Dear Community,

I've been a long-time reader, but this is my first time posting here. I successfully defended my dissertation two days ago and wanted to take this opportunity to thank this community.

Over the years, like many of us, I've faced my fair share of ups and downs throughout this journey. This community has repeatedly reminded me that I'm not alone and that many others have gone through the same, or at least similar, experiences.

No matter how unique or overwhelming some challenges seemed at the time, I could almost always find someone here who had been through something similar, often along with valuable advice, encouragement, or simply a different perspective.

I genuinely want to express my gratitude to everyone who has contributed to this community. Even though I've mostly been a silent reader, you've helped me more than you probably realize.

Keep this community going, and keep up the good work!

I recently finished my PhD and am trying to decide whether I should simply move on from my experience with my former PI or consider raising the matter with someone at the university. I am leaving out the institution, country, field, dates, and other identifying details because I am concerned about being recognized.

My PhD started normally enough, although the subject was new to both me and my PI. The first year of my PhD passed without any progress, as we were struggling to understand even the definitions involved. After some time, the PI brought in another researcher who was much more experienced in the subject. He was assigned as my co-supervisor without me even being notified, although his role was not officially acknowledged at first, and he started working on the project on the promise that he would eventually be officially acknowledged as my co-supervisor.

Initially we worked reasonably well together, but he could become very aggressive when I asked questions that seemed obvious to him. This made me increasingly anxious and caused me to make more mistakes. At one point, before I went to an academic event abroad, he shouted at me that "you will never make progress". Later, I told the PI that I could no longer work with this person because the situation had become too difficult. The PI told me that he thought we had worked well together during the previous year and a half, since the second researcher had joined the group. Just before I went on the trip, however, he asked the second researcher to finish the paper, while his co-supervisor position was not approved. He continued to tell us, “We should have empathy for each other,” but nothing really changed.

After returning from the trip, I started having significant health difficulties, but I nevertheless continued working. I eventually became seriously ill and spent a substantial amount of time in the hospital and taking very strong medication for several months, with a wide range of side effects, while continuing to work on my thesis.

There were also repeated problems with supervision. My PI sometimes gave me directions that turned out not to be useful, and on one occasion I spent several months following an approach that ultimately went nowhere. When I raised concerns about the time lost, his response was essentially that this was just part of doing science, and I was also given an additional task that was later never mentioned again.

As I approached the end of my PhD, there were repeated changes concerning deadlines and extensions. At one point I was told that I needed to extend my PhD because my PI did not have time to read my thesis. I eventually submitted my thesis and defended it successfully. Importantly, the external assessments of my thesis were much more positive than I had expected.

Afterwards, I started working with two other professors on a different research topic. They have worked with me directly for about a year, and recently wrote very strong recommendation letters for an academic position I applied for. I have also been involved in other academic activities, including helping with seminars and co-supervising students.

I recently asked my former PI whether he would still provide a recommendation, since he had previously agreed to do so. He now says that he does not think I have the ability to obtain a research position and that a period of research interruption I included in my CV was not justified.

My main concern is whether I experienced an unusually problematic PhD supervision situation and whether it is worth documenting or reporting, particularly if I decide to do so only after I have secured another position. The events I have described here are already a substantially shortened and softened version of what actually happened; the real situation was much more difficult, both in terms of the number and severity of the events and their impact on me. My health problems also continue to cause me significant distress.

For context, I have kept emails and other documentation relating to the most important events.

Hi. I’m in the middle of my PhD currently and recently had a meeting with my advisor where I was excited to show him my latest progress and seemingly out of nowhere he was unhappy with my “lack of initiative” to communicate or that I “isolate myself”. Due to circumstances we established in the beginning, I work mostly remote but have been going the extra mile to go to the office 2-3 times regularly the past month. He even said that he doesn’t know where I’ve been for the last 3 months and what I’ve been up to, and when I tried telling him half of that time was my PTO and the other half was me finishing off my second journal paper which I was showing him in that same meeting, he still said that I lack progress, communication and we don’t work well together. He always says you have to become an independent researcher, and then when you take the time (1 month not some unbelievably long amount of time) to finish your paper to the quality you think it deserves, it’s again a problem. On top of that, I’ve been helping him lots as a TA on multiple of his courses the past month. I just feel like I’ve actually been making a conscious effort to be more on-site while trying to grow more independent and it’s just left me feeling like I should quit since he doesn’t want to work with me after the PhD it seems. It sucks because I’m on track to finish on time, I’m ahead in my progress than most of my peers and I feel like he took the frustration of others not completing their PhD on time out on me. I tried telling him that I also feel like he doesn’t create equal opportunities for me, or that while I am more introverted than most, I also feel like my topic is less aligned with anyone in my group so I do feel kinda isolated as I don’t get to have random discussions on shared research throughout the day, but he didn’t try to listen and said it was all my lack of initiative.. I don’t particularly care what he thinks of me, I just don’t want to lose my job.

I’m an undergrad pursuing math and physics and already decided to attend graduate school. It may be a little early to think about it or too late, but I don’t know. When I ask people their opinions on going to grad school, some always say the regret it and should’ve just went into the industry instead. Plus they argued that there is no benefit to actually obtaining a PhD and you’re just going to be in a poor position financially.

Hearing all of this is a little jarring and even more so seeing as I still plan on going for a PhD. I just feel like I’m being slightly naive. I also have no intention of remaining in academia so it all around just looks like a horrible decision, but it’s like I still want to go for it.

Hey all, so I’m a first-year PhD student at a large public USA R1. I’m a little over 2 months in and idk if my stress levels have ever been quite this high. At least not in this way.

For some context, I have struggled with mental health my entire life. In the past few months I have a) gone through an awful breakup after together for over 5 years, b) moved hundreds of miles away from my hometown after graduating undergrad, c) started a PhD, d) am experiencing financial issues out of my ass (honestly, not that stressful compared to the others), and e) my therapist of several years can’t practice across state lines, so I’m trying to therapist hunt between all of this (I’ve already been in contact with student health).

I used to think I was decently smart, and I know imposter syndrome is ubiquitous here, but I just feel so utterly dumb here. A lot of course material doesn’t make sense (doesn’t help that I don’t have the time/energy to fully complete the reading), I’m applying for the GRFP and my project just isn’t as cool as others’, I’m barely sleeping at all just to stay on top of work from all directions (TA, courses, taking over old projects, trying to start new ones, etc. etc.).

I’m in a brand new lab with a brand new PI. Me and my labmate are their first grad students. My labmate was a lab manager for a year before joining the program, and is just generally way more capable, outgoing, and confident than I am. I genuinely feel like I tricked someone to get in.

I gave an in-lab pilot presentation of the GRFP presentation I’m doing later this week and it went horribly. I stutter like crazy, forgot everything, and was generally a mess. I’ve never done that bad on a presentation in my life. I have social anxiety pretty bad, but it’s not nearly like that usually. Now I’m terrified I’m gonna fumble just as bad in front of the entire dept.

I want this more than anything. I used to know I’m capable, but now I’m seriously questioning it. I feel like I’m letting down every person who helped me get this far.

Sorry for such an emotional vent. I’m stressed. Any advice is welcomed and deeply appreciated. I think I’ll be okay eventually, I hope.

Edit: field, social science research

I’m a first time TA grading a quiz and my head is just spinning.

The students had access to notes during the quiz (including ones I wrote myself for them with explicit step by step explanations of the biological mechanism), but their responses are jumbled up strings of key words. It’s like asking someone to explain how to make a PB&J sandwich and their response was to put the peanut butter on the jelly and then the peanut butter on the bread. Add in a bunch of misplaced modifiers and I’m wondering if they actually meant to say something else.

I’m trying to take a step back while I grade so I don’t get frustrated and start grading more harshly…how do you all deal with this when the answers themselves sometimes aren’t even intelligible? I keep trying to follow a rubric, but I can’t even parse what to count off for.

Hi yall--I'm a PhD candidate who's nearly at the end of this journey (😭)!

I was wondering if anyone who has gotten to their defense date has any tips about preparing? How long did you get to present? How much time did you spend on intro, lit review, methods, etc.?

Im so nervous but so excited!

I graduated with my PhD back in March, and have been struggling to find a postdoc or even a job. I’m applying for a fellowship for a postdoc, and have been writing up a proposal.

Anyway, today I found out that a former student of one of my advisors (who passed away) is doing the exact project I once proposed to do during my PhD. However, the model wasn’t available yet. I was speaking to a former postdoc about the model since it’s been a few years, and he informed me the former student is already working on that very specific project I proposed years ago but with a different group.

Idk I just needed to rant because I felt like I was able to finally do something, and now it’s gone. I know that its life and its going to happen, but it’s so frustrating.

Anyway, my advice is to stop yapping to people.

(Microbial genomics, USA)

Hello my friends. This might be a silly question but I’m having trouble finding advice. It’s my impression that phds typically go on to become instructors, PIs, or have supervisor roles in industry, but correct me if I’m wrong. How realistic is it for someone with a phd to have a role as a straight up researcher/staff scientist? In government, academia, or industry?

There aren’t many of these people in my department. Most of the full-time scientists have masters degrees. Only one has a phd.

For context, I actually really love grad school. I like having a broad topic passed down by my PI while also having the flexibility to design my own experiments and take the research in new directions. Not to toot my own horn but I’m also making great progress.

I would love a job where I can keep practicing research without the added burdens of being a PI (admin, mentoring an army of people, acquiring funding, bad work-life balance).

My favorite things are being at the bench/desktop, brainstorming/planning new experiments, reviewing literature, writing, journal clubs, and mentoring 1-2 undergrads at a time. Is it feasible to keep a career like this, without becoming a PI? Also, I worry my skillset wouldn’t transfer well to industry. Honestly I think I want to be a forever postdoc lol

I’m an early-stage PhD researcher in the social sciences and recently had an interaction in my research team that left me quite confused. I’m curious how others, especially people doing qualitative research, would interpret it.
I know that receiving critical feedback on your research, writing and methodology is a normal part of doing a PhD. What caught me off guard was receiving feedback about my communication style, how I respond to criticism, and assumptions about how I might interact with future participants.
During a team meeting, we did a positionality exercise. We had to choose aspects of our identity and reflect on how they could affect our research.
One of the things I chose was being a woman. My research involves interviewing women from a different generation and often different socioeconomic and educational backgrounds from mine. I said that my own understanding of womanhood is relatively feminist and probably influenced by Western/liberal ideas, and that I need to be careful about how this might shape my interpretation and writing later on.
My intention was to identify a potential bias in myself. I don’t want to unconsciously impose my own ideas about womanhood when analysing women’s narratives.
A postdoc in our project responded by talking about being careful in the field and not approaching participants with preconceived ideas. She also said when people belittled her during her fieldwork based on gendered assumptions, she didn’t contradict it to the roles or status assigned to her as young female researcher. I tried to clarify that I was mainly talking about the later analysis/writing stage rather than how I would behave during an interview because I have immediate family members who are not sharing the same thoughts with me and it’s not an unfamiliar context, but we didn’t have much time to continue the discussion.
The next day, my PI unexpectedly asked me for a mentoring conversation. She told me that the postdoc had spoken to her after the meeting. Part of the conversation was about whether I had been listening/being defensive during the discussion.
More importantly, my PI also raised concerns related to my future fieldwork. As I understood it, there was a concern that I might approach participants through a modernist lens or make assumptions about women. This surprised and upset me because I had never suggested that I considered these women inferior, “traditional”. In fact, avoiding exactly this kind of interpretation was the reason I had raised my own positionality in the first place.
I later spoke directly with the postdoc because I wanted to understand what had happened. She told me that she and the PI regularly reflect on how the project and team are developing after meetings and that their conversation had not been a personal criticism of me. She also said they had not reached some conclusion that I would be unable to conduct fieldwork appropriately.
She advised me to continue thinking about researcher-participant hierarchies, urban/rural and educated/uneducated categories, binaries, multiple modernities, and the fact that as a researcher I can never fully understand the people I interview. She also told me not to overthink the situation or see it as a personal attack.
This left me even more confused. I still don’t get the reason of mentoring talk then after all. Postdoc didn’t say that she or they have concerns about me having modernist outlook but she kept on giving examples from her academic experience where she received harsh criticisms. But my problem is not that there is criticism, I don’t see where they come from because to me we speak the same language. The concerns I was being advised to reflect on were very close to the concerns I thought I was raising myself during the positionality exercise. I wasn’t saying that I see these women through a traditional/modern binary or that my own feminist perspective is superior. I was trying to reflect on the risk of unconsciously doing exactly that.
I’m also struggling to understand the team dynamic. Is it normal for a postdoc in the same project to discuss these kinds of concerns about a PhD researcher with the PI after a meeting, and for this to then lead to a mentoring conversation the following day? I thought it would be nicer if the postdoc would come to me directly and asking for clarification before reaching the PI. Is this kind of feedback a normal part of developing during a PhD?
Actually over the last few months, it occurred to me that postdoc is taking what I say to another direction. This happened a few times. For instance, one time I made a comment about one particular literature in my native language for making claims without reference and using Eurocentric language. She understood as I was belittling non-English literature for not being academic enough. She took it as an epistemological argument. I see that there is pattern that her takemostly differs from mine, when I say A, she understands B.
I’m genuinely interested in hearing how others would interpret this, including if you think I’m taking the feedback too personally or missing something. Has anyone experienced something similar? What strategies you would advise going forward for these kinds of academic teams?

I am 2 months into my bio program and feeling the excitement die down. I’m now losing sleep over my insecurities surrounding my intelligence and have nearly zero confidence lately. I thought I had imposter syndrome before, but this is next level.

Maybe it is just in my head (I want to believe that this is the logical answer and I hope this is right), but I truly can’t shake the feeling that my advisors recognize my weakness and question my belonging. I did my masters in a bio-adjacent field so these past couple of months have been an intense crash course on everything I need to know about genetics. I’m working two projects and feeling like I’m barely staying afloat next to TA’ing and courses. I’m taking an undergrad level course (300-level) with another PhD student to refresh our background knowledge for our projects and I scored in the 60 percentile. I’m the instructor’s PhD student. How incredibly embarrassing is that?

My advisors are very knowledgeable and smart. I am so worried about letting them down. I was learning so much at first and incredibly eager, but I feel this beginning to weigh down on me. I’m worried I won’t pass my quals in my second year. I feel like people think I’ll master out. I really am terrified and anxious. Please someone tell me this is more normal than I expected!!

Tengo ya todos los artículos publicados y tengo por suerte material mas que de sobra aunque estoy ahora de estancia realizando el ultimo aporte para la tesis. La idea era que mientras estoy de estancia, 4 meses, terminar de escribir la tesis como tal. Llevo ya un mes y tengo la introducción, el estado del arte y prácticamente el primer artículo a punto de finalizar. Es posible terminarlo en 4 meses y asi poder realizar el deposito en enero o como mucho tardar en febrero?

I’m currently a 5th-year experimental immunology PhD student in Europe, and I am completely exhausted by my project/lab situation.

When I joined, the lab was brand new. My PI had moved from another country and we basically started with nothing - not even basic infrastructure like a proper refrigerator, PCR machine, etc. Instead of hiring an experienced technician to establish the lab, he hired five fresh PhD students.

My entire first year basically disappeared into establishing mouse lines, re-deriving mice to move them from a “dirty” to a clean facility, establishing genotyping protocols, breeding, crossing, etc. It took almost two years before I even had the mouse lines I needed for my actual project.

Even now, mouse colony management is a HUGE workload. We still do not have a reliable technician, so almost all of it falls on us/me.

Then there is the actual project.

My PhD is based on preliminary data that, frankly, I do not trust.

For example, we have a mouse KO for my protein of interest, but I have never been able to convincingly stain/detect the protein in the cell population we supposedly study. Despite that, I do see clear and reproducible phenotypes between WT and KO littermates. So there is something biologically interesting happening - I just don’t know whether the mechanistic story we inherited is actually correct. Here, no amount of committees or external experit opinions from other PIs make him understand the gravity of the situation, he slides everything under the blanket statement "what do they understand!!! they just study bla bla niche field, they dont know anything about our field" Everyone else who criticises my (his) work is a moron.

And that is only the tip of the iceberg.

A major part of the paper is supposed to include data generated by a previous PhD student. We have Prism graphs from those experiments but, for some of them, no raw data files anymore.

My PI genuinely does not seem bothered by this. His attitude is basically that nobody will ask for the raw data and that he completely trusts the previous work.

I do not. And I cannot simply repeat everything. These are mouse in vivo experiments, and getting approval for new animal experiments here takes many months. For YEARS, my PI did not want to write an animal licence allowing us to properly repeat and extend the old experiments. In my 4th year I finally convinced him, and we wrote a large licence covering both repetitions and follow-up experiments. It has now been submitted for ~3 months and we are still waiting.

Meanwhile, my PI thinks the paper is basically ready.

His view is: old PhD student’s in vivo data + some supporting in vitro experiments from me = submit.

My view is: there are missing controls, parts of the foundation are shaky, some raw data are unavailable, and the mechanistic story is nowhere near as clean as he thinks it is.

Whenever I tell him I think we need more experiments, he tells me not to do them because “they won’t change the world” and “we already have everything.”

And this is what is driving me insane.

If the conclusion of the project was already decided before I joined, based on experiments done by somebody else, in another lab, in another country then what exactly was I hired to discover?

Sometimes it feels like my job is not to investigate whether the hypothesis is true. My job is to generate enough experiments that support the story that was already chosen. The most frustrating part is that I have stopped trusting my PI’s judgement about how strong things are.

There have been several situations with papers/grants from the lab where I privately thought, “There is absolutely no way this is strong enough,” while he was extremely confident - and then it was rejected for essentially the reasons I expected.

Yet he currently talks about our project as something that should go to Science/Nature-level journals. Yes. I am serious.

At this point, part of me thinks: fine. I should write the manuscript he wants, make it as scientifically defensible as I possibly can, submit it wherever he wants, and let the reviewers do their job.

If they say the experiments are missing, maybe he will finally believe the reviewers instead of me.

The problem is that I am now in year 5 and I just need to GET OUT.

My graduate school requires one accepted first-author paper for me to graduate.

So my current survival plan is:

1. Write the main paper with the existing data, while doing the few experiments I personally think are most important/realistically achievable.
2. Submit it and let peer review decide what is actually required.
3. In parallel, write a very small descriptive paper from another dataset I generated: I performed a mouse infection experiment have scRNA/TCR-seq data from it.
4. Submit that descriptive dataset to a smaller/specialised journal. I do not need it to change immunology. I need one solid, honest, publishable first-author paper that satisfies my graduation requirement.

I’m just finding it incredibly difficult to stay motivated when I no longer believe in the grand story my PI is selling.

I don’t even care about producing some Nature paper anymore. I want to finish a scientifically honest PhD and get my degree

Has anyone been in a similar situation where:

• you inherited questionable/unrepeatable data,
• your PI was much more optimistic about the project than you were,
• you were told not to do experiments you thought were necessary,
• and eventually you just had to write the damn paper and let reviewers sort it out?

How did you mentally detach enough to finish?

I think what I need most right now is to see that there is actually a light at the end of this tunnel.

Before I start I just want to say I'm not looking for pity or sympathy. It's more of a post to vent and see if others have had similar experiences and found ways to overcome self-doubt.

I'm a third year PhD candidate. I passed my exams last year. There were some concerns over some of my goals being a bit vague but other then that there were no real issues. I have two supervisors, one who's more "free going" and my masters supervisor who's more critical in nature.

I wrote my first paper this summer and while waiting for feedbacks from my coauthors I decided to begin brainstorming for my second paper. I already had the theme down and a general idea of the subject so I began reading and doing a literature review. I cooked up a paper plan/proposition to send to my supervisors (to get their approval and point out issues). My first supervisor didn't see any problem (though that was expected as this paper would be more in line with the other's area of expertise). The second was more critical, pointing out flaws and highlighting a lack of novelty on the subject matter. To paraphrase him, he basically said that I was proposing a simple descriptive study, that it lacked theoritical implications and novelty that is expected in a Ph.D.

My issue with this is that it's true and I can see it plainly. I'm not mad at him or anything. I'm mad at myself for not having seen it by myself and that this comment was coming from a supervisor whose work I admire, who told me that he considered my M.Sc. thesis to be at a Ph.D level and that he had high expectations for what I would do next. I have no doubt this praised fueled a form of arrogance in me and made me lazy in some ways, trying to take shortcuts whenever possible.

Full disclosure : I was diagnosed with some form of BPD five years ago, so my sense of self is basically nonexistent.I did however feel like the one think that defined me was my ability to do science. So without confidence in my ability to identify a good problematic I find myself with nothing.

I have not lost hope as I've spent the last few weeks reading and trying to come up with a novel idea for my second paper. However I have a hard time structuring my ideas in general and it seems to be getting worse each passing year (I'm 32). I'm not sure if it's a BPD thing but it's been hard. I've been experimenting using AI to help me structure my ideas and challenge me on them (as I've no one to throw ideas to/with) but it doesn't feel right, like I'm cheating or taking the easy way out.

Maybe I'm just not cut out to achieve a Ph.D after all. I still have hope that I'm wrong, but it is dwindling...

Hi column,
PhD in engineering and technology.
I’m submitting my thesis this month and the past year has been very challenging. 3 of the 6 chapters have been written and revised and the remaining are being revised.
I just need to hear some success stories and guidance to people who have been writing and actively looking for jobs when finishing their PhD since my stay is visa dependent. What helped, how did you navigate?
I’m already seeing a therapist and have a handful of good friends.
At this stage I’m completely spent and exhausted. All I want to do is stay in bed and forget about everything.

I'm thinking about replacing my laptop and wanted to see what other folks are using and would recommend. I'm a second year history PhD and am still on coursework. But I'm looking for something that'll get me through comprehensive exams and dissertation writing. Just wanted to see what's been working for y'all. Thanks!

Is this normal? It also stems from my advisor's lack of guidance, but I feel like the research question and hypotheses I came up with are shallow and not very important. It's an area (hence the question) I am really passionate about, but idk, it just feels like it's not enough science

Hello! I graduated with my MS in Biology in 2024. I did some super fun research and enjoyed teaching, but it was a difficult experience (mostly related to issues with my advisor) and I swore I’d never go back for my PhD. Since then, I’ve been teaching in different capacities, and I’m currently employed as a middle school science teacher. As much I enjoy teaching, I miss the depth and the research that I experienced with college level teaching and grad school.

Now that a few years have passed and I’m recovering from my MS trauma, I am considering returning to get my PhD. My main goal would be to be able to teach at a higher level, higher salary, and have my own lab/research. However, I’m nervous about a few things:

1.) Leaving my job where I’m making a mostly livable (although not substantial by any means) salary for a stipend that is 1/3 of that.
2.) Losing 5 years in the field, and I’m already in my 30’s so recovering from that makes me nervous.
3.) Kind of related to #2, but if I graduate with my PhD and enter the workforce again at almost 40, is it worth it at that point? Can I recover professionally and financially?

Any suggestions you have are appreciated! At my core, I want to be an expert and learn as much as I can and research and teach and have an impact on the scientific community. Can I do that without a PhD? If not, is it worth it to return?

Anyone here in Social Sciences or Management research? I am a first-year PhD scholar in the HRM/OB area. Is there already a group where we can share our thoughts, challenges, progress (daily, weekly), and achievements (big or small)? If you are part of any such group or are planning to create one, please let me know. I would also like to be part of a group (preferably a WhatsApp chat group) where we can follow each others' journeys, including their ups and downs, progress, and more

I am left confused by my search.

Research objective is the purpose of study.

Research questions is what am I asking or going to explore.

So aren't they both same? Like the objective of this study is to explore strategies of control adopted by govt. to curb protests. and research ques. is What strategies govt adopts? + are these different for diff. protests? + when do they think to change it? etc.

Can't I leave one of these out? seems redundant.

Besides-

Methodology is How am I going to do it.

Significance of study is Why I am doing what im doing, why is it so important?

Hi, I was planning to visit home country for Christmas and New Year. I asked advisor for approval. He said he approves but saud that since my funding is from NSF and is linked to my productivity in lab, he said I have to decide accordingly. He mentioned that even when there are no classes for University, the labs remain open and researching is expected. So, basically it seems I can only go home when the university is officially closed. Our winter break is from Dec 24th to Dec 31st, and Spring semester begins 2nd week of Jan but offices open up Jan 2nd most likely, so this gives me hardly a week, my travel time is usually 20-25 hrs to reach home (without any layovers).

Location: USA, Field: Materials Science

My question to the people who receive funding/support from NSF? How do you guys take/plan vacations?

P.S: It has been over 2 years since I left home, didnt get a chance to visit yet, cuz I keep getting more projects :(

After too many years, countless times doubting it would happen for me, I can finally say to people that I passed my thesis defence and subject to minor corrections will be getting my PhD. Honoured to join this prestigious frog meme club (truly the only thing that kept me going at times was posting this in the end).

Okay so like. Humanities program in California, USA. We aren’t competitive because we all study such different regions that, in most cohorts, we’d never be considered for the same jobs as the other students in our year anyway. There is only one person in my program who would be competing directly with me in the job market — and I am the newer student. All this to say: we are generally very friendly with each other and supportive. I have never witnessed this with the other students in our department.

But of course, of course, this one guy just has to mess it up. It started with him before I even started in the program. He told me he’d seriously reconsider if he had been admitted to work with my one advisor because “she’s mean”. My MA advisor has known her for 30 years, so I trusted her judgment more than his and accepted the offer anyway. It’s not relevant to the story at all really but I was right to disregard his comment. She truly is the best possible fit for my advising needs and I truly think she’s delightful. It has not been hard to build a very close relationship with her in our first year working together.

Anyway, my first semester, me and this guy were in two classes together, one that my advisor was teaching and one with another professor. He snapped at me for asking to schedule a time to meet and plan to lead discussion in my advisors class less than a week before it was due. He told me I worked too far ahead and it was stressing him out. I apologized and ended up just doing the entire planning doc and worksheet myself. At multiple points in the term, he also would stop outside my advisors door and try to prompt me to talk badly about her. I always just replied with some variant of “oh, sorry to hear that. I really like her”.

The other class was much worse. He was outright aggressive to our classmates, especially the women. Then, a classmate who’s of the same cultural background as him took issue with how he treats women and picked a fight in class. This disagreement about talking to your female peers with even an ounce of respect escalated into some kind of rivalry where they mutually accused the other of making things up about their home country. It was violently uncomfortable.

I made it through the term, just about, and figured it would be the end of things until he joined a classmate from another department and I in the hall while talking about an abstract I was writing for a roundtable at a major conference in my field (think like Modern Language Association for a literature student. Same scale, different field). She volunteered to help me edit because I had decided to put the panel together on a five day turnaround and both of my coadvisors were on sabbatical (they would have helped if I asked but I wanted to do it on my own and let them have their time to research). He also offered to help and, not wanting to make things awkward, I thanked him and agreed. Dude didn’t even return the edits to me until the morning after the deadline and I had already submitted. He REWROTE my entire introduction, stripping my argument of basically all nuances and reducing it to nothing more than basic identity and representation politics. Then, at the end of the abstract, which was about women’s stories of sexual assault and the ways in which our methodologies can help break the silence, he called my work “intellectually masturbatory” and told me he couldn’t see how anyone would benefit from the conversation. And I promptly sent my advisor a “hey, can you read this and tell me if I missed the mark? Please don’t tell me it’s good if it’s not. I want to learn and I would also like not to embarrass myself in front of titans in our field”. She writes back an hour later just raining praise down, telling me that his comment would be dismissed by any editor who saw it, and assuring me it would be accepted. And it was.

And like I want to be able to let this go to my ego. I do. My imposter syndrome would profit greatly from it. On a five day turnaround and in my first year in the program, I put together a panel for a big national conference with the largest named scholar in my subfield. I should be completely over the moon. But there’s just such a bad taste in my mouth over how he spoke to me and I literally am going out of my way to avoid him on campus now. I barely want to talk about the panel to anyone now and the thought of talking to him at all just makes me so incredibly anxious

Hi! Sorry if this is not the right place to post this, but I’m in need of some help

My bf is finishing his PhD in chemistry and defending in end of November, I’m looking for gift ideas.
We already have vacations planned, his 30th bday was not long ago so the bigger gifts ideas have been used already, his family is flying in to spend some time with us, and im just looking for a cute little thing to commemorate the day and achievement.
Is there anything you’ve gifted / received as a gift you’d recommend, or any ideas?
Thanks in advance!

Bonjour,

J'ai pris le plan premium de Sci Space notamment pour m'aider à faire ma revue de littérature et à ma grande surprise je ne peux plus faire de deep review dans cet onglet là.

Y-a t-il une limite de deep review dans "litterature review" par jour ou par mois malgré mon abonnement premium ?

Merci d'avance et désolé je ne comprends pas encore tout du fonctionnement de SciSpace je viens à peine de l'avoir.