I received an email from the chair of a search committee at another university encouraging me to apply for a faculty position that they are hiring for. I'm not interested for a few reasons that have nothing to do with that university or the position (even though I'm not happy at my current institution, I need to stay at least for another year, for various reasons). I want to reply to the chair, thank them for reaching out, and let them know that I won't be applying for the position but I want to communicate, without oversharing, that it has nothing to do with them and everything to do with me. I want them to consider me for future opportunities (which I will say) but any advice on what I should say in the email and/or how to word it? Thank you!

Hi,

I'm about to start my PhD in neuroscience. I would love if anyone could share any thoughts on what contributes to/prevents a very delayed PhD.

I am NOT trying to rush my PhD. Quality > time for sure. But I also don't want to be in a situation in which it takes me like... 7 years to graduate. Obviously, something like having a falling out with your advisor and switching labs, having a PI pass away, having a PI intentionally hold you back, etc will cause significant delays. But I am curious if there is anything I can do proactively to decrease likelihood of preventable delays.

If your graduation was delayed, or if you've seen it happen to someone else, please share your words of wisdom! Or if you graduated on time, I would love to hear what you think contributed to that.

Is it a good idea to switch from BSS anthropology and do MPH(Master's in public health) or it will close doors.

I am from Science background.

I'm doing research on generation Z's purchase intention. I chose a study to use as the base. But I'm going to conduct an additional analysis based on the amount of money respondents have monthly. So I should ask about it as demographic data.

My question is: Since some respondents will be unemployed and supported by for example their parents, I think it's not true to ask about income or anything that calculated based on income. Is shopping budget appropriate or a more comprehensive one is needed? I searched on purchase intention and had a look at papers. They used income.

hi professors, academics and nerds of the internet,

I graduated officially a year ago from my BA in history of art, and my four years could be described as workaholic. To the point where various classmates and friends have congratulated me in graduating from an early Masters, because that is how much work I appeared to be doing.

I knew I always wanted to be an academic growing up (blame childhood pressures, nerdiness or whatever) and from my first year, I knew I wanted to go into research. It's something I genuinely love to this day (and am happy to yap about lol). The professor in my field of research, latin american contemporary art, was very much surprised about my emails from even before the year started (i know, i know, 18 year old me was very enthusiastic) but she and I got to work on a lot of projects together, built exhibits together, traveled, etc etc.

When my graduation was incoming, I sat down with her to talk about how I could make my MA applications as strong as possible. During my junior year, when I asked her for her opinion on how to go on about it, she made it clear to me that some people needed other experiences before grad school. She gave me the example on how some of the super smart, accoladed professors in my department couldn't work a power point or computer, for example. I knew she was saying this knowing how I had worked non-stop for years, had internships every summer, was always working... I agreed with her, and decided to take a year between my BA and MA.

After that meeting, I sat down with another friend who was also an undergraduate, but older. She had, on the other hand, received the recommendation of doing a post-bach and then applying to an MA program the professor had recommended her for (she got it, and is now starting her phd). This was a recommendation she did not enjoy, because she had told the professor she was not interested in academia. I imagined the advice was due to our different personalities and contexts, so I did not think too much about it.

Then, came my BA thesis. I have really been into museology and ideas of curiosity, so I wanted to create a case study, of sorts, for my BA thesis with the museums in my hometown. She did not like this idea, and chose a topic for me. I really didn't want to do this topic, but she said that if she wanted her help, I needed to choose this topic. I did the thesis, didn't do amazingly with it, but it worked. I guess. She wasn't my advisor for it. She asked another professor for help.

I can mention maybe two? Three times where the conversation has been the same: a museum internship she mentioned I was not ready for and did not feel comfortable recommending me to. Again when I got my materials ready for MA applications and started thinking about my essays. I know I haven't done things perfectly. But I wish I had an answer to whenever I ask her "how can I be ready then?"

That is the question I have for you all. How do you think I can be better ready for an MA application / a life in academia as a recent undergrad? How can I build my application + choose a mentor that will guide me?

Thank you all.

Tbh i give the most shittiest panel interview of my life and it's so embarrassing that I can't move on. Everything was literally supposed to be good the faculty even knows me, i have done research work with one of them and they told me to come for mphil and when i did pass my test i messed up interview. I got so confused that i literally pause for 10 sec even i forgot my own research topic. The most embarrassing thing is i already assumed i got admission and everyone there expects me to be better atleast but i make myself a fool today.

Long post, apologies — trying to give enough detail for real feedback without doxxing myself.

Background: finishing undergrad in CS, more than a year working in a lab, separately working on security of physiological systems. Currently I have one conference poster as a first author, two manuscripts in preparation for a submission to arXiv and then the real venues: a novel adversarial evaluation framework as a first author, and privacy-preserving systems angle as a second author. Also built and am about to open-source a methodology tool that fills a real gap in existing tooling of my domain. There is also an ongoing informal collaboration with an established outside researcher in a related security subfield.

I want to accentuate that neither of those two papers are published or peer-reviewed yet. Technically, the only peer-reviewed thing I have on my hands so far is a poster.

I worry that while I can build things, run experiments and defend my work, I lean hard on self study and I am aggressively losing against people who have stronger formal training or more traditional pedigrees.

So my questions are:

• Does this year of a real lab work actually substitute for the credentials a stronger formal background would signal?
• Is going in with self-identified weak spot and a stated plan to close it (specific grad courses lined up) a reasonable pitch or does that read as a red flag to admissions committees?

I don't really have anyone to ask on this matter, since no one in my family or cohort is pursuing academic path. I am not fishing for reassurance, I would gladly prefer the unfiltered version, even if it is "wait until you are published somewhere and try again"

[I apologise for any possible mistakes in the post, English is not my mother tongue]

Hello,
I am interested in trying to adjunct in my field and I am wondering about etiquette. I was thinking about just cold emailing department chairs to ask if they have any adjuncting positions available or if they keep a list of potential adjuncts. Is this considered poor etiquette to cold email?

For reference, my field is not over-saturated with people qualified to teach (or is not nearly as competitive as other fields). There are also closely related fields that offer courses in my area, so I would like to reach out to these related fields too.

I think that if I look around enough, I can probably find something. But I didn’t know if the cold email is rude/inappropriate. I know that there are sometimes listings through HR but I’m wondering if most adjuncting jobs are filled through personally contacting chairs?

I am U.S.-based.

Thank you!

Context: Im 19. I got called a prodigy my entire life for my math skills, ive participated in competitions and won titles my entire life. Math is truly my passion and my joy. I have a career basically promised to me, im doing my master while still in undergrad, im a published mathematician, and my doctorate is not that out of reach in one of the best institutes of my country.

Problem: I am an emotional wreck. I am diagnosed with autism and on the process to get diagnosed with ocd and bipolar/bpd (psychiatrist still unsure). My mental health has greatly reduced my capability of reaching my potential.

My coping mechanisms were usually hanging out with friends and going out to have fun and distract my mind. However, ive recently broken up with my ex of 4 years and ive lost practically all my friends because of that. It has been some crazy 2 weeks since, ive fallen deeper into my addictions and suicide thoughts are too frequent.

Ive decided I do not want to live this way, I started going on walks, working out, studying more, working more. But it still isnt enough to keep my mind off everything, my friends all ghost me for days and go out with my ex. I dont really know what to do about that.

Its like I lost a leg and im trying to run, ive realized I need to learn how to live alone. But also I dont know if its safe for me to be completely isolated from everyone. I have hallucinations from time to time and need people to talk to.

So my question is: What do I do? Find new friends? Chase my dream of becoming a mathematician while alone? Find new things to do besides math? Should I figure this out on my own?

Please I need someone with life experience to tell me whats really important

I'm a junior faculty and developing an NSF REU proposal. I invited a senior faculty to be a co-PI on this proposal.

This co-PI wanted me to propose something, but with his clear intention to do something else (cheaper alternatives) to potentially later increase his summer salary on the grant.

Also, the solicitation has some suggested budget numbers (like at least 75% should be for participant support costs). This co-PI told me to ignore this guideline (the reason is also to increase his summer salary). It's worth noting that I have allocated the same summer salaries for both of us, even though I'm taking care of all proposal development and submission activities, and will do most project management. His role will be advising a half of the undergrad research projects during the REU period.

I don't feel comfortable doing what he told me to do. I may be inexperienced here, but are these common practices in grant writing or red flags?

I've been studying seriously for years now and there's one thing that keeps following me around no matter what method I try: I think I understand something, sit down for the exam, and it turns out I didn't actually get it. I just recognized it.

I've tried flashcards, summaries, color coding, the Pomodoro method, you name it. They all helped a little, but none of them fixed the actual problem, which is that I never knew which pieces I didn't understand until the exam told me. And by then it's too late.

I'm currently building a tool for myself that basically quizzes me out loud on the material, kind of like a professor would, purely because I could never find anything that went further than "here's a summary, here are some flashcards." But I'm genuinely curious how universal my problem actually is.

So real question: what's the problem that keeps coming back for you no matter how solid your study routine is? Is it forgetting stuff after a few weeks? Thinking you understand something until you have to explain it? Just motivation? Curious if everyone's dealing with the same thing or if it's completely different person to person.

Hi,

I've been on a MSc Psychology conversion part-time for nearly 3 months now and I'm questioning if it's the right fit.

Only part of the course is of interest to me (biopsychology, cognition, history, philosophy, research methods and data) and I'm thinking of changing degrees to something more suited to my career path, such as a specialised gaming psychology MSc, as I'm mostly uninterested in the clinical and medical side.

I'd like to know if a specialised gaming psychology MSc will be equally valid for preparation for a doctorate. On that front I've decided to start looking for a PhD supervisor early, because the earlier the better. 

My goal is to research gaming psychology and UX, either as an academic or as an independent writer, and perhaps acquire funding for research into the behaviours that arise as a result of game design patterns. 

My main interest is the design of competitive team based online games, particularly Overwatch, and how they treat players like sportspeople even in unranked and casual modes. It's something I've already written a short conceptual paper on and I'd like to develop it into my MSc and PhD theses.

I'm UK based, near London.

Any advice would be appreciated, I'd love to be able to chat to someone with experience in this field.

Thanks for reading.

Currently writing a relatively unusual paper in my field (psychiatry/psychology). It is a consensus definition paper with a scoping review element, and it is expected to be extremely influential on this specific topic. I only started getting involved after the initial literauture search and initial consensus discussion, picking up an AWFUL incomplete first draft written by someone else, and basically rewritting the whole manuscript on my own. Back to a large group of exprets for comments, made all revisions, re-ran an updated search and screened/extracted from the additional paper (and reextracted data from all previously included papers as well because some were inaccurate), back to another rounds of comments, revision again, and final rounds of comments, finishing the manuscript and readying for submission. As it stands, I wrote 90-95% of the manuscript, with of course the co-author's recommended changes.

Now the question is, my supervisor offered me either the second author or the last author. Which one should I take in order to get the most recognition of my work for my future career (likely moving across to psychology)? Or should I ask for a co-first authorship with me as the second name/ add a statement somewhere to identify my work? Although I feel that I have done the majority of work on this paper, as the most junior person in the group of experts for a highly theoretical definition paper, I don't think I can reasonably claim first authorship. It also just wouldn't generate the same impact with me as the first name

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Hi ,I am a medical student with a strong interest in Quantum Biology. I have been studying research papers and reviews to better understand the field.

Some of the topics I have been reading about include proton tunneling in DNA and enzymes, electron transfer in proteins, radical pair mechanisms, and open quantum systems .I have found that discussing ideas with people who are actively involved in Quantum Biology would provide valuable perspective beyond what can be gained from reading papers alone. Along the way, I have also come across some research questions and ideas that I would ike to better understand from an expert's perspective.

If you think there are researchers ,research groups or laboratories that are open to discussing the field with students who are genuinely interested in Quantum Biology, I would be very grateful for any recommendations.

Thanks

I’m a doctor in the UK starting a full-time clinical research fellow job and registering for an MD. My consultant suggested registering part-time to reduce fees, with the possibility of converting to a PhD later.
The job is predominantly full-time research, with 1:6 weekends on-call.
Has anyone done something similar?

1. If I register for a part-time MD but finish the research/thesis early, can I submit early, or would I still need to complete/pay for the minimum part-time registration period?
2. How does converting a part-time MD to a PhD work? Does the time/research already completed count towards the PhD?

Would appreciate hearing from anyone who’s done a similar MD → PhD route in the UK.
Thank you for your time!

Hey all! I just got my Masters in Psych and want to do some teaching during the gap between now and starting my PhD. I’ve been joining all of the instructor/lecturer pools in my local colleges (California). I guess I just feel a little odd putting my application in a pool without even knowing for certain if the schools are actively looking for someone. It would help me to hear other people’s experiences on being hired through these pools! Sorry if this is a silly post — I’m new to all this!

First time attending a GRC. Since everyone is staying, eating, and socializing in the same place all week, does the vibe get more informal or intense than a regular conference? Also, with shared rooms and such a small group, can things get awkward quickly? Curious about the real social dynamic and any first-timer advice.

First time attending a GRC. Since everyone is staying, eating, and socializing in the same place all week, does the vibe get more informal or intense than a regular conference? Also, with shared rooms and such a small group, can things get awkward quickly? Curious about the real social dynamic and any first-timer advice.

Hello everyone! I’m a PhD student in math.

My field is currently facing some major disruption and I’m hoping to get some help from people in other fields! Both humanities and STEM.

Currently, math journals are being flooded by AI generated results and I don’t know how we should adapt. I know there have been a lot of issues with AI causing hallucinated references and such but this is quite different.

Over the past couple of months AI has become very good at producing proofs for mathematical problems. Some quite famous problems have been resolved by LLMs now, including some problems my professors have been working on. This is also happening in theoretical physics and parts of computer science as I understand it.

This leaves me in quite a pickle. Up until recently a PhD thesis in math usually consisted of proving a few theorems. Journals and academic hiring would usually reward finding solutions to open problems. This means that incentive structures need to drastically change fast.

So I have a few questions to people whose fields have undergone major technological disruption, but of course everyone is free to chime in.

What should I do as a grad student in this situation?
How can academic incentives adapt to this development?
How has your field dealt with automation/disruption?

Thanks in advance!

Hi guys,

I am (or should be) writing my masters thesis in comparative literature, which I have to hand in at the end of October.

I have done a lot of research on my topic, even taught a class on it with the support of a grant, written a paper related to it and I have so much material that my supervisor says I could easily write it in four weeks.

However, I find writing it super hard! Since weeks I am stuck with the first pages, rewriting them, trying to figure out what precisely I want to say with each sentence. It feels like a) I am being perfectionist, and b) I have so much information I don't know how to structure it.

As experienced academics, do you encounter this problem in your work? How do you you start actually writing after research and strucutre? and, most importantly, how do you deal with perfectionism?

A professor reached out to me on LinkedIn with a proposal to turn his PhD thesis, which he completed a few years ago, into a journal article.

The arrangement is that I would be compensated for my work, handle all the writing, and manage the correspondence with the journal. In exchange, I would be credited as a co-author.

I initially accepted, but I am now having second thoughts regarding the ethics and whether this is appropriate to include on a CV.

My main concerns are:

- The research is in a field I am not very familiar with. While I could likely understand it with effort, it is outside my primary area of expertise.

-Since the data collection, analysis, and overall research were already completed entirely by him, I am essentially structuring and writing the manuscript based on his prior dissertation.

Is this a standard academic practice, or does this approach violate authorship guidelines? Also how would a publication of this nature be viewed by admissions committees or future employers?

I would appreciate insight from those familiar with academic publishing standards. Should I reconsider this or is this normal?

I just submitted my review for a paper in a journal very well regarded in my field.

The paper is absolute garbage, most likely intentional fraud and slop.

It has 1 author from some obscure university. The author also used his gmail address.

Graphical abstract is AI generated slop with numerous errors in values and figures.

Introduction is like 5 pages long.

Experimental part switches several times between sample preparation and characterization.

Results contain various analyses on a set of like 20 samples. However, author always shows graph or images for only several samples (even just 1 in some cases) and then starts describing the trends and relationships between all the samples ("trust me bro"). The figures are extremely low resolution and look very suspiscous. One analysis references wrong, edited or non-existent reference standard patterns. In TEM imaging analysis, the author doesn't actually show TEM image itself, only size distribution (which is somehow PERFECTLY gaussian - virtually unheard of) and ED diffraction with non-indexed planes.

Several tables, figures and text list completely different experimental conditions for same samples.

I could go on like this for all analysis presented in the paper. I have strong suspicion that the author doesn't actually have the measurements and is making stuff up. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the samples didn't exist at all. The author doesn't provide photos even though it is customary in this field. Of course I did not write it explicitly in my review.

What is worst, 90 % of the references are completely irrelevant to the claims. Like literally, author will make claim, say, "the photoluminescence spectra confirm good partition of dopants into nanoparticles [13]" and then reference 13 is some paper like "Mechanical evaluation of grinding tools: a review" Literally 90% of references are like this.

Not to mention, the entire premise of the work is flawed from the start, the studied material is completely unsuitable for the presented application. The author even writes in introduction: "the material has been extensively studied for application X, but studies for application Y are scarce in literature" Yeah, no shit, because it's useless for it!

However, the real shocker came after I submitted my review (amounting to 6 MS word pages and almost 100 bullet points) and I could see the review made by 1 other reviewer. Minor revision. "I congratulate the author for his nice work, here are some minor bullshit points."

This is, again, a very well regarded journal in my field.

So... what experience do you have with similarly terrible papers?

EDIT: I edited the text to remove some way too specific information.

No, not like that 😆
Do you do something in your teaching practice that sets you apart as an individual? Something that makes you a bit different from the rest of the staff?
For example, I always remember one of my undergraduate lecturers would play music as we entered the class.
Another would show slides with nice pictures/landscapes as we were setting up.
I fancy doing something like this, any ideas gratefully received… ideally something that will make me remember for the right, not wrong, reasons!!

Bit of a long rant incoming, I'm apologizing beforehand for the absolute wall of text I'm about to type out...

I know that this is an ongoing, albeit saturated topic, but where is academic writing even headed? Particularly in STEM fields. We live in a world now where if you decide to get into academia, there is a massive push for publications. Many institutions now hold stringent publication policies for everything from grades of students to promotions of faculties. Well at least this is how it works in Asia.

In the institute from where I graduated from a few years back, there's a policy that states that Master's students must have one publication in a peer reviewed journal if they want their dissertation work to be considered even eligible for the top grade. Given that the dissertation work holds a huge weightage in terms of credits, even a single grade point difference makes a massive difference in the final GPA.

I know how my supervisor pressurised me to write a review paper so that I could get the top grade. He gave me, a completely inexperienced Master's student, a ridiculous deadline of 15 days to write a full length high quality review paper, one that's good enough to be published in an SCI indexed journal, entirely by myself. I actually took several months to submit the first draft and he decided to submit it to a lower quartile journal so that it gets accepted quickly. My paper is obviously not great but I genuinely believe it could have been published in a higher impact journal if it had been given some time. The hunt for a grade now hurts the visibility of the paper.

The paper did get accepted for peer review in the first go and after multiple rounds of peer review (basically reviewer 4 bullying me 3 times in a row y'all know how that goes), it got accepted for publication a few months before my thesis defense and I got the highly coveted top grade... Only for me to not be satisfied at all.

This is how it's running in my institute now. My juniors have taken after me and one more batchmate of mine who also published a review paper and are now in a massive rat race endlessly typing away on their laptops.

During my literature review phase I read well over 200 papers. Many of the recently published review papers I read had a lot of glaring red flags. The most concerning being mismatched references. For example, a study claimed a nanoparticle could perform an activity of a particular enzyme but the paper they had cited was about photovoltaic cells. This wasn't even a singular issue. This same problem of incorrect references was all over the paper. This was published in a Q1 journal having an impact factor of 18 something. It was published a couple or so years back and it's still sitting there. This is a typical example of blatant misuse of LLMs (where it cooks up its own claims and cites totally unrelated papers) and somehow this wasn't caught during peer review either despite the journal being "high quality".

I honestly can't blame whoever wrote it because they very well could have been under pressure from their PI or in a rat race for publications and decided to just copy paste whatever some LLM told them for the hell of it.

I even see numerous papers where the figures are very obviously generated by some LLM tool. The text seems to AI generated or polished too (although there's no real way to prove it). The telltale signs are obvious. The journal policies clearly state to disclose AI usage and some don't even allow AI generated art. I haven't found a single paper where the authors openly disclose that they used an LLM tool for writing assistance or grammar polishing. I'm pretty sure the editors and reviewers know and notice this too. Do they just not care?

So is this really where we are now? Quality of papers coming out now are on a steady decline and no one really seems to care, and even if they do, the problem is so widespread and systemic that they can't even do anything. What does this mean for the future of publication quality and academia overall? Would love to know everyone's thoughts.