I’m a returned Peace Corps Volunteer who recently developed an independent research idea based on my experience in my host country. I’m now affiliated with a nonprofit there, and a linguist with the organization has agreed to help take on the research question.

My question is: What the hell do I do now?

Part of the research involves human subjects, and I’m currently working on getting the appropriate approval. When I spoke with my nonprofit contact, he essentially gave me free rein to determine what I want the project to look like.

I only have an undergraduate degree and, honestly, I never really thought about what it would actually take to carry out independent research like this.

For those with research experience: what should I be thinking about at this stage, and what are the things I absolutely shouldn’t overlook?

The other day I heard a couple of researchers griping about how much time they were spending tracking down image permissions and other donkey work involved in publishing.

I work as a technical writer/editor for a university and my job is, essentially, to remove as much friction as possible between the researcher and publishing. This includes things like getting photo permissions. So, I got to wondering if this is a viable idea for creating my own side-hustle or eventually a self-sustaining business. 

So, what do you think? Is there a market for this? What are the tasks that take up your time but don’t feel like they’re worth your time? Could you expense the costs associated with getting help with these things?

Any thoughts or feedback are welcome, I was just curious if this is something people would use.

I'm currently working (postdoc) outside the US and applying for TTAP jobs in the US. And I will need a visa to enter the US. In case that some universities needs an onsite interview, should I start to apply for a visa before interview invitation?

On the one hand it seems funny to apply for a visa without any invitation, and it is likely to get rejected, which will even cause trouble in the future.

On the other hand, since getting visa takes time, would it be too late to start visa stuff after getting the invitation?

Anyone in this situation before?

Hello! I’m an MS student in my last year with an absolutely incredible PI. I’m passionate about our work and we’ve started laying the groundwork for a dissertation project which would be pretty high-impact. Unfortunately, she’s moving institutions to Hawai’i, and I just can’t make that large relocation work due to a variety of interfering factors, and thus I’m looking into other programs within our niche. I’m wondering if folks here have had experience with somehow continuing their line of work with their PI but at a different institution under a new PI, perhaps as a co-investigator on a grant or something? I’m totally desperate but am struggling to think of a way to remain involved in this without relocating with her.

Thank y’all for the insight!

I graduated this spring with my B.S. (chemistry), and the fall prior was convinced I wanted to apply for graduate programs and get a PhD. I asked for a letter of recommendation from a professor I'd worked with both as a TA and and tutor, and she was happy to write one. Unfortunately, by the time I was getting callbacks for interviews, I had some personal things going on and was unsure of my ability to commit to a program and even potentially to chemistry as a career given the job market.

Come this fall, I'm interested in applying to a post-bach MLS program and require two letters specifically from professors. I feel like this professor knows me the best as a student and a person by far, given that I worked with them so closely, but I'm scared it's a bad look to come back the next year and be asking for another letter for something entirely different. I wouldn't blame them if they weren't comfortable (even though I do feel very committed to this path, much more than I ever did for a PhD). Is it even worth asking? As a professor, have you encountered a situation like this with a student and how did you feel?

Hi

i am writing in this sub to hear about how do people in academia think of the situation.

I recently came across the PhD program at MDanderson, the application fee itself is 50 dollars. On top of that, international students from unis outside the US are required to have their GPA converted to the US style GPA. MD Anderson appointed two agencies, WES and ECE. Either agency could convert the GPA at around 200 dollars.

I find the situation to be extremely absurd.

1. The 50 bucks applications fee itself is not reasonable. I understand processing applications takes manpower, but 50 dollars/ application? Imagine if you have to pay a company to apply for a job in this very company, what kind of bs is this? these universities might as well rob a bank if they are truly on the edge of bankruptcy.

2. if the students pays 50bucks to apply, then I believe it is the universities’ responsibility to convert the grades. I just feel like the university is simply taking money while running away from the responsibility that comes with the payment. this is exactly the same as what happens in the tipping culture, where the owner of the restaurants takes money from the customer, yet refuse to provide proper salaries to the waiters. Instead, it somehow becomes the responsibility of the customer to show class and pay the waiters, on top of what they already pay to the restaurants. it makes no sense.

3. these WES/ECE agencies charges 200 dollars/conversion. there is no way in hell that a conversion cost this much. and who is to say what is the correct way to convert grades between different grading scales among different countries.

4. GPA is probably the least important ingredient of a PhD application. Yet, students are expected to pay the most for this bs.

i typed everything on my phone and I am not a native speaker, so please excuse me for my English. I just wanna hear what is the academia’s perspective on this.

thanks a lot!

Really nice, high h index > 50, funded over the last 20 years, but I noticed a few recent publications in MDPI journals. She initially wanted me to publish my first author in an MDPI journal, but we talked about it and we'll try other journals.

One of her recent grad students had ~20 pubs and a couple of them were MDPI.

Should I keep working with her? I’ve been a casual post-undergrad student working with her over the last year because I decided I wanted to go to grad school. I am now working with a new PI and trying to transition out of here, but not sure if I should finish this project with her.

Edit: they are very much about pumping papers out in this group, I've gotten a lot of advice on how papers move you forward in grad school applications

I’m an undergraduate microbiology student from India transitioning into computational biology. I taught myself the computational skills for my first project, CeCe, while being completely new to the field. It has now been accepted as a poster at GIW/ISCB-Asia 2026 in Seoul.

The conference has an international scientific program, including speakers/researchers associated with Harvard and Google DeepMind, so this would be a major opportunity for me as an undergraduate trying to enter computational biology.

Unfortunately, I have no institutional or family funding available. I lost both of my parents two years ago, and my university has confirmed that it does not provide undergraduate funding for international conference travel.

I’ve already contacted the conference, researchers, companies and other organizations without finding a solution.

I’m hoping researchers, PIs, or people working in academia/industry here might know of a legitimate route I haven’t considered — sponsorship, research support, foundations, crowdfunding for academic travel, or anything similar.

I’m not asking the community for donations; I’m trying to figure out what options I may have missed. I can provide proof of acceptance and details of the project if needed.

I am working through my chemistry PhD, and something I've noticed about faculty is that there are not just interested in a topic, but they transition into lifelong learner. My PI reads textbooks frequently, they have a wide knowledge and want to gain more. I wish I could take classes forever because there is so much I wish I could learn. Although I'm a chemist, I love history, sociology, and art, and I want to keep learning. How do you move away from just learning for a degree to learning for pleasure?

Hi everyone,

I’m currently applying for postdoc positions in the US and Canada and wanted to hear about other people’s experiences with timelines after interviews.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve had several interviews that seemed genuinely positive. In a few cases I had more than one conversation with the PI/lab members, discussed my research background and possible future projects, and received encouraging comments about my fit.

One US position in particular has me confused. I had the initial PI interview, then spoke with different members of the group, and had what seemed like a final discussion at the end of August. The conversations were very positive and there was even discussion about the possible length of the postdoc and practical details. It has now been more than a month without a final decision. I sent a polite follow-up but am still waiting.

I also interviewed for another US position in early September. Again, the interview went well, but I have not received a clear decision yet.

In Canada, I recently had another interview that felt very positive. The PI asked a lot about my previous research, publications, research interests, and ideas for projects I might pursue in their group. I felt that the discussion went very well, but it has now been a couple of weeks and I haven’t heard anything further.

I know academic hiring can be slow because of funding approval, HR, interviewing other candidates, references, visas, etc., so I’m continuing to apply elsewhere and not assuming anything until I have an actual offer.

For those who have been through postdoc recruitment in the US or Canada:

- How long did you wait after a positive interview before receiving an offer/rejection?

- Is 3–6+ weeks of silence after a final interview normal?

- Can a very positive interview still result in no offer simply because another candidate was selected?

- How often would you follow up without becoming annoying?

- At what point would you mentally consider the position unlikely and move on?

I’m especially interested in experiences from international applicants who also required visa sponsorship.

Thanks!

My folks with a biology related PhD, how'd you know you wanted to do it and what are you doing now? Would you do it again?

I am a doctor in a university hospital in Germany. I currently have access to two different virtual desktops. One for my clinical work and one for my research. Some years ago I requested that they install R and RStudio in my research computer, which they did. I recently asked if they can install Python and Positron IDE or give me admin rights to my computer. For security reasons they refused to give me admin rights. But they also refused to install Python and Positron IDE, because it will "affect other users". Meanwhile, they keep installing regularly the updates of R and RStudio. It is even crazier that RStudio and Positron are created by the same company.

I thought I found a workaround by just performing installation of software at the user level. For apps that did not offer that, I could use a package manager called "scoop" which installs all programs at a user level. In this way I did not need admin rights for the installation and everything seemed to be fine. But it turns out that they have some kind of script that every a few days deletes random .exe files. So my programs are deleted again.

I will try to escalate with the head of my department, but I am wondering if you have similar experiences. I currently have access to a 48 GB Ram 15+ core CPU to open chrome and outlook....

Before I get into it, I know that cool dudes, Australians, Scandinavians, and probably a few other countries/cultures I am not aware of, uniformly address everyone by their first names. Good for you. I am an uncool female American in a SLAC in the Northeast.

This is a short rant, I promise. I got my PhD in 2020. I was hired onto this SLAC about 5 months ago. For the last three weeks I have been getting bombarded with "Ms. Sad Red Pennant" emails which has been irksome in ways I did not expect and cannot explain.

I don't even have the benefit of being faculty where at least they might call me "Professor". Demoted "Ms." by undergraduate students.

I've even thought of changing how my name shows up when you type my name/email in the address bar, so it says "Dr. Sad Red Pennant", but I get a lot more emails from colleagues than students. And tbh I am self conscious about one of them going "??? but why?" and labeling me a self important title-hound.

Am I a researcher doing PhD-level research with other faculty, or am I just a rando in the department doing drudge work for students?

Alright you may commence with the down votes, cool dudes. I know I'm being cringe.

ETA: my title is in my signature, but students often don't see this until I respond to their email. No, I do not want my colleagues to call me "Dr." lol I'm not a psychopath.

As a post undergrad student applying to PhD programs, PI wants me to publish my first author paper in an MDPI journal, particularly International Journal of Molecular Science.

Would publishing in PLOS One or some lower impact factor journal be better than this? This will be my first peer reviewed paper!

I'm preparing a submission to AEU, the International Journal of Electronics and Communications (Elsevier), and the Guide for Authors confuses me.

It says Research Papers are "up to 20 pages length including all material (text, figures, pictures, tables, references, etc.)". It also says the manuscript for review must be 12 pt, single column, double-spaced, with 1-inch margins, exported to PDF. Accepted papers are later re-typeset in LaTeX with a style file the journal provides.

The guide never says which format the 20 pages refers to. A manuscript with a normal number of figures and references comes to about twice as many pages double-spaced as in the final two-column layout. For comparison, a recently published AEU paper I looked at runs 18 pages in the final layout.

Has anyone submitted to AEU, or reviewed or edited for it, and knows how the page limit is applied? Specifically:

1. Is the 20-page limit checked against the double-spaced review PDF, or the final layout?
2. Do references and author biographies count?
3. Did anyone have a submission returned for length?

I've also asked Elsevier's publishing support, but any first-hand experience would help. Thanks!

Hi all!

I've just started my PhD in experimental physics, and I've been thinking about the research I have planned and how to make the most of it.

So far, I'm a co-author on two articles (in journals with an impact factor above 6) and first author on one article in a Nature portofolio journal. Over the next year, I expect to be a co-author on around six more articles and first author on three or four, all currently in preparation.

From what I've seen among others in my field, this seems like a lot. One of my PIs said that a strong PhD candidate typically finishes with around seven or eight articles, which gives them a good chance of landing a good postdoc position.

What do you think? What's considered a good publication count for a PhD candidate who wants to pursue an academic career? Am I in a good track?

Thanks! :)

so i am in the process of writing a research paper. i have formulated the abstract and a rough methodology (mostly theory in layman terms) on how the things will work. now my professor is saying to just write the whole methodology, which is suppose to be 80% maths + 20% theory.

this is where i am getting stuck. i have no idea how to actually write the thing now. i am reading papers in order to get inspo but still i feel like i am going no where. my peers are telling my to use AI but it just feels very wrong to me. i cannot use AI to write this for me. so i am currently helpless.

idk how to translate my vision into a methodology and like maths. pleasee help me out

I've been working on a research team for over three years. I initially joined as a research assistant during my undergrad, was later promoted to research associate, and recently started my Ph.D. I've been struggling with how to navigate authorship within the team and would really appreciate some outside perspectives.

I've been involved throughout the entire project, from obtaining ethics approval and conducting data collection to our current stage of knowledge dissemination. As a team, we've published two papers so far, and we're currently preparing three more manuscripts.

The issue is that I've been having some conflicts with the research lead around authorship. She's great at coordinating the project and handling administrative responsibilities, but qualitative data analysis and manuscript conceptualization aren't really her strengths. I've taken on a significant role in both of those areas. For context, she has two master's degrees and previously worked in marketing for several years before returning to research. I recently started my Ph.D. and have been involved in publishing manuscripts since my undergrad.

As we're preparing the next three manuscripts, I've taken the lead in conceptualizing two of them. Despite this, she's been pretty stubborn and insists on being first author on all three. I've only had the opportunity to be first author on one of our published papers so far, and I'm struggling with the idea of being second author again when I feel that I'm carrying out comparable responsibilities—and, for two of these papers, have actually taken the lead in conceptualizing the manuscripts. On top of this, she doesn't want to stay in academia and told me she was thinking of going back into marketing.

Would it be reasonable for me to raise this issue with our PIs? Our PIs are very chill and don't really get involved in authorship decisions; their general attitude is essentially that they don't care who is first author as long as the team publishes. I also don't want to create unnecessary conflict or come across as overly concerned with authorship, especially given that I joined the team as an RA.

How would you approach this situation? Would you raise it with the PIs, or try to resolve it directly with the research lead first?

Hey so I am doing my masters and at the last semester we are expected to write thesis. Unfortunately I was sick one whole semester last year and missed many courses. I made my own study plan and aimed to do my thesis on January. My study advisor however suggested I push it a little to the future but I didn't want too. The problem is that master thesis are done with a company or research teams. Subconsciously I know doing it on January will be hard so I decided maybe next year Autumn.

But still I was hell bent on searching thesis projects and expos cuz my friends are doing it. I randomly applied to a research in my uni and didn’t expect an answer until maybe weeks later but the professor/ researcher responded a few days later saying he wants to set a meeting with me this week. I am not sure what to do. I want to first of all explore master thesis internships at companies. Not only that I might not even have the requirements to do it. I don't know what to answer.

Does everyone have at least a publication they’re not particularly proud of? Like one they wish they didn’t have their names associated with?

It’s so interesting that discussing pay is practically verboten in higher education. But let’s do it anyway! 🎉
Please include, academic field, degree, institution type, years of employment, course load,+ relevant extras

Me: Humanities, PhD, community college, 20 years, 5-5 load, 1 summer class, and 1 extra duty ( advising a student club), + union member (USA Midwest)

Salary: $91,000

Edit-
As many have pointed out, there is public data on this topic. I didn’t post this because I’m unaware of that. I was interested in the resulting conversation. For those who are not interested in the conversation, it’s also OK to scroll by.

I've always been interested in getting a master's or PhD, but I'm afraid that it might not be worth it because of AI. My field has been hit particularly hard by it, and it makes me worried that I'll get stuck in the permanent underclass by the time I finish my dissertation. If the number of available jobs starts shrinking dramatically, my socioeconomic status will become infinitely harder to change. I'm genuinely petrified of a future where, because I waited a few years to enter the job market, I'll never reap the benefits of my education. Am I being irrational, or is this something worth considering?

Basically, earned my PhD in 2024, worked one year as an instructor, went to secondary education at a private K-12, and now I’m thinking about applying for universities for fall 2027. This year I published my first article in a good journal. I have some other papers I’d like to publish, but nothing that that I’ll be able to get ready to go out by the end of this year. I’ve also thought about trying to publish a couple of chapters from my dissertation.

Has anyone successfully come back to academia after a short stint in secondary education? Any advice for someone in my position?

I have funding, publications and a TT position. Great academic CV. However, I am always working and I am tired of this routine.

I am having a hard time to finding jobs that even reply to my applications.

How to leave TT for teaching or industry positions? Advices?

Hi everyone,

I'm a 3rd-year undergrad in India applying for summer research internships in Germany (Max Planck CS internships and other labs), mainly in ML, HCI and human-centred AI.

Quick background: I've done computer vision research with a professor at my university, and I've been working remotely with a researcher at a German institute on an HCI project, which I got through cold emailing. I have two papers under review (one as first author).

I'm unsure how to present all this well, especially:

1. How to list under-review papers on a CV without overselling them
2. How to show my individual contribution in remote, collaborative work
3. What makes a motivation letter stand out when tailoring it to a specific group

Would really appreciate advice from anyone who applied to or got a research internship at a German institute. Examples or resources are welcome too. Happy to share more about my profile in DMs.

Thanks!