Assuming I could, which isn't a given, should I switch jobs?

I'm in my 13th year at my institution. My most measures, they are good to me. I teach the same 2/2 course package. My salary is fair and lets us travel, save for retirement, etc. I like my research and I like my students.

I do NOT have any friends on the faculty. I'm friendly enough with folks but I'm an outlier here for a variety of reasons. Imagine I'm a Muslim at a Catholic college. Or a white woman at an HBCU, that sort of thing. The mission matters to me but not like it does for some others and this shows up in various ways.

For example, we're in the process of hiring new folks and after watching a candidate give their spiel "briefly" summarize their research for 15 minutes of a 25 minute interview, I thought, "well, this person cannot concisely summarize complicated ideas into digestible chunks for students. Hard pass because they'd be a bad teacher." My colleagues said, "they're so enthusiastic!". Not said, IMO, is that the real truth is that they're well liked because they love Jesus! and we should hire them for our christian college, etc.

Anyway, I've begun to feel more constrained in my oddness here. Just that I don't belong.

But we're comfortable. We have a community, our children have friends, we have friends, we aren't too far from family, we're in a major city, etc. So while I could be much happier in my job if I went someplace where I was not such a minority or I was better aligned with my colleagues otherwise, it would come at a substantial personal/family cost. At a minimum, there would be major transition costs. And some of those could be more longstanding. Maybe our well-adjusted teen would become surly without his friends, etc.

Thoughts?

TL;DR - Lateral move being considered for a better professional fit but worried about personal/family costs to uproot. stay or go?

Hello!
I’m a third year student and I really admire one of the TAs in my class (PhD student). We share some research interests, and have chatted about them. She is really the only TA i’ve connected with. Would it be out of place/inappropriate to gift her one of those minute plastic ducks you see online, in exchange for her help at office hours?I am not trying to get better grades, this is meant for branching into mentor relationship
Thanks

Context:

I’m trying to make a system for studying, researching, uni work basically. I have a windows laptop, an ipad and an android phone. I’m trying to use Obsidian as my working place and my source of truth, with a plugin i create flashcards directly in obsidian notes and import them into Anki. Since i’m studying math and computer science i try to write while reviewing my flashcards, on my ipad. On ipad, besides reviewing flashcards i take math notes, i do homework, i do exercises, so, i’m using OneNote to have quick access on my laptop to what i write by hand. On my laptop i take quick snips to ask LLMs questions when i get stuck or to have them review my work for mistakes. I tried to picture the workflow i’m trying to achieve.

The problem is:

I want to have easy access to my obsidian notes on my ipad. Now, naturally the first though might be obsidian sync or other similar service, but, i keep in obsidian also textbooks, as i said, i’m trying to keep obsidian as the source of truth, and making notes and referencing them directly to the pdfs in obsidian is very useful. Now, textbooks and other pdfs start eating up storage, there is a 10gb version of obsidian sync, but i’m still gonna ask if that’s the proper approach, it will probably be enough i think?

But, if there is a free alternative i would appreciate it since i’m a student. And if my way of using obsidian as a reference manager is wrong and it will make my life hard in the future i appreciate someone bringing it out. Any feedback and suggestions to my workflow or anything else are welcome.

When on job application a sample syllabus is required, should it be a syllabus that I used on the previous job or should it be a new syllabus?

I know there are lots of pitfalls in this career path but I’m not alone in this, right? I got to spend a whole day reading interesting papers, playing with data, having conversations with really smart excited people (my students) about cool questions. And I got paid to do it. Admin sucks, but honestly I feel so lucky most days that I get to do this job.

I know we complain about but does anyone else feel this way?

I am 38 years old and circumstances in life led me into a career which I don’t like, nor do loathe. My true passion in life has been in culture and language studies. My undergraduate degree was in a subject for which I was very passionate as a child and I did well. My work life, however, didn’t line up well with my academic interests. I returned to college two years ago undertaking a postgraduate higher diploma (note: I’m not sure if this is a common thing in the US) and passed with a 1:1. This has now opened up opportunities for me to undertake a masters; I started a few months ago part time. It will take me 2 years to achieve this masters. I’m seriously considering continuing and undertaking a PhD after the masters. What I learn, research and produce brings me enjoyment of the highest order: it invigorates me; it engages me; it fulfils me, I suppose.

The reality of life, however, is a the need to work which would see any PhD, taken on a part time basis, taking 5-6 years. This would see me as a 45/46 year old by the time it would be over. As such, my questions are:

Is my age a hindrance in my ambitions to pursue (professional) academia?

Does anyone have any similar experiences. If so, any information (good or bad) would be welcomed.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the topic to share?

If I were to start now to get ahead, what would that be? Researching and trying to get published?

PS: I haven’t revealed much about area of study as it is quite niche and I’m conscious of trying to retain some form of anonymity. If it matters, I’m in Ireland.

Thanks all.

Fill in the blank. I have a feeling this is going to get dark.

How do you go about publishing a book with chapters based on presentations from a small conference? I've been to one such conference many years ago. There were 20-30 conference presentations that half the researchers ended up turning into a chapter for a book.

I'm working with a new team and there's a lot of research and practice under their belts (many articles, too). We've been collectively working on a journal article to summarize the collaborative work and outcomes that have happened over the last decade. Different than the specific research, the article is zooming out a bit to show how the collaborative, interdisciplinary nature of the work led to programs and policy change. Now that we're writing, I realize that some of the sections could be expanded into entire chapters. I've mentioned this to the group, have gotten interest, but no one seems to know how to go about it... I like the idea of holding a small conference so that we can come together, share the big points, and then turn that into a book that can help people other countries doing similar research and practice, but how?

I moved to industry about a year ago, but I still occasionally visit my former lab and help with projects I worked on during my postdoc.

For one project, I spent two years preparing data, training models, developing the original pipeline, conducting statistical analyses, and preparing the manuscript and figures. I was the first author on the previous submission.

The team is now preparing a new submission, and I’m being removed from author list.

I’ve experienced a similar authorship issue in this lab and previous lab, I’ve followed up to confirm that I’ll remain first author and asked to review the manuscript before submission.

What frustrates me is feeling that, even after leaving academia, I still have to stay vigilant to make sure years of work are properly credited.

I’m happy to help bring the research to publication, but having to defend my contributions is exhausting.

Experiences like this make it hard not to become deeply cynical about academia. I left a year ago, yet this part of it still follows me.

Has anyone dealt with authorship disputes after moving to other institute/industry? If discussions with the PIs failed, what actually helped?

I am really sad about the current situation of peer review in the new world dominated by LLMs.

Two months ago, we received a Major Decision based on four reviews for a paper submitted to one of the most prestigious journals in a specific sector where I work. One of the reviews has 2 comments that are related to things not pertaining our manuscript (e.g., it says the related work should discuss better the topic X, but our paper deals with topic Y, and it says the computational complexity section must be improved, but our paper did not have any). All other comments were generic, such as rewriting introduction, rewriting future work etc. As it was not the most critical review among the four ones, we tried to address all his comments except those 2-3, explaining why we couldn't. And soon we will resubmit the revision.

A few days ago, things repeated, but from the most prestigious journal in the same sector. We received a Reject and Resubmit decision for another paper.The only critical review had 34 comments, and almost half of them mention aspects related to machine learning (over fitting, cross validation, etc.)... but our paper does not have anything about machine learning or artificial intelligence!!

And unfortunately again the other half of the comments are super genetic, so applicable to any paper....

On the one hand, I am sad that this happened to the paper that I believed to be my best of the last 3-4 years. The other two reviewers were also positive and gave overall 7 useful comments that I would like to implement.

On the other hand, as this is the second time that this thing has occurred, I am worried that there is a trend of accepting many reviews and doing them with LLM, perhaps giving the LLM the wrong paper to review. Be aware, I am not against LLM a priori. It is a new tool, and it is indeed improving many things. But it cannot be used in such way... One spends so much time, just to get not related LLM-based reviews...

I hope to be among the few in this situation, because otherwise it is sad.

Let's see how low we all fall and what precious treasures we sacrificed to planning gods to avoid those Saturday morning classes.

If you have already finished your dissertation, what have you learned that would you like to have had known beforehand? I am about to start writing it up and would love to hear your experiences. Thanks <3

I’m applying to several jobs and just the sheer volume of stuff I have to get together for these files is taking a huge toll on my mental health.

I have three applications that are due, two of which I’m not worried about but the third asks for a writing sample and I would just like a little more time to edit it.

On the ad, it says “Review of applications will begin October 15 and will continue until the position is filled” … do you think it would be OK to submit on the 15th?

Thank you so much!

Im a graduate student on a grant with two Co-Pis, both in the same department. Another graduate student in the other lab worked on sampling in the field and processing data. Their Pi has become a bit problematic over the last year or so and its gotten to the point where he's withholding data and not sharing with the entire group. The plan was for me to use this data for some analyses that im working on. I feel that its unethical for him to do this. Is there any steps i can do to potentially get access to the data?

I am interested in staying in academia but my advisor tells me that I need to get used to having very intense conversations with people. I recently had one over a dispute with a fellow lab member and it went south quickly. I am passionate about science and research and want to stay in academia but I just wonder if my personality is cut out for it.

I'm 22 and in the second year of a Master's in Applied Linguistics/TESOL in Morocco. I'm very introverted, and I need advice because I feel completely lost.

Where I am now:

I chose English because I genuinely love it, and the only place I could study it was the higher school of education and training. I didn't want to go straight into teaching because the teaching situation in Morocco is awful. Now I've lost my energy and don't want to do anything. I cry almost every day, sometimes in class or in public, and I try hard to hold the tears back. My personality is weak. I barely participate in class anymore. In the first semester I did, rarely, but now (3rd semester) I just don't want to.

The people around me:

Some classmates have hurt me, and others have mocked or accused me of things in public or talk behind my back. Then they come talk to me normally and I talk back as if nothing happened, and I wonder if I'm doing something bad to myself by doing that. My relationship with some of my classmates isn't good, and the environment doesn't make me feel good (some people are really toxic in a way that I didn't expect; they look old enough to have functioning brains but they're so toxic). I'm also very selective: I observe people, and if I notice bad behavior I avoid them. I wonder if I'm just avoidant. I have no one to talk to about this. I've tried, but the people around me don't get it.

Stress:

I'm not lazy, but stress has really damaged me mentally and physically. I've lost a lot of weight in very short periods. I don't want to put myself through that anymore, especially when many professors told us they were assigned their modules very late and nobody seems to care. They send us assignments the night before. The whole system feels like it doesn't care, from the faculty window staff to the banks saying "the system is down." In Morocco you need a whole day or more for paperwork that should take minutes.

The meaning question:

Sometimes I think: I was born, I have to grind to get a good career, earn a lot, live well, and then die. That doesn't excite me. There are times I've wished I was never born (even now). I'm not saying this to be dramatic, it's just how heavy it feels.

My options:

1. Quit the Master's. But I've already spent a year of a two-year program.

2. Finish it, then teach in a Moroccan higher institution (if the Master's allows that) or elsewhere for a few years to build my CV, then apply to teach in Japan. I like Japan from videos: I've heard pay is low, but life is peaceful, people mind their own business, and many seem introverted and shy like me. I know every country has a dark side, and I'm scared to move, but I'd adapt (it's not like I'll have another option).

3. Do a PhD. I don't think my level is good enough.

4. Earn enough online, maybe with a skill that doesn't need a degree, and live peacefully in a better country. I don't need perfection, just mostly stress-free, comfortable in my body and mind, with Wi-Fi, exercise, and things I enjoy.

I've also heard many people argue that introverts aren't suited to teaching because it requires so much socializing, and their arguments made sense to me. Now I'm questioning the whole path.

My questions:

1. How did you know whether a PhD was right or wrong for you?

2. Is a PhD realistic for someone introverted who is very sensitive to stress?

3. Is teaching an option for introverts, or am I fooling myself?

4. Is a Master's plus a few years of teaching enough to get a teaching job in Japan or elsewhere?

5. Is it worth finishing the Master's after one year, or should I leave?

Honest advice is welcome. Thank you for reading this far.

I am a lecturer. My work contains doing research、teaching、guiding students、attending meeting and administrative affairs. My research is often interrupted for a few days due to other urgent matters. So, how to keep researching admist my busy work?

Hey all! I’m a recently graduated MA student in writing and rhetoric. I plan still to expand into a PhD here in a couple/few years but just feel like I’ve been really in my head about something and want to hear from your experiences and thoughts!

As I’m currently between programs and working as faculty at a community college, I’m spending a lot of time thinking of publications, research, and really who I want to be as an academic. I’ve been thinking about what conversations I want to be part of, what traditions I want to speak into, and who I want to be in these conversations. But it also feels SO restrictive. I think I’ve just always struggled already throughout the BA and the MA as professors always ask “what do you want this to DO? Who do you want to help with this work?” And I don’t really have an answer. My thesis was on environmental communication in the IPCC, but i don’t know if I just want to be an environmental policy guy. My research interests are deeply theoretical, and I spend most of my time just thinking of cool things through feminist, posthuman, and queer lenses.

I also am deeply invested in STS and science communication (I often say I studied English to study science). I of course am interested in eco/environmental analysis. I also adore biology and worked as a RA for a microbiologist in my MA doing metaphoric analysis for the PI. I love genre, citation, and pedagogy which draws me to composition studies. I read a lot of science communication physics books, and am especially interested in quantum mechanics and astrophysics. I love food science and want to get more into it academically. I also would, at my heart, just call myself a theorist (or theoretician more accurately, as I just want to consume all theory I can haha!). As I look to PhD programs, I just find it impossible to really know what programs to look at or how to find professors cause so many programs do AWESOME work, but inevitably feel like I am pigeon holing myself by applying as an environmental studies person or an STS person, or a composition. I just want to study theory and apply it to whatever thing I want to on that day 😭😂

I guess lastly too, I’m scared of always being an “outsider.” I love physics, but I can’t keep up with a real astrophysicist. My partner’s an environmental scientist, and I understand a lot but it also reveals how little I really know about other fields. How do people not only balance their interests but balance the fact that, as a theorist/humanities approach, I’ll never fully be in those scientific convos?

I guess all this to say, how did you all really find your “branch?” How do you ignore the call of everything that fascinates you in service of trying to find a disciplinary home? what was your experience in that “finding your home?” How can you balance just wanting to do interesting conceptual work while also finding an “industry” or place to DO something with that work?

Had some very interesting conversations with colleagues...

I’ve recently accepted a tenure-track position in engineering at a university in Australia, starting next year.
For those who have gone through this transition, what advice would you give someone starting their first faculty position? Particularly interested in what I should be doing before starting, what to prioritize in my first year, and any mistakes to avoid.
Thanks in advance!

I do engineering modeling. My work consists of math, coding and writing papers. That’s about it. Of course I have to adjust my methods and innovate as I approach new problems.

The thing is, AI can now do all of this for me. And better than I would ever do. I can just give it the context and prompt and speak out of we should approach and then the AI does it all.

I feel burnt out even though I’m not doing anything. I used to spend months on working and debugging problems. That was the part that I found joy in most.

But now there is nothing.

I thought AI would make my job much easier. I thought it would give me more time to do my hobbies. Instead, I have no motivation to do research anymore and I can’t find the joy.

Hi everyone,

I submitted a paper to an IEEE conference with five authors, and it got accepted. We have also paid the registration fee.

Later, I noticed that the conference website specifies a maximum of four authors per paper. I unfortunately missed this restriction during the initial submission.

Could this cause problems with the camera-ready submission or publication in IEEE Xplore, even though the paper was already accepted?

Has anyone faced a similar situation? What did you do, and how was it resolved?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Okay, this is a pretty wild question and purely hypothetical, but I’m genuinely curious if anyone here has ever tried using drugs or other substances to overcome perfectionism when working or writing? If so, what did you take, and what was your experience like?

Also, what other unhinged tips or tricks do you have for dealing with intense self-criticism, mental blocks, or feeling inhibited before you’ve even started working?

I'm a high school senior, and I'm honestly really frustrated with how this whole situation has played out.

Back in March, I connected with a PI at a major research institution who was interested in having me work in his lab. He mentioned having a project in mind, and we even had a Zoom meeting to discuss my research experience and potential involvement. He also talked about finding someone in the lab who could mentor me.

Fast forward to June, and I was still trying to get started. I kept following up, and eventually the lab administrator contacted me to officially onboard me as an unpaid research intern.

I literally went through the entire institutional onboarding process. I submitted paperwork, got authorization from my school and parents, completed HR requirements, received an institutional email/account, got my badge, and was even added to the lab's actual Slack workspace.

Like, I was literally an officially onboarded intern at this point.

And then... nothing.

I never got assigned a project. I never got a mentor. I never received any data to analyze or even a clear schedule for coming into the lab.

The PI last responded on August 25, saying that we could use the remaining time to build toward working together in the future and that he'd added me to Slack so we could communicate there.

I've since messaged him on Slack and followed up by email multiple times, most recently on October 5. I've repeatedly offered to help with computational analyses, read papers, or literally do anything useful for the lab.

Still no response.

I'm genuinely so confused and frustrated. I completely understand that PIs are busy, and I know that mentoring a high school student takes time. But I spent months trying to get everything sorted out, completed all the formal onboarding, and was literally added to the lab's internal workspace, only to never actually get to do any research.

I was genuinely excited about the research too, which makes this even more disappointing.

At this point, I'm wondering whether I should contact the research administrator, the institution's science education office, or someone else to ask what's going on.

I don't want to make accusations or get anyone in trouble, and I'm honestly worried about burning bridges, especially since I'm hoping to continue doing research in this field.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Is this normal in academia? Would contacting someone at the institution be reasonable, or should I just cut my losses and move on?

For context, I finished my PhD but didn't have such a great time because of my PI. It's difficult to attribute this all to them (using they so I don't get identified), because I think part of it was just our incompatibility in terms of our working styles but also disciplines. They weren't very knowledgeable in the topic and I had almost no useful supervision.

There were also some toxic behaviours. I won't go into them (again so I don't get identified). At the same time, they were toxic at a fine line. At times, it almost felt like they were bipolar. They would sometimes get really upset for the smallest things but at times be perfectly reasonable and supportive. I would say they did things that have crossed the line but I feel like I would be dishonest to call it completely toxic because it's not as if they were the worst supervisor ever (especially when reading some of the stories here). It's just that, in hindsight, I honestly wouldn't have wanted to do a PhD with them if I had known some things beforehand (especially regarding their lack of expertise on the topic).

Now I'm getting contacted by people interested in working for them now that new openings on similar topics are put up. I'm conflicted in terms of sharing my real honest opinions about and experiences with my former PI. I want to be honest but I also feel like it would be career suicide if I decide to be honest with these prospective PhDs and tell them to do a PhD elsewhere (because honestly it's not just the PI, I think the research group itself is not a really great environment).

I don't want to burn bridges, but I also would have appreciated if someone had told me down the line about these things too. What kind of information would you divulge and how would you go about doing it in the most "politically correct" way? I guess an option would be to ignore these candidates...but I feel morally icky if I don't say anything. I didn't have the best of times mental-health wise during my PhD and I don't want them to experience the same.