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z2a1u1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.94 |
Show support for UC academic worker strike Fellow academic community- Please take a moment to show solidarity with the academic student workers on strike at UC right now. We are in the second week of the strike by 48,000 academic workers in the University of California (UC) system. The action is the largest strike of academic workers in United States history. The strikers are demanding a salary increase—from an impossibly low $24,000 a year to $54,000—to address California’s skyrocketing rents and other living expenses. Sign the letter to President Drake https://act.aflcio.org/petitions/show-your-support-for-academic-workers-at-university-of-california?source=direct\_link& Make a donation in the hardship fund if you can https://givebutter.com/uc-uaw https://www.fairucnow.org/support/
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ixg0077
|
ixgn12i
| 1,669,175,511 | 1,669,190,878 | 4 | 13 |
Is this $24k an year, or $24k for 9-months? I gave two acquaintances at UCB (who joined PhD recently) and both mentioned they get paid around ~26 - 29k for 9 months. They're in EECS though, so that might be why
|
*checks flairs of users posting comments disagreeing* shocked_pikachu.jpg
| 0 | 15,367 | 3.25 | ||
z2a1u1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.94 |
Show support for UC academic worker strike Fellow academic community- Please take a moment to show solidarity with the academic student workers on strike at UC right now. We are in the second week of the strike by 48,000 academic workers in the University of California (UC) system. The action is the largest strike of academic workers in United States history. The strikers are demanding a salary increase—from an impossibly low $24,000 a year to $54,000—to address California’s skyrocketing rents and other living expenses. Sign the letter to President Drake https://act.aflcio.org/petitions/show-your-support-for-academic-workers-at-university-of-california?source=direct\_link& Make a donation in the hardship fund if you can https://givebutter.com/uc-uaw https://www.fairucnow.org/support/
|
ixg5b8l
|
ixgn12i
| 1,669,178,467 | 1,669,190,878 | 5 | 13 |
SUPPORT!
|
*checks flairs of users posting comments disagreeing* shocked_pikachu.jpg
| 0 | 12,411 | 2.6 | ||
z2a1u1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.94 |
Show support for UC academic worker strike Fellow academic community- Please take a moment to show solidarity with the academic student workers on strike at UC right now. We are in the second week of the strike by 48,000 academic workers in the University of California (UC) system. The action is the largest strike of academic workers in United States history. The strikers are demanding a salary increase—from an impossibly low $24,000 a year to $54,000—to address California’s skyrocketing rents and other living expenses. Sign the letter to President Drake https://act.aflcio.org/petitions/show-your-support-for-academic-workers-at-university-of-california?source=direct\_link& Make a donation in the hardship fund if you can https://givebutter.com/uc-uaw https://www.fairucnow.org/support/
|
ixga8so
|
ixgn12i
| 1,669,181,437 | 1,669,190,878 | 5 | 13 |
You have my support!
|
*checks flairs of users posting comments disagreeing* shocked_pikachu.jpg
| 0 | 9,441 | 2.6 | ||
z2a1u1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.94 |
Show support for UC academic worker strike Fellow academic community- Please take a moment to show solidarity with the academic student workers on strike at UC right now. We are in the second week of the strike by 48,000 academic workers in the University of California (UC) system. The action is the largest strike of academic workers in United States history. The strikers are demanding a salary increase—from an impossibly low $24,000 a year to $54,000—to address California’s skyrocketing rents and other living expenses. Sign the letter to President Drake https://act.aflcio.org/petitions/show-your-support-for-academic-workers-at-university-of-california?source=direct\_link& Make a donation in the hardship fund if you can https://givebutter.com/uc-uaw https://www.fairucnow.org/support/
|
ixg5b8l
|
ixg0077
| 1,669,178,467 | 1,669,175,511 | 5 | 4 |
SUPPORT!
|
Is this $24k an year, or $24k for 9-months? I gave two acquaintances at UCB (who joined PhD recently) and both mentioned they get paid around ~26 - 29k for 9 months. They're in EECS though, so that might be why
| 1 | 2,956 | 1.25 | ||
z2a1u1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.94 |
Show support for UC academic worker strike Fellow academic community- Please take a moment to show solidarity with the academic student workers on strike at UC right now. We are in the second week of the strike by 48,000 academic workers in the University of California (UC) system. The action is the largest strike of academic workers in United States history. The strikers are demanding a salary increase—from an impossibly low $24,000 a year to $54,000—to address California’s skyrocketing rents and other living expenses. Sign the letter to President Drake https://act.aflcio.org/petitions/show-your-support-for-academic-workers-at-university-of-california?source=direct\_link& Make a donation in the hardship fund if you can https://givebutter.com/uc-uaw https://www.fairucnow.org/support/
|
ixg0077
|
ixga8so
| 1,669,175,511 | 1,669,181,437 | 4 | 5 |
Is this $24k an year, or $24k for 9-months? I gave two acquaintances at UCB (who joined PhD recently) and both mentioned they get paid around ~26 - 29k for 9 months. They're in EECS though, so that might be why
|
You have my support!
| 0 | 5,926 | 1.25 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5o13pg
|
i5nygkj
| 1,650,575,116 | 1,650,574,031 | 105 | 5 |
I agree with the other comment about funding, but I'd also add that I feel like a contract of some kind would be so useful. Some places already do this, and there's no reason that everywhere can't adopt this. A huge amount of my PhD stress came from being in this weird in-between not-a-student-not-staff liminal space. I needed credits to graduate but couldn't enroll in modules because I wasn't a student. I was teaching and responsible for printing assessment and exams but couldn't use the staff printers (for free) because I'm not staff. I, too, constantly had a barrage of admin screw ups often because they didn't know what to do with me. I'm not staff so I can't be enrolled with HR, but because I can't be enrolled with HR I can't receive payslips or payment, which meant I couldn't be paid for teaching. But I was teaching. It took nearly a month to get payment going but I was still not staff and still not able to get payslips. A contract outlining expectations and entitlements, and also just generally clarifying our role for administration would be incredibly useful.
|
You say "I had no clue my written work was so bad" - Don't you have peer reviewed or other types of published work that was reviewed by researchers other than your own advisor(s) or committee? (Or did those never comment on your writing... or...?)
| 1 | 1,085 | 21 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5nygkj
|
i5o06u8
| 1,650,574,031 | 1,650,574,743 | 5 | 105 |
You say "I had no clue my written work was so bad" - Don't you have peer reviewed or other types of published work that was reviewed by researchers other than your own advisor(s) or committee? (Or did those never comment on your writing... or...?)
|
For starters, have proper bloody funding. I mean like £25k-£30k or more per year of funding and for more than a select few PhDs so they can actually focus on their work rather than having to earn money alongside it/panicking about not having any money. That would be fair and reflect how PhDs are treated across Europe and the US. PhDs do cutting edge work that is the lifeblood of university departments. The system should give them the financial backing they deserve. Then people like me (who would find working alongside doing a PhD very hard if not impossible because of my mental health) would be able to pursue a PhD.
| 0 | 712 | 21 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5o3ibr
|
i5nygkj
| 1,650,576,127 | 1,650,574,031 | 43 | 5 |
UCU is mounting a 'PGRs as staff' campaign to have PhD students treated as staff which would hopefully result in guaranteed employment protections, access to paid leave for sickness/ holidays, and clearer structure and supervision of their research. Given my own and my peers' experiences, it's a long time coming. With mental health, finances, family issues and the difficulties caused by international status, hopefully the worst impacts could be mitigated by something like this. https://www.ucu.org.uk/pgr-manifesto-launch Also, if you're a PhD student in the UK, I would fully recommend joining UCU, and you can do so for free.
|
You say "I had no clue my written work was so bad" - Don't you have peer reviewed or other types of published work that was reviewed by researchers other than your own advisor(s) or committee? (Or did those never comment on your writing... or...?)
| 1 | 2,096 | 8.6 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5nygkj
|
i5o58bq
| 1,650,574,031 | 1,650,576,845 | 5 | 40 |
You say "I had no clue my written work was so bad" - Don't you have peer reviewed or other types of published work that was reviewed by researchers other than your own advisor(s) or committee? (Or did those never comment on your writing... or...?)
|
don't just assume thesis advisors know how to manage people. most of them are absolutely horrible at it. literally don't give them the choice and say 'if you're going to be a professor you need to go through this manadatory training'. One of my former bosses was the kind of person where people would ask 'what's he like to work for?' and you know and they know the answer is never 'oh he's just as awesome as everyone says'. but when he became my group lead they had this policy where new group leads had to go through training through the business school. In about six months or maybe less a LOT of his rough edges had come off and I actually started learning some useful management skills from him third hand.
| 0 | 2,814 | 8 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5otoj3
|
i5oidr1
| 1,650,588,093 | 1,650,582,895 | 23 | 20 |
A whole culture change. Pursuing a PhD becomes completely consuming and leaves little room for friends, family, hobbies and self-care. Too many PhDs I know gave up their health, their relationships, homes and so forth because of their work. This means that their entire identity (which for most people includes everything above) gets wrapped up in their work so when their work fails, their identity is that of failure. Isolated from home, family and friends, and add bad physical health, it would be shocking to hear that their mental health didn’t decline. Students are thrown into these projects often completely alone, with little guidance or help. Many labs do not have a sense of community and don’t function like a team. Everyone has their own project and that means that failures and successes are not likely shared. That’s great for successes as you don’t have to share first authorship and gives you ownership over your work but it’s miserable in failures and is incredibly isolating. The best projects I’ve worked on were ones that were collaborative. I shared first authorship but when the experiments failed, it wasn’t “my” fault. It was “our” fault and just that small change made a world of difference. It also meant I had more time for myself because I could share the workload. My colleague did all the cell culture experiments and I did all the mouse work and western blotting. Papers got published quicker. I wasn’t stuck doing something I hate and am terrible at (cell culture) and neither was my colleague (who hates animal work). We played to our strengths. This is how science should be now. The projects are too big these days to leave on the shoulders of one 25 year old. It’s absurd.
|
I can't give advice considering I broke down in tears during a lab meeting today...
| 1 | 5,198 | 1.15 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5otoj3
|
i5o5lp4
| 1,650,588,093 | 1,650,577,003 | 23 | 13 |
A whole culture change. Pursuing a PhD becomes completely consuming and leaves little room for friends, family, hobbies and self-care. Too many PhDs I know gave up their health, their relationships, homes and so forth because of their work. This means that their entire identity (which for most people includes everything above) gets wrapped up in their work so when their work fails, their identity is that of failure. Isolated from home, family and friends, and add bad physical health, it would be shocking to hear that their mental health didn’t decline. Students are thrown into these projects often completely alone, with little guidance or help. Many labs do not have a sense of community and don’t function like a team. Everyone has their own project and that means that failures and successes are not likely shared. That’s great for successes as you don’t have to share first authorship and gives you ownership over your work but it’s miserable in failures and is incredibly isolating. The best projects I’ve worked on were ones that were collaborative. I shared first authorship but when the experiments failed, it wasn’t “my” fault. It was “our” fault and just that small change made a world of difference. It also meant I had more time for myself because I could share the workload. My colleague did all the cell culture experiments and I did all the mouse work and western blotting. Papers got published quicker. I wasn’t stuck doing something I hate and am terrible at (cell culture) and neither was my colleague (who hates animal work). We played to our strengths. This is how science should be now. The projects are too big these days to leave on the shoulders of one 25 year old. It’s absurd.
|
This is something I repeatedly see whenever people talk about suicide. People think that whatever annoys them must be what is causing someone else in a similar position to be suicidal. Suicide is a complex mental state. It's commonly associated with the mental disease of depression, which is NOT the same thing you feel when something bad happens in your life and you say "I feel depressed." Suicide doesn't have much to do with what you are describing. There are people who have your dream job who have killed themselves. Nothing personal, OP, but you are describing annoyances. Fixing all the annoyances in your PhD program is not going to help anyone on the brink of suicide.
| 1 | 11,090 | 1.769231 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5o8zpe
|
i5otoj3
| 1,650,578,482 | 1,650,588,093 | 9 | 23 |
LOL.........decrease the wealth gap. But that is not gonna happen.
|
A whole culture change. Pursuing a PhD becomes completely consuming and leaves little room for friends, family, hobbies and self-care. Too many PhDs I know gave up their health, their relationships, homes and so forth because of their work. This means that their entire identity (which for most people includes everything above) gets wrapped up in their work so when their work fails, their identity is that of failure. Isolated from home, family and friends, and add bad physical health, it would be shocking to hear that their mental health didn’t decline. Students are thrown into these projects often completely alone, with little guidance or help. Many labs do not have a sense of community and don’t function like a team. Everyone has their own project and that means that failures and successes are not likely shared. That’s great for successes as you don’t have to share first authorship and gives you ownership over your work but it’s miserable in failures and is incredibly isolating. The best projects I’ve worked on were ones that were collaborative. I shared first authorship but when the experiments failed, it wasn’t “my” fault. It was “our” fault and just that small change made a world of difference. It also meant I had more time for myself because I could share the workload. My colleague did all the cell culture experiments and I did all the mouse work and western blotting. Papers got published quicker. I wasn’t stuck doing something I hate and am terrible at (cell culture) and neither was my colleague (who hates animal work). We played to our strengths. This is how science should be now. The projects are too big these days to leave on the shoulders of one 25 year old. It’s absurd.
| 0 | 9,611 | 2.555556 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5nygkj
|
i5otoj3
| 1,650,574,031 | 1,650,588,093 | 5 | 23 |
You say "I had no clue my written work was so bad" - Don't you have peer reviewed or other types of published work that was reviewed by researchers other than your own advisor(s) or committee? (Or did those never comment on your writing... or...?)
|
A whole culture change. Pursuing a PhD becomes completely consuming and leaves little room for friends, family, hobbies and self-care. Too many PhDs I know gave up their health, their relationships, homes and so forth because of their work. This means that their entire identity (which for most people includes everything above) gets wrapped up in their work so when their work fails, their identity is that of failure. Isolated from home, family and friends, and add bad physical health, it would be shocking to hear that their mental health didn’t decline. Students are thrown into these projects often completely alone, with little guidance or help. Many labs do not have a sense of community and don’t function like a team. Everyone has their own project and that means that failures and successes are not likely shared. That’s great for successes as you don’t have to share first authorship and gives you ownership over your work but it’s miserable in failures and is incredibly isolating. The best projects I’ve worked on were ones that were collaborative. I shared first authorship but when the experiments failed, it wasn’t “my” fault. It was “our” fault and just that small change made a world of difference. It also meant I had more time for myself because I could share the workload. My colleague did all the cell culture experiments and I did all the mouse work and western blotting. Papers got published quicker. I wasn’t stuck doing something I hate and am terrible at (cell culture) and neither was my colleague (who hates animal work). We played to our strengths. This is how science should be now. The projects are too big these days to leave on the shoulders of one 25 year old. It’s absurd.
| 0 | 14,062 | 4.6 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5o5lp4
|
i5o5yx2
| 1,650,577,003 | 1,650,577,162 | 13 | 23 |
This is something I repeatedly see whenever people talk about suicide. People think that whatever annoys them must be what is causing someone else in a similar position to be suicidal. Suicide is a complex mental state. It's commonly associated with the mental disease of depression, which is NOT the same thing you feel when something bad happens in your life and you say "I feel depressed." Suicide doesn't have much to do with what you are describing. There are people who have your dream job who have killed themselves. Nothing personal, OP, but you are describing annoyances. Fixing all the annoyances in your PhD program is not going to help anyone on the brink of suicide.
|
From the article, referring to a study: >40 per cent of PhD students based at UK universities could be “at high risk of suicide” according to the findings of a survey that interviewed 1,263 respondents. Chronic stress levels and acute loneliness were cited as key reasons for the raised suicide risk. Researchers from the universities of Sussex and Westminster also found that eight per cent of respondents had actually attempted to take their own lives. 11 per cent of respondents considered suicide “very often” (more than five times in the past year) while nearly six per cent revealed they “often” thought about (three to four times in the past year). From the actual study: >"For recruitment purposes, every Doctoral School in the UK (N = 162) was asked to promote the survey to their students. The survey was also promoted via social media, Prolific Academic, and paid advertisements on Facebook, with snowball sampling encouraged in the debrief information provided to respondents" (pp. 759-760) The self-selected participation got them 1,263 participants. There are >100,000 doctoral students in the UK. So, some 0.1 % of these chose to participate in a survey about mental health. A very important topic but a misleading article about a study that doesn't even discuss obvious and very likely significant sampling bias.
| 0 | 159 | 1.769231 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5o5yx2
|
i5nygkj
| 1,650,577,162 | 1,650,574,031 | 23 | 5 |
From the article, referring to a study: >40 per cent of PhD students based at UK universities could be “at high risk of suicide” according to the findings of a survey that interviewed 1,263 respondents. Chronic stress levels and acute loneliness were cited as key reasons for the raised suicide risk. Researchers from the universities of Sussex and Westminster also found that eight per cent of respondents had actually attempted to take their own lives. 11 per cent of respondents considered suicide “very often” (more than five times in the past year) while nearly six per cent revealed they “often” thought about (three to four times in the past year). From the actual study: >"For recruitment purposes, every Doctoral School in the UK (N = 162) was asked to promote the survey to their students. The survey was also promoted via social media, Prolific Academic, and paid advertisements on Facebook, with snowball sampling encouraged in the debrief information provided to respondents" (pp. 759-760) The self-selected participation got them 1,263 participants. There are >100,000 doctoral students in the UK. So, some 0.1 % of these chose to participate in a survey about mental health. A very important topic but a misleading article about a study that doesn't even discuss obvious and very likely significant sampling bias.
|
You say "I had no clue my written work was so bad" - Don't you have peer reviewed or other types of published work that was reviewed by researchers other than your own advisor(s) or committee? (Or did those never comment on your writing... or...?)
| 1 | 3,131 | 4.6 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5o5lp4
|
i5oidr1
| 1,650,577,003 | 1,650,582,895 | 13 | 20 |
This is something I repeatedly see whenever people talk about suicide. People think that whatever annoys them must be what is causing someone else in a similar position to be suicidal. Suicide is a complex mental state. It's commonly associated with the mental disease of depression, which is NOT the same thing you feel when something bad happens in your life and you say "I feel depressed." Suicide doesn't have much to do with what you are describing. There are people who have your dream job who have killed themselves. Nothing personal, OP, but you are describing annoyances. Fixing all the annoyances in your PhD program is not going to help anyone on the brink of suicide.
|
I can't give advice considering I broke down in tears during a lab meeting today...
| 0 | 5,892 | 1.538462 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5o8zpe
|
i5oidr1
| 1,650,578,482 | 1,650,582,895 | 9 | 20 |
LOL.........decrease the wealth gap. But that is not gonna happen.
|
I can't give advice considering I broke down in tears during a lab meeting today...
| 0 | 4,413 | 2.222222 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5nygkj
|
i5oidr1
| 1,650,574,031 | 1,650,582,895 | 5 | 20 |
You say "I had no clue my written work was so bad" - Don't you have peer reviewed or other types of published work that was reviewed by researchers other than your own advisor(s) or committee? (Or did those never comment on your writing... or...?)
|
I can't give advice considering I broke down in tears during a lab meeting today...
| 0 | 8,864 | 4 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5nygkj
|
i5o5lp4
| 1,650,574,031 | 1,650,577,003 | 5 | 13 |
You say "I had no clue my written work was so bad" - Don't you have peer reviewed or other types of published work that was reviewed by researchers other than your own advisor(s) or committee? (Or did those never comment on your writing... or...?)
|
This is something I repeatedly see whenever people talk about suicide. People think that whatever annoys them must be what is causing someone else in a similar position to be suicidal. Suicide is a complex mental state. It's commonly associated with the mental disease of depression, which is NOT the same thing you feel when something bad happens in your life and you say "I feel depressed." Suicide doesn't have much to do with what you are describing. There are people who have your dream job who have killed themselves. Nothing personal, OP, but you are describing annoyances. Fixing all the annoyances in your PhD program is not going to help anyone on the brink of suicide.
| 0 | 2,972 | 2.6 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5nygkj
|
i5o8zpe
| 1,650,574,031 | 1,650,578,482 | 5 | 9 |
You say "I had no clue my written work was so bad" - Don't you have peer reviewed or other types of published work that was reviewed by researchers other than your own advisor(s) or committee? (Or did those never comment on your writing... or...?)
|
LOL.........decrease the wealth gap. But that is not gonna happen.
| 0 | 4,451 | 1.8 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5rjp3t
|
i5p5l83
| 1,650,643,846 | 1,650,593,617 | 2 | 1 |
I truly believe that a lot of the issues with the PhD stems from 3 global problems that are never talked about: 1) Lack of any meaningful opportunities ~after~ the PhD in most disciplines. 2) Lack of professors and universities providing meaningful professional development, and generally being unsupportive to anything other than an academic career. Also lots of gaslighting to convince people that toxic practices with career advancement are okay. 3) Lots of survivorship bias that prevents any real discussion about how the system has changed and how it negatively impacts people currently trying to educate and better themselves. Generally speaking, people are happiest when they don't have to worry about putting food on the table and when they can enjoy some leisure in life. But a lot of the academic system revolves around exploitation. This is why I think the topics always narrow in on funding and unions when in reality post PhD opportunities are rare and difficult to navigate. The PostDoc after all was created to keep graduates around doing the same thing - literally a job created to exploit the lack of opportunities of post grads.
|
I didn't do my PhD in the UK, but my experience was super positive. I had great supervisors (it is usually recommended to have at least two) and met with them every three weeks for the entire duration of my PhD (4 years + 2\*7 months of paid mat leave). I do have friends in different departments at the same university who only met their supervisors a few times a year, however, that should now be impossible as the entire university moved to supervision contracts that state some general goals and how often you meet with your supervisor plus an online system where you enter all your publication, planned publications, conference presentations, grants and awards received etc and generate a report each year that your supervisor needs to discuss with you and sign off on. I was also lucky enough to get a university-funded scholarship which meant I was actually faculty and received a proper salary with mandatory raises that were performance-based and tied to the progress of my dissertation and didn't have to apply for grants and was eligible for faculty travel grants. That's not to say it's all perfect. I think a major flaw in the system at my university was that my faculty accepted around 80 PhD students each year with funded positions for 4. The rest were forced to work while writing their dissertation or constantly apply for grants. I think a better system is the kind they have in Sweden where you need to prove you have the funds to do a PhD before being accepted into a program. The funds can be personal or university-funded. So a department a similar size to my own would not accept 80 new students each year, but maybe 10. Sure there are drawbacks too, they keep a number of students officially as master's students or RAs even though the students are actually working on their PhD and waiting for funding opportunities. This is not allowed but happens all the time. Every university should also push for some type of supervision contract and discuss a general timeline at the beginning with clear goals of when papers should be published, where they should be published, possible future collaborations, courses they'd like to teach (if applicable), when they should start reviewing papers for their field etc. I think it is also wise to have more than one supervisor so you're not at the mercy of some madman plus it's a great opportunity for early-career faculty to gain PhD supervision experience as a co-supervisor. My university also required all faculty to have up-to-date training in university pedagogy, including supervision. It's not hard to get some best-practice examples from around the world and have people stick to them. These are my suggestions. Some are certainly debatable and field-dependent. 1. Make sure all students have adequate funding before accepting them. If your "home" university doesn't believe in you/your project enough to fund you, then it's less likely you'll be able to have a successful career in academia after you receive your PhD anyway (I'm sure this varies a lot by field and institution and funding opportunities). 2. Ideally, this funding would come from the university or a project tied to that university and you would have the status of faculty and all benefits that come with that (pay rise schedule, paid parental leave, access to travel grants). 3. Set up supervision contracts and stick to them. There should also be some kind of minimum requirements for how often to meet and clearly stated expectations and timelines for all parties. 4. Training for supervisors. My university required a certain well-defined level of pedagogical training to be eligible for faculty positions so most people were well-aware of the most recent developments in higher education pedagogy. 5. More than one supervisor. I had three. One was strict and matter of fact and well-known in the field, one was very theoretical-minded and internationally renowned for his more philosophical approach (this was STEM), and the third was a pedantic perfectionist who made sure the details were always right. The first two were full professors with tenure, the third was a tenure-track assistant professor who I asked to be my co-supervisor because I knew she was detail-oriented as I was an RA on the same project she was working on when she was doing her PhD.
| 1 | 50,229 | 2 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5rjp3t
|
i5pimja
| 1,650,643,846 | 1,650,600,163 | 2 | 1 |
I truly believe that a lot of the issues with the PhD stems from 3 global problems that are never talked about: 1) Lack of any meaningful opportunities ~after~ the PhD in most disciplines. 2) Lack of professors and universities providing meaningful professional development, and generally being unsupportive to anything other than an academic career. Also lots of gaslighting to convince people that toxic practices with career advancement are okay. 3) Lots of survivorship bias that prevents any real discussion about how the system has changed and how it negatively impacts people currently trying to educate and better themselves. Generally speaking, people are happiest when they don't have to worry about putting food on the table and when they can enjoy some leisure in life. But a lot of the academic system revolves around exploitation. This is why I think the topics always narrow in on funding and unions when in reality post PhD opportunities are rare and difficult to navigate. The PostDoc after all was created to keep graduates around doing the same thing - literally a job created to exploit the lack of opportunities of post grads.
|
My understanding is PhD's in many nations are not stressful. Switzerland comes to mind. I think this is a issue about how specific nations treat the university system. IMHO nothing can be (or will be) done to improve the lot of the PhD process in many nations (cough cough US, UK)
| 1 | 43,683 | 2 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5q0yhe
|
i5rjp3t
| 1,650,612,929 | 1,650,643,846 | 1 | 2 |
A PhD, and burnout in general, can really mess you up. It's been 6 years since I burnt out of my PhD program and I still deal with issues from it. Yesterday I tried to make sense of my burnout only to find the 6 year old mental wound was still very tender. I wouldn't say *never* consider a PhD. But you need to think very carefully about it.
|
I truly believe that a lot of the issues with the PhD stems from 3 global problems that are never talked about: 1) Lack of any meaningful opportunities ~after~ the PhD in most disciplines. 2) Lack of professors and universities providing meaningful professional development, and generally being unsupportive to anything other than an academic career. Also lots of gaslighting to convince people that toxic practices with career advancement are okay. 3) Lots of survivorship bias that prevents any real discussion about how the system has changed and how it negatively impacts people currently trying to educate and better themselves. Generally speaking, people are happiest when they don't have to worry about putting food on the table and when they can enjoy some leisure in life. But a lot of the academic system revolves around exploitation. This is why I think the topics always narrow in on funding and unions when in reality post PhD opportunities are rare and difficult to navigate. The PostDoc after all was created to keep graduates around doing the same thing - literally a job created to exploit the lack of opportunities of post grads.
| 0 | 30,917 | 2 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5q11cj
|
i5rjp3t
| 1,650,612,996 | 1,650,643,846 | 1 | 2 |
Is it that the PhD makes them suicidal or does it overly attract a certain type (ones who don't want to leave the University because they find it a safe space as an UG and PG).
|
I truly believe that a lot of the issues with the PhD stems from 3 global problems that are never talked about: 1) Lack of any meaningful opportunities ~after~ the PhD in most disciplines. 2) Lack of professors and universities providing meaningful professional development, and generally being unsupportive to anything other than an academic career. Also lots of gaslighting to convince people that toxic practices with career advancement are okay. 3) Lots of survivorship bias that prevents any real discussion about how the system has changed and how it negatively impacts people currently trying to educate and better themselves. Generally speaking, people are happiest when they don't have to worry about putting food on the table and when they can enjoy some leisure in life. But a lot of the academic system revolves around exploitation. This is why I think the topics always narrow in on funding and unions when in reality post PhD opportunities are rare and difficult to navigate. The PostDoc after all was created to keep graduates around doing the same thing - literally a job created to exploit the lack of opportunities of post grads.
| 0 | 30,850 | 2 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5qn68d
|
i5rjp3t
| 1,650,629,824 | 1,650,643,846 | 1 | 2 |
I’m still an undergrad student (very first semester actually) but I’m pretty sure I’ll pursue a PhD in the future, and this post has been eye-opening to the reality of getting one. It’s funny, yesterday I actually had an Economics test and one question was “why don’t more people pursue post-graduate programs?” and I answered very vaguely, something about PhD being a real sacrifice in the end, but having read some comments I now have a better understanding of the issue. I’m sorry you people go through things like these, and I hope they can change and get fixed so that you can actually enjoy what you’re doing. Remember y’all are amazing and are doing really important work!
|
I truly believe that a lot of the issues with the PhD stems from 3 global problems that are never talked about: 1) Lack of any meaningful opportunities ~after~ the PhD in most disciplines. 2) Lack of professors and universities providing meaningful professional development, and generally being unsupportive to anything other than an academic career. Also lots of gaslighting to convince people that toxic practices with career advancement are okay. 3) Lots of survivorship bias that prevents any real discussion about how the system has changed and how it negatively impacts people currently trying to educate and better themselves. Generally speaking, people are happiest when they don't have to worry about putting food on the table and when they can enjoy some leisure in life. But a lot of the academic system revolves around exploitation. This is why I think the topics always narrow in on funding and unions when in reality post PhD opportunities are rare and difficult to navigate. The PostDoc after all was created to keep graduates around doing the same thing - literally a job created to exploit the lack of opportunities of post grads.
| 0 | 14,022 | 2 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5rjp3t
|
i5qydz9
| 1,650,643,846 | 1,650,635,268 | 2 | 1 |
I truly believe that a lot of the issues with the PhD stems from 3 global problems that are never talked about: 1) Lack of any meaningful opportunities ~after~ the PhD in most disciplines. 2) Lack of professors and universities providing meaningful professional development, and generally being unsupportive to anything other than an academic career. Also lots of gaslighting to convince people that toxic practices with career advancement are okay. 3) Lots of survivorship bias that prevents any real discussion about how the system has changed and how it negatively impacts people currently trying to educate and better themselves. Generally speaking, people are happiest when they don't have to worry about putting food on the table and when they can enjoy some leisure in life. But a lot of the academic system revolves around exploitation. This is why I think the topics always narrow in on funding and unions when in reality post PhD opportunities are rare and difficult to navigate. The PostDoc after all was created to keep graduates around doing the same thing - literally a job created to exploit the lack of opportunities of post grads.
|
Honestly I don't think you should. If you can do the PhD process and make it out the other side you can F\*cking do anything. Its a life changing experience. That's not to say I don't think there shouldn't be support for people who want/need it. However, of course were depressed and suicidal, for most of us we are doing the most demanding and challenging thing we have ever tackled in our lives. There is an immense amount of pressure. Its good for you. I was in a dark place when i finished my degree, 7 years after starting (US), and i had fanaticized about crashing my car into a tree more than once. I don't regret grad school at all.
| 1 | 8,578 | 2 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5r6zqs
|
i5rjp3t
| 1,650,638,867 | 1,650,643,846 | 1 | 2 |
I am not in the UK, but I'd bet that this can likely be extended to the reality of other countries. Honestly? If I did not earn pennies during my PhD, to the point where I had to live in a house with 9 (nine) different people to save costs, and still end up in a very tight budget for 4 years (6 if we count my MSc), I would not have 1/10 of my mental problems and insecurities about the future.
|
I truly believe that a lot of the issues with the PhD stems from 3 global problems that are never talked about: 1) Lack of any meaningful opportunities ~after~ the PhD in most disciplines. 2) Lack of professors and universities providing meaningful professional development, and generally being unsupportive to anything other than an academic career. Also lots of gaslighting to convince people that toxic practices with career advancement are okay. 3) Lots of survivorship bias that prevents any real discussion about how the system has changed and how it negatively impacts people currently trying to educate and better themselves. Generally speaking, people are happiest when they don't have to worry about putting food on the table and when they can enjoy some leisure in life. But a lot of the academic system revolves around exploitation. This is why I think the topics always narrow in on funding and unions when in reality post PhD opportunities are rare and difficult to navigate. The PostDoc after all was created to keep graduates around doing the same thing - literally a job created to exploit the lack of opportunities of post grads.
| 0 | 4,979 | 2 | ||
u8wrbw
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
"40% of Ph.D. students in the UK at high risk of suicide". I knew Ph.D. life can be really testing, but not to this level!! How can we make the process more emotionally sustainable? https://thetab.com/uk/2021/10/14/40-per-cent-of-phd-students-are-at-high-risk-of-suicide-study-says-226001 Speaking from experience, I honestly felt I had it worse than anyone. I wouldn't say I was ever suicidal, but I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to cope if I didn't pass. Thankfully, despite having an incredibly bumpy Ph.D. journey, it was all worth it in the end, the viva went incredibly well, and so did the post viva (minor) corrections. Although I was the primary architect of my misery, I thought I'd share some admin/program level fails that made the whole process much more of a mental torment than it should've been: 1) Supervisors do not give back feedback until the final year, or the final few months prior to the (initial) submission deadline. I've sent them quite a lot of work throughout the years, which they've never responded to. The first real feedback they gave me was on my first thesis draft, which they absolutely tore apart. And that was a horrible blow because right up to that point (very close to the original submission date), I had no clue my written work was so bad. We had fairly regular meetings, but at no point did they even hint my progress, as far as written work goes, was not up to the par of doctoral level. This was perhaps the biggest psychological blow, especially when you're close to finishing. I needed 6 more months to re-write the whole thing from scratch. 2) Don't allow students to veer too much off the main aim of the project. You're encouraged to have a divergent mindset at the beginning of your Ph.D. But sometimes, particularly inexperienced researchers can easily fall into hopeless cul-de-sacs that waste a lot of time. I look back at my early work and cringe. I veered off so much initially, that it made my research scope inplausibly vast. I wish my supervisors would've at least hinted much earlier that some of those routes were complete dead ends, that ended up wasting almost a year of my time. This is a tricky one to critique, one should be encouraged to think expansively in the beginning. But less experienced researchers (as I was) can truly find themselves lost. And the intervention often comes too late 3) Admin f\*ckups. There have been so many admin failures, like delays to my compulsory international research visit (part of our Ph.D. training program) until the final few months of the year, or the time when they accidentally SENT THE WRONG DOCUMENTS TO me MY VIVA EXAMINERS INSTEAD OF MY ACTUAL THESIS. Our examination process consists of a 1-hour presentation + Q/A, and then a full classical British style Ph.D. viva. It's literally two viva examinations in one. I did the first part well. And then the chair of my viva told me "we're so sorry, but your examiners didn't receive your actual thesis, they got a minor document by accident". So I had to go through the psychological terror of viva anticipation all over again! 4) Have all the necessary facilities easily available for the student to cope with such pressure. This is a two-way street, the student must be prepared to also ask for help. Which I never did tbh, though looking back, I really should have. Encourage students to attend conferences, and events, and network as much as possible. Don't make them fall into the isolation trap as I had done. Please share some of your ideas! I know a Ph.D. isn't supposed to be easy. Stress is just the reality of life, and a Ph.D. is no different. But it shouldn't get to this level bad! Share your thoughts and experiences!
|
i5rjp3t
|
i5rfjj9
| 1,650,643,846 | 1,650,642,246 | 2 | 1 |
I truly believe that a lot of the issues with the PhD stems from 3 global problems that are never talked about: 1) Lack of any meaningful opportunities ~after~ the PhD in most disciplines. 2) Lack of professors and universities providing meaningful professional development, and generally being unsupportive to anything other than an academic career. Also lots of gaslighting to convince people that toxic practices with career advancement are okay. 3) Lots of survivorship bias that prevents any real discussion about how the system has changed and how it negatively impacts people currently trying to educate and better themselves. Generally speaking, people are happiest when they don't have to worry about putting food on the table and when they can enjoy some leisure in life. But a lot of the academic system revolves around exploitation. This is why I think the topics always narrow in on funding and unions when in reality post PhD opportunities are rare and difficult to navigate. The PostDoc after all was created to keep graduates around doing the same thing - literally a job created to exploit the lack of opportunities of post grads.
|
Alcohol and vigorous exercise. That’s the only way I got through.
| 1 | 1,600 | 2 | ||
gatbgd
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
Just wanted to say thank you. I'd read several times on here that the best way to gain access to most papers is to ask the author directly. I tried it yesterday and it worked. Not only was the author happy to send me her paper, she also sent me another related paper of hers and offered to send me more of her research if I wanted it. The papers are fascinating, it's exactly what I needed for my current research project (writing a high-school textbook), and on top of that, the author is a lovely person. So thank you, AskAcademia, for helping me dare to do something I would never have done otherwise.
|
fp39rx0
|
fp1txmb
| 1,588,275,567 | 1,588,247,692 | 16 | 10 |
Can't speak for everyone but I know for me as an author publishing feels like throwing things into the void sometimes. So getting an email from someone who's actually interested in what I'm writing about is such a great and validating feeling. I'm sure that the feeling is the same for most other academics. Plus... not like we get a cut of what publishers are making.
|
That's great!
| 1 | 27,875 | 1.6 | ||
gatbgd
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
Just wanted to say thank you. I'd read several times on here that the best way to gain access to most papers is to ask the author directly. I tried it yesterday and it worked. Not only was the author happy to send me her paper, she also sent me another related paper of hers and offered to send me more of her research if I wanted it. The papers are fascinating, it's exactly what I needed for my current research project (writing a high-school textbook), and on top of that, the author is a lovely person. So thank you, AskAcademia, for helping me dare to do something I would never have done otherwise.
|
fp2bo3v
|
fp39rx0
| 1,588,258,917 | 1,588,275,567 | 11 | 16 |
I would suggest using scihub. Just copy the doi ID of the paper that you want and paste it on scihub and voila! instant pdf.
|
Can't speak for everyone but I know for me as an author publishing feels like throwing things into the void sometimes. So getting an email from someone who's actually interested in what I'm writing about is such a great and validating feeling. I'm sure that the feeling is the same for most other academics. Plus... not like we get a cut of what publishers are making.
| 0 | 16,650 | 1.454545 | ||
gatbgd
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
Just wanted to say thank you. I'd read several times on here that the best way to gain access to most papers is to ask the author directly. I tried it yesterday and it worked. Not only was the author happy to send me her paper, she also sent me another related paper of hers and offered to send me more of her research if I wanted it. The papers are fascinating, it's exactly what I needed for my current research project (writing a high-school textbook), and on top of that, the author is a lovely person. So thank you, AskAcademia, for helping me dare to do something I would never have done otherwise.
|
fp1wv60
|
fp39rx0
| 1,588,250,013 | 1,588,275,567 | 9 | 16 |
What a weird coincidence, I tried this for the first time yesterday and it worked too! I was beside myself with happiness
|
Can't speak for everyone but I know for me as an author publishing feels like throwing things into the void sometimes. So getting an email from someone who's actually interested in what I'm writing about is such a great and validating feeling. I'm sure that the feeling is the same for most other academics. Plus... not like we get a cut of what publishers are making.
| 0 | 25,554 | 1.777778 | ||
gatbgd
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
Just wanted to say thank you. I'd read several times on here that the best way to gain access to most papers is to ask the author directly. I tried it yesterday and it worked. Not only was the author happy to send me her paper, she also sent me another related paper of hers and offered to send me more of her research if I wanted it. The papers are fascinating, it's exactly what I needed for my current research project (writing a high-school textbook), and on top of that, the author is a lovely person. So thank you, AskAcademia, for helping me dare to do something I would never have done otherwise.
|
fp2muh4
|
fp39rx0
| 1,588,264,458 | 1,588,275,567 | 7 | 16 |
I've asked numerous authors for pdfs of their papers, and have been asked for copies of mine. It seems like a professional courtesy -- plus hey, someone else is interested! I've never been turned down and certainly would never turn down such a request. I'm glad you had a similar experience.
|
Can't speak for everyone but I know for me as an author publishing feels like throwing things into the void sometimes. So getting an email from someone who's actually interested in what I'm writing about is such a great and validating feeling. I'm sure that the feeling is the same for most other academics. Plus... not like we get a cut of what publishers are making.
| 0 | 11,109 | 2.285714 | ||
gatbgd
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
Just wanted to say thank you. I'd read several times on here that the best way to gain access to most papers is to ask the author directly. I tried it yesterday and it worked. Not only was the author happy to send me her paper, she also sent me another related paper of hers and offered to send me more of her research if I wanted it. The papers are fascinating, it's exactly what I needed for my current research project (writing a high-school textbook), and on top of that, the author is a lovely person. So thank you, AskAcademia, for helping me dare to do something I would never have done otherwise.
|
fp29ipi
|
fp39rx0
| 1,588,257,786 | 1,588,275,567 | 8 | 16 |
It's great that authors share their papers and it is the very least they should be doing. It is not a sustainable model for dissemination of publicly funded scientific work though. It should all be open access.
|
Can't speak for everyone but I know for me as an author publishing feels like throwing things into the void sometimes. So getting an email from someone who's actually interested in what I'm writing about is such a great and validating feeling. I'm sure that the feeling is the same for most other academics. Plus... not like we get a cut of what publishers are making.
| 0 | 17,781 | 2 | ||
gatbgd
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
Just wanted to say thank you. I'd read several times on here that the best way to gain access to most papers is to ask the author directly. I tried it yesterday and it worked. Not only was the author happy to send me her paper, she also sent me another related paper of hers and offered to send me more of her research if I wanted it. The papers are fascinating, it's exactly what I needed for my current research project (writing a high-school textbook), and on top of that, the author is a lovely person. So thank you, AskAcademia, for helping me dare to do something I would never have done otherwise.
|
fp2ngz2
|
fp39rx0
| 1,588,264,756 | 1,588,275,567 | 1 | 16 |
I tried to do this recently but my school email was blocked by their spam filter :(
|
Can't speak for everyone but I know for me as an author publishing feels like throwing things into the void sometimes. So getting an email from someone who's actually interested in what I'm writing about is such a great and validating feeling. I'm sure that the feeling is the same for most other academics. Plus... not like we get a cut of what publishers are making.
| 0 | 10,811 | 16 | ||
gatbgd
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
Just wanted to say thank you. I'd read several times on here that the best way to gain access to most papers is to ask the author directly. I tried it yesterday and it worked. Not only was the author happy to send me her paper, she also sent me another related paper of hers and offered to send me more of her research if I wanted it. The papers are fascinating, it's exactly what I needed for my current research project (writing a high-school textbook), and on top of that, the author is a lovely person. So thank you, AskAcademia, for helping me dare to do something I would never have done otherwise.
|
fp39rx0
|
fp2jyn7
| 1,588,275,567 | 1,588,263,052 | 16 | -5 |
Can't speak for everyone but I know for me as an author publishing feels like throwing things into the void sometimes. So getting an email from someone who's actually interested in what I'm writing about is such a great and validating feeling. I'm sure that the feeling is the same for most other academics. Plus... not like we get a cut of what publishers are making.
|
From what discipline you are writing textbook? Dont go overboard if its for high-scool you dont need to go to much in to details.
| 1 | 12,515 | -3.2 | ||
gatbgd
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
Just wanted to say thank you. I'd read several times on here that the best way to gain access to most papers is to ask the author directly. I tried it yesterday and it worked. Not only was the author happy to send me her paper, she also sent me another related paper of hers and offered to send me more of her research if I wanted it. The papers are fascinating, it's exactly what I needed for my current research project (writing a high-school textbook), and on top of that, the author is a lovely person. So thank you, AskAcademia, for helping me dare to do something I would never have done otherwise.
|
fp1txmb
|
fp2bo3v
| 1,588,247,692 | 1,588,258,917 | 10 | 11 |
That's great!
|
I would suggest using scihub. Just copy the doi ID of the paper that you want and paste it on scihub and voila! instant pdf.
| 0 | 11,225 | 1.1 | ||
gatbgd
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
Just wanted to say thank you. I'd read several times on here that the best way to gain access to most papers is to ask the author directly. I tried it yesterday and it worked. Not only was the author happy to send me her paper, she also sent me another related paper of hers and offered to send me more of her research if I wanted it. The papers are fascinating, it's exactly what I needed for my current research project (writing a high-school textbook), and on top of that, the author is a lovely person. So thank you, AskAcademia, for helping me dare to do something I would never have done otherwise.
|
fp1wv60
|
fp2bo3v
| 1,588,250,013 | 1,588,258,917 | 9 | 11 |
What a weird coincidence, I tried this for the first time yesterday and it worked too! I was beside myself with happiness
|
I would suggest using scihub. Just copy the doi ID of the paper that you want and paste it on scihub and voila! instant pdf.
| 0 | 8,904 | 1.222222 | ||
gatbgd
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
Just wanted to say thank you. I'd read several times on here that the best way to gain access to most papers is to ask the author directly. I tried it yesterday and it worked. Not only was the author happy to send me her paper, she also sent me another related paper of hers and offered to send me more of her research if I wanted it. The papers are fascinating, it's exactly what I needed for my current research project (writing a high-school textbook), and on top of that, the author is a lovely person. So thank you, AskAcademia, for helping me dare to do something I would never have done otherwise.
|
fp2bo3v
|
fp29ipi
| 1,588,258,917 | 1,588,257,786 | 11 | 8 |
I would suggest using scihub. Just copy the doi ID of the paper that you want and paste it on scihub and voila! instant pdf.
|
It's great that authors share their papers and it is the very least they should be doing. It is not a sustainable model for dissemination of publicly funded scientific work though. It should all be open access.
| 1 | 1,131 | 1.375 | ||
gatbgd
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
Just wanted to say thank you. I'd read several times on here that the best way to gain access to most papers is to ask the author directly. I tried it yesterday and it worked. Not only was the author happy to send me her paper, she also sent me another related paper of hers and offered to send me more of her research if I wanted it. The papers are fascinating, it's exactly what I needed for my current research project (writing a high-school textbook), and on top of that, the author is a lovely person. So thank you, AskAcademia, for helping me dare to do something I would never have done otherwise.
|
fp2jyn7
|
fp2muh4
| 1,588,263,052 | 1,588,264,458 | -5 | 7 |
From what discipline you are writing textbook? Dont go overboard if its for high-scool you dont need to go to much in to details.
|
I've asked numerous authors for pdfs of their papers, and have been asked for copies of mine. It seems like a professional courtesy -- plus hey, someone else is interested! I've never been turned down and certainly would never turn down such a request. I'm glad you had a similar experience.
| 0 | 1,406 | -1.4 | ||
gatbgd
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
Just wanted to say thank you. I'd read several times on here that the best way to gain access to most papers is to ask the author directly. I tried it yesterday and it worked. Not only was the author happy to send me her paper, she also sent me another related paper of hers and offered to send me more of her research if I wanted it. The papers are fascinating, it's exactly what I needed for my current research project (writing a high-school textbook), and on top of that, the author is a lovely person. So thank you, AskAcademia, for helping me dare to do something I would never have done otherwise.
|
fp2jyn7
|
fp2ngz2
| 1,588,263,052 | 1,588,264,756 | -5 | 1 |
From what discipline you are writing textbook? Dont go overboard if its for high-scool you dont need to go to much in to details.
|
I tried to do this recently but my school email was blocked by their spam filter :(
| 0 | 1,704 | -0.2 | ||
gatbgd
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
Just wanted to say thank you. I'd read several times on here that the best way to gain access to most papers is to ask the author directly. I tried it yesterday and it worked. Not only was the author happy to send me her paper, she also sent me another related paper of hers and offered to send me more of her research if I wanted it. The papers are fascinating, it's exactly what I needed for my current research project (writing a high-school textbook), and on top of that, the author is a lovely person. So thank you, AskAcademia, for helping me dare to do something I would never have done otherwise.
|
fp41n81
|
fp2jyn7
| 1,588,289,924 | 1,588,263,052 | 1 | -5 |
So glad!
|
From what discipline you are writing textbook? Dont go overboard if its for high-scool you dont need to go to much in to details.
| 1 | 26,872 | -0.2 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzj563q
|
fzj1vgr
| 1,595,956,876 | 1,595,955,320 | 527 | 391 |
Basically was the same for me: when I realized that I valued my outside life and having good balance with work. The exact moment was when I was talking with a huge star in my field and they were describing a more junior person who is already a star at a young age. They were saying how the junior person is always working, and gave the example that even when they are in the car with their partner on the way to a date that they would be reviewing papers or writing grants or whatever. And I just knew that was not for me because I get motion sickness reading in a moving vehicle. But more realistically, I would never want to give up having a non-work life.
|
The minute I made the decision to not work weekends during my PhD Edit: I do occasionally read and plan during weekends
| 1 | 1,556 | 1.347826 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjrk9x
|
fzjitwu
| 1,595,967,535 | 1,595,963,362 | 160 | 120 |
When I worked with a real star. I saw what it really took. It wasn't putting in a lot of hours or being ruthless or looking out for oneself. It was a real core type of competency and mastery over the field that few have. He was my mentor during one of my postdocs and he was by far the most successful scientist I had ever worked with other than my extremely famous doctoral advisor (who, tellingly, openly admired this other guy - probably 30 years his junior). He didn't play games with his students, he knew how to be supportive and kind without doing their work for them, and he knew which students to carry for a bit and when. He was there at every coffee break in they just chatting with whomever, he always ate with us in the canteen and it never felt like "the boss" was there. He's everyone's favorite colleague because he is open, honest, insightful and can see the right thing to do very quickly. People line up to collaborate with him and he is on so many papers it's ridiculous. And he's just great to be around. He has a really dry wit but is not cynical. He has a lot of interests and knows a lot about art and literature, and many other topics. He neither only talks about work nor avoids the topic. He almost never works in the evenings or weekends, only a bit on Sunday nights, and never before the kids go to bed. He takes a month off every August, just to be with his family on some British Isle where he he doesn't have good cell phone service and doesn't bother to get internet access. He has a wonderful marriage, great kids, and seems to really like life, in a British sort of way - meaning, not exuberant, but you can tell. He keeps himself fresh and doesn't burn out. He works efficiently because he keeps work confined to one part of his life. This makes him happier and more productive. When I saw how effortless it was for him, and how people were throwing money and titles his way, I could see what it was to be a star. And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
|
When I took a permanent contract at a mid level university, looked at my objectives and the promotion criteria and realised I could have a decent albeit unremarkable career and a life outside work. I do good work, stars in my field have said nice things about my papers but I write three of those a year, they write 9. But then I realised that the answer to 'when do they sleep' is they dont.
| 1 | 4,173 | 1.333333 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjrk9x
|
fzjaacx
| 1,595,967,535 | 1,595,959,269 | 160 | 105 |
When I worked with a real star. I saw what it really took. It wasn't putting in a lot of hours or being ruthless or looking out for oneself. It was a real core type of competency and mastery over the field that few have. He was my mentor during one of my postdocs and he was by far the most successful scientist I had ever worked with other than my extremely famous doctoral advisor (who, tellingly, openly admired this other guy - probably 30 years his junior). He didn't play games with his students, he knew how to be supportive and kind without doing their work for them, and he knew which students to carry for a bit and when. He was there at every coffee break in they just chatting with whomever, he always ate with us in the canteen and it never felt like "the boss" was there. He's everyone's favorite colleague because he is open, honest, insightful and can see the right thing to do very quickly. People line up to collaborate with him and he is on so many papers it's ridiculous. And he's just great to be around. He has a really dry wit but is not cynical. He has a lot of interests and knows a lot about art and literature, and many other topics. He neither only talks about work nor avoids the topic. He almost never works in the evenings or weekends, only a bit on Sunday nights, and never before the kids go to bed. He takes a month off every August, just to be with his family on some British Isle where he he doesn't have good cell phone service and doesn't bother to get internet access. He has a wonderful marriage, great kids, and seems to really like life, in a British sort of way - meaning, not exuberant, but you can tell. He keeps himself fresh and doesn't burn out. He works efficiently because he keeps work confined to one part of his life. This makes him happier and more productive. When I saw how effortless it was for him, and how people were throwing money and titles his way, I could see what it was to be a star. And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
|
When I realized I wanted to have a life outside of work. I busted my whole ass, worked multiple jobs, and raised a kid alone during my Ph.D. By the time I finally graduated, I didn't have the energy or drive to go on the TT market. I want to work to live, not live to work. Also, the fact that I hate publishing helped with that decision. I prefer to teach and focus on working with students instead of cranking out research no one will ever read.
| 1 | 8,266 | 1.52381 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjrk9x
|
fzjlgia
| 1,595,967,535 | 1,595,964,622 | 160 | 107 |
When I worked with a real star. I saw what it really took. It wasn't putting in a lot of hours or being ruthless or looking out for oneself. It was a real core type of competency and mastery over the field that few have. He was my mentor during one of my postdocs and he was by far the most successful scientist I had ever worked with other than my extremely famous doctoral advisor (who, tellingly, openly admired this other guy - probably 30 years his junior). He didn't play games with his students, he knew how to be supportive and kind without doing their work for them, and he knew which students to carry for a bit and when. He was there at every coffee break in they just chatting with whomever, he always ate with us in the canteen and it never felt like "the boss" was there. He's everyone's favorite colleague because he is open, honest, insightful and can see the right thing to do very quickly. People line up to collaborate with him and he is on so many papers it's ridiculous. And he's just great to be around. He has a really dry wit but is not cynical. He has a lot of interests and knows a lot about art and literature, and many other topics. He neither only talks about work nor avoids the topic. He almost never works in the evenings or weekends, only a bit on Sunday nights, and never before the kids go to bed. He takes a month off every August, just to be with his family on some British Isle where he he doesn't have good cell phone service and doesn't bother to get internet access. He has a wonderful marriage, great kids, and seems to really like life, in a British sort of way - meaning, not exuberant, but you can tell. He keeps himself fresh and doesn't burn out. He works efficiently because he keeps work confined to one part of his life. This makes him happier and more productive. When I saw how effortless it was for him, and how people were throwing money and titles his way, I could see what it was to be a star. And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
|
But what does academic stardom even mean? Some people might think of it as being highly cited, but more and more we've realized that citations tend to be more a popularity game rather than a metric of success. Maybe it's having a ton of patents? Then again, patenting something can be very basic, and tons of people in industry have patents without being academics. Is it maybe coming up with a novel or breakthrough idea or method? I'd say plenty of academics have done this, but it hasn't been the right time or place to successfully get their innovation recognized. Is it having your own research project? Getting a lot of grants, or really big money grants? More and more stardom just sounds like a game of networking and being in the right place at the right time. A lot of it is luck. I'd doubt Jonas Salk thought of himself as a star, and people were giving up their seats on the bus for him. I'm genuinely curious about all of this, because even while I've worked with a number of different fields, I wouldn't say I've met any stars.
| 1 | 2,913 | 1.495327 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjms10
|
fzjrk9x
| 1,595,965,258 | 1,595,967,535 | 94 | 160 |
I don't think being a star ever crossed my mind. It's pretty obvious that even if you are very smart and hard working, there's a lot of luck involved and the competition is fierce. I just wanted to do something meaningful with my life.
|
When I worked with a real star. I saw what it really took. It wasn't putting in a lot of hours or being ruthless or looking out for oneself. It was a real core type of competency and mastery over the field that few have. He was my mentor during one of my postdocs and he was by far the most successful scientist I had ever worked with other than my extremely famous doctoral advisor (who, tellingly, openly admired this other guy - probably 30 years his junior). He didn't play games with his students, he knew how to be supportive and kind without doing their work for them, and he knew which students to carry for a bit and when. He was there at every coffee break in they just chatting with whomever, he always ate with us in the canteen and it never felt like "the boss" was there. He's everyone's favorite colleague because he is open, honest, insightful and can see the right thing to do very quickly. People line up to collaborate with him and he is on so many papers it's ridiculous. And he's just great to be around. He has a really dry wit but is not cynical. He has a lot of interests and knows a lot about art and literature, and many other topics. He neither only talks about work nor avoids the topic. He almost never works in the evenings or weekends, only a bit on Sunday nights, and never before the kids go to bed. He takes a month off every August, just to be with his family on some British Isle where he he doesn't have good cell phone service and doesn't bother to get internet access. He has a wonderful marriage, great kids, and seems to really like life, in a British sort of way - meaning, not exuberant, but you can tell. He keeps himself fresh and doesn't burn out. He works efficiently because he keeps work confined to one part of his life. This makes him happier and more productive. When I saw how effortless it was for him, and how people were throwing money and titles his way, I could see what it was to be a star. And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
| 0 | 2,277 | 1.702128 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
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fzjat1q
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fzjrk9x
| 1,595,959,517 | 1,595,967,535 | 67 | 160 |
When I heard how he was thinking about a grant idea when his wife was going through labor of their first born Also when I realized I’m significantly younger than him but I have less curiosity and sense of wonderment
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When I worked with a real star. I saw what it really took. It wasn't putting in a lot of hours or being ruthless or looking out for oneself. It was a real core type of competency and mastery over the field that few have. He was my mentor during one of my postdocs and he was by far the most successful scientist I had ever worked with other than my extremely famous doctoral advisor (who, tellingly, openly admired this other guy - probably 30 years his junior). He didn't play games with his students, he knew how to be supportive and kind without doing their work for them, and he knew which students to carry for a bit and when. He was there at every coffee break in they just chatting with whomever, he always ate with us in the canteen and it never felt like "the boss" was there. He's everyone's favorite colleague because he is open, honest, insightful and can see the right thing to do very quickly. People line up to collaborate with him and he is on so many papers it's ridiculous. And he's just great to be around. He has a really dry wit but is not cynical. He has a lot of interests and knows a lot about art and literature, and many other topics. He neither only talks about work nor avoids the topic. He almost never works in the evenings or weekends, only a bit on Sunday nights, and never before the kids go to bed. He takes a month off every August, just to be with his family on some British Isle where he he doesn't have good cell phone service and doesn't bother to get internet access. He has a wonderful marriage, great kids, and seems to really like life, in a British sort of way - meaning, not exuberant, but you can tell. He keeps himself fresh and doesn't burn out. He works efficiently because he keeps work confined to one part of his life. This makes him happier and more productive. When I saw how effortless it was for him, and how people were throwing money and titles his way, I could see what it was to be a star. And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
| 0 | 8,018 | 2.38806 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
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fzjrk9x
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fzjfxpg
| 1,595,967,535 | 1,595,961,968 | 160 | 63 |
When I worked with a real star. I saw what it really took. It wasn't putting in a lot of hours or being ruthless or looking out for oneself. It was a real core type of competency and mastery over the field that few have. He was my mentor during one of my postdocs and he was by far the most successful scientist I had ever worked with other than my extremely famous doctoral advisor (who, tellingly, openly admired this other guy - probably 30 years his junior). He didn't play games with his students, he knew how to be supportive and kind without doing their work for them, and he knew which students to carry for a bit and when. He was there at every coffee break in they just chatting with whomever, he always ate with us in the canteen and it never felt like "the boss" was there. He's everyone's favorite colleague because he is open, honest, insightful and can see the right thing to do very quickly. People line up to collaborate with him and he is on so many papers it's ridiculous. And he's just great to be around. He has a really dry wit but is not cynical. He has a lot of interests and knows a lot about art and literature, and many other topics. He neither only talks about work nor avoids the topic. He almost never works in the evenings or weekends, only a bit on Sunday nights, and never before the kids go to bed. He takes a month off every August, just to be with his family on some British Isle where he he doesn't have good cell phone service and doesn't bother to get internet access. He has a wonderful marriage, great kids, and seems to really like life, in a British sort of way - meaning, not exuberant, but you can tell. He keeps himself fresh and doesn't burn out. He works efficiently because he keeps work confined to one part of his life. This makes him happier and more productive. When I saw how effortless it was for him, and how people were throwing money and titles his way, I could see what it was to be a star. And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
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When I realized I didn't talk over other people to try to sound important in graduate seminars. I digested information thoughtfully, and then I would respond. The people who were invested in by the faculty were the ones who seemed to shout the loudest parroting what they said. They're not superstars either, btw. But I realized I wasn't being "invested" in. Still beat them all to tenure for those who survived.
| 1 | 5,567 | 2.539683 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjrk9x
|
fzjlx1e
| 1,595,967,535 | 1,595,964,845 | 160 | 40 |
When I worked with a real star. I saw what it really took. It wasn't putting in a lot of hours or being ruthless or looking out for oneself. It was a real core type of competency and mastery over the field that few have. He was my mentor during one of my postdocs and he was by far the most successful scientist I had ever worked with other than my extremely famous doctoral advisor (who, tellingly, openly admired this other guy - probably 30 years his junior). He didn't play games with his students, he knew how to be supportive and kind without doing their work for them, and he knew which students to carry for a bit and when. He was there at every coffee break in they just chatting with whomever, he always ate with us in the canteen and it never felt like "the boss" was there. He's everyone's favorite colleague because he is open, honest, insightful and can see the right thing to do very quickly. People line up to collaborate with him and he is on so many papers it's ridiculous. And he's just great to be around. He has a really dry wit but is not cynical. He has a lot of interests and knows a lot about art and literature, and many other topics. He neither only talks about work nor avoids the topic. He almost never works in the evenings or weekends, only a bit on Sunday nights, and never before the kids go to bed. He takes a month off every August, just to be with his family on some British Isle where he he doesn't have good cell phone service and doesn't bother to get internet access. He has a wonderful marriage, great kids, and seems to really like life, in a British sort of way - meaning, not exuberant, but you can tell. He keeps himself fresh and doesn't burn out. He works efficiently because he keeps work confined to one part of his life. This makes him happier and more productive. When I saw how effortless it was for him, and how people were throwing money and titles his way, I could see what it was to be a star. And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
|
I question the premise of your question. No matter how high you rise, you will pretty much always find yourself in the company of peers. As a faculty member, I was more educated than most, more successful than most, paid better than most, and had more secure employment than most, and surrounded by others who were just like me. Was I a star? When I earned full professor and later got an endowed chair, I was still one of many. Was I a star then? As a Vice President, I find myself in exactly the same position. Am I a star now? I guess I think it’s all a matter of perspective, and at this point in my career I personally consider anyone who makes it through a PhD and goes on to an academic career to be a star. Few of us ever reach the height of glory that we perhaps imagined when we were younger, but that’s true of pretty much everyone everywhere and all of us have accomplished far more than most.
| 1 | 2,690 | 4 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjrk9x
|
fzjouzh
| 1,595,967,535 | 1,595,966,248 | 160 | 42 |
When I worked with a real star. I saw what it really took. It wasn't putting in a lot of hours or being ruthless or looking out for oneself. It was a real core type of competency and mastery over the field that few have. He was my mentor during one of my postdocs and he was by far the most successful scientist I had ever worked with other than my extremely famous doctoral advisor (who, tellingly, openly admired this other guy - probably 30 years his junior). He didn't play games with his students, he knew how to be supportive and kind without doing their work for them, and he knew which students to carry for a bit and when. He was there at every coffee break in they just chatting with whomever, he always ate with us in the canteen and it never felt like "the boss" was there. He's everyone's favorite colleague because he is open, honest, insightful and can see the right thing to do very quickly. People line up to collaborate with him and he is on so many papers it's ridiculous. And he's just great to be around. He has a really dry wit but is not cynical. He has a lot of interests and knows a lot about art and literature, and many other topics. He neither only talks about work nor avoids the topic. He almost never works in the evenings or weekends, only a bit on Sunday nights, and never before the kids go to bed. He takes a month off every August, just to be with his family on some British Isle where he he doesn't have good cell phone service and doesn't bother to get internet access. He has a wonderful marriage, great kids, and seems to really like life, in a British sort of way - meaning, not exuberant, but you can tell. He keeps himself fresh and doesn't burn out. He works efficiently because he keeps work confined to one part of his life. This makes him happier and more productive. When I saw how effortless it was for him, and how people were throwing money and titles his way, I could see what it was to be a star. And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
|
Haven’t given up yet! (Jk—I never really believed I would be a “star”) I think it’s kind of funny/interesting how many comments and upvotes attribute not being a star to a choice—not a personal limitation, as if they COULD have been a star, but are average only because they made a choice to be average. Seems delusional. I accept my mediocrity!
| 1 | 1,287 | 3.809524 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjly9h
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fzjrk9x
| 1,595,964,861 | 1,595,967,535 | 24 | 160 |
Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I honestly never thought I'd be one. My parents are PhDs that didn't get tenure, much less become stars. I'm just trying to hold on and find a career I enjoy (either within or outside academia).
|
When I worked with a real star. I saw what it really took. It wasn't putting in a lot of hours or being ruthless or looking out for oneself. It was a real core type of competency and mastery over the field that few have. He was my mentor during one of my postdocs and he was by far the most successful scientist I had ever worked with other than my extremely famous doctoral advisor (who, tellingly, openly admired this other guy - probably 30 years his junior). He didn't play games with his students, he knew how to be supportive and kind without doing their work for them, and he knew which students to carry for a bit and when. He was there at every coffee break in they just chatting with whomever, he always ate with us in the canteen and it never felt like "the boss" was there. He's everyone's favorite colleague because he is open, honest, insightful and can see the right thing to do very quickly. People line up to collaborate with him and he is on so many papers it's ridiculous. And he's just great to be around. He has a really dry wit but is not cynical. He has a lot of interests and knows a lot about art and literature, and many other topics. He neither only talks about work nor avoids the topic. He almost never works in the evenings or weekends, only a bit on Sunday nights, and never before the kids go to bed. He takes a month off every August, just to be with his family on some British Isle where he he doesn't have good cell phone service and doesn't bother to get internet access. He has a wonderful marriage, great kids, and seems to really like life, in a British sort of way - meaning, not exuberant, but you can tell. He keeps himself fresh and doesn't burn out. He works efficiently because he keeps work confined to one part of his life. This makes him happier and more productive. When I saw how effortless it was for him, and how people were throwing money and titles his way, I could see what it was to be a star. And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
| 0 | 2,674 | 6.666667 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjhecw
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fzjrk9x
| 1,595,962,666 | 1,595,967,535 | 21 | 160 |
I never expected to be a star, but about halfway through my PhD program is when I realized that I was making myself sick with how stressed I was about everything and I decided to just chill out. Plus, my advisors did nothing but put obstacles in my way of doing the research I actually wanted and so... that sort of out a damper on my plans, too.
|
When I worked with a real star. I saw what it really took. It wasn't putting in a lot of hours or being ruthless or looking out for oneself. It was a real core type of competency and mastery over the field that few have. He was my mentor during one of my postdocs and he was by far the most successful scientist I had ever worked with other than my extremely famous doctoral advisor (who, tellingly, openly admired this other guy - probably 30 years his junior). He didn't play games with his students, he knew how to be supportive and kind without doing their work for them, and he knew which students to carry for a bit and when. He was there at every coffee break in they just chatting with whomever, he always ate with us in the canteen and it never felt like "the boss" was there. He's everyone's favorite colleague because he is open, honest, insightful and can see the right thing to do very quickly. People line up to collaborate with him and he is on so many papers it's ridiculous. And he's just great to be around. He has a really dry wit but is not cynical. He has a lot of interests and knows a lot about art and literature, and many other topics. He neither only talks about work nor avoids the topic. He almost never works in the evenings or weekends, only a bit on Sunday nights, and never before the kids go to bed. He takes a month off every August, just to be with his family on some British Isle where he he doesn't have good cell phone service and doesn't bother to get internet access. He has a wonderful marriage, great kids, and seems to really like life, in a British sort of way - meaning, not exuberant, but you can tell. He keeps himself fresh and doesn't burn out. He works efficiently because he keeps work confined to one part of his life. This makes him happier and more productive. When I saw how effortless it was for him, and how people were throwing money and titles his way, I could see what it was to be a star. And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
| 0 | 4,869 | 7.619048 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjrk9x
|
fzjq36t
| 1,595,967,535 | 1,595,966,830 | 160 | 15 |
When I worked with a real star. I saw what it really took. It wasn't putting in a lot of hours or being ruthless or looking out for oneself. It was a real core type of competency and mastery over the field that few have. He was my mentor during one of my postdocs and he was by far the most successful scientist I had ever worked with other than my extremely famous doctoral advisor (who, tellingly, openly admired this other guy - probably 30 years his junior). He didn't play games with his students, he knew how to be supportive and kind without doing their work for them, and he knew which students to carry for a bit and when. He was there at every coffee break in they just chatting with whomever, he always ate with us in the canteen and it never felt like "the boss" was there. He's everyone's favorite colleague because he is open, honest, insightful and can see the right thing to do very quickly. People line up to collaborate with him and he is on so many papers it's ridiculous. And he's just great to be around. He has a really dry wit but is not cynical. He has a lot of interests and knows a lot about art and literature, and many other topics. He neither only talks about work nor avoids the topic. He almost never works in the evenings or weekends, only a bit on Sunday nights, and never before the kids go to bed. He takes a month off every August, just to be with his family on some British Isle where he he doesn't have good cell phone service and doesn't bother to get internet access. He has a wonderful marriage, great kids, and seems to really like life, in a British sort of way - meaning, not exuberant, but you can tell. He keeps himself fresh and doesn't burn out. He works efficiently because he keeps work confined to one part of his life. This makes him happier and more productive. When I saw how effortless it was for him, and how people were throwing money and titles his way, I could see what it was to be a star. And it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
|
I always find the "academic star" thing odd. Compare to "stars" in other areas - pop music, films - and they are usually fashionable but often critically panned. Those we see as "academic stars" are usually a combination of privilege, nepotism, marketing, work-life balance sacrifice, as well as research excellence.
| 1 | 705 | 10.666667 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjitwu
|
fzjaacx
| 1,595,963,362 | 1,595,959,269 | 120 | 105 |
When I took a permanent contract at a mid level university, looked at my objectives and the promotion criteria and realised I could have a decent albeit unremarkable career and a life outside work. I do good work, stars in my field have said nice things about my papers but I write three of those a year, they write 9. But then I realised that the answer to 'when do they sleep' is they dont.
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When I realized I wanted to have a life outside of work. I busted my whole ass, worked multiple jobs, and raised a kid alone during my Ph.D. By the time I finally graduated, I didn't have the energy or drive to go on the TT market. I want to work to live, not live to work. Also, the fact that I hate publishing helped with that decision. I prefer to teach and focus on working with students instead of cranking out research no one will ever read.
| 1 | 4,093 | 1.142857 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjat1q
|
fzjitwu
| 1,595,959,517 | 1,595,963,362 | 67 | 120 |
When I heard how he was thinking about a grant idea when his wife was going through labor of their first born Also when I realized I’m significantly younger than him but I have less curiosity and sense of wonderment
|
When I took a permanent contract at a mid level university, looked at my objectives and the promotion criteria and realised I could have a decent albeit unremarkable career and a life outside work. I do good work, stars in my field have said nice things about my papers but I write three of those a year, they write 9. But then I realised that the answer to 'when do they sleep' is they dont.
| 0 | 3,845 | 1.791045 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjitwu
|
fzjfxpg
| 1,595,963,362 | 1,595,961,968 | 120 | 63 |
When I took a permanent contract at a mid level university, looked at my objectives and the promotion criteria and realised I could have a decent albeit unremarkable career and a life outside work. I do good work, stars in my field have said nice things about my papers but I write three of those a year, they write 9. But then I realised that the answer to 'when do they sleep' is they dont.
|
When I realized I didn't talk over other people to try to sound important in graduate seminars. I digested information thoughtfully, and then I would respond. The people who were invested in by the faculty were the ones who seemed to shout the loudest parroting what they said. They're not superstars either, btw. But I realized I wasn't being "invested" in. Still beat them all to tenure for those who survived.
| 1 | 1,394 | 1.904762 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjitwu
|
fzjhecw
| 1,595,963,362 | 1,595,962,666 | 120 | 21 |
When I took a permanent contract at a mid level university, looked at my objectives and the promotion criteria and realised I could have a decent albeit unremarkable career and a life outside work. I do good work, stars in my field have said nice things about my papers but I write three of those a year, they write 9. But then I realised that the answer to 'when do they sleep' is they dont.
|
I never expected to be a star, but about halfway through my PhD program is when I realized that I was making myself sick with how stressed I was about everything and I decided to just chill out. Plus, my advisors did nothing but put obstacles in my way of doing the research I actually wanted and so... that sort of out a damper on my plans, too.
| 1 | 696 | 5.714286 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjlgia
|
fzjaacx
| 1,595,964,622 | 1,595,959,269 | 107 | 105 |
But what does academic stardom even mean? Some people might think of it as being highly cited, but more and more we've realized that citations tend to be more a popularity game rather than a metric of success. Maybe it's having a ton of patents? Then again, patenting something can be very basic, and tons of people in industry have patents without being academics. Is it maybe coming up with a novel or breakthrough idea or method? I'd say plenty of academics have done this, but it hasn't been the right time or place to successfully get their innovation recognized. Is it having your own research project? Getting a lot of grants, or really big money grants? More and more stardom just sounds like a game of networking and being in the right place at the right time. A lot of it is luck. I'd doubt Jonas Salk thought of himself as a star, and people were giving up their seats on the bus for him. I'm genuinely curious about all of this, because even while I've worked with a number of different fields, I wouldn't say I've met any stars.
|
When I realized I wanted to have a life outside of work. I busted my whole ass, worked multiple jobs, and raised a kid alone during my Ph.D. By the time I finally graduated, I didn't have the energy or drive to go on the TT market. I want to work to live, not live to work. Also, the fact that I hate publishing helped with that decision. I prefer to teach and focus on working with students instead of cranking out research no one will ever read.
| 1 | 5,353 | 1.019048 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjat1q
|
fzjlgia
| 1,595,959,517 | 1,595,964,622 | 67 | 107 |
When I heard how he was thinking about a grant idea when his wife was going through labor of their first born Also when I realized I’m significantly younger than him but I have less curiosity and sense of wonderment
|
But what does academic stardom even mean? Some people might think of it as being highly cited, but more and more we've realized that citations tend to be more a popularity game rather than a metric of success. Maybe it's having a ton of patents? Then again, patenting something can be very basic, and tons of people in industry have patents without being academics. Is it maybe coming up with a novel or breakthrough idea or method? I'd say plenty of academics have done this, but it hasn't been the right time or place to successfully get their innovation recognized. Is it having your own research project? Getting a lot of grants, or really big money grants? More and more stardom just sounds like a game of networking and being in the right place at the right time. A lot of it is luck. I'd doubt Jonas Salk thought of himself as a star, and people were giving up their seats on the bus for him. I'm genuinely curious about all of this, because even while I've worked with a number of different fields, I wouldn't say I've met any stars.
| 0 | 5,105 | 1.597015 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjfxpg
|
fzjlgia
| 1,595,961,968 | 1,595,964,622 | 63 | 107 |
When I realized I didn't talk over other people to try to sound important in graduate seminars. I digested information thoughtfully, and then I would respond. The people who were invested in by the faculty were the ones who seemed to shout the loudest parroting what they said. They're not superstars either, btw. But I realized I wasn't being "invested" in. Still beat them all to tenure for those who survived.
|
But what does academic stardom even mean? Some people might think of it as being highly cited, but more and more we've realized that citations tend to be more a popularity game rather than a metric of success. Maybe it's having a ton of patents? Then again, patenting something can be very basic, and tons of people in industry have patents without being academics. Is it maybe coming up with a novel or breakthrough idea or method? I'd say plenty of academics have done this, but it hasn't been the right time or place to successfully get their innovation recognized. Is it having your own research project? Getting a lot of grants, or really big money grants? More and more stardom just sounds like a game of networking and being in the right place at the right time. A lot of it is luck. I'd doubt Jonas Salk thought of himself as a star, and people were giving up their seats on the bus for him. I'm genuinely curious about all of this, because even while I've worked with a number of different fields, I wouldn't say I've met any stars.
| 0 | 2,654 | 1.698413 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjlgia
|
fzjhecw
| 1,595,964,622 | 1,595,962,666 | 107 | 21 |
But what does academic stardom even mean? Some people might think of it as being highly cited, but more and more we've realized that citations tend to be more a popularity game rather than a metric of success. Maybe it's having a ton of patents? Then again, patenting something can be very basic, and tons of people in industry have patents without being academics. Is it maybe coming up with a novel or breakthrough idea or method? I'd say plenty of academics have done this, but it hasn't been the right time or place to successfully get their innovation recognized. Is it having your own research project? Getting a lot of grants, or really big money grants? More and more stardom just sounds like a game of networking and being in the right place at the right time. A lot of it is luck. I'd doubt Jonas Salk thought of himself as a star, and people were giving up their seats on the bus for him. I'm genuinely curious about all of this, because even while I've worked with a number of different fields, I wouldn't say I've met any stars.
|
I never expected to be a star, but about halfway through my PhD program is when I realized that I was making myself sick with how stressed I was about everything and I decided to just chill out. Plus, my advisors did nothing but put obstacles in my way of doing the research I actually wanted and so... that sort of out a damper on my plans, too.
| 1 | 1,956 | 5.095238 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjat1q
|
fzjms10
| 1,595,959,517 | 1,595,965,258 | 67 | 94 |
When I heard how he was thinking about a grant idea when his wife was going through labor of their first born Also when I realized I’m significantly younger than him but I have less curiosity and sense of wonderment
|
I don't think being a star ever crossed my mind. It's pretty obvious that even if you are very smart and hard working, there's a lot of luck involved and the competition is fierce. I just wanted to do something meaningful with my life.
| 0 | 5,741 | 1.402985 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjfxpg
|
fzjms10
| 1,595,961,968 | 1,595,965,258 | 63 | 94 |
When I realized I didn't talk over other people to try to sound important in graduate seminars. I digested information thoughtfully, and then I would respond. The people who were invested in by the faculty were the ones who seemed to shout the loudest parroting what they said. They're not superstars either, btw. But I realized I wasn't being "invested" in. Still beat them all to tenure for those who survived.
|
I don't think being a star ever crossed my mind. It's pretty obvious that even if you are very smart and hard working, there's a lot of luck involved and the competition is fierce. I just wanted to do something meaningful with my life.
| 0 | 3,290 | 1.492063 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjlx1e
|
fzjms10
| 1,595,964,845 | 1,595,965,258 | 40 | 94 |
I question the premise of your question. No matter how high you rise, you will pretty much always find yourself in the company of peers. As a faculty member, I was more educated than most, more successful than most, paid better than most, and had more secure employment than most, and surrounded by others who were just like me. Was I a star? When I earned full professor and later got an endowed chair, I was still one of many. Was I a star then? As a Vice President, I find myself in exactly the same position. Am I a star now? I guess I think it’s all a matter of perspective, and at this point in my career I personally consider anyone who makes it through a PhD and goes on to an academic career to be a star. Few of us ever reach the height of glory that we perhaps imagined when we were younger, but that’s true of pretty much everyone everywhere and all of us have accomplished far more than most.
|
I don't think being a star ever crossed my mind. It's pretty obvious that even if you are very smart and hard working, there's a lot of luck involved and the competition is fierce. I just wanted to do something meaningful with my life.
| 0 | 413 | 2.35 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjly9h
|
fzjms10
| 1,595,964,861 | 1,595,965,258 | 24 | 94 |
Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I honestly never thought I'd be one. My parents are PhDs that didn't get tenure, much less become stars. I'm just trying to hold on and find a career I enjoy (either within or outside academia).
|
I don't think being a star ever crossed my mind. It's pretty obvious that even if you are very smart and hard working, there's a lot of luck involved and the competition is fierce. I just wanted to do something meaningful with my life.
| 0 | 397 | 3.916667 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjhecw
|
fzjms10
| 1,595,962,666 | 1,595,965,258 | 21 | 94 |
I never expected to be a star, but about halfway through my PhD program is when I realized that I was making myself sick with how stressed I was about everything and I decided to just chill out. Plus, my advisors did nothing but put obstacles in my way of doing the research I actually wanted and so... that sort of out a damper on my plans, too.
|
I don't think being a star ever crossed my mind. It's pretty obvious that even if you are very smart and hard working, there's a lot of luck involved and the competition is fierce. I just wanted to do something meaningful with my life.
| 0 | 2,592 | 4.47619 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjlx1e
|
fzjouzh
| 1,595,964,845 | 1,595,966,248 | 40 | 42 |
I question the premise of your question. No matter how high you rise, you will pretty much always find yourself in the company of peers. As a faculty member, I was more educated than most, more successful than most, paid better than most, and had more secure employment than most, and surrounded by others who were just like me. Was I a star? When I earned full professor and later got an endowed chair, I was still one of many. Was I a star then? As a Vice President, I find myself in exactly the same position. Am I a star now? I guess I think it’s all a matter of perspective, and at this point in my career I personally consider anyone who makes it through a PhD and goes on to an academic career to be a star. Few of us ever reach the height of glory that we perhaps imagined when we were younger, but that’s true of pretty much everyone everywhere and all of us have accomplished far more than most.
|
Haven’t given up yet! (Jk—I never really believed I would be a “star”) I think it’s kind of funny/interesting how many comments and upvotes attribute not being a star to a choice—not a personal limitation, as if they COULD have been a star, but are average only because they made a choice to be average. Seems delusional. I accept my mediocrity!
| 0 | 1,403 | 1.05 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjhecw
|
fzjlx1e
| 1,595,962,666 | 1,595,964,845 | 21 | 40 |
I never expected to be a star, but about halfway through my PhD program is when I realized that I was making myself sick with how stressed I was about everything and I decided to just chill out. Plus, my advisors did nothing but put obstacles in my way of doing the research I actually wanted and so... that sort of out a damper on my plans, too.
|
I question the premise of your question. No matter how high you rise, you will pretty much always find yourself in the company of peers. As a faculty member, I was more educated than most, more successful than most, paid better than most, and had more secure employment than most, and surrounded by others who were just like me. Was I a star? When I earned full professor and later got an endowed chair, I was still one of many. Was I a star then? As a Vice President, I find myself in exactly the same position. Am I a star now? I guess I think it’s all a matter of perspective, and at this point in my career I personally consider anyone who makes it through a PhD and goes on to an academic career to be a star. Few of us ever reach the height of glory that we perhaps imagined when we were younger, but that’s true of pretty much everyone everywhere and all of us have accomplished far more than most.
| 0 | 2,179 | 1.904762 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjly9h
|
fzjouzh
| 1,595,964,861 | 1,595,966,248 | 24 | 42 |
Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I honestly never thought I'd be one. My parents are PhDs that didn't get tenure, much less become stars. I'm just trying to hold on and find a career I enjoy (either within or outside academia).
|
Haven’t given up yet! (Jk—I never really believed I would be a “star”) I think it’s kind of funny/interesting how many comments and upvotes attribute not being a star to a choice—not a personal limitation, as if they COULD have been a star, but are average only because they made a choice to be average. Seems delusional. I accept my mediocrity!
| 0 | 1,387 | 1.75 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjhecw
|
fzjouzh
| 1,595,962,666 | 1,595,966,248 | 21 | 42 |
I never expected to be a star, but about halfway through my PhD program is when I realized that I was making myself sick with how stressed I was about everything and I decided to just chill out. Plus, my advisors did nothing but put obstacles in my way of doing the research I actually wanted and so... that sort of out a damper on my plans, too.
|
Haven’t given up yet! (Jk—I never really believed I would be a “star”) I think it’s kind of funny/interesting how many comments and upvotes attribute not being a star to a choice—not a personal limitation, as if they COULD have been a star, but are average only because they made a choice to be average. Seems delusional. I accept my mediocrity!
| 0 | 3,582 | 2 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjhecw
|
fzjly9h
| 1,595,962,666 | 1,595,964,861 | 21 | 24 |
I never expected to be a star, but about halfway through my PhD program is when I realized that I was making myself sick with how stressed I was about everything and I decided to just chill out. Plus, my advisors did nothing but put obstacles in my way of doing the research I actually wanted and so... that sort of out a damper on my plans, too.
|
Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I honestly never thought I'd be one. My parents are PhDs that didn't get tenure, much less become stars. I'm just trying to hold on and find a career I enjoy (either within or outside academia).
| 0 | 2,195 | 1.142857 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzk8d7y
|
fzjq36t
| 1,595,975,941 | 1,595,966,830 | 19 | 15 |
I was a superstar in high school and I was pretty solid in undergrad. I was the guy people went to for help. I had a lot of false modesty but my identity was pretty tied up in being smart. When I started graduate school, I went to lab meeting and heard the advanced grad students discussing really complex topics. I didn’t understand, and they would propose insightful ideas and I’d have no idea what was going on. And I said to myself, “This is imposter syndrome. As you gain experience you’ll understand.” Weeks turned into months, and then years. I read a lot. I listened a lot. And when someone was talking at lab meeting, other students - including those who came along after me - would ask questions that would go over my head. Inside my mind there was just this profound silence. No ideas. No insights. At best, a rudimentary understanding of the topic; enough for me to parrot back if quizzed, but nothing original. No new perspective. And it just... never came. I had risen high enough that I was now the dumbest guy in the room. Didn’t have the horsepower to do the job. So I had to learn other ways to think about my worth. Probably the best thing that could have happened to me, in retrospect.
|
I always find the "academic star" thing odd. Compare to "stars" in other areas - pop music, films - and they are usually fashionable but often critically panned. Those we see as "academic stars" are usually a combination of privilege, nepotism, marketing, work-life balance sacrifice, as well as research excellence.
| 1 | 9,111 | 1.266667 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzk8d7y
|
fzjx7wx
| 1,595,975,941 | 1,595,970,286 | 19 | 16 |
I was a superstar in high school and I was pretty solid in undergrad. I was the guy people went to for help. I had a lot of false modesty but my identity was pretty tied up in being smart. When I started graduate school, I went to lab meeting and heard the advanced grad students discussing really complex topics. I didn’t understand, and they would propose insightful ideas and I’d have no idea what was going on. And I said to myself, “This is imposter syndrome. As you gain experience you’ll understand.” Weeks turned into months, and then years. I read a lot. I listened a lot. And when someone was talking at lab meeting, other students - including those who came along after me - would ask questions that would go over my head. Inside my mind there was just this profound silence. No ideas. No insights. At best, a rudimentary understanding of the topic; enough for me to parrot back if quizzed, but nothing original. No new perspective. And it just... never came. I had risen high enough that I was now the dumbest guy in the room. Didn’t have the horsepower to do the job. So I had to learn other ways to think about my worth. Probably the best thing that could have happened to me, in retrospect.
|
My (at the time) wife and I were each getting double PhDs. She had extreme health issues that nearly killed her and that(plus other factors) took its toll on our relationship. I took care of her while working non-stop. I racked up 5-6 publications, 30+ awards, multiple grants, and realized I was terribly unhappy and no one - neither advisors, nor my family cared. My partner resented my successes. I’m first generation. While doing fieldwork in a major US city, I realized I cared about teaching more than publishing articles that virtually no one would read and would thus have no impact on daily life and culture. Teaching seemed more important. My now ex-wife loved and desired academic acclaim more than me (which is fine, just not what I wanted). After 7 years of wasted life and suicidal moments, I divorced her and dedicated myself to teaching, media content production, digital/creative pedagogy (particularly helpful in the middle of COVID), and just being a person. I’m much happier now. I’m a TT assistant professor, in a good relationship of which I’m proud, and I am steadily covering my body in tattoos.
| 1 | 5,655 | 1.1875 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzk6ax8
|
fzk8d7y
| 1,595,974,876 | 1,595,975,941 | 15 | 19 |
There’s a lot of ego-protecting assertions in here that one must make a choice between one’s outside life and being a star in their field. That’s not the case. At all. It’s just easier to tell oneself when one isn’t a star. I know plenty of stars in my fields that have a fantastic work-life balance. Edit: Omg. I didn’t realize how pervasive it was. The vast majority of the answers are “I could’ve been a star, but I wanted a home life.” While I’m sure that’s true for some, it certainly isn’t true for most.
|
I was a superstar in high school and I was pretty solid in undergrad. I was the guy people went to for help. I had a lot of false modesty but my identity was pretty tied up in being smart. When I started graduate school, I went to lab meeting and heard the advanced grad students discussing really complex topics. I didn’t understand, and they would propose insightful ideas and I’d have no idea what was going on. And I said to myself, “This is imposter syndrome. As you gain experience you’ll understand.” Weeks turned into months, and then years. I read a lot. I listened a lot. And when someone was talking at lab meeting, other students - including those who came along after me - would ask questions that would go over my head. Inside my mind there was just this profound silence. No ideas. No insights. At best, a rudimentary understanding of the topic; enough for me to parrot back if quizzed, but nothing original. No new perspective. And it just... never came. I had risen high enough that I was now the dumbest guy in the room. Didn’t have the horsepower to do the job. So I had to learn other ways to think about my worth. Probably the best thing that could have happened to me, in retrospect.
| 0 | 1,065 | 1.266667 | ||
hzi3x1
|
askacademia_train
| 0.99 |
For us average people in academia: When in your academic career did you realize that you weren't going to be a star and what prompted it? Now, if you are a star in your field or are on track to be one, congratulations! But this question isn't for you. I've spent my entire academic career at "highly-ranked" R1s, which means that I'm around a lot of people from undergrad students through early professors who have the expectation that they're going to be the stars of their field, and the environment promotes that. This is especially true at the university where I am currently. Most people, even from big-name R1s, do not end up being stars in their field. That's not a bad thing at all and is not even necessarily their fault - it's largely the nature of how reputations in academia are developed. I've also noticed that some are able to adjust to that change in expectation of themselves very easily, while others have a really hard time letting that go. I'm just curious for all of us non-stars, when in your career did you start to recognize that you weren't going to be a star in your field? What prompted you to realize that and what did you do to adjust your frame of mind to be content with it? I'm just interested in what others' experiences are and am not looking for advice or anything - I'm well past the point of being okay with not being on a path to be a big name in my field and am content with where I am (as long as I don't run out of funding!).
|
fzjq36t
|
fzjx7wx
| 1,595,966,830 | 1,595,970,286 | 15 | 16 |
I always find the "academic star" thing odd. Compare to "stars" in other areas - pop music, films - and they are usually fashionable but often critically panned. Those we see as "academic stars" are usually a combination of privilege, nepotism, marketing, work-life balance sacrifice, as well as research excellence.
|
My (at the time) wife and I were each getting double PhDs. She had extreme health issues that nearly killed her and that(plus other factors) took its toll on our relationship. I took care of her while working non-stop. I racked up 5-6 publications, 30+ awards, multiple grants, and realized I was terribly unhappy and no one - neither advisors, nor my family cared. My partner resented my successes. I’m first generation. While doing fieldwork in a major US city, I realized I cared about teaching more than publishing articles that virtually no one would read and would thus have no impact on daily life and culture. Teaching seemed more important. My now ex-wife loved and desired academic acclaim more than me (which is fine, just not what I wanted). After 7 years of wasted life and suicidal moments, I divorced her and dedicated myself to teaching, media content production, digital/creative pedagogy (particularly helpful in the middle of COVID), and just being a person. I’m much happier now. I’m a TT assistant professor, in a good relationship of which I’m proud, and I am steadily covering my body in tattoos.
| 0 | 3,456 | 1.066667 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2ix3bn
|
h2j6mgk
| 1,624,273,923 | 1,624,280,685 | 26 | 34 |
Yeah, sounds like you got a case of overburdening. It's kind of an occupational hazard, but can be a problem nonetheless. I'd recommend that you write a template declination email (e.g. for seminars) stating that you need to make time for work on your own project and thus won't be able to attend this time. Send this to the seminar/JC organizers for the ones where you're not actually presenting yourself (which I assume will be the majority). Do this for a week or two, and see whether anyone is bothered by your absence. Chances are it's going to be fine.
|
Cut the meeting times in half, move others to email or slide updates and meeting every other week, have a conversation with your PI about overburdening, and start blocking time on your calendar for your priorities.
| 0 | 6,762 | 1.307692 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2j6mgk
|
h2j5nte
| 1,624,280,685 | 1,624,280,099 | 34 | 21 |
Cut the meeting times in half, move others to email or slide updates and meeting every other week, have a conversation with your PI about overburdening, and start blocking time on your calendar for your priorities.
|
Solution: You need to start saying no to a lot of things.
| 1 | 586 | 1.619048 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2j6mgk
|
h2j4ra1
| 1,624,280,685 | 1,624,279,528 | 34 | 15 |
Cut the meeting times in half, move others to email or slide updates and meeting every other week, have a conversation with your PI about overburdening, and start blocking time on your calendar for your priorities.
|
I only read the title. ABSOLUTELY NO is the answer... Meetings are a plague on productivity... edit: typo
| 1 | 1,157 | 2.266667 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2ixd7g
|
h2j6mgk
| 1,624,274,159 | 1,624,280,685 | 3 | 34 |
No. :)
|
Cut the meeting times in half, move others to email or slide updates and meeting every other week, have a conversation with your PI about overburdening, and start blocking time on your calendar for your priorities.
| 0 | 6,526 | 11.333333 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2jd1jg
|
h2j5nte
| 1,624,284,112 | 1,624,280,099 | 22 | 21 |
Also how could you possibly mentor 15 students well? This sounds like a bad situation for everyone involved.
|
Solution: You need to start saying no to a lot of things.
| 1 | 4,013 | 1.047619 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2j4ra1
|
h2jd1jg
| 1,624,279,528 | 1,624,284,112 | 15 | 22 |
I only read the title. ABSOLUTELY NO is the answer... Meetings are a plague on productivity... edit: typo
|
Also how could you possibly mentor 15 students well? This sounds like a bad situation for everyone involved.
| 0 | 4,584 | 1.466667 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2ixd7g
|
h2jd1jg
| 1,624,274,159 | 1,624,284,112 | 3 | 22 |
No. :)
|
Also how could you possibly mentor 15 students well? This sounds like a bad situation for everyone involved.
| 0 | 9,953 | 7.333333 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2j5nte
|
h2j4ra1
| 1,624,280,099 | 1,624,279,528 | 21 | 15 |
Solution: You need to start saying no to a lot of things.
|
I only read the title. ABSOLUTELY NO is the answer... Meetings are a plague on productivity... edit: typo
| 1 | 571 | 1.4 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2j5nte
|
h2ixd7g
| 1,624,280,099 | 1,624,274,159 | 21 | 3 |
Solution: You need to start saying no to a lot of things.
|
No. :)
| 1 | 5,940 | 7 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2ixd7g
|
h2j4ra1
| 1,624,274,159 | 1,624,279,528 | 3 | 15 |
No. :)
|
I only read the title. ABSOLUTELY NO is the answer... Meetings are a plague on productivity... edit: typo
| 0 | 5,369 | 5 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2jjs7p
|
h2ixd7g
| 1,624,287,430 | 1,624,274,159 | 5 | 3 |
Are the meetings useful? Can you ask your students to send you written weekly updates/slides instead and then just spend 15min reviewing it and emailing back? That gives them practice writing and a nice record of their work as well. Then make like a shared office hour time for if they wanted to discuss the email in person? Zoom lets you setup waiting rooms that work really well for that. Also discord/slack lets you type chat in real time but also lets you decide to wait to respond, that may be better than zoom as you could multitask several students at same time. I had a super easily distracted student once and we ended up maintaining a kanban board that she updated and I helped her rank items on, my supervisor liked it so much he made one for a larger project I was on with him. It worked well for seeing yes they are progressing or no they've gone off into the wilderness. Also helped with the invisible tasks A is less important than B, but C is still yet more important but cannot be done until A is done.
|
No. :)
| 1 | 13,271 | 1.666667 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2jjs7p
|
h2jetno
| 1,624,287,430 | 1,624,284,999 | 5 | 4 |
Are the meetings useful? Can you ask your students to send you written weekly updates/slides instead and then just spend 15min reviewing it and emailing back? That gives them practice writing and a nice record of their work as well. Then make like a shared office hour time for if they wanted to discuss the email in person? Zoom lets you setup waiting rooms that work really well for that. Also discord/slack lets you type chat in real time but also lets you decide to wait to respond, that may be better than zoom as you could multitask several students at same time. I had a super easily distracted student once and we ended up maintaining a kanban board that she updated and I helped her rank items on, my supervisor liked it so much he made one for a larger project I was on with him. It worked well for seeing yes they are progressing or no they've gone off into the wilderness. Also helped with the invisible tasks A is less important than B, but C is still yet more important but cannot be done until A is done.
|
I’m going to go ahead and say yes. You are expected to get more done. As you’ve mentioned, you’ve voluntarily accepted 15 different student. That means that you are responsible for finding bandwidth to give adequate support for your own projects and for all of those 15 projects. If you’re finding it difficult to balance everything then that’s not fair to yourself or your collaborators. You don’t want to be that supervisor that can’t reasonably supervise because you took on too much.
| 1 | 2,431 | 1.25 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2kvqeb
|
h2lllrq
| 1,624,309,060 | 1,624,322,264 | 4 | 5 |
Learning to say no is difficult but necessary. You need to look after your own work (research and write) primarily, and I’m writing this more for my own benefit really!
|
Gonna give you some real talk. Having meetings is easy. Leading your own projects is hard. Save the mentoring for when you land the TT position.
| 0 | 13,204 | 1.25 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2kvqeb
|
h2ixd7g
| 1,624,309,060 | 1,624,274,159 | 4 | 3 |
Learning to say no is difficult but necessary. You need to look after your own work (research and write) primarily, and I’m writing this more for my own benefit really!
|
No. :)
| 1 | 34,901 | 1.333333 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2kvqeb
|
h2k46dw
| 1,624,309,060 | 1,624,296,593 | 4 | 3 |
Learning to say no is difficult but necessary. You need to look after your own work (research and write) primarily, and I’m writing this more for my own benefit really!
|
You are spreading yourself thin. Drop some of those projects.
| 1 | 12,467 | 1.333333 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2lllrq
|
h2ixd7g
| 1,624,322,264 | 1,624,274,159 | 5 | 3 |
Gonna give you some real talk. Having meetings is easy. Leading your own projects is hard. Save the mentoring for when you land the TT position.
|
No. :)
| 1 | 48,105 | 1.666667 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2jetno
|
h2lllrq
| 1,624,284,999 | 1,624,322,264 | 4 | 5 |
I’m going to go ahead and say yes. You are expected to get more done. As you’ve mentioned, you’ve voluntarily accepted 15 different student. That means that you are responsible for finding bandwidth to give adequate support for your own projects and for all of those 15 projects. If you’re finding it difficult to balance everything then that’s not fair to yourself or your collaborators. You don’t want to be that supervisor that can’t reasonably supervise because you took on too much.
|
Gonna give you some real talk. Having meetings is easy. Leading your own projects is hard. Save the mentoring for when you land the TT position.
| 0 | 37,265 | 1.25 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2lllrq
|
h2k46dw
| 1,624,322,264 | 1,624,296,593 | 5 | 3 |
Gonna give you some real talk. Having meetings is easy. Leading your own projects is hard. Save the mentoring for when you land the TT position.
|
You are spreading yourself thin. Drop some of those projects.
| 1 | 25,671 | 1.666667 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2lllrq
|
h2livnx
| 1,624,322,264 | 1,624,320,794 | 5 | 1 |
Gonna give you some real talk. Having meetings is easy. Leading your own projects is hard. Save the mentoring for when you land the TT position.
|
15 students, 15 different projects. Not possible.
| 1 | 1,470 | 5 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2jetno
|
h2ixd7g
| 1,624,284,999 | 1,624,274,159 | 4 | 3 |
I’m going to go ahead and say yes. You are expected to get more done. As you’ve mentioned, you’ve voluntarily accepted 15 different student. That means that you are responsible for finding bandwidth to give adequate support for your own projects and for all of those 15 projects. If you’re finding it difficult to balance everything then that’s not fair to yourself or your collaborators. You don’t want to be that supervisor that can’t reasonably supervise because you took on too much.
|
No. :)
| 1 | 10,840 | 1.333333 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2livnx
|
h2ltd90
| 1,624,320,794 | 1,624,326,503 | 1 | 2 |
15 students, 15 different projects. Not possible.
|
Right now I'm in a meeting that must be held because it must be held. They have been talking nonsense for 3 hours now.
| 0 | 5,709 | 2 | ||
o4s2eo
|
askacademia_train
| 0.97 |
If I have 6 hours of Zoom meetings everyday, can I really be expected to get anything else done? Postdoc in STEM completely overburdened with meetings at the moment. I'm (co-)supervising 15 student projects, spanning the bachelor to PhD level with students in 4 different countries, on top of which I have all of my normal collaborations that I should make progress on. On top of that, there's seminars and journal clubs everyday. It's just impossible to get anything done at the moment! /rant
|
h2lt96u
|
h2ltd90
| 1,624,326,441 | 1,624,326,503 | 1 | 2 |
I would say, "No," unless there is some sort of downtime between meeting. By about the 4th hour I'd be in the bourbon. I don't know; sounds like a lot.
|
Right now I'm in a meeting that must be held because it must be held. They have been talking nonsense for 3 hours now.
| 0 | 62 | 2 | ||
awnegi
|
askacademia_train
| 0.96 |
Can we talk about how strictly “STEM” doesn’t really mean job security or good pay anymore? And the illusion is misleading students. STEM = Science Technology Engineering Math I will absolutely agree that: (1) Engineering and Technology, (2) Health Care (sub sector of “Science”) and (3) Statistics/Data Science (subsector of“Math”..?) are in high demand and are usually well paid. Going into any of these specific fields directly is healthy. HOWEVER basic scientists like biologists and chemists are not paid all that great and are certainly not in demand. It’s not quite as bad as being a Art History major but I see many similarities on these Reddit threads between science grad students and humanities grad students. It’s not unusual for grads with M.S. in life sciences to apply for many jobs with hopes of making just $45-50k. Meanwhile their business and engineering counterparts start out at $80k with a just B.S. Ok. So what? Why is this a problem? Well because many naive students believe their hard work, years of late night studying, 45 page thesis, lab work, etc. in life sciences will translate to a good paying job easily. I mean it is “STEM” right? But that’s just not the case. It’s a problem because budding science undergrads should be warned with a flashing red light that if they don’t go into health care directly, their degree will require several more years of study for a job that will probably be underpaid. (Steps off of soap box...)
|
ehnsp36
|
ehnvjp5
| 1,551,568,199 | 1,551,570,533 | 19 | 96 |
In bio lots of people go for funded phds, so the job market tends to place a ceiling on career growth for people with just a B.S. or even an M.S. Bio is a hot market if you are going the computational or molecular route, but I bet doing field work is pretty rough right now.
|
In general, the 'science' portion of STEM has always been incorrect - at least with regards to bachelor's degrees. While Physicists could get away with pretending they were mathematicians with a peculiar obsession with tensors, Biologists and Chemists weren't so lucky.
| 0 | 2,334 | 5.052632 | ||
awnegi
|
askacademia_train
| 0.96 |
Can we talk about how strictly “STEM” doesn’t really mean job security or good pay anymore? And the illusion is misleading students. STEM = Science Technology Engineering Math I will absolutely agree that: (1) Engineering and Technology, (2) Health Care (sub sector of “Science”) and (3) Statistics/Data Science (subsector of“Math”..?) are in high demand and are usually well paid. Going into any of these specific fields directly is healthy. HOWEVER basic scientists like biologists and chemists are not paid all that great and are certainly not in demand. It’s not quite as bad as being a Art History major but I see many similarities on these Reddit threads between science grad students and humanities grad students. It’s not unusual for grads with M.S. in life sciences to apply for many jobs with hopes of making just $45-50k. Meanwhile their business and engineering counterparts start out at $80k with a just B.S. Ok. So what? Why is this a problem? Well because many naive students believe their hard work, years of late night studying, 45 page thesis, lab work, etc. in life sciences will translate to a good paying job easily. I mean it is “STEM” right? But that’s just not the case. It’s a problem because budding science undergrads should be warned with a flashing red light that if they don’t go into health care directly, their degree will require several more years of study for a job that will probably be underpaid. (Steps off of soap box...)
|
ehnrdni
|
ehnvjp5
| 1,551,567,159 | 1,551,570,533 | 7 | 96 |
I’m not sure I’d agree with you, at least for chemistry. Graduates from my institution who want to start out with a BS in chemistry can easily get an entry-level job making $65k a year, with the ability to move up in salary pretty quickly. We’ve got no problem placing our majors.
|
In general, the 'science' portion of STEM has always been incorrect - at least with regards to bachelor's degrees. While Physicists could get away with pretending they were mathematicians with a peculiar obsession with tensors, Biologists and Chemists weren't so lucky.
| 0 | 3,374 | 13.714286 | ||
awnegi
|
askacademia_train
| 0.96 |
Can we talk about how strictly “STEM” doesn’t really mean job security or good pay anymore? And the illusion is misleading students. STEM = Science Technology Engineering Math I will absolutely agree that: (1) Engineering and Technology, (2) Health Care (sub sector of “Science”) and (3) Statistics/Data Science (subsector of“Math”..?) are in high demand and are usually well paid. Going into any of these specific fields directly is healthy. HOWEVER basic scientists like biologists and chemists are not paid all that great and are certainly not in demand. It’s not quite as bad as being a Art History major but I see many similarities on these Reddit threads between science grad students and humanities grad students. It’s not unusual for grads with M.S. in life sciences to apply for many jobs with hopes of making just $45-50k. Meanwhile their business and engineering counterparts start out at $80k with a just B.S. Ok. So what? Why is this a problem? Well because many naive students believe their hard work, years of late night studying, 45 page thesis, lab work, etc. in life sciences will translate to a good paying job easily. I mean it is “STEM” right? But that’s just not the case. It’s a problem because budding science undergrads should be warned with a flashing red light that if they don’t go into health care directly, their degree will require several more years of study for a job that will probably be underpaid. (Steps off of soap box...)
|
eho6n5g
|
ehoeeg1
| 1,551,579,662 | 1,551,586,055 | 52 | 58 |
*laughs in philosphy and classics double major because i never had your illusions of wealth*
|
Interesting fact: many humanities majors do far better at mid-career than do common STEM majors. For example, this study places philosophy majors well above chemistry, biology, biochem, and geology for mid-career earnings. While the top-earning degrees are indeed mostly in STEM, all of them are applied degrees-- engineering, computer science, petrochemical engineering, and the like -- or math fields like statistics that have broad application in areas like finance. Traditional science fields like biology not only pay less than some common humanities fields at mid-career, but placement rates for advanced degrees in biology are actually \*worse\* than fields like history for academic careers. STEM is hardly the golden ticket the media like to pretend it is, and if money is the motivator than a very large number of STEM students are actually in the wrong fields entirely.
| 0 | 6,393 | 1.115385 |
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