At the beginning of this year, I genuinely thought I might not be able to finish my degree. Not because I lacked the ability, but because of everything happening around me.

I was hospitalised with an illness while still carrying the grief of having spent much of my graduate school experience at a cancer centre, caring for someone I loved who is no longer here. I was trying to navigate bereavement, my own health, ongoing caregiving responsibilities and the intensity of graduate school, all at once.

There were moments when it felt impossible to keep going. I remember coming to this subreddit earlier in the year, essentially in tears, because I was convinced that everything was going to fall apart. I couldn’t see how I would get from where I was to the finish line.

Thankfully, my circumstances were recognised as exceptionally unusual, and I was granted additional time and consideration under the relevant regulations. That flexibility made a real difference. It gave me the breathing room I needed to continue, rather than having my academic future determined by circumstances largely outside my control.

And today, I’m so happy to say that my thesis was awarded an exceptional first-class mark. I’ve also come top of my faculty cohort and am on track to make the Dean’s List.

I’m finding it difficult to put into words what this means to me.
I come from an ethnic minority background, and I continue to have caregiving responsibilities alongside my academic work. There have been so many things competing for my time, energy and attention that simply aren’t visible on a transcript or reflected in a final mark. To have achieved this through the quality of my academic work, despite everything that was happening in my personal life, is something I’m incredibly proud of.

I think one of the hardest things about navigating difficult circumstances during university is that you can begin to mistake your circumstances for your capabilities. When you’re struggling to meet deadlines, concentrate, or function at the level you know you’re capable of, it’s easy to convince yourself that you’ve somehow become less intelligent or less deserving of being there. Sometimes, you’re not failing academically because you lack ability. Sometimes, you’re a person going through something extraordinarily difficult and trying to do academic work at the same time.

I’m sharing this because I wish I could go back and tell the version of myself who was crying on this subreddit at the beginning of the year that things could turn out differently from what they feared.

I’m also grateful that there were mechanisms within the university system that allowed my circumstances to be considered. I know not everyone is fortunate enough to receive that kind of flexibility, and I don’t take it for granted.

If you’re currently struggling through graduate school because of illness, bereavement, caring responsibilities or circumstances that have made you question whether you can continue, I hope you give yourself some grace. Your current circumstances are not necessarily a reflection of your academic potential, and needing more time does not mean you’re less capable.

I’m still processing everything, but today I’m letting myself feel proud. After a year in which I genuinely thought I might not make it to the end, I did and I did better than I ever imagined I could.
I wish I’d known at the beginning of the year that this was possible. Things will be okay :(

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.

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

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?

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?

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

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 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.

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 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’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!

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 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.

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

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.

Had some very interesting conversations with colleagues...

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.

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?

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.

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!

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?

So it is no secret that many students and faulty are migrating towards AI safe academic areas. It seems that everybody is now doing healthcare, biomed, robotics or something involving physical components/people/government.

But is this really a wise move? It feels like an encore of the "learn to code" movement, except now its "learn to cure cancer". Even if these areas cannot be overtaken by AI in the next few years, the sheer amount of people going to just seems unstable to me.

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’m currently studying science theory and research methodology and my professors and my text books have really been hammering in that there’s a lot of flaws in the current system.

The problem seems to be that scientific progress isn’t the only incentive at play. Researchers also need to make a living, secure funding, publish papers, and advance their careers. These incentives can encourage questionable research practices, even without outright fraud. Academic journals have their own incentives, too, and the pressure to publish novel, attention-grabbing findings can come at the expense of scientific rigour. Peer review was suppose to be a solution to a lot of the issues in how research is conducted but I’ve learnt that they are often also very poorly conducted because the journals have an incentive for quantity over quality.

A lot of people understand that we have to trust experts since it would be ridiculous to assume we know more than them. But a lot of people don’t know about the above mentioned issues which leaves the door open for bad actors to take advantage of that using perceived expertise. Especially since the experts who are easily found tend to be more interested in fame rather than scientific rigour. Jordan Peterson for example, he is by far the most famous psychologist alive but most psychologists would probably agree that he isn’t the best expert in the field to get your information from (I don’t know much about him or psychology so I’m not making my own claim here, just an example I’m aware of).

So this leads to my question: what’s the best bang-for-your-buck strategy for learning about a subject when you don’t have the time or interest to become an expert yourself?

I want to invest some time upfront in figuring out whom to trust so that I can rely on their judgement afterwards, rather than constantly having to evaluate every individual claim myself.

I’ve subconsciously developed this framework throughout my life:
I assess experts until I find 2-4 in a field that I deem trustworthy. Ideally they have some opposing opinions so I get a more nuanced total picture. When assessing I look for red flags like overly confident, chasing fame, money etc. And I look for green flags like intellectual honesty (like admitting when they don’t know the answer and acknowledging counter arguments).

How do you approach this? Do you have a better strategy or are there particular methods you use to identify trustworthy experts?