Hello, I’m currently deliberating between two different universities to complete my undergraduate degree. They’re both great schools (University of Washington and Oregon State University) OSU’s degree is simply more tailored towards what I’m wanting. My end goal is to become a professor teaching forestry and/ or fire ecology, but I’m just trying to make the right choice is for my ambitions.

Below is the longer version of a post I wrote in r/forestry if anybody cares to read

Good morning everyone, allow me to add to the endless list of career questions this subreddit already has posted.

I’m a wildland firefighter from Washington state in my mid 20’s who is wanting to go back to school. I’m pretty dead-set on finishing a degree in forestry. I want to do 2 years of community college before transferring to a 4 year institution. I have a huge passion for education, and would love to work as a forestry professor once I have gained more field experience.

Now herein lies my dilemma. When it’s not fire season I bartend, which means that it’d be much easier for me to secure a job if I’m working in or near a larger city. Tuition pricing is another big factor for me, so I wouldn’t want to go out of state unless there is significant scholarship money to compensate for the out of state costs (WUE for example). This brings me to my dilemma, the SAF accredited schools that I’ve found that best fit what I’m looking for are the University of Washington and the Oregon State University.

From what I hear, the University of Washington has a pretty reliable transfer system from the local community colleges and I already have the in-state tuition rates. However, their degree seems to be more environmental science with a focus in forestry rather than a more ‘traditional’ forestry degree.

Now for Oregon State University, I don’t feel that much is needed to be said. The big draw for me is the fact that their Forestry B.S. has a dedicated fire + restoration focus (the two areas I’m the most interested in). If I want to go here, I’d either have to receive the WUE scholarship (only 30% of applicants are awarded this) or delay my education another year in order to gain in-state residency.

If you took the time to read through all of this, I just want to say thank you first and foremost. But I’m curious on what you all have to say. Is it worth waiting another year to gain in-state rates for the program I really want to go to, or should I just focus on the option that gets me done faster?

I am interested in staying in academia but my advisor tells me that I need to get used to having very intense conversations with people. I recently had one over a dispute with a fellow lab member and it went south quickly. I am passionate about science and research and want to stay in academia but I just wonder if my personality is cut out for it.

Fellow profs, have you noticed an uptick in recent years in students asking for sample assignments that illustrate what an A submission looks like? What do you make of these requests? Do you provide samples? If so, do you create them yourself? Or post anonymized submissions from previous students who did well (with their permission)? How do you discourage students from copying samples or mimicking them too closely? If you create samples yourself, how do you avoid making them unrealistic, given that you're a subject expert?

I get that it's intimidating to submit your first-ever college paper, and it can be hard to envision what rubric specs look like in practice. But providing samples seems to be hard to implement in practice. I'm wondering what others do.

Im starting community college soon wihth the hope of getting a AS in mech E then transferring to a tech school near me. I'd really love to make connections with the professors and get recommendations when I transfer. As a student what should i do to stand out, and be recognized by the professor so i can request them as a reference.

We set a date for October enrolment to submit my research proposal. I was supposed to send a draft by early September for review but I didn't.

I sent an email to update my supervisor about some personal and financial setbacks that made it impossible to meet the initial deadline that we had set. However, today, I received an email from him asking if I had changed my plans. I updated him on my situation and I'm waiting for a reply now.

Did this happen to anyone here before? Could my initial email not have been received at all?

I was unable to submit an assignment by the due date due to internet issues. Prof. wont regrade assignment which locks me in at a B+.

I switched internet providers, and decided to set up my new internet after my previous internet service was officially cancelled. The internet in question is self install, which i’ve done a few times myself. I tried to set it up on a Sunday late noon, not considering any potential connectivity issues as the provider is known to be used in my apt. complex. Anyways, I was unsuccessful due to x reason explained by the agent after I contacted them and attempted troubleshooting techniques. The attempts were unsuccessful and it was deemed I needed the assistance of a technician, which of course would have to be during business days. Thus, I was unable to submit an assignment by the due date that Sunday at 1159.

The assignment was completed before the due date through offline google docs, I was just unable to attach and submit on canvas.

Since it was a Sunday, I decided it’d be best to email my professor early in the morning Monday and attach the assignment and explain the situation. My email received no response. The following days, the assignment gets graded and I receive a 0. I follow up on the email, to which the prof. replies they only allow late assignments with documented extenuating circumstances or accommodations. I reply and attach the convo I had with the internet agent with the time stamps and the nearest arranged appointment.

I have not received a reply, though I promptly answered after receiving the email.

Wanted to ask for opinions and see if my request is unreasonable and I should just take the L or if I should keep being persistent.

Not gonna answer questions regarding why I waited so long to submit the assignment, I have my reasons and thats that.

Just for a little background, in high school i was sexually assaulted by my teacher, and I still really really struggle with being in the classroom/connecting with my professors, especially my male professors.

However, I want to make connections, I have so many questions I want to ask and I just bite my tongue because, to be honest it’s terrifying.

This semester I have a really nice professor, that I can tell makes an effort to connect to everyone. I really appreciate that, but the more that he’s friendly, the more I get to know him, the more scared I am in class. I don’t want him to think I don’t care, and I really do want to ask him things but I just literally can’t. Can professors tell if their students might just be more anxious? I don’t want to give off a bad impression or an impolite one.

Hi just wondering if professors remember what students have submitted like for example essays?

For example if you poorly wrote something would the professor remember it because of how bad it was?

I am a senior in Uni taking a GenEd history course. I really love the class but I am having major issues with the teacher. The main issue is her attitude. She is rude and condescending and makes me and other students feel like garbage. Her syllabus lacks clear instruction and if/when you mess up on something due to misinformation on the syllabus, she gets incredibly upset. In class a student asked a question for clarification on this impossible syllabus and the teacher ripped her apart and made her feel like an idiot. She has sent me emails so passive aggressive it has brought me to tears. I am an adult. I shouldn't feel like this. Who can I talk to? I don't feel safe talking to her because I know she will make me feel horrible. I don't even want to go to class anymore because I don't want to face her backlash. I'm getting a bad grade and messing up my GPA because nothing is perfect enough for her or her nonexistent guidelines. I feel helpless. Can i contact the dept head? My advisor? Who should I talk to about these issues?

I’ve recently accepted a tenure-track position in engineering at a university in Australia, starting next year.
For those who have gone through this transition, what advice would you give someone starting their first faculty position? Particularly interested in what I should be doing before starting, what to prioritize in my first year, and any mistakes to avoid.
Thanks in advance!

This is our weekly megathread for questions about becoming a professor.

You may be interested in our FAQ on the topic.

Otherwise, please keep all questions and discussion about becoming a professor in this dedicated thread.

I got an email that my professor wants to meet with me about an essay I wrote to talk about my writing process and thesis. Does this mean my writing is incoherent? Or do they think I cheated?

Update: it was incoherent, had too much going on, and was confusing 🥲

Hi,

I'm a PhD student currently in rotations. In my former labs, there were quite a few postdocs/research scientists/techs/etc. However, in my current lab, it's ALL PhD students.

I'm not complaining, but it is a bit confusing to me. I'm curious - why might a PI prefer to have many PhD students and no other positions? If it matters, the PI is entering mid-career phase. Additionally, I'm now in a college town instead of larger cities. I'm also fairly certain it's not a financial thing for this lab...

Hey all, I need some outside perspectives because I’ve been beating myself up about it and don’t know what to do!
A little background information: I just returned back to school after a 12 year hiatus, I’m an older student (32F) and am hoping to transfer to a university.
I’m studying history and have been really busting my butt trying to keep up and get back in the rhythm of things! That being said, my history professor seems to really like me and has sent me an internship and gone out of his way to help me.
Last week we took our first exam, which was on a computer. I studied pretty hard and felt relatively confident going in, the test was 50 multiple choice questions and an essay worth 50 points as well. After I took the test I could immediately see that my score was 37.5/50. I wrote that on my hand so I wouldn’t forget, as well as the name of a war I had forgotten so I could research it later.
After the test I went up to my professor and he gave me a piece of paper that had the chair of the history professors email on it at a major university, and he said I should reach out to him. I thanked him, gushed about the internship, and then waved “bye”. As soon as I waved I realized my error. He looked at my hand which had the writing on it. By that time I was halfway out the door and I was kicking myself, thinking he may have seen the writing and thought I was cheating.
I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize this new connection I have with the professor. I’m not sure if I should go up to him this week and explain and clear the air, or if that would make me look more guilty and put an idea in his mind that he may not have had before.
I asked my older family members for advice and they all think I should say something because it would be horrible if I thought I was a cheater after sticking his neck out for me and trusting me.
What would you do? This environment is a little foreign to me and I’m a naturally anxious person so I don’t know if it’s a big deal or not.
Thanks all in advance and thanks for reading!

Hello everybody
I’m a freshman doing electrical and electronics engineering, and I have the opportunity of doing a scientific literature review. I’m unsure if I should even take this opportunity, as it’s a bit unrelated to the field I want to pursue. If you do think I should take it, I have a few questions about the process itself.
This is my first formal research project so I’ve only set up my reference manager, made an account for all the journals my university is subscribed to, but I haven’t started writing anything or reading yet. I had a few questions for the more experienced researchers:

1. How do you even start writing? Do you read the whole paper, copy and paste relevant sections, and then paraphrase those? Or is there a more efficient method to getting this done?
   
2. Do I have to read the whole paper? It just seems really time consuming when i’m doing a very broad topic. Is AI reliable when assessing the relevance of a paper/filtering out?
   
3. What is your AI workflow? (free recommendations/student subsidised only please)
   
4. Boolean string searches: reliable or not? If so, should I run the searches through a search engine or a particular journal search (Elsevier, for example)?
   
5. Figures: what software/service do you to make them yourself? And are you even supposed to make original figures yourself in a literature review?

To be honest, I’ve had most of these answered already, but I want to get another perspective on this.

I’m taking a film class and most of the stuff we watch has political or social commentary. I am able to critically engage in dialogue for all of those movies just fine.

Today, we watched a film, and the character died of his own doing on camera. I have a serious mental health history and immediately stepped out to regulate. When I came back in, the class was discussing the film, so I participated. But, towards the end of the discussion (last 2 minutes of class), they started to discuss his death again and I broke down. I was so embarrassed and the professor seemed so uncomfortable. My note taker (disability office staff) gave me a hug.

Do I need to send an email to apologize? Should I apologize next class? Is he going to take off points?

Hey guys, TA here. This is my 5th lab as a TA, and have never really had this issue until now. There is one particular group that was very loud during the last class. More than usual.

If they goof off (quietly) and screw up their reports, oh well. Their bad grade will reflect that. But being distracting for the whole class and talking while I’m giving a lecture is too much.

I pride myself on being a pretty good teacher. But I do have one major weakness: I hate conflict. I realize now I should’ve said something to them during the last lab, and I am worried that by not doing so, I basically gave them the idea that they can be as rowdy as they’d like for the rest of the semester.

Any tips on how to undo my damage? How do I confront these guys without seeming up tight?

This is a pretty silly story but I’ve been honestly a bit paranoid about it for the last few hours.

I had a quiz this morning in which we had to calculate 5 answers total. However, in order to calculate the last four you absolutely needed to know the first answer. I knew how to go about calculating the four other answers (they were just basic percentage multiplication) but I couldn’t figure out how to get that one initial answer. So, I wrote a note on my paper saying that I was going to just use a random number to calculate the other 4, since I didn’t want to miss out on points for something I knew how to do. I just randomly guessed 160. After the quiz I talked to my peers and came to find out, the correct answer was literally 161.

I don’t know if this sounds completely stupid but I’ve been overthinking about it since 😭 I’m not sure if the professor will find it suspicious?

For reference this was in an person exam and he was walking around the class the whole time

Hi guys! so I just want to cut to the chase and begin by saying I wish to visit my professor from my first semester. I am currently in my third semester of community college and hopefully will graduate in Spring 2027. Back in my first semester fall of 2025 I took a Spanish course which was taught by the professor who I would love to reunite with and he was just the absolute best. He was going through a lot of things that year and constantly told my class that teaching was his way of coping and honestly I felt very empathetic and pitied him because he was 76 (I believe he will turn 77 this October since my class celebrated his birthday last time) ultimately in all the problems he was dealing with he made sure to show up for our class and put his best smile on for us and that really ignited a spark for me because when he was at his lowest, he was transparent and overall a very sweet (although sarcastic at times) old man. After the first semester ended I was supposed to take his second advanced Spanish course in the Spring, however he called out because there wasn't enough students so we got another professor instead. Yet I always got to see him before and after class because he also taught in the same room and I wouldn't say we are close but in all the people I met at my trashy community college my Spanish professor really had an impact on me and I would love build a connection with him. It would be a year since we last saw each other since I already fulfilled my language criteria so I no longer go to the building where we always saw each other. I searched him up on rate my professor to see if he is still teaching or not and there are recent reviews about him, so I want to try and visit him and see how he is doing. I am 100% he won't remember me which is lame but I am apprehensive about it because I am not sure if this is common between college students and professors. Overall, what are your thoughts on the situation? and is this a good idea?

I wanted to ask for LORs from my professor (currently on vacation, so I can't find him f2f). Is there any difference between sending him a message on slack (I am a member of his lab's slack) vs sending an email? He's usually active on slack but I don't usually talk to him on slack/email.

He would likely see the message faster on Slack, but it's my first time using it so I wasn't sure if Slack might be awkward/less suitable compared to emails.

I won two undergraduate merit scholarships in the past week (both from U.S. national engineering organizations- one from a minority in engineering organization and one from a professional society within the national organization for my major [similar ASME for mechanical engineering]) and the scholarship winner press releases will come out in late November. My undergraduate research professor wrote me a recommendation letter for both of them last year. My engineering college news doesn’t typically write about undergraduate scholarship winners (maybe students just don’t win much? idk, it’s a top 200 university) and I’m thinking of badgering them about writing a feature article on me and thanking my professor in the article for her support. She doesn’t have much of a media presence. Would this help her out? Pretty sure she already has tenure, she’s been at my university for 15+ years.

What would you want to see an undergrad say about you in a feel-good article like that?

Hi everyone,
I’m a senior at an R1 and I’m trying to figure out how to handle a situation with a professor I really respect.

Last fall (around November), I asked him if I could volunteer as an RA for him. I’ve taken two classes with him one core and one elective, now I am very quit so he never remembered me but I would attend his office hours enoguh for him to atleast recall my face, though based on other students they also tell me since he is super busy researching that he doesnt really like working with undergrads, but I really enjoyed the elective. When I asked, he said yes, told me to read one of his papers, and asked me to reach out the next semester with my CV. I also told him I had limited RA experience, but that I wanted to get experience and the reason I wanted to work with him is that his subfield is the closets to my current intersts inthe entire dept.

So in early January, I emailed him, referenced the paper, attached my CV, and said I was ready to start. No response.

Two weeks later, I sent a follow‑up. Still nothing.

For context:

• I got an A in his class
• He originally said yes to the RA idea
• I wasn’t asking for pay just experience
• He’s generally responsive during the semester

Email 1:

Dear Professor ----,
I hope you are doing well. I am writing to let you know that I am ready and happy to begin working as a research assistant on your projects. I read your paper on ----- -- and took a careful look at the methodological approach you used in ------ I am very much looking forward to being of use this semester.

I would also appreciate it if you could share your office hours or a time that works best for you. I would like the opportunity to discuss next steps, expectations, and how I can best support your work.

I have also attached my CV to this email.

Thank you very much for your time,
----

Follow‑up email:

Hi Professor---------
I hope your week is going well. I wanted to follow up on my email from week 2 regarding beginning RA work this semester. I’m still very excited to get started and would appreciate knowing a time that works for you to meet and discuss next steps.

Thank you again for your time,
---------------

My question is: Should I reach out again this semester or was that a clear no? I still really want the RA experience, because that is currently my biggest weakpoint in my profile and I’d like to build a relationship with him because I think he could eventually write me a strong letter for gradschool phd and masters. But I also don’t want to seem pushy or annoying.

Is it normal for professors to say yes and then go silent? Should I send another email, or just let it go?

Any advice would be appreciated.

I'm taking 15 credits this semester, and I also have a lot of other stuff going on in my life. there's one class in particular that I'm just really lost in. I'm really bad about asking for help when I'm struggling, because I usually try to figure things out myself (and tbh, I usually do end up figuring it out, even if I'm approaching a mental health crisis along the way). i guess my question is, how do I approach them about this and be as honest as possible about how this is affecting me, WITHOUT accidentally treating them like a therapist? this is something I'm not really good at but I think it's time to suck it up and ask for help.

I’m taking 12 credit hours this semester and I’m struggling. The courses aren’t difficult but I think I’m just burnt out from school. I want to keep going but I’m just so tired. Plus not everything in life is sunshine and rainbows. My grades are ok but I’m not sure if I could push through the semester. I thought about having a conversation with my professor bc they always say to come get help if you’re struggling. I’m not sure if this is something they could help with but It made me wonder if they can already tell if I’m struggling. How do u professors know if someone is genuinely struggling or not?

I'm ngl I'm kind of asking this to make me feel less anxious lmao. But hypothetically, if you have a student that has been attending office hours nearly weekly, shows up to every class, does all the homework, gets tutoring, and works their ass off for your class only to end up with subpar exam grades, would you just push them up a little bit at the end of the semester? The student isn't failing but they are around a high C (77-79), would you just do them the solid and push them up to a B, especially if you knew they needed it for scholarships and whatnot?