internet and we're only hearing your side. A few other questions: 1) If they did sign off on your dissertation before now, did they do so in an email or other form of writing that you can present as evidence of their actions? 2) When do you imagine the next possible defense date would be? 3) Does the delay impact you financially or in terms of taking up employment?

How common is it for people not to publish academic research because it didn't come to the wanted conclusion? How common is it for people not to publish academic research because it didn't come to the wanted conclusion?

Look up "positive publication bias." There is a strong incentive to publish only positive and novel results, which distorts the true reality of research: many experiments "fail," and many are confirmatory. This is a problem because then almost any positive result is spun to be hugely important despite a flawed experimental design, which makes it highly likely to be spurious.

Ugh... Hello so, I feel like I needed to talk to someone about this, but I also didn't know who would that person be. I am a Ph.D. student, it's my 3rd year now and I haven't achieved much, to be honest. I really don't know why my procrastination skills are so high. right now I just feel lost and confused, I don't feel like I am what a Ph.D. student would be. I lowkey started thinking about quitting. like I wanna do research and everything, but not like this. it should be on my own terms I guess. what do you think I should do? I lack motivation, and I feel blocked. and speaking of blocking, I know I wanna do something big with my life but can't figure out what. dude, I really need some guidance. I am always stressed for whatever unknown reason. Please help.

I know I want to do something big with my life, but I can't figure out what. No matter how grandiose we pretend it is, most of us scientists are not going to make any uniquely amazing discoveries. Almost all papers, even those in Science or Nature, are incremental. Anyone who says otherwise is deluding themselves, which we're taught to do to publish and get grants. I write this because I think many of us struggle because we feel our work is incremental and that it shouldn't be. We also look at others (who are usually just better at self-promotion) who appear to be geniuses and mistakenly compare their self-promotion with our actual understanding of our data. We don't want to be mediocre, so we stall. But it's all incremental. I find that being humble about the scope of our likely scientific contribution can help with this form of blockage when I've had it.

Ethical problem in writing papers I have a problem I don't know how to deal with. Is it ethical that my professor takes my draft of my paper and rewrite it when he finds it needs improvements and makes himself the first author? Isn't he supposed to guide me through the writing process? If he is right, please explain why? And if he isn't, please tell me what should I do.

Before this can be answered, here are some crucial questions: - Are you an undergraduate, a master's student, or a PhD student? - How are you funded? Or have you been "just paid to do the work"? - You said "my professor." Is this professor the PI of the lab you are doing your PhD thesis in, or are you just working for him? - Who will be the last author in the constellation with "your professor" as the first author?

Why is the english in scam journals so bad? Each and everyone of them is godawful. "Greetings!" "Rejoice!" "Eminent!" I thought the point of them is that they preyed on either grad students who don't know much better and were desperate to increase their publication count - so why has so godawful language in them? I just got this today: >Dear Professor, >Hope I am not irritating you with my email. If yes sorry for the inconvenience caused by my end. > >I am [NAME] working as a manager of Scholarly Journal of [SUBJECT] (SJ[S]) sends invitation to eminently like you to help me in growth of my Journal. I know that you are getting hundreds of solicited email and got fed up with the invitations that you have got. > >But, please be in my position understand the problem I am facing as nowadays it is becoming very hard to get trust of authors. Trust me in my efforts, I will believe in you that you are the person who illuminate my hope for my journals future. > >Today I am leaving my desk in a small hope that tomorrow will be my turning point for me, and my journal and I get novel article from you. Please help me in rejoicing this day. Dear lords, I'm pretty sure soon they're going to enclose picture of their family that only get fed if I turn in a 2-page opinion piece by Friday. Does this work on anyone? I understand they spam everyone - wouldn't it make sense to get one good version of the spam message and re-use it? How come in the whole universe of scam journals and conferences, not one has managed to write something halfway professional? Hell, can't they just lift it from a legitimate journal and just change the names, if they're that inept at the language?

My favorite so far: Greetings! You are a pioneer with profound knowledge, and we feel immense pleasure in inviting you to attend our **“SCON World Convention on Waste Recycling and Reuse”** as a **Speaker**. It will be held during **March 5-6, 2020**, at **Tokyo, Japan**. The theme is **“Exploring Recent Trends on Waste Recycling and Reuse.”** I study higher education/ed policy.

Universities from developing countries are renown abroad? Hey, People in my (developing) country highly praise the University of Buenos Aires, stating it is really important internationally, that we've won some Nobel prizes, as well as most of Argentinian presidents being former students from this institution. Also, it is said that when you are moving abroad it actually makes the difference to hold this name on your CV. I wanted to know if you have heard about the Universidad de Buenos Aires before, or any other in such countries (UNAM in Mexico, USP in Brazil, etc.) Thanks.

It's sad, but basically no. To be really honest, most countries ignore most other countries' institutions. Ask an American academic about French institutions, and you are very likely to get blank stares. Overall, very few institutions have international name recognition.

Is anyone planning to leave academia early and do something else? I've been in academia a few years since achieving my PhD, and I don't know if I can sustain the level of expected output forever without making huge sacrifices in other areas of my life. So this got me thinking that this may not be a forever thing for me. Is anyone else in the same boat? If so, what's your exit plan? What are your plans for the future?

My master's advisor had this group of researchers who put their names on all their publications. They had a system where a paper written by A was published with A+B+C names and cited by D (so it counted as a citation outside the authors). The next paper written by B was published with B+C+D names and cited by A, and so on. That way, they wrote one or two articles a year and ended up with several publications, all of them with several citations (this was as much as I could understand almost 10 years ago). I thought that was unethical. Now I see it was necessary. They were all from different countries, so it counted as internationalization, and it was published in English, Spanish, and sometimes French. Now I appreciate the genius of that collaboration.

How to overcome bullying in academia Without backlash? My thesis advisor verbally threatens me and my work. This has happened with other of his thesis students and the supervisors and committee are aware and won’t do anything about it. I have options for a PhD and I’m worried of not being able to apply without his letter of recommendation. I am trying to keep going but it’s getting bizarre and I don’t know what is the right thing to do. A little context: I’m in the second year of my masters degree and the due date for the defense keeps getting posponed because of him.

It's difficult to give advice without knowing more about what your advisor is doing. What do you mean by "threatens me and my work"? If you just mean that your advisor tends to be negative and requests revisions that push a defense date back, this is common behavior. If you mean his behavior goes into the realm of "bullying," how does he exhibit this behavior?

How to tell if academia is or isn’t for you? I’m in the first semester of a thesis Master’s in Mechanical Engineering that I started because I struggled to land a job during the pandemic (May 2020 grad). I had no research experience and I think came in with an idealized view of grad school, thinking it’d be manageable because I was successful in undergrad. Needless to say I struggled a lot this first semester. Did well in my courses and progressed in the research but I’m extremely unhappy and my mental health has suffered quite a bit because of the stress, uncertainty about career goals, and some personal things as well. I don’t enjoy the research work at all, it seems like torture after taking all the time to stay on top of courses. I’m definitely not that passionate about engineering, I think it’s mainly a career for me rather than a calling. I’m hanging in but everyday is a struggle and I’ve never been this level of anxious/depressed before. I’m thinking about quitting and doubling my efforts to land a job as things reopen at the tail end of the pandemic to work for awhile to figure out what I do/don’t like. I’m unsure how much of this is just first semester growing pains, and how much is my gut telling me that this isn’t what I want to do right now. I suspect it’s a little of both. Anyone have any similar experiences? I feel like I started grad school with no goals or passion as a backup plan and I’m starting to think it may have been a mistake. Any insight is welcome!

I'm nearing my fifth and final year of my PhD, and I realized academia isn't for me when I started resenting the fact that I had to go home and still think about my chemistry. I just want a normal life, and I don't want to be in this constant cycle of people trying to boast about how great their research is, trying to run a research lab, begging for funding from the government, etc. I want a normal 9-to-5 and a normal life. But that's just how I personally feel. Others may have their own reasons.

Can an educated patient with a rare disease present and publish self researched interventions? I am not a scientist or healthcare professional. I do have a very rare genetic disease with no therapy or cure. I am university educated ( arts degrees) and self researched and applied lifestyle interventions that were unexpectedly successful. As I track all data regarding my interventions, my medical team and I, as first author, published an article this Spring. As I am acting outside the standard of care for someone with my disease, albeit with proven success, my medical team has now backed away from further research collaboration for ethical and liability reasons. As an informed patient, I am not bound by the same ethical or professional constraints of my medical team. Over the past year, I have progressed the interventions, still outside the standard of care, and I would now like to independently present the results as an N=1 study at a Conference in June. I am uncertain as to the appropriateness of this effort but feel very strongly that the research would be immensely valuable to other patients suffering with the same disease. Currently, there is no cure or therapy for this progressive and debilitating disease and my research might offer some hope for others. Any academic advice on strategies for navigating through the publication process would be very much appreciated.

I think you should contact a Swedish woman, Sara Riggare. (Webpage) She is what in Sweden is called a “spetspatient” and her reasoning is that she is the expert of her own disease, not doctors. She is doing a PhD in this area and is very active in promoting patient-centered care as well as actually talking to patients.

Universities switching to online education for 2020-2021. International students, will you still go for it or defer? Any advice appreciated. Hello guys, I am an applicant for a 1-year full time Master's Programme (Int. Relations/Politics), looking to study abroad and to settle there for good after my graduation. I got informed the other day that the University that I applied to (Dutch university, but I have also applied for a Scottish one and I have been accepted) will be switching to online teaching until January 2021, at least. So, I really don't know what I should do here. I have been planning for this for 2 years now and I was really hoping to migrate abroad and start a new life there (obviously I need to network and find a job). What would you do if you were me? What will you do if you are already in a position like me?

Hi there, as a lecturer at a Dutch university, it might be worth noting that online lecturing until January 2021 is the ‘worst’ case scenario. The joint position of Dutch universities at the moment is that online teaching will happen if necessary—to prevent disruption for students—but on campus if this is possible, depending on the progression of the virus and government measures. The government has also just announced today that they will be loosening current measures (high schools are reopening, restaurants gradually as well). This is not to say that there isn’t still a high likelihood that teaching will be online at the start of the academic year, but hopefully things will continue to improve. It would seem unlikely that you will be able to completely escape having to take at least some online classes if you are set on starting in September—there will be a similar situation in Scotland, and most other countries in Europe, most likely. I would let your choice be guided by the university which is the best fit for you based on the programme, and whether you see yourself settling in the country afterward.

I love this sub for the general advice it provides, but why aren’t there more academics using Reddit to disseminate research findings? Academics of Reddit, I’ve seen lots of professors using Twitter to discuss their & others’ research (at least in my field of biomechanics) and it always seemed odd to me that Twitter was the chosen forum to do that, with its low character count and lack of barrier between academic & non-academic content, or even between different fields of academia. Is there a reason they use Twitter over Reddit? I’d imagine that having field-specific subreddits to facilitate & organize discussion in the field (at least compared to Twitter) in a public forum would be ideal. I know that some of these conversations do happen on ResearchGate, but it would also not be ideal for this because it can’t keep various disciplines organized together like Reddit can, nor does it have the non-academic public attention that Reddit does so that the public can see how science is done.

Judging from most people's handles, most of us use Reddit as an anonymous place. (I assume your passport doesn't say "PersonOfInterest1969"?) Maybe it's just me, but if I were to create a non-anonymous account, I wouldn't want to put my professional work out there and interact with a bunch of anonymous people.

Constant PhD rejections. Hey all. I hope you're all doing well. I didnt really know who to turn to so I thought I'd share my experience in the last few months since September. I'm in the UK and I've achieved a first in my undergrad(biomed) and got a merit in my MSc(cancer). I've applied for about 8 PhD positions but I haven't even gotten through the first screening process even once. Because of current circumstances I havent been able to get feedback. I feel really lost and confused and I dont know who to turn to or what to do next, the PhDs out there currently aren't in my field and I just spend my time checking my emails hoping for something that isn't there. How many tries did it take for you guys? Should I be doing something else? I didnt really know how to word this or put this but I hope there's some people out there in my position. A few of my friends got into PhD positions in the first month and its really crushing.

Get someone you know who is familiar with PhD recruitment to look over your materials. If you've been through eight applications, with that academic record, without getting a single interview, it suggests there *may be* something problematic in your application documents. Some obvious ones to check for: 1. **Make sure your CV is short, concise, and allows your application to get through the first filter.** The purpose of the CV is simply to tick off checkbox items like "has a degree," "has some relevant experience," etc. No one is expecting a graduate to have an exciting CV, but make sure it is at least simple and clear. Don't add fluff items that are not relevant. This is not a random job on a recruitment site. Maybe highlight a few key specialist or transferable skills or responsibilities that relate to previous activities, but don't go overboard. There is little reason for most PhD application CVs to run over one page. 2. **Cover letter:** Keep it specific and to the point. You should address, in order, any requirements of the project and how you fit them. More specifically for a PhD, highlight why *you specifically* are a great fit for *this specific* project. What directly relevant experience or interest do you have? Why are you a shoe-in for it? Also, don't include one of those vague, gushy intro paragraphs that UCAS tutors train you to include. You are not Indiana Jones adventuring through life; this is not the Temple of Doom, and you are not saving the world. 3. **Contact the PI.** Make sure you make contact before the application submission with the people listed on the advert. Ask them if there are any specific skills or experience they are looking for. Even if there aren't, by starting that communication process you can tap into any help or guidance they might want to offer. 4. **Don't try and flatter the PI into accepting.** We don't need to know what you think of our work—we want to know what you are capable of, and that you are someone who could hit the ground running and deliver a project. We want to know that you have thought through the process of doing a PhD. We don't want to hear that you've dreamt of this since you were a child—we want to know that you, right now, have thought through the reality and are keen to work on this specific project.

What separates a great PhD student from a good one? I want to be the best I can be!

People here are saying things like the ability to think for yourself, and yes, that's a great thing to shoot for, but it's not really an action item you can suddenly act upon. If you can reliably and usefully think for yourself through new scientific problems you encounter, you should be given your degree immediately, since that's essentially what a PhD means. As a student, who is supposedly on the way to being able to think through things independently, your goal should be to: (1) Make sure you understand what you are doing, why it works, how it could fail, what alternatives exist, etc. Do not take someone's word for it, even your advisor's. If you ever say you are doing something because someone said so or it's "black magic," you are not a great student. Not even a good one. (2) Shoot for the highest quality and care in your work. This goes with (1) - you have to understand what aspects of your methods are important, and what are the failure modes, and account for them. (3) Don't think that long hours in the lab make you somehow amazing. Efficient use of time is much more important. The absolute best students are those who can do (1) and (2) and still go home at 5pm.

How to Detect Papers from Online Essay Mills? I am a Composition instructor, and I'm 99% certain some of my students use essay mills (sites where students pay for others to write essays). It's pretty easy to tell when it happens, especially if the student's homework assignment vocabulary does not at all match the essay vocabulary (or syntax, grammar, spelling). I use SafeAssign, but that only goes so far and cannot detect original papers written by ghostwriters. Is there any way I could prove students have used an essay mill?

Realistically, you can't. You could spend an inordinate amount of time stringing together textual analysis that supports your claim, but it won't really go anywhere. A student could be getting help from friends, or outright paying a service to write the essays. They could be utilizing academic support services on your own campus to a considerable degree. Who knows at this point? The point is that you can't be sure of how they are cheating, or even if they are. I ultimately think you should just give up on those students. Spend your energy on something positive, like helping the students in your courses that need help. If you are willing to upend your course a bit, you can make it much more difficult for these assignments to work. I break my papers up into sections and require in-person peer review for most of the sections to count. A student that can't string together a sentence can't buy their way out of that classwork. My peer reviews total 25 points per paper, so they could squeak by with a C. It's more work, but I think it's also better teaching. In short, either ignore it or stop assigning "fire and forget" essays.

Academics: do you get insecure not having industrial experience? I find my supervisor (who doesn't have any industrial experience) a bit insecure when facing some of the industrial folks. He often asks, "is that how it works over there? I got more insecure for him being my supervisor by asking that for some reason. My sister who has been working in the industry for her whole life didn't quite like working with people who have been "stuck" in school - she finds them as people that couldn't really solve real problems - no offence but she said that "these people" are more complaining and using "methods" people don't understand. She says she doesn't care for "the references", "the literature review" or SCOPUS Indexed if it can't solve the business problem - I literally laughed hearing that. Academics - do you get insecure not having industrial experience?

And yet, general science/scholarship is drawn upon by the private sector all the time with no credit given. Without basic science, the rest simply wouldn't work very well. So no, I'm not concerned—especially now that hopefully COVID-19 has made the world a lot more aware of why you need those esoteric experts doing weird stuff. Without people mucking around with molecular sequence evolution to answer obscure academic questions, there would be no tools to trace virus strains and identify important mutations, and all this other incredible work they've done in such a short time! Without some taxpayer-money-sucking microbiologists studying weird hot water bacteria in the 1970s, there would be no PCR tests, etc. Thirty years ago, people were studying coronaviruses because they have super cool, relatively complex genomes for RNA viruses; no one suspected they'd be of any human relevance before SARS-1. Some of those people were mocked for studying non-human, industry-irrelevant bat viruses... If the world doesn't figure this out, and I'm left without my academic job somehow, guess I'll have the rest of my life to spend on being a militant activist for basic science and make a career out of that. Because I know that despite all the anti-intellectual, overly-pro-business propaganda, we basic scientists are not only useful, but actually absolutely essential to modern society and a decent quality of life in it =)

Any academic book made you go: ''Wow... This is so underrated and good...''? It can be academic books of any discipline (STEM, non-STEM etc) be it classical (19-20 century) or modern texts (21 century). Any english or foreign (english-translated) texts are welcomed too!

Definitely pop sci, but I picked up *Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World* by Mark Miodownik in an airport as an undergrad in chem, and it inspired me to become a materials scientist.

How to concentrate on exams when you are sad? Hi, these days I have a bit of shit in my head, and I need to concentrate to study because I have exams this week, and I can't do it, usually when I'm a sad, work or study helps me, because it distracts me, but this time it doesn't work. What do you do when you feel like this?

The best advice I've received is to show yourself some compassion. Acknowledge to yourself that what you're trying to do is hard (e.g., pressing forward with a broken heart, dealing with the junk in your life), and do something physically soothing for yourself (e.g., wrap up in a blanket while studying, put a heating pad on your back). I hope you feel better soon. Exams are just a temporary thing you need to get through. After, you'll have time to feel all your feels. You've got this, OP!

How do I publish now that I've left academia? Earlier this year I left my academic postdoc. I now work in an industry R&D job. However, I still enjoy publishing original research, and I've been working on some projects using largely in silico studies. This work is 100% unrelated to my industry work and there is literally no overlap. My question is whether or not there is any roadmap for how I could continue to publish as an independent scientist? Will journals waive fees as I'm completely unfunded? Can I publish using a personal email address as my contact? What do I put as my affiliation? As far as I can tell, I can use a personal email address, and some journals seem to have no fees to publish or, more commonly, waive them in certain instances. Any insight is appreciated, especially regarding contact info/affiliation, as I certainly don't want to publish my home address as my contact in any manuscripts I manage to get accepted. I also recognize publishing as a solo scientist can be quite difficult and a slow process. I have no illusions regarding how relatively slow my productivity will be doing this just in my free time. However, it's for fun and self-actualization purposes, so even if I only get one small paper accepted every 3-6 years, I'd be more than satisfied.

Same as before. You do not need any affiliation for publishing. So, you can be an "Independent Researcher" with your own email address and still publish. This is what I am (partially) doing. Perhaps I would recommend having your own webpage (where you put your interests, papers, etc.) and your own address, and not a Yahoo or Hotmail address :) Regarding fees, this will be journal-dependent, and you will need to ask. I personally publish in journals where there is no publication fee (but the papers are not open access). However, I always put a preprint online which I regularly update so that people can still access my papers for free. This is allowed by the journals I publish in. Finally, regarding paper output, you can still collaborate with other people. I have several collaborations running at the moment, and this helps with keeping the output at a reasonable level. Edit: I am in STEM.

Is your academic career over if you are let go after not being able to get tenure? Or can you get tenure in another institution sooner without waiting for 5 years again? I am not that familiar with the Academic career ladder. But from what I have read, it seems that when you are in a tenure track position you usually get five years to earn tenure. If you fail to get tenure you are let go. Is your whole academic career destroyed after that? Do you have to wait 5 more years in another institution to get tenure there? Or can you get it earlier?

I've been in academia in the US for 25+ years and have only known a small handful of people who were denied tenure at one place and later got it elsewhere; all of them left R1s or elite private schools and took a step down (sometimes a *major* step down) in prestige before getting tenure. Most had to start over or received limited credit (1-2 years) toward tenure at their second institution. Here's the rub: I've served on far too many faculty searches over the years and have seen how search committees respond to denials of tenure. No matter what the file might say, they tend to think, “There’s something wrong with this person; is s/he worth the risk to us?” because obviously another institution rejected them. When you have a flooded market and dozens, if not hundreds, of qualified candidates applying for every job, people are looking for any excuse to weed the pool. The fact that someone was effectively fired from a previous job is a pretty good excuse in some people’s minds. There are two exceptions: everyone knows that Harvard/Yale et al. don’t typically tenure junior faculty so they get a pass, as do most people who come with $$$ external grants. But there is a very strong bias against anyone perceived to be “damaged goods” in the US market, and nobody will trust letters of recommendation from a former department because they believe (with some reason) that those often omit serious problems because the writers/school don’t want a lawsuit. So unless there’s an inside connection—someone in the hiring department knows someone in the former department—the odds are the committee is going to balk. For the majority of US academics, I’d say, a failed tenure bid is a career-ending event. Certainly the vast majority of people I know who have been denied tenure never earned tenure at a second institution.

Tips on managing your emotions and preventing stress reactions? For example, sometimes when I get very stressed I feel so emotionally overwhelmed that all I can do is go to the bathroom and cry silently for a while. It's very hard to be productive when crying. I feel very weak and lazy whenever this happens to me.

I hear you. I also have such reactions. Sometimes after teaching a class, even a good one, I go to my office and cry for a few minutes. I'd recommend DBT to work on meaningful responses to emotional distress. I also recommend that you learn about "emotional labor" to better understand what may be happening to you. And read "Mad at School."

Opportunities after completing physics PhD in your 40s I think I've read nearly every post about starting towards a PhD later in life, but haven't found my particular questions answered. **My questions are**: - What paths are possible to move from a lower ranked school in undergrad to a higher ranked school for a grad program? - If you finish a PhD in your mid-40s, can you expect to be able to work with interesting research organizations, such as NASA, Fermilab, US Antarctic Program, CERN, JAXA, etc? Especially if you complete your PhD in a non-Top-20 university? **Context (to get a jump on the most common questions asked of OP I see in these types of threads)**: - I'm 33, planning to go back to undergrad in about 2 years to finish a BS in physics & math (I'll likely take the full 4 years, just to be thorough) and, ideally, move on to a PhD with a goal of working in public research. - US citizen living in California (but with residency in New York), but have lived abroad long term and happy (eager is more like it, tbh) to do it again. - My wife and I have no children, and will never have children. - My wife and I are comfortable with the lifestyle we can expect with me as a 40-something student. - The tedium/politics/long-hours/etc of academics doesn't faze me. - My current career is virtually non-existent, and has no relation to STEM. - I have no interest in using my current skills to go into a field tangential to research, like science journalism, science policy, etc - I've checked my math skills and they're the same as always—definitely above average, but not brilliant (and I've worked out a 2 year plan to improve these skills). - As for where I'm likely to get accepted for my undergrad, I don't expect to be able to go to a Top-20. Maybe a Top-50? Yes, I have the deep passion to pursue this, but I also don't want to end up >$150k in debt only to discover at the end of things that I won't be able to actually go beyond the degree in a way that's meaningful to me. That said, I have no illusions about working on the next world-changing thing. I just want to at least be some cog in the public science machine.

Is your goal to become a researcher with a permanent position at a university or national research lab? The prospects for this are poor for someone who does their PhD in their 20s, and much worse for you.

Every research job I see in academia requires a PhD. I'd like to work in research but think only a Masters is viable for me. Is it possible to work in (academic) research with only a Masters?

Plenty of people will say yes, but the reality is you have already capped your salary at a very low level by doing so in academia. In industry, prospects will be better, but I know more 30- to 40-year-olds who both have and don't have PhDs and have gotten bored of working twice as hard for half the money in research when they could do anything else for far less stress. If you want to be in tech forever, then yes, you can. If you don't, then no. Then add if you are on some forever fixed-term two-year contract which won't secure you something like a mortgage, you will see why it is a Ponzi scheme held up by the naivety of youth.

Addressing Professors In Canada or US, does Professor John Smith mind being addressed as Hi John, in an email. How about in person? In what context is it (in)appropriate to use Hi Prof Smith vs Hi John? How about pre-interview, during and after getting hired and working in the same lab?

It's Professor or Dr. until they give you permission, either explicitly or implicitly. If they start signing emails "-John," then you're probably clear to use the first name. Until then, use the honorific.

Inappropriate to ask professor for another research opportunity? Let me just start by saying I'm an undergraduate physics major. I have a physics professor who I have a really good relationship with. I showed so much interest in his class that a few months ago he actually offered me the opportunity to do research with him on a certain topic that I was particularly taken with. We finished our research the other week and typed it up for publication. Now that it's over, I'm feeling kind of sad. I appreciate the opportunity so much and absolutely loved working with him (it was a dream come true since I look up to him so much as a physicist). I'm wondering if it would be rude to ask him if he would be willing to do more research with me in the future (in the coming months or next year)? I don't want him to think that I'm trying to use him or that I think he's some type of machine who is just here to do research with me. I just loved working with him so much. I understand he didn't even have to give me this opportunity and I just want to make it clear that I don't feel entitled. When I say I appreciate his gesture I mean it with all my being. This is why I'm wondering if it wouldn't be right to ask him that. Or is there a way to bring it up to him without sounding like I'm using him or that I am unappreciative of the amazing thing he already did for me?

No harm in asking! Tell him what you said here: that you enjoyed the research and the opportunity and that you'd like to continue working with him. And of course, pitch any new ideas you may have. Glad you had such a nice experience with him!

Is Math a skill you are born with, or something you can be good at if you try hard enough? Hi everyone! Happy quarantine!! I have a question about math. I've noticed that lots of mathematicians are talented. They were brilliant as a kid. That's not what I want to do, though. I want to do a PhD in Economics with a focus on international trade. The thing is, I've never been good at math before. This is why I've decided to give it another go, to see if I can make it. I'm looking for online math courses right now. What I want to know is, if the math is for Economics, not Mathematics, then can I overcome it by working hard? Do you need talent to be good at Economics math? Thank you so much! I would love to hear your experiences! I hope you all have a great day!:D

As with almost anything in life (arts, sports, and skills you can think of), you can learn math to a pretty impressive degree if you have no talent or average talent for it. Talent comes into play at a really high level of research and is usually tied to the ability to abstract and think in abstract terms on multiple levels. So, sit your ass in a chair, grab a textbook, and get going. :)

My Eyesssss Hey! I was wondering how people take care of their vision/eyes being in a career that involves a lot of staring at books/computers/whiteboards/etc. I've noticed that my eyesight has gone down this year, and wanted to see if any of you had any tips on how you deal with this. Thanks!

If you're like me, every 20 or 30 minutes of staring at the computer looking at my unfinished articles, I close my eyes and weep for about three minutes. The periodic break does wonders for my eyesight.

Besides obviously publishing more, what are some things you wished you did during your PhD? (e.g. starting a blog, twitter, youtube channel)

I’m only in my second year, and I can already answer. Look after my mental and physical health. My goal for next semester is to sleep at least 6 hours a night, cook healthy meals most of the time, and not live off caffeine and nicotine.

How is it regarded “career-wise” when doing PhD at a research institute vs. university? I am thinking mainly of Max Planck vs. top tier universities. I realize that the reputation of the advisor and his research group dictate most of the quality of the PhD experience and its outcomes, but other than that, would you consider turning down a Max Planck offer and pursue a PhD degree at a university instead (e.g. ICL)?

I just started my PhD at a Max Planck Institute in the genomics field, and I can recommend it from a perspective of diversity of colleagues, funding, and connections from the PIs. Also, you won't be forced to teach a lot, which might be the case at a university.

What's it like being a researcher in a developing country? My best friend's father is Surinamese, and he used to work at a university in Suriname before moving to the US and teaching. When I asked him what it was like working there, he told me that it was awful, and he knew he had to get out of Suriname if he wanted to really do any serious research in his field. Is it really as bad as he makes it out to be?

I used to be a researcher in the Philippines. I'm already one of the lucky ones as I'm in a top university and part of a project with one of the highest fundings. This funding was still small compared to what is available in developed countries. Our lab barely had any budget or equipment. It was so hard to spend what was available because of all the red tape. It would take more than a month to get a purchase approved. Sometimes orders for chemicals or equipment would take up to six months. I have witnessed another project take up its entire two-year duration just procuring equipment and never actually get them delivered. A research project is usually 70% trying so hard to get to spend the budget and 30% actually doing research. I don't think funding is a problem, but getting to actually spend that funding in a timely manner (if spent at all) is the problem. Another issue is that it's quite difficult to collaborate with other labs because of how touchy they are with their equipment (understandable). There was this lab where I was requesting to use one of their pieces of equipment, and they would have let me, but it was missing a replacement part the size of a screw, and they said I had to wait three months because their order had just been processed. As a government-funded institution in a country with a culture of corruption, the commission on audit tries to make it hard for every purchase to be approved. It is by law that every purchase above ~$20 has to have three quotations before it is approved. Imagine having to request three quotations from suppliers for just about every item to be purchased. This is compounded by the fact that our bureau of customs for importing goods and products is one big pool of corrupt government workers at all levels. I mean, from bottom to top. This is why there is a trend to just go with computational research to at least have an output. Before we even get our hands on what we ordered, it is already time to write the final report on the project. It's so unfortunate because I have met some of the most passionate and skilled researchers in my life at our institution, even compared to those I encounter now that I am a researcher in a developed country.

Advice for dealing with toxic fellow graduate student(s) *Thanks in advance for any advice. I've been blessed with un-dramatic, secure, and emotionally mature friends (which is great), but it's left me unsure how to handle all of this. At this point, I mostly just want to be rid of the drama. Also, if anyone has any suggestions on making friends in grad school (particularly outside of their grad program), I'd really appreciate it. If you want/need details on my specific situation and why I'm asking, see below.* I started my Ph.D. last year, which wasn't the easiest time to move and begin a new program. Against the odds, I made friends with a few fellow students last February. Everything seemed great. However, a couple of months in, one student in particular (I'll call her A) started displaying some toxic behavior. At first, it was things like subtly putting down others when they did well or did a homework problem correctly when A got it wrong. Then it was talking about other friends in the group (particularly a young woman I'll call B, but everyone) behind their backs. The badmouthing could take a lot of forms. For example, she would say that B's fiance (who proposed to her last semester) was an alcoholic and a drug addict (he's not) and that we would probably need to hold an intervention when the relationship hit rock bottom in a couple years. She spoke horribly about B when they got engaged (what did she see in him, he's awkward, B is settling, B just got lucky finding love, B's fiance won't be happy with her forever, etc.). Other negative comments included others in the group being immature, liking gossip, being bad/unethical about research, being unproductive, naive, stupid, bad with money, etc. Things escalated when she tried to ice B out of the group (B didn't do something A wanted; A never told B she wanted this thing). At this point, I stepped in and continued hanging out with B despite A. A then decided to make up with B (although she is still mad, even enraged, and will talk about it given a chance). However, B thinks that this was just a small fight between the two of them. She doesn't know that A stopped inviting her to things (and attempted to get me to do the same) or that B still continually badmouths her. B thinks they are still good friends. For some, some definitions of friendship, maybe they are. After that, I started to realize that A has a history of turbulent relationships. She is not friends with any of her friends from high school or college (her words). She has already fallen out with at least two members of her cohort (she has been here a year longer than I have). Despite this, A is both charismatic and manipulative, which I think enables her to continually get away with how she treats people. In any case, I realized that it was only a matter of time until she got angry with me -- which is what happened less than a month later. I asked her about it after I realized what was going on. Apparently, it's because I wasn't sure I wanted to watch a particular movie and because I corrected her on homework a couple of times (e.g., "I don't think the answer to X can be Y because X divided by Z is not Y" -- I wasn't mean about it). The last two things made her question our friendship. She also told me that she only became friends with me because she felt sorry for me because of COVID, that we only became friends she had recently fallen out with a different friend, and so forth. Just a whole slew of statements that I'm sure were designed to hurt me. I also tried to talk with her about the badmouthing thing, which only resulted in her gaslighting me - she tried to tell me that she hadn't said any of those things, which is just BS because she said them all the time. At that point, I knew there was no recovering the relationship, and I was no longer interested in interacting with her. It doesn't seem worth it. Here are my questions. However, really any advice or perspective would be great. * How should I handle this situation appropriately? I see graduate school as being a professional environment. How can I minimize damage? I'm worried about my reputation in the department given A's tendency to badmouth everyone. Typically if I didn't want to be friends with someone I would slowly distance myself by becoming busy with other things, but that seems hard given that everything with A generally seems very dramatic (she spread rumors and tried to complain to the department about one of the students she fell out with last year). * Does it make sense for me to distance myself from this friend group as a whole? Can I do that in academia or would that count as shutting the door on potentially useful relationships? * Does B deserve to know? I am inclined not to say anything because I don't think it would do any good, but I've had some friends give me the opposite advice. * Any tips for how I can avoid situations or people like this in the future? *TL;DR - I made a toxic friend in my first year of grad school. Now I'm just exhausted from all of this want to figure out a way of distancing myself gracefully and moving on with my Ph.D. without being totally socially isolated.*

I see graduate school as being a professional environment. It is, and yet, more complicated than that. In grad school, you're still in a cohort of students forming student-like bonds as you attend the same classes. And there are friendships that evolve that end up being deeper than what normally develop between coworkers. I'm worried about my reputation in the department given A's tendency to badmouth everyone (she spread rumors and tried to complain to the department about one of the students she fell out with last year). This will sort itself out. A will eventually burn so many bridges that her reputation will stink worse than anyone else's, and she'll lose credibility. Does B deserve to know? I am inclined not to say anything because I don't think it would do any good. Without knowing all the dynamics and nuances of the relationships with B (and between A and B), I don't have a good recommendation here. I would caution against any steps that may paint *you* as trying to stir up drama/problems. Does it make sense for me to distance myself from this friend group as a whole? Can I do that in academia, or would that count as shutting the door on potentially useful relationships? It depends. As you go on through grad school, the bonds between classmates/cohort seem to weaken and become more lab/dept focused in my experience.

How do you structure your day in order to stay focused doing research full-time? I'm a M.Sc. student in Electrical Engineering and I currently started writing my master's thesis. This is the only activity that I have and I am expected to work on it full-time. I usually start by 9am and until lunch (1pm) I am pretty productive and can maintain a high level of concentration. The thing is, when I return from lunch (2pm), I can work a little bit more until around 3:30-4pm, but the quality of the work decreases significantly. After 4pm, I don't even know what I'm doing anymore, but I usually try to continue until 6pm. I wanted to know how people that do research full-time structure their day to be able to work decently for the whole day. Do they get used to being focused for longer periods or they just accept that they can only do so much and then do other things? I go to the gym everyday before starting the thesis at 9am and I eat well. Sometimes I feel lethargic after lunch, but I'm working on that and it's getting better. I sleep properly and after I leave the lab at 6pm, I try to relax and not think about "work". It might be an issue that I don't have shallower activities scattered throughout the day, like meetings or a lot of e-mailing, because I feel that these would help me diverge my attention a bit to later on get back focusing on my project.

Do they get used to being focused for longer periods, or do they just accept that they can only do so much and then do other things? The latter. Email? That's work. Planning and attending meetings? That's work. Trying to buy equipment through a glitchy eShop system? That's work. All of these little, tangential tasks may not be "research," but they're part of the job and should count toward your "full-time" work hours. Also, don't be afraid to skip out an hour early if you feel you've done all you needed to do for the day. It'll all come out in the wash when you need to work additional hours before a deadline.

How do you keep track of/remember the papers you read? Hi, what's your system? Do you take notes? Divide the papers into different folders and highlight the most interesting parts? I've been doing my Ph.D. for 4 years and now I just started my post-doc, the things I read are piling and I'm not sure I'm capable of remembering *everything*

Use Zotero and set up collections and subcollections to categorize the papers you are reading. This helps in keeping things organized instead of having just one huge pile. Then, when you take notes while reading papers, you can add an "attachment" to the Zotero parent entry to store your notes. If you're taking handwritten notes, scan and make a PDF, and then add it to the Zotero parent item. Sometimes, I take notes in LyX or Word. In that case, I simply attach the file to the parent item. Finally, set up Zotero to store its database in your Dropbox folder if you can, or just back up the folder every once in a while to whichever service you prefer. Mucking around with folders and renaming them and organizing them is a fool's errand, and I realized that too late. Just let Zotero handle all that low-level nonsense. Zotero is like iTunes when it was at its peak design; it helps you organize everything.

What are some of the unexpected tasks you do as an academic? I went into my supervisor's office the other day and he was ordering books for the university's library. He told me that this is just one of the many random jobs he didn't expect he'd have to do as an academic (in the humanities) when he first thought of becoming an academic. I'm curious what other seemingly random tasks academics have found themselves doing that they didn't otherwise expect.

Teaching adults, who have smartphones at their disposal 24/7 and who have already passed reasonably high-level math classes (e.g., calculus, differential equations, etc.), how to add fractions. Listening to other adults who also have to teach adults to add fractions, bitch and complain that these adults don't already know how to add fractions, for the entire duration of a faculty meeting. Fighting the urge to start drinking at 11 a.m.

Academics on twitter, has social media benefited or damaged your writing in any way? I used to read a lot of books, but I seem to spend a lot more time on twitter these days. Consequently, I'm now used to digesting information in small bites. And sometimes without context. So, I'd like to know if social media has impacted your focus or writing in any way. I ask because I feel as though my attention span is suffering, and I'm very concerned it's because of my time spent online.

Deleting the Twitter app was an immense boost to my mood, productivity, and motivation. I was subscribed to a lot of big researchers and successful PhD candidates/students as a way to seek motivation myself, being a PhD student. Instead, I felt quite intimidated and got the opposite effect. It varies a lot from person to person, but I feel better without Twitter. I still have my account and occasionally go there, but not every day and certainly not for long.

Etiquette regarding reaching out to previous colleagues looking for jobs My current postdoc position is ending early next year, and I'm starting to look for my next position. Just wondering what is the etiquette regarding some of my previous work colleagues who are now at other universities. I don't mean previous supervisors, direct collaborators but for example admin staff from my PhD who I am on friendly terms with. Or other grad students I worked with before who are now at other universities. Is there some line that should be drawn when reaching out to your network?

I've reached out to other grad students I worked with in my PhD for advice or introductions. I think if you knew each other and are on good terms, it shouldn't be an issue at all. Where it comes to recommendations, I would make sure you had worked with them enough for them to feel comfortable recommending you. Just give them an out when you ask and make it clear you won't be offended (e.g., "If you don't feel you've seen enough of my work to be comfortable recommending me, that's totally fine, but if you do, I would greatly appreciate your help").

Anthropology department and possible issue with Native American remains. Hi everyone. I am posting to get advice/resources on what to do. I just finished the second year of my masters as part of an Anthropology department. Recently, a professor in my department showed me a substantial collection of Native American remains the department has. When I started to ask questions about the collection, he told me that it was fine and legal for him to own the remains because "the man who owned them before me gifted them to me when he died". He never mentioned anything about attempting to repatriate the remains to the proper tribe(s). I don't know if I am over reacting but I don't want to stay silent if indeed these remains need to be repatriated. However, if I report my department I am worried that they will make the rest of my time at school a living hell. I am wondering if there are any ways to anonymously report this to either NAGPRA or a similar institution. I am not 100% positive that us having the collection at our university is wrong, but the whole thing feels very off to me and I think it warrants being checked on. Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated and thank you in advance.

I think the question of how secret the collection is is what's really important to protecting yourself. If it is "an open secret" on campus, then it is much less likely to be traced back to you, especially if you wait a few months before reporting it. It's a bit harder to protect yourself otherwise. If your university has an ombuds office, you may be able to go there for guidance on who you can reach out to while protecting yourself. If there are any non-university affiliated Native lobbying groups or activist organizations (or maybe even university affiliated ones), you may also be able to set up a meeting with someone there to discuss the collection and find out whether it is known about outside of the university and if any efforts have been made in the past to repatriate the remains. You could also just start talking about it with other students who you think will care to start a movement to repatriate within student organizations.

My colleague just destroyed the writing of my latest paper I'm 34 and I've got 8 first author papers out (out of the others with my name of it there are at least another 5 where I contributed also to writing quite a bit). Therefore I hoped that I learned to write decently enough. However, I know I'm not particularly good and, until I was in high school, I always had super-low marks in writing (4 or 5 out of 10, with 6 the passing vote). Now, I've been tasked to do a job (and to write a paper about it) that I don't believe much in. So I keep asking my colleague (same "level" but life scientist instead of physical scientist) what she and the PI would like to have written in the paper. Today, I asked this colleague if I could have feedback on my work. And... she basically told me (in a positive way, she was trying to help me not to criticize me) to rewrite it from scratch. "Just copy the methods from the previous papers so that it finally follows a logical structure, and I'll take care about modifying the text to a publishable form". I'm lost. After 10 years in doing this job I'm still not able to produce a "decent" paper. WTF am I supposed to do?

Are you pursuing any training in writing? There are lots of great books for improving academic writing, including *Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks*, *The Scientist’s Guide to Writing*, *Write It Up!*, and more. You could also look at general writing guides like *The Elements of Style* and *On Writing Well*. I’m not assuming that you’re a bad writer, but we all have room for improvement. Writing is a craft that we need to practice a lot to do well.

How did people do literature reviews prior to the internet? Can any 40+ yr old academics share their experiences with the literature review process prior to the internet? I can't even imagine what a cumbersome process that would be.

Physically tracking down every reference from every paper you could find. (This was laborious but at least possible; what was essentially impossible was seeing who cited a certain paper. That's why that Google Scholar feature is a godsend.) Tons of photocopying, help from librarians, and relying on the savvy of older colleagues in the field to suggest seminal work. Making friends with obsessive coworkers with huge filing cabinets who would save every paper they read. You were furious if you tracked down a paper with a grandiose title and/or abstract that actually covered only a nuance of a subset of what it claimed to cover.

Do professors have freedom? Hi everyone. To any professor or anyone that knows one, what’s being a professor like, do you have freedom regarding your schedule/working hours and research topics or do you get told what to do?

I'm a professor at a community college in Canada. Don't do any research or anything, just do the teaching. I make $86,000 a year (will max out around $100,000), I essentially get five months of "work from home," May-August, and most of December (two of those months are actual vacation). When I do work "full time," I have somewhere between 22 and 30 hours of scheduled work a week. There is a lot of class preparation and marking that needs to be done in that time, but this is *by far* the best job I have ever had.

Is it just me that 20 something undergrads need a lot more these days? I'm just 33, but I'm beginning to feel like the newest crop of students needs a lot more handholding than I did when I was in school. I'm in a graduate program in counseling at a decent state institution in the midwest. We spend at least 20 minutes a class talking about how to do assignments that have fairly straightforward instructions. I don't want to be "kids these days," but is this a common problem?

It's very difficult for me to remember what college was like, because it was 20 years ago this year, but I certainly remember being much more afraid to ask for help than most kids these days. I think there was much more of a feeling that if you can't figure this out, you probably shouldn't be here in the first place.

Why are academic papers so difficult to read? This year was my first year working in a bio-statistics lab. I'm an undergrad with aspirations of pursuing a PhD in biostatistics. During lab meetings this year, we were required to read a paper once every two weeks or so, and I greatly struggled with understanding what was even trying to be said in most of these papers. When we spoke on the papers in meetings, the points seemed very simple and made the papers seem convoluted and full of jargon. Is this a common style in academic writing? Did any of you feel this way when you first began to read academic papers? I can't tell if I'm frustrated because I like to write in a simple style so most people can follow what I'm saying, or if I'm just not cut out for this kind of work. Any opinion on this? Reading so many papers has kind of discouraged me from writing my own papers in the future. I know I'll have to do it, but as of right now, I feel like I'll be awful at it.

Why are academic papers so difficult to read? Academic papers are written by experts to communicate with other experts about their field of expertise. Doing a PhD means spending years delving into a subject that probably got at most a few days of mention in your undergraduate coursework, so undergraduates aren't really the target audience for papers meant to convey the details of that research. It makes perfect sense that you find it difficult. However, it will get easier: you'll learn more about the field, and you'll get better at figuring out how to access the information you need to follow a paper.

Advice for a young professor dealing with academic burnout and needing to revive a flagging career? I started this job four years ago and they have been really hard ones for me. Between the demands of my academic job, a difficult department/institution, and some really tough family stuff, I am just wrung out. I am the only child of elderly parents who have had a continuous set of alternating health emergencies over the last four years. Two or even three times a year a parent required a long hospitalization and a complicated recovery that I had to take care of. A year ago my father passed away leaving the control of everything in the family to me (my mother has dementia among other chronic issues). Settling his estate and making sure my mother is cared for has been a very big job (not to mention dealing with the grief when I have a bit of time to do so, we were very close). Superficially, my department was understanding, saying to take the time I needed and family comes first, etc. In reality (and perhaps understandably), though, they saw my reduced productivity and attendance in the department and were not pleased. I just can't be the high-performing academic they want. I kept thinking that after each crisis, things would smooth out and I really get things done, but then another would come up. I've had a few painful and frank conversations with my chair and the provost. I think they could have been more supportive, but they weren't, and it's better not to think of what could have been and concentrate on the regular situation. I've managed to do all the service and teaching required, but that is not valued much. I tried to revive my research many times with collaborations and taking on new students. None of the students have worked out, they learned a lot but I ended up needing to redo all their work. (This could be my fault as well, not supervising them enough.) I have a lot of great collaborations, but that work has also been massively disrupted by my family issues, and they have lost patience with me (also understandably). Just down to it, much of the issue is that I do not have the energy and focus research requires. I need a new job, I just cannot perform at the level needed here, but I find myself feeling too burned out to go through the faculty job search process again. Also, I have not published in *years* and my last grant ran out in 2017, I have not had a new one (applied for a couple but no luck). My CV looks pretty sad right now. I should be manuscript-writing my ass off, job-applying my ass off, grant-writing my ass off, but I find I can barely get four hours of work done in a day. (As an aside, I'm not alone in all this. I have a husband, but he actually has had almost identical issues with his family and is also exhausted and grief-stricken. Additionally, he hates his job, whereas for me it feels more like my job hates me. I have seen a therapist and a psychiatrist. I am on anti-depressants and though I am not really depressed I think it maybe helps somewhat. They have both been sympathetic and helpful in some ways, but the consensus among them is that things are just really hard and my issues are a normal response to continuous stress.) Any advice on how to recover and revive?

Is anything you're dealing with covered under FMLA? A colleague of mine stopped the clock for reasons of family disaster and made tenure in the end. She did, however, go a year without pay and had benefits through her spouse, so it may not be viable. (This assumes you are in the USA, of course.)

How to cope with fear of failing a PHD? Hi everyone! I am about to start a PHD in a field of machine learning and bioinformatics. The thing is, the doctoral topic i chose is not entirely within the field of my current study. Machine learning and neural networks are quiet new for me, as i've only started studying them a year ago. I am allowed to pick subjects during my PHD though. The reason i chose it, is because i genuinely like programming, and stuff such as machine learning interests me a lot. Still, i constantly have this fear of failing , that i would not be able to accomplish what i signed up for and by now its driving me mad. I really enjoy doing research, but i often keep asking myself questions such as: 'What if i get stuck?' , 'What if its impossible?', 'What if i won't be able to publish enough/ at all...?'. I have no idea how to cope with it. Can someone give me advice on how to approach this? Thank you!

The good thing about a PhD is that there's relatively little you can fail outright. You're going to fail and screw up a lot of things and have to try again. You're going to get stuck. That's all absolutely normal. If you don't struggle at all and everything is stuff you already know, you're probably not pushing yourself hard enough and actually learning from this. Try not to worry about the big picture. A PhD is a job. Spend most of your time thinking about what you need to do for next week, not for five years from now.

How to handle sex worker background? Hi everyone. I was wondering how to address an issue that may come up during either my admission process or beyond. During my undergraduate years, I was paying for college by working as a cam model, and another job. I then took a year off to focus on the sex work to pay off my undergraduate school debt while working in my field. I am worried that the sex work may come up during my admission to grad programs or while I teach in academia. I essentially did it to pay for school and knowing how judgemental people are, I chose to obviously omit it. How would you handle this?

We would never look for this information, so there's no way we would know unless you brought it up. If we found out after you were admitted, I think it would just be a collective shoulder shrug. No one would particularly care, as long as you're doing your work. So I think—just don't mention it.

Professors and PhD supervisors, what do you look for in "cold emails" and supervision enquiries from potential students? Im in the biology field, but I think this question applies to every field. Im currently looking at cold emailing a few professors on some phd grad programs I love the look of or enquiring about supervision on their uni websites, but I suffer bad with imposter syndrome and have absolutely no clue what is expected from me in these "cold emails". im very worried about annoying any potential supervisors and ruining my chances, and also coming across as being full of my self and overconfident of my abilities. But I also dont want to downplay myself. Questions like "what makes you an outstanding applicant" scare me. Im sure a lot of potential grad students feel like this and any advice would be helpful!! I know im overthinking hahaha

Be specific. I hate generic emails from students. Do your research and speak about my papers or work. I get so many cold emails from students that are just so generic and not focused enough. I especially can’t take on students who want to work on things tangentially related to my research.

My advisor submitted data he knew was false for a grant under my name I based my project off data showing a significant positive correlation from an experiment conducted before I joined the lab. However, when I reran the statistics myself, I found that there was no significant difference. My advisor thought that this was impossible, so we repeated the entire experiment (it took 6 months), but the results were still nonsignificant. I recently wrote a grant, and when my advisor reviewed my proposal he ADDED BACK IN THE INITIAL DATA we know is incorrect. I then pointed out the error, but he did not acknowledge my comment and submitted the grant under my name. Who can I talk to about how to navigate this issue without it being reported the the university, which could put my graduate career in jeopardy? I am speaking with a counselor about this, but he has limited knowledge of the academic research environment. Note: I am posting this from a friend’s alternate account.

If what you’re describing is accurate, your advisor is committing high-level scientific fraud. While it sounds scary, you *want* to talk to the university, starting at the department level, about this, and create a paper trail quickly. I’d refer you to the case that just ended at UIUC with the firing of a tenured professor when this behavior was found for grants that were submitted and funded. *Not* letting the school know risks that, when found inevitably a few years from now, it’ll be harder to distance yourself from the falsification. Believe it or not, schools have rigorous procedures in place to handle these situations, and they usually prioritize protecting the student.

Advisor/PI is gaslighting me and ignoring me, what should I do? [STEM] I apologize in advance for the long post. I'm at the verge of nervous breakdown. There are only 5 weeks left until the deadline. I'm a masters student. My advisor is also my PI and head of the department. I felt like we had a good relationship. We worked together several days a week for 1 whole year. Then the pandemic came and they suddendly stopped replying to my emails. Just before it all started, they promised to get back to me when results come back from another institution. Never heard back. I was supposed to be done with the project in summer 2020. I emailed them several times, stating my concern about the deadline. Weeks went on, I didn't manage to get in contact. The unis opened for 1 on 1 consultations. When any of the other students went in there, they always reminded my advisor of me and they always said they'd get back to me. I became so unmotivated and filled with anxiety that I gave up. I went there in person in July with someone who managed to schedule a meeting. They denied ever getting any emails from me. I extended my program for a year and it took a huge toll on my mental health. Next academic year began and I went through some health issues. My advisor appeared to be very sympathetic and said I should get it sorted out and email them once the review part of my thesis is done. The the pandemic blew out again, my doctors appointments were moved a few months later, I had other medical issues and was assaulted, which took me time to deal with. I started writing as soon as I felt strong enough. **Fast forward to now, 2021:** 2 months later, I emailed my PI again. Nothing. I tried to call their office but since the uni is closed now, I'm not sure if they're even there. Finally I managed to get them on the phone a week later and they were very upset with me. I asked them how will we proceed further, especially since they have all the results of my experiments and refused to give them to me last summer, insisting I have to show them the whole review part first. They replied that I can do whatever but I won't make it because there's too little time and since the uni's closed, there's no way they can help me - meaning if I can't be there in person, we won't discuss anything and I can't progress. They also said I should extend my program for another year (and pay the tuition of course). They claimed I haven't contacted them during the past year at all. They don't remember I was in their office or that we talked about my health issues, that they appeared to be so understanding of. I was completely shocked and cried for 3 days straight. I don't understand any of this. I asked them to please cooperate and try together. They agreed that I should send them the review. So I did and still nothing. I just wanna lay down now, cry and not exist. I worked so hard to get into a good PhD program. The dean offered me a PhD program over the years, twice. I did a lot of extra work and engaged with the department. I found an internship at a prestigious institute. I'm at fault that I didn't try to get my advisor on the phone earlier. I'm at fault that I didn't email them more often. I'm also at fault that I started this late, although I truly believe I'd make it if I had more encouragement. Since they told me to contact them once my whole review is done, that's what I planned to do. Now they acts like none of this happened and claim they never said those things. I always liked my advisor/PI, I'm so disappointed. I don't wanna report it because they have all my results. Also they're one of the two people who will be evaluating my thesis and there's a big emphasis on cooperation from the student. I'm so scared. There are only 5 weeks left at this point. I'd very much like to solve this peacefully. I don't know who to talk to. I thought about contacting someone else from the department but there's a good chance it would eventually get to the PI and I'd get in trouble. Technically the only person "above" the head of the department at uni is the dean, who appears to be very nice but I have no idea who would he side with. I kind of have a feeling he'd share my complaint with my advisor. All I want at this point is to finish, I don't even care about grad school anymore. I don't know what to do. I hate myself for not seeing this coming after what happened last year. I was stupidly naive to believe it will be different this time. What should I do? I don't even feel I have a right to complain since I didn't try hard enough. I regret starting late but I was such a mess mentally before I started because of the assault, which I can't even tell anyone. I truly believe I'd make it in time if we cooperated, many students before me have made it in 4 weeks or so. The stress is killing my productivity though.

Who is the dean of students for your master's program? Gather your timeline and all your emails, put them in one PDF file, and ask your dean of students for help. Forget about having your advisor as a future recommender or anything of the sort—they're not reliable, and they're not even the same person from day to day. Escalate. Right now, the most important thing is to finish your degree. Ask about options for academic leave if an extension is necessary so you won't have to keep paying tuition.

As a grad student, can I ask a professor (in another department) out? Okay, I need guidance from professors on if this would be very inappropriate. I'm a professional school student, a couple of years out of college. I'm taking a class in the college, in another department. This department has 0 overlap with mine, and will never have any impact on my professional or academic career. I actually really like the professor, and I *think* he may be interested, although we've both been careful to stay on the "plausible deniability" line. Next semester, I will not be in his class, and I intend to keep auditing classes in this department but not taking any more for a grade (it's far, far too much work and too stressful for a grade). Would it be completely out of line for me to ask him out once final grades are in? Is there some angle I'm missing where this would still be really inappropriate?

I wouldn’t say it’s inappropriate, but there are hassles that go along with it. You may be turned in for an academic review; though, if your class work turns out fine, it’s fine. There will be talk. There will be rumors. I know because I was a non-traditional student and started dating a professor when his contract was up. He’s sitting across from me now, and we’ve been together for 3 years, living together in Germany for 1.

Do I warn student I'm about to report them for honor code violation? Today a student cheated on the final and I was notified by the student that sat next to him. I have additional supporting evidence. They also plagiarized parts of their final paper. I have prepared all my documents to submit to academic integrity. Do I give the students a heads up? Or do I just submit the report and wash my hands of the situation?

I just caught a cheater, also. I sit down with them, tell them what is going to happen, what the consequences are, and what they can do to make sure they don't ruin their lives. If they are responsive to the remediation and punishment, they will learn from the mistake. If they aren't, I tried. Edit. Also, even if I have some evidence, I think they deserve a chance to defend themselves against a serious accusation.

How to be kind but clear when telling a hopeful grad student that their academic record does not meet expectations? Pretty much the title, but for context: More and more often I'm getting email requests from senior undergrads in my dept who are considering grad school and want to apply to my lab. These are students I have not taught myself, but this isn't unusual since I'm a new prof. When I check their academic records, I am sometimes surprised to find that they have Cs and Ds in relevant courses. I tend to offer to meet with them anyway, because I like to see how they speak about their research interests, career aspirations, and see if they offer any explanation for their course performance. If the meeting does not improve the situation, I have a really hard time deciding how best to communicate to these students that it's a no. Should it be in person or by email? If it's by email, how do I close the meeting, since I definitely know by that point it's a no? And how do I tell them without kicking them while they're down? Should I simply thank them for their interest and say I can't offer them a position? It seems too harsh to say outright that their academic performance does not meet my expectations for a beginning graduate student. Should explanations like these be reserved for cases in which the student specifically asks for feedback? Help me, please.

As someone who just completed a round of applications and didn't get in, I would have loved more critical feedback on low points in my application. As much as it sucks to hear, it's going to suck more to waste hundreds to thousands of dollars applying to schools if there's a high chance they won't get in because of their academics. That being said, I had a friend who worked in the same lab as me and he had an advisor tell him that he wouldn't be taken seriously by grad schools (very bluntly) for whatever reason (lack of research experience, I think), and he was devastated. He completely stopped doing research, ended up not applying at all, and basically gave up all his plans of getting a PhD. So make sure whatever you say is tactful and helpful, not just negative.

WTF. Why are my Engineering students so demanding I work at a large research one institution. I’m an academic advisor in a grad program in engineering. I previously worked in this same position, but in education. Most of my student population are international students (85-90%) whereas previously it was maybe 20-25%. Also the majority of my students are males from cultures where women are traditionally not as valued as men. I’m only saying this because I can’t figure out if they are so demanding because of the cultural differences or because they are engineers. This is way beyond the norm of what I would call millennial entitlement. It’s not uncommon for students to expect me to have their paperwork ready and returned to them within a few hours. I will get multiple email requests in less than a business day asking about it. I have had requests for me to call other offices and have their paperwork moved to the front of the queue for “reasons.” One student asked me about a scholarship and when I referred him to a particular person making the decision he informed me that I could go talked to this person on his behalf. I informed him I have my diplomas and am not currently in need of a scholarship. The immediacy with which these students expect me to act is just insane. So what gives. Help me understand this before I snap and have to hide a body.

International students who can afford to pursue a graduate degree abroad, and specifically in the US, typically come from very privileged backgrounds and, in my experience, can have a sense of entitlement or a large cultural difference to overcome.

Is a PhD / academia not a good path for a generalist? I tried searching for this kind of advice but didn't find anything so helpful, so I'm posting here. In my undergrad, I majored in psychology with a good amount of math, computer science, and humanities courses. After a few years traveling and doing non-academic things, I'm now getting my Masters in religious studies, with a focus in East Asian religions, while working in a computational neuroscience lab on the side. I've loved each of these stages of my life, and think I'm happiest when I have a healthy amount of variety what I get to think about. But I feel like this breadth doesn't lend itself to a career path. On a gut level, academia as a whole still feels like thing that fits my personality and interests the best, but I don't know if my interests are too stubbornly diverse to go into a PhD and potentially academia. In the course of trying these various disciplines out, I have realized a few things: * I seem to get tired of one topic or one discipline very easily and really crave novelty / variety. Even though I'm in a religion studies masters, I can only really tolerate taking two religion courses or else I starting getting a little miserable. But a mix of religion, philosophy, psych, and something math-y has been keeping me pretty content. (In the past when I was a math major and then a psych major, I also was pretty unhappy when I was taking only courses in those departments.) * I do have some underlying driving questions. In particular, my ultimate goal is approximately understanding how humans behave and think and how people's lives can be improved on a psychological level. That's essentially the only reason why I'm doing religious studies right now, in service of that goal. But if I pursued a PhD, it'd almost certainly be something in psychology, probably clinical psychology. I want to be able to think about this question in a rigorous way that it seems like only academics have the freedom to, which makes academia seem like the route I lean toward most. I just wonder if, given my track record of constantly switching from subject to subject, I am a prime candidate to find a PhD project interesting for a year or two and then get really sick of the narrowness and demotivated. I know that this happens to a certain extent to everyone, but it seems like some people are better at pushing through it? And I don't know if I've had that fortitude in the past. I know it's impossible to tell how any individual will find doing a PhD. I guess I would just like some advice if there are signals that I might be more or less likely than average to make it through a PhD. Are there people in academia who successfully are able to be generalists and draw from many different disciplines and to be thinking in a variety of different ways? Or if you really want to succeed in academia, do you really just have to specialize and only very marginally draw inspiration from side reading (which is not necessarily bad either! Just hard to tell what that will feel like in the concrete). Anyway, if anyone has any insights, that'd be greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading :)

Do you get tired of subjects or types of work? If it's subjects, yeah, frankly, you're going to have a bad time. You're not only focused in one discipline, you're focused on one piece of one question within a subdiscipline for years. You might have a few related projects, but you can't realistically hop around like that. Your best bet is probably keeping one as a hobby—I did this with my college minor. If it's type of work (writing, reading dense documents, coding, math, teaching), academia might actually be a good fit because you do have to switch between a lot of types of work. I always had really diverse interests, and part of what I really like about academia is that you often are involved in every piece of a project and doing lots of things. So when I'm fed up with my code, there's probably a paper I should be working on instead, and vice versa.