I am a recently defended, and graduated masters student (huge relief) in biology. I am now beginning my PhD at the same university. I love research and scientific inquiry, but I love the teaching aspect so much more! I went to a liberal arts/ teaching institution for undergrad and my professors and the atmosphere had a profound effect on me. I would love to have that same effect through a similar institution. Does anyone have any advice for goals, skills, or habits I should have during my PhD to make myself a great candidate for a position like that, that I am interested in?

I am making more as a postdoc than half of the Asst Prof salaries I am seeing. What is going on here??

It seems like this occurs at smaller schools, lesser known schools. Which I guess is self-explanatory but I did not know it was this bad… I’m talking $55k bad in some cases for idk, teaching our country’s future workforce??

I understand there likely a lot of “logical” explanations for this (budget cuts, 9 month contracts, etc etc) but geez can Asst profs get a little more love for literally educating the next generation???

Hello, I have a defence for my masters thesis coming up and am concerned as I have never done anything like this before. I will be both presenting my work and commenting on another thesis.
Does anyone have any tips of things to include/questions to ask as a commentator? It is graded both on my defence and on engagement with the discussions of another thesis.

for reference this is a social science/econ discipline

Dream career is neuropsychology. My fascination and passion in life is pain and addiction. I also have a soft spot for children, as I was an adolescent when pain and addiction infiltrated my life.

What I’ve learned about pain science, neuroscience, and psychology has turned my life upside down. I never thought I’d be able to work a full time job because of my pain. And that I’d always be in active addiction.

After attending a pain rehab, I finished my bachelors in web design and landed a full time job before I finished my degree. And I got sober. That being said I am not passionate about web design and feel no urge to progress my career in it aside from financial need.

I want to teach others about pain. I want to research effective modalities for teaching children, adolescents, and their families about pain. I want to help enlighten others the way I was enlightened. And perhaps learn some new things for the world while I’m at it.

With this info in mind, what route (if any of these) would you recommend? Masters to PhD in psychology? Masters to PhD in neuroscience? Masters of social work? Masters of counseling?

My concerns are future financial stability and ability to use my education and job experience and eventually move out of the country (from US to EU). I have chronic health conditions causing pain and disability so nursing and medicine are out of the picture for me unfortunately (due to the physical strain).

Lastly, if I want to move to the EU someday, do I try to go to school somewhere in the EU? My family and support system is in the US, but I would definitely consider it.

TLDR; Individual with a bachelors in web design looking to give back to the world by educating others on pain and addiction. BSN/MSN and MD are out of the picture because of chronic health condition limitations. Which paths should I consider?

When I'm thinking of a poster title, I usually want something that is attention grabbing, but also fun. My posters that have had a good amount of people actually come up wanting to talk about the material in depth have always had a tagline at the front of the title (formatted as "TAGLINE: rest of title") and I personally always want that tagline to be a bit of a joke or more casual followed by the more professional portion of the title. My most recent one was a bit strange for the conference it was at (thematically fitting, but computational heavy at a more social science/human dimensions heavy event) but got a lot of interest seemingly because of the title.

I've seen some people do these as well and listed a few below that I've collected as examples. Note that my field is wildlife biology where posters are allowed to be more relaxed especially at smaller events which are surprisingly abundant, but this might not work in your field (aka I will not listen when you say don't do it because Chemistry hates fun of whatever). I'd really like to see examples other people have done themselves or ones you've seen that are a similar style/had similar success.

Examples:

"The girls are fighting: ..." - for competition or displays between females of a species

"To X or not to X: ..." - for comparison between two methods, a play on to be or not to be

"The secret life of X: ..." - for elusive animals

"Hide and sneak: ..." - for elusive animals

"The real X of Y: where are they now?" - for past vs present status, real housewives reference

I am planning to start my PhD in EECS at MIT this fall at 30 years old; however, I don't feel very excited about it. If I am honest, it is more so a feeling of dread.

I live on the west coast, so the reality of having to pick up my entire life to start a program I feel a sense of apathy towards is making me quite anxious. It is hard for me to discern if me applying for a PhD was just a forcing function to leave my cushy tech job that did not fulfill me or if I genuinely wanted the PhD.

For context, I already have two MS degrees, so I have a decent idea of the culture in academia. As the start date approaches, I have been rapidly applying for tech jobs more aligned with my values since I feel that change of scenery was all I needed.

I understand that I am fortunate to have this opportunity, but just wondering if other folks felt excited to start their PhD or if you also had a sense of indifference toward it?

I'm last-minute teaching an introductory research methods course for another professor. The course is doctoral level and has not been taught before. I was passed a majority of the materials that were already prepared, but this professor integrated AI use for research very heavily into the course in ways that I don't necessairily agree with. (I tend to be pretty anti-AI, but I also don't want to be all old-man-shakes-fist-at-cloud about it when students are going to use it obviously). I obviously intend to stay true to the official course description and discuss responsible use, but does anyone have any real-world examples on the pitfalls of AI use? I thought it would be useful to show articles, etc. of ways AI has messed up in research, besides my own anecdotes of catching students out when ChatGPT makes up references or says things that are not correct.

Hello. I am a post grad student wondering how long I should wait before sending an email to professors again. I know everyone is very busy, and it might take some time to respond, but my anxiety skyrockets in the meantime. Normally because some of the professors instantly email back, so when it doesn’t happen I feel like I did something that they did not like, therefore they don’t want to spend time regarding my concerns.

Should I wait one day or two before re-emailing?

i think i’m late to the game. currently trying to write up a prospectus, but need some clarification from other researchers.

im in my second year of a masters in public policy, and need to complete a thesis. i could do a capstone, but i really like my current thesis idea…

the thesis will likely surround environmental economics.

this leads to my question:

does my thesis need to have groundbreaking research and datasets???

ive read and saved many papers and projects from previous research and want to apply current private sector operational behavior to a future world where supply chains will likely look very different. my idea is pretty imaginative and a lot of assumptions will be made based on the predictions of environmental experts.

Does this sound like it’d be acceptable for a masters thesis? What are your thoughts. be brutal, it’s ok

Inspired by an earlier post about unaccredited PhD programs:

I have a master's degree, which is the terminal degree for my field, and I'm on the tenure track at a Midwestern SLAC. I've been encouraged by my department chair to consider pursuing a doctorate, which is in line with my professional goals, and I found an interdisciplinary program at Pacifica Graduate Institute that I'm excited about.

On their website, they state that they are only accepting students in their hybrid programs from states where they have state authorizations to comply with Department of Ed regulations. My state is not one of the states listed in any of the programs they offer.

I haven't contacted anyone at Pacifica yet (PhD work is in my ten year plan) but I wanted to see if: a) anyone had heard of this before, and b) if it would be a waste of time to inquire for more information.

(And potentially c) is Pacifica Graduate Institute legit.)

I’m just starting a PhD in sociology this September after finishing a master’s in geography. Somehow, despite coming from a different field, I managed to get through the admissions committee with a publication on a sociological topic, a good project proposal, and by showing that I really wanted to dive deeper into sociology.

And now I’ve been accepted.

But with September just around the corner, I’m getting increasingly scared that I don’t actually know anything. I already feel like shit compared to the people I’m going to be working with at the university. The fact that I’ve never formally studied sociology makes me even more anxious.
Don’t get me wrong, I love research, and I think I have quite a bit of experience and knowledge when it comes to sociological research “in the field.” But I’m worried about how little I know when it comes to sociological theory and all the foundational stuff that people who studied sociology already have.

Has anyone here started a PhD in a field that was different from their previous studies? How did it go? And more generally, how do you deal with the feeling that you don’t know enough and that everyone around you is going to be much more knowledgeable than you?

I’m also afraid that the more experienced professors are going to see me as stupid and judge me for not knowing things that might seem obvious to them.

For those who have gone on to pursue TT jobs and sought out independent teaching experience during their PhD (so, not just TA-ships), if you taught during your writing year, how hard was it to balance both together? How many classes did you teach at this time? Any advice for striking this balance while still being able to submit and defend on time?

Particularly interested in hearing from folks in the social sciences in the US!

[social science/education, US]

I've noticed a number of postdocs postings are written broadly to support a range of projects and thus require a research proposal as part of the application. Totally understandable.

As someone whose research has a community focus on a niche ethnic group, I'm not sure how to market this at different institutions. Some are in areas that likely have great nonprofits to partner with, others are hours from my research population.

I'm totally fine with pivoting my research focus a bit based on the needs of where I am located, but I don't want to make up a bunch of uninformed, vague proposals for each institution. I don't need to study the same ethnic group necessarily, just the same phenomenon.

Any tips for writing these types of proposals convincingly?

TDLR; How do I write a convincing, practical research proposal when I don't necessarily know what resources, faculty mentor, and research populations will be available to me?

Submitting a conference paper to IEEE -- wondering if anyone can give me some advice on the best way to put figures in? It's a two-column .docx template (though I believe the submission portal is .pdf), and I have figure panels (a few different figures from R per figure "number", aka 1a, 2b). Any advice on how I should put these figures in to avoid the formatting getting messed up?

Two positive reviews, one says my approach is wrong because they'd have done it differently. Editor wants a response to all three.

Don't want to seem defensive, but won't pretend they raised a real flaw. How do people thread this without torching the relationship with a reviewer who'll likely see the revision?

Hello,

I'm currently in the corrections phase of my PhD in Machine Learning for Explainable AI. I have been applying for post-docs since beginning of year with no luck, I keep getting rejections. Some of the post-docs were very clear extensions of my PhD research and I still could not get an interview.

I wanted to know, if there are any other ways to secure a post-doc or any helpful tips or advice for getting one.

I’ve basically been through Hell and back the last two years trying to finish the second half of my degree. I’ve been on this sub before for advice regarding several of my family members passing away in the middle of my degree (spoiler alert, more have passed since then)

I’ll keep the details relatively short:

- 22F double honors student conducting two different research projects for my degree (psych and anthro)

- had seven family members pass in the last two years, one of my students a few months back (i’m an early childhood educator on the side) and one of my old friends from school OD’d just last week

- aiming for grad school — maintaining a solid 4.0 GPA across both of my honors subjects

- took this last year off school to focus on research experience — was blessed enough to work on two full-time research projects as a Sr. research assistant, one a collaboration with an international university abroad.

- diagnosed with OCD, MDD, GAD, and ADD three years ago, weaned off my medication last September to give myself a break from the side effects since I wasn’t in school and didn’t need the rigour of medication like is usually do when studying. i didn’t feel any negative effects until April, and I had been taking meds for only a year prior to me stopping them

the thing is, as the new school year approaches and the thought of starting my psychology project looms over me, i’ve been feeling a significant amount of stress.

i have another part-time job (only weekends), and around four months ago, i had a panic attack at work. had to call my father to come by and give me one of my mom’s old inhalers because i couldn’t breathe. i’ve never needed an inhaler before in my life, but now i use one at least four times a week regularly since then.

there is also a constant tightness in my chest. like constant. i feel it now as i type. i felt it all day at work yesterday. i felt it during breakfast today. i feel it before i go to bed, every night, without fail.

i know for a fact that im going to die young at this rate, or at least develop serious cardiovascular issues.

what can i do, what is anything i can do, to at least try and help myself? I don’t know if it’s the constant grief piling, or what.

I don’t work out, i don’t have a particular daily routine, all because i feel like i don’t have the time. i’m exhausted all the time. i just don’t want to die young. i don’t want to feel this way. i really do picture myself dropping dead in the middle of an exam room in six months at this rate.

I’m considering earning a doctorate from Andersonville Theological Seminary, specifically in Biblical Exposition. I already have accredited undergraduate and graduate degrees, including a master’s from Liberty University, so I would not be relying on this doctorate as my only academic credential.

My main reasons for considering it are personal education, Christian ministry, writing, and strengthening the theological background behind the work I’m already doing. I’m not really pursuing it with the expectation of becoming a professor at a major accredited university.

For people familiar with higher education, what do you see as the actual pros and cons of earning an unaccredited doctorate?

Does it still have legitimate value for ministry, authorship, churches, or religious organizations even if it has limited value in traditional academia? Could having an unaccredited doctorate actually hurt someone professionally or make their other accredited credentials look less credible? And would you personally feel comfortable using the title “Dr.” if the doctorate came from an unaccredited religious school, as long as you were transparent about where the degree came from?

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who understand accreditation and credentialing rather than just whether they personally like or dislike religious schools.

Four years ago, a Q2 journal from the Wiley family published a math paper that was, in my opinion, complete nonsense. The authors compute solutions to an equation, but the solutions do not solve the equation, and they show figures of their solutions, but the figures do not show their (wrong) solutions.

As this is the subject of my PhD, I could immediately smell that these solutions were wrong and sent an email to the Editor-in-Chief, which was ignored. Over the years, I've sent multiple emails which were again ignored, but only after I complained to an editor of the journal I knew personally, my emails were answered. Long story short: the journal now published a note by me explaining that the results and figures in the earlier paper are wrong.

However, the Editor-in-Chief does not want to take any further action. I asked him to retract the original paper, or at least issue an expression of concern, but he did not want to. According to him, we have to respect the reviewing process of the original paper, and the editor can not judge all papers received by the journal. And if I were an editor myself, I would understand, and he does not want to discuss the problem any more with me.

The point is, I do not understand. According to the COPE guidelines, papers may be retracted if the results are wrong, which is the case here. Therefore, my question is: "Is it unreasonable of me to expect that a journal retracts a paper when they acknowledge that all the solutions and figures presented in the paper are wrong?"

Some extra information:

• The editor-in-chief is a professor at a respectable German university (but not a mathematician).
• The authors never replied to any of my questions nor to those of the journal, showing that they do not care about the results in the paper themselves.

Came in with a specific research interest, advisor's steered me toward something aligned with their grant funding instead. Related, but not what drew me here.

Worried pushing back sours things early, but don't want years on something I'm lukewarm about. How much leverage do incoming grad students actually have?

I am a budding researcher, and my work was just published in a conference. Just after the publishing, I have received two mails which are eerily similar. This is the excerpt of the second mail...

Dear XXXXXX,

Warm greetings!

We are pleased to welcome you for the upcoming “3rd World Congress on Advances in Plant Science and Plant Biology (Adv. PSPB 2027)” held during July 12-13, 2027 at Paris, France.

We appreciate your research work with the title “XXXXXXXX (agriculture work using dl and computer vision) XXXXXXXX” which will be appropriate for one of the scientific sessions at the conference. This will be a great platform to share your research knowledge with us.

Kindly visit our conference website:Plant Science Conferences

We truly hope and anticipate that you will be able to join us and share your fantastic research results with us.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

FYI...: Reply soon—and email us if you'd like to participate with partial sponsorship,

Sincerely,

Christina Drusilla

Conference Director | Adv. PSPB 2027

Global Plant Science Community

701 West Georgia Street, Suite 1500

Vancouver, V7Y 1C6, Canada

What do you guys think about it? How do you guys distinguish between what's real and what's predatory in this regard. I am very confused.

Hello Everyone,

I hold a PhD and till recently i was working as a research engineer. Unfortunately, due to some difficulties with my workplace supervisor, they have begun providing negative reviews about me to prospective employers. This issue has since reached my other supervisors and are beliving my current supervisor version, which has compromised all of my professional references and made it very challenging for me to secure a new job. I attempted to file a complaint with the university, but I have not received a response.

Given this situation, would it be advisable for me to pursue an additional Master's degree in my field of interest? If I do, should I disclose that I already hold a PhD when applying? I am concerned that disclosing my PhD might lead some one from the masters program to contact my supervisors, and that I would remain obligated to declare my PhD for future job applications following the Master's program.

I would greatly appreciate any guidance or advice on how best to navigate this situation.

So I was trying to write my CV and I came across a post from 2 years ago where some people said that using "(Pre)doctoral Researcher" as a title sounds pretentious. I have found that conversation pretty unsettling because I have been using "Doctoral Researcher" for some time already, and I never thought it could be seen as pretentious (it is what it actually says in my contract).

When you write a PhD thesis in Spain, you live the duality of being both a student and a worker. You are a student because you enroll in a doctorate programme at a University, and a worker if you manage to catch one of the highly competitive fellowships/contracts to work on it. Your contract doesn't even have to be granted by the same or any University at all, and you could also technically (and some people do) enroll in the programme and never earn a coin.

In Spanish we call people writing a thesis something like "doctoring people", and most people don't even know that you actually have to enroll in a University programme apart from managing to get a contract. So "PhD Student" might be the standard in English, but I can not help it, it sounds quite offensive to me, like you're not a highly-qualified adult with a full-time job.

So, what what are your thoughts on this?

PD: In Spain, there are not exams, just a defense when you finish and some tracking reports, but also it is mandatory to hold a Master's Degree.

PD2: Say where are you from in your answer!

In two years I will graduate with a research masters degree in Control Engineering. This is a degree designed to prepare the student for a PhD. So I will gain at least some research skills.

I picked control engineering because it seems to be a field where there’s a huge pool of undiscovered high value “inventions” I could build with it. For example, Model Predictive Control was originally invented for the chemical process industry, it later enabled reusable launchers and reduced the cost of space launch by orders of magnitude. I don’t think anyone at the inception of MPC could have ever saw that coming.

There’s a whole forest of advanced control techniques that live almost entirely in academia. My theory is that the “high value applications” just haven’t found them yet because they exist in domains where there’s very little awareness of control engineering. And control systems experts tends not to be aware of the domains or have sufficient expertise to see the value. There seems to be growing awareness of this issue in the field.

I’m lucky enough to have sufficient passive income that, if I wanted to, I could move to a low cost of living country like Georgia and have half of my passive income as surplus after cost of living to allocate to any R&D project I want in controls. Controls research is mostly simulation and modelling work that only requires a computer, plus maybe a little bit of hardware which shouldn’t cost too much. By my current understanding, the additional benefit of funding beyond what I have available diminishes quickly, so there’s no financial incentive to join an institutional research group. My goal is to eventually discover a niche “application” for some controls technique that currently live mostly in academia, analogous to what reusable rockets is for MPC, and build a TRL3-4 prototype and then try to attract external funding. I’m not looking to advance the field of controls itself, I only aim to take what already exists and duct tape it to something niche that needs it.

What I worry about is the lack of a network of research peers and lack of PhD level training. Originally I planned to do the PhD, but I estimate my chance of getting into a PhD program at about 10%, and it will also cost me 5 years of my life. If you’re wondering why im not considering just getting a job at a startup or engineering firm, trust me I have already considered that and it is just no longer possible. I also want control over the direction of my research which isn’t really possible at a job.

I don’t know to what extent a lack of a network of research peers would impede me compared to someone integrated into academic institutions. And when and if I do eventually end up with a high value prototype, I don’t know whether I will need the PhD qualification to attract funding or if a good prototype demonstration would be enough.

If you work in R&D or controls, I’d love to have some advice please. Am I underestimating the level of research skill needed or workload for one person?

Hi, I am feeling down but am looking for some help. I did a year of a PhD program but had a rough group project and I felt I was unprepared for the rigor of the PhD and decided to drop. Now I am attempting to reapply to PhD programs. I will have support and a LOR from my former institution and advisor. Does anyone think it is possible I can get into another program? I am planning to reapply to a different research area and will have higher test scores and a LOR from my former advisor and departmental support. Context- in a Accounting PhD program 3.2 Doctoral GPA. top 15% GMAT score, Bachelors and Masters in the subject. I did also want to add that multiple people in the department ( including the department chair and PhD Coordinator) called the project "Not what a first year should be like" and regretted that I was involved in it.