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nc9x9b | askacademia_train | 0.96 | Not a professor but a graduate student. I would like to write a recommendation letter for my thesis advisor as she is an awesome mentor who really cares about students and is an inspiring scientist. I’m a PhD candidate in biology and in a research- focused university. I hope to seek some advice regarding writing recommendation letter for my thesis advisor to the Vice Dean in charge of faculty. My advisor ( relatively young PI) is an exemplary mentor who has inspired me in many ways in terms of scientific thinking and she truly cares a lot about students progress/and gives us both the space and support to develop our scientific minds. Therefore, I would like to write a recommendation letter for her in hope that it will be beneficial for her tenure consideration. My hesitation is that: how effective will this letter be in aiding her to get tenure? Or will it on the contrary, be something against her(?)- I am not sure how common is this practice of students writing recommendation letters for their advisors are in academia. | gy4xh6k | gy5db2j | 1,621,021,100 | 1,621,028,344 | 3 | 4 | My undergrad department (SLAC, STEM department) still solicits letters from former students for promotion - I've been emailed several times about that. I'm not sure how they take them into account, but they do ask, even people who graduated many years ago. I'm not sure about a situation where it's not part of their standard process; they might not even be able to consider things outside the process. | Everyone has touched on tenure, so I will also mention that universities and professional organizations often have teacher of the year and/or mentor of the year awards. Such recognition would also contribute positively toward tenure. | 0 | 7,244 | 1.333333 |
nc9x9b | askacademia_train | 0.96 | Not a professor but a graduate student. I would like to write a recommendation letter for my thesis advisor as she is an awesome mentor who really cares about students and is an inspiring scientist. I’m a PhD candidate in biology and in a research- focused university. I hope to seek some advice regarding writing recommendation letter for my thesis advisor to the Vice Dean in charge of faculty. My advisor ( relatively young PI) is an exemplary mentor who has inspired me in many ways in terms of scientific thinking and she truly cares a lot about students progress/and gives us both the space and support to develop our scientific minds. Therefore, I would like to write a recommendation letter for her in hope that it will be beneficial for her tenure consideration. My hesitation is that: how effective will this letter be in aiding her to get tenure? Or will it on the contrary, be something against her(?)- I am not sure how common is this practice of students writing recommendation letters for their advisors are in academia. | gy63s0o | gy5f06b | 1,621,042,317 | 1,621,029,151 | 3 | 2 | Iʻm also a ph.d student. In the past, when there have been professors going up for tenure here, weʻve been invited to submit letters in support of their tenure application, which is basically a letter of reference. Granted, this is in the social sciences (and it sounds like youʻre in the natural sciences), and it sounds like policies differ from university to university based off the comments. Thatʻs great you have a solid advisor. That makes such a big difference in the ph.d process! | Whoah which school and prof is this, I wanna apply! | 1 | 13,166 | 1.5 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g71z8ki | g7248c0 | 1,601,384,432 | 1,601,387,054 | 173 | 269 | Publish earlier and a lot. Academic careers snowball and it is important to start out on a high trajectory. Of course, quality is important too, but it's OK to have a few average papers to start out and start building your CV. Anyway, I compare academia to wealth - the wealthy will continue to get wealthier. It's not right, but it's reality. | Choose an advisor who's good at networking and has a very good standing in the community. That really helps. | 0 | 2,622 | 1.554913 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g7248c0 | g723b8i | 1,601,387,054 | 1,601,386,595 | 269 | 122 | Choose an advisor who's good at networking and has a very good standing in the community. That really helps. | 1. a huge portion of the job is public speaking, which I did not realize when I started out. 2. the labor situation is as bad as everyone says. 3. publish, publish, publish. 4. a huge portion of the job is being able to get other people (readers, students) excited about difficult, abstract, boring things and to help them see value and interest in knowledge (even if it doesn't have immediate instrumental application). | 1 | 459 | 2.204918 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g723b8i | g724f0q | 1,601,386,595 | 1,601,387,150 | 122 | 152 | 1. a huge portion of the job is public speaking, which I did not realize when I started out. 2. the labor situation is as bad as everyone says. 3. publish, publish, publish. 4. a huge portion of the job is being able to get other people (readers, students) excited about difficult, abstract, boring things and to help them see value and interest in knowledge (even if it doesn't have immediate instrumental application). | Find an advisor with a track record of getting their students graduated and hired. I went with someone who was an authority in their field to the detriment of all else, and regretted it ever since. | 0 | 555 | 1.245902 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g7283m0 | g725jo6 | 1,601,388,910 | 1,601,387,711 | 89 | 84 | I have two: 1. Please publish more!! The job market is seriously as bad as they say it is. Focusing on your teaching will NOT HELP YOU. 2. You wouldn’t be in the program if you couldn’t do it. You absolutely can. Don’t let imposter syndrome keep you hiding from opportunities. | Figure out how to do the PhD in a way that is what you want it to be and makes you happy. Being miserable working day and night for 5+ years, to get a job where you can continue to be miserable, just doesn't make sense. For me, that means working 9-5 M-F. I had to come to terms with the fact that doing so might mean I wouldn't get an academic job, but improved my life so dramatically (and I got a job at a school that values work-life balance, and not at schools where I would have hated my life -- living the life you want also serves as a matching mechanism). | 1 | 1,199 | 1.059524 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g7283m0 | g726s7w | 1,601,388,910 | 1,601,388,334 | 89 | 49 | I have two: 1. Please publish more!! The job market is seriously as bad as they say it is. Focusing on your teaching will NOT HELP YOU. 2. You wouldn’t be in the program if you couldn’t do it. You absolutely can. Don’t let imposter syndrome keep you hiding from opportunities. | 1. Plan ahead. Have an idea of what you will be doing after your PhD and work towards it! Build your resume towards your dream position! 2. Organize your work-life balance. 3. Choose a mentor who likes to treat his students as colleagues. 4. Always stand up for yourself. 5. Build your network. | 1 | 576 | 1.816327 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g7283m0 | g724prh | 1,601,388,910 | 1,601,387,295 | 89 | 42 | I have two: 1. Please publish more!! The job market is seriously as bad as they say it is. Focusing on your teaching will NOT HELP YOU. 2. You wouldn’t be in the program if you couldn’t do it. You absolutely can. Don’t let imposter syndrome keep you hiding from opportunities. | I would say to decide what your end goal is with your degree and make every effort to spend time working towards that goal. For example, I wanted to go towards professoring at a small teaching focused college and the advisor I first picked didn't really care what my goals were. I ended up quitting the first lab and switched to an advisor who was willing to help me work toward my goals but I essentially wasted my first year and a half because my advisor only wanted me to spend my time in the lab and discouraged me from spending time on my teaching. | 1 | 1,615 | 2.119048 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g7283m0 | g7280ce | 1,601,388,910 | 1,601,388,873 | 89 | 30 | I have two: 1. Please publish more!! The job market is seriously as bad as they say it is. Focusing on your teaching will NOT HELP YOU. 2. You wouldn’t be in the program if you couldn’t do it. You absolutely can. Don’t let imposter syndrome keep you hiding from opportunities. | My 5c. Focus on the work your advisor sets but don’t be afraid to venture into other parts of the literature that you find interesting. Be as happy as you can be during the challenges you will face. My biggest regret is not being able to stay more positive and happy throughout what were some of the most difficult and challenging times of my life. The professors I worked with changed my life for the better and they will probably never know or understand how difficult it was for me to finish my studies, or how useful their help was in getting me there. Be focused. The process can be demoralizing, humiliating and seem impossible at times, it’s critically important to remain focused. Be grateful to the professors and those around you especially when it feels like they’re busy with other things and not focused on whatever it is that is critically important to your project. Pretty much everyone in academia, especially professors, are doing what they do because they want to help other people, and not enough thanks is given for that. Be kind. Spend a few minutes a day being kind to the staff at the university. Tell them a joke or an insight into your work etc... Learn to use a digital citation manager endnote or zotero on day 1. File everything so that if you returned to the file system in ten years you could easily pick up where you left off. Go to as many relevant science-based conferences as you can. | 1 | 37 | 2.966667 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g7283m0 | g7254v2 | 1,601,388,910 | 1,601,387,503 | 89 | 24 | I have two: 1. Please publish more!! The job market is seriously as bad as they say it is. Focusing on your teaching will NOT HELP YOU. 2. You wouldn’t be in the program if you couldn’t do it. You absolutely can. Don’t let imposter syndrome keep you hiding from opportunities. | in the vein of uncommon or contrarian advice: “implement things from scratch instead of relying on or trying to modify existing open-source implementations”. Working in applied computational statistical methods development I wasted a huge amount of time trying to wrap my head around convoluted, buggy backends after being convinced not to reinvent square wheels. Unfortunately off-the-shelf wheels were riddled with holes that were very difficult for me to fix (as someone without a formal CS background — any fairly trivial change would require that I edit a dozen files, none of which was documented anywhere). Things went much smoother when I started doing everything except low-medium level stuff from scratch (i.e. using only very established statistical computing libraries... which incidentally went eschewed by other software I’d been trying to modify and use, which is where a lot of the bugs came from). Getting novel algorithmic tricks implemented went from something very frustrating to something with much more rapid turnaround. | 1 | 1,407 | 3.708333 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g724prh | g725jo6 | 1,601,387,295 | 1,601,387,711 | 42 | 84 | I would say to decide what your end goal is with your degree and make every effort to spend time working towards that goal. For example, I wanted to go towards professoring at a small teaching focused college and the advisor I first picked didn't really care what my goals were. I ended up quitting the first lab and switched to an advisor who was willing to help me work toward my goals but I essentially wasted my first year and a half because my advisor only wanted me to spend my time in the lab and discouraged me from spending time on my teaching. | Figure out how to do the PhD in a way that is what you want it to be and makes you happy. Being miserable working day and night for 5+ years, to get a job where you can continue to be miserable, just doesn't make sense. For me, that means working 9-5 M-F. I had to come to terms with the fact that doing so might mean I wouldn't get an academic job, but improved my life so dramatically (and I got a job at a school that values work-life balance, and not at schools where I would have hated my life -- living the life you want also serves as a matching mechanism). | 0 | 416 | 2 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g7254v2 | g725jo6 | 1,601,387,503 | 1,601,387,711 | 24 | 84 | in the vein of uncommon or contrarian advice: “implement things from scratch instead of relying on or trying to modify existing open-source implementations”. Working in applied computational statistical methods development I wasted a huge amount of time trying to wrap my head around convoluted, buggy backends after being convinced not to reinvent square wheels. Unfortunately off-the-shelf wheels were riddled with holes that were very difficult for me to fix (as someone without a formal CS background — any fairly trivial change would require that I edit a dozen files, none of which was documented anywhere). Things went much smoother when I started doing everything except low-medium level stuff from scratch (i.e. using only very established statistical computing libraries... which incidentally went eschewed by other software I’d been trying to modify and use, which is where a lot of the bugs came from). Getting novel algorithmic tricks implemented went from something very frustrating to something with much more rapid turnaround. | Figure out how to do the PhD in a way that is what you want it to be and makes you happy. Being miserable working day and night for 5+ years, to get a job where you can continue to be miserable, just doesn't make sense. For me, that means working 9-5 M-F. I had to come to terms with the fact that doing so might mean I wouldn't get an academic job, but improved my life so dramatically (and I got a job at a school that values work-life balance, and not at schools where I would have hated my life -- living the life you want also serves as a matching mechanism). | 0 | 208 | 3.5 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72kitj | g726s7w | 1,601,394,163 | 1,601,388,334 | 56 | 49 | 1. Don't give up if they don't respond to your email. Send 5 follow-ups. Most people don't hate you, or make fun of you; they are just busy, and bad with email management. Always follow-up, again and again. 2. Learn to write shorter emails. 3. Finish things. Starting things is easy. Finishing is hard. Put 75% of your efforts in finishing things. 3. Fight perfectionism. Treat everything as a draft (treat your entire life as a draft!). Nobody cares about perfection, as perfect things remain unreleased / unpublished / unfinished / unhappened. As "Done Manifesto" put it: making something makes you right. 3. Publishing more is more important than publishing in good journals. Impact is a lottery; don't obsess about it. 3. When teaching, don't worry about grades. And in general, remember that you are not a drill sergeant, prepping for a space invasion. Teaching may be super-exciting, so it's important to set limits on your time, or it takes 100% of your time. 4. Connect with people. Talk to people; meet new people; speak publicly; make it a habit. It's called "networking" sometimes, which makes one sound like a tool, but the core idea is that we are in it together, and we depend on each other _a lot_. Take a habit of getting to know at least 1 new person every n days. It's especially important now, with everyone so isolated. Not sure how to do it in practice, but you need to find a way! | 1. Plan ahead. Have an idea of what you will be doing after your PhD and work towards it! Build your resume towards your dream position! 2. Organize your work-life balance. 3. Choose a mentor who likes to treat his students as colleagues. 4. Always stand up for yourself. 5. Build your network. | 1 | 5,829 | 1.142857 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72kitj | g724prh | 1,601,394,163 | 1,601,387,295 | 56 | 42 | 1. Don't give up if they don't respond to your email. Send 5 follow-ups. Most people don't hate you, or make fun of you; they are just busy, and bad with email management. Always follow-up, again and again. 2. Learn to write shorter emails. 3. Finish things. Starting things is easy. Finishing is hard. Put 75% of your efforts in finishing things. 3. Fight perfectionism. Treat everything as a draft (treat your entire life as a draft!). Nobody cares about perfection, as perfect things remain unreleased / unpublished / unfinished / unhappened. As "Done Manifesto" put it: making something makes you right. 3. Publishing more is more important than publishing in good journals. Impact is a lottery; don't obsess about it. 3. When teaching, don't worry about grades. And in general, remember that you are not a drill sergeant, prepping for a space invasion. Teaching may be super-exciting, so it's important to set limits on your time, or it takes 100% of your time. 4. Connect with people. Talk to people; meet new people; speak publicly; make it a habit. It's called "networking" sometimes, which makes one sound like a tool, but the core idea is that we are in it together, and we depend on each other _a lot_. Take a habit of getting to know at least 1 new person every n days. It's especially important now, with everyone so isolated. Not sure how to do it in practice, but you need to find a way! | I would say to decide what your end goal is with your degree and make every effort to spend time working towards that goal. For example, I wanted to go towards professoring at a small teaching focused college and the advisor I first picked didn't really care what my goals were. I ended up quitting the first lab and switched to an advisor who was willing to help me work toward my goals but I essentially wasted my first year and a half because my advisor only wanted me to spend my time in the lab and discouraged me from spending time on my teaching. | 1 | 6,868 | 1.333333 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g7280ce | g72kitj | 1,601,388,873 | 1,601,394,163 | 30 | 56 | My 5c. Focus on the work your advisor sets but don’t be afraid to venture into other parts of the literature that you find interesting. Be as happy as you can be during the challenges you will face. My biggest regret is not being able to stay more positive and happy throughout what were some of the most difficult and challenging times of my life. The professors I worked with changed my life for the better and they will probably never know or understand how difficult it was for me to finish my studies, or how useful their help was in getting me there. Be focused. The process can be demoralizing, humiliating and seem impossible at times, it’s critically important to remain focused. Be grateful to the professors and those around you especially when it feels like they’re busy with other things and not focused on whatever it is that is critically important to your project. Pretty much everyone in academia, especially professors, are doing what they do because they want to help other people, and not enough thanks is given for that. Be kind. Spend a few minutes a day being kind to the staff at the university. Tell them a joke or an insight into your work etc... Learn to use a digital citation manager endnote or zotero on day 1. File everything so that if you returned to the file system in ten years you could easily pick up where you left off. Go to as many relevant science-based conferences as you can. | 1. Don't give up if they don't respond to your email. Send 5 follow-ups. Most people don't hate you, or make fun of you; they are just busy, and bad with email management. Always follow-up, again and again. 2. Learn to write shorter emails. 3. Finish things. Starting things is easy. Finishing is hard. Put 75% of your efforts in finishing things. 3. Fight perfectionism. Treat everything as a draft (treat your entire life as a draft!). Nobody cares about perfection, as perfect things remain unreleased / unpublished / unfinished / unhappened. As "Done Manifesto" put it: making something makes you right. 3. Publishing more is more important than publishing in good journals. Impact is a lottery; don't obsess about it. 3. When teaching, don't worry about grades. And in general, remember that you are not a drill sergeant, prepping for a space invasion. Teaching may be super-exciting, so it's important to set limits on your time, or it takes 100% of your time. 4. Connect with people. Talk to people; meet new people; speak publicly; make it a habit. It's called "networking" sometimes, which makes one sound like a tool, but the core idea is that we are in it together, and we depend on each other _a lot_. Take a habit of getting to know at least 1 new person every n days. It's especially important now, with everyone so isolated. Not sure how to do it in practice, but you need to find a way! | 0 | 5,290 | 1.866667 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72kitj | g7254v2 | 1,601,394,163 | 1,601,387,503 | 56 | 24 | 1. Don't give up if they don't respond to your email. Send 5 follow-ups. Most people don't hate you, or make fun of you; they are just busy, and bad with email management. Always follow-up, again and again. 2. Learn to write shorter emails. 3. Finish things. Starting things is easy. Finishing is hard. Put 75% of your efforts in finishing things. 3. Fight perfectionism. Treat everything as a draft (treat your entire life as a draft!). Nobody cares about perfection, as perfect things remain unreleased / unpublished / unfinished / unhappened. As "Done Manifesto" put it: making something makes you right. 3. Publishing more is more important than publishing in good journals. Impact is a lottery; don't obsess about it. 3. When teaching, don't worry about grades. And in general, remember that you are not a drill sergeant, prepping for a space invasion. Teaching may be super-exciting, so it's important to set limits on your time, or it takes 100% of your time. 4. Connect with people. Talk to people; meet new people; speak publicly; make it a habit. It's called "networking" sometimes, which makes one sound like a tool, but the core idea is that we are in it together, and we depend on each other _a lot_. Take a habit of getting to know at least 1 new person every n days. It's especially important now, with everyone so isolated. Not sure how to do it in practice, but you need to find a way! | in the vein of uncommon or contrarian advice: “implement things from scratch instead of relying on or trying to modify existing open-source implementations”. Working in applied computational statistical methods development I wasted a huge amount of time trying to wrap my head around convoluted, buggy backends after being convinced not to reinvent square wheels. Unfortunately off-the-shelf wheels were riddled with holes that were very difficult for me to fix (as someone without a formal CS background — any fairly trivial change would require that I edit a dozen files, none of which was documented anywhere). Things went much smoother when I started doing everything except low-medium level stuff from scratch (i.e. using only very established statistical computing libraries... which incidentally went eschewed by other software I’d been trying to modify and use, which is where a lot of the bugs came from). Getting novel algorithmic tricks implemented went from something very frustrating to something with much more rapid turnaround. | 1 | 6,660 | 2.333333 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72dh0d | g72kitj | 1,601,391,249 | 1,601,394,163 | 16 | 56 | Get out. Now. | 1. Don't give up if they don't respond to your email. Send 5 follow-ups. Most people don't hate you, or make fun of you; they are just busy, and bad with email management. Always follow-up, again and again. 2. Learn to write shorter emails. 3. Finish things. Starting things is easy. Finishing is hard. Put 75% of your efforts in finishing things. 3. Fight perfectionism. Treat everything as a draft (treat your entire life as a draft!). Nobody cares about perfection, as perfect things remain unreleased / unpublished / unfinished / unhappened. As "Done Manifesto" put it: making something makes you right. 3. Publishing more is more important than publishing in good journals. Impact is a lottery; don't obsess about it. 3. When teaching, don't worry about grades. And in general, remember that you are not a drill sergeant, prepping for a space invasion. Teaching may be super-exciting, so it's important to set limits on your time, or it takes 100% of your time. 4. Connect with people. Talk to people; meet new people; speak publicly; make it a habit. It's called "networking" sometimes, which makes one sound like a tool, but the core idea is that we are in it together, and we depend on each other _a lot_. Take a habit of getting to know at least 1 new person every n days. It's especially important now, with everyone so isolated. Not sure how to do it in practice, but you need to find a way! | 0 | 2,914 | 3.5 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72kbwc | g72kitj | 1,601,394,089 | 1,601,394,163 | 15 | 56 | Find an advisor that isn’t dog shit | 1. Don't give up if they don't respond to your email. Send 5 follow-ups. Most people don't hate you, or make fun of you; they are just busy, and bad with email management. Always follow-up, again and again. 2. Learn to write shorter emails. 3. Finish things. Starting things is easy. Finishing is hard. Put 75% of your efforts in finishing things. 3. Fight perfectionism. Treat everything as a draft (treat your entire life as a draft!). Nobody cares about perfection, as perfect things remain unreleased / unpublished / unfinished / unhappened. As "Done Manifesto" put it: making something makes you right. 3. Publishing more is more important than publishing in good journals. Impact is a lottery; don't obsess about it. 3. When teaching, don't worry about grades. And in general, remember that you are not a drill sergeant, prepping for a space invasion. Teaching may be super-exciting, so it's important to set limits on your time, or it takes 100% of your time. 4. Connect with people. Talk to people; meet new people; speak publicly; make it a habit. It's called "networking" sometimes, which makes one sound like a tool, but the core idea is that we are in it together, and we depend on each other _a lot_. Take a habit of getting to know at least 1 new person every n days. It's especially important now, with everyone so isolated. Not sure how to do it in practice, but you need to find a way! | 0 | 74 | 3.733333 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72ajly | g72kitj | 1,601,389,950 | 1,601,394,163 | 14 | 56 | Don’t bother with Twitter - no hiring committee gives a shit. | 1. Don't give up if they don't respond to your email. Send 5 follow-ups. Most people don't hate you, or make fun of you; they are just busy, and bad with email management. Always follow-up, again and again. 2. Learn to write shorter emails. 3. Finish things. Starting things is easy. Finishing is hard. Put 75% of your efforts in finishing things. 3. Fight perfectionism. Treat everything as a draft (treat your entire life as a draft!). Nobody cares about perfection, as perfect things remain unreleased / unpublished / unfinished / unhappened. As "Done Manifesto" put it: making something makes you right. 3. Publishing more is more important than publishing in good journals. Impact is a lottery; don't obsess about it. 3. When teaching, don't worry about grades. And in general, remember that you are not a drill sergeant, prepping for a space invasion. Teaching may be super-exciting, so it's important to set limits on your time, or it takes 100% of your time. 4. Connect with people. Talk to people; meet new people; speak publicly; make it a habit. It's called "networking" sometimes, which makes one sound like a tool, but the core idea is that we are in it together, and we depend on each other _a lot_. Take a habit of getting to know at least 1 new person every n days. It's especially important now, with everyone so isolated. Not sure how to do it in practice, but you need to find a way! | 0 | 4,213 | 4 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72kitj | g72js2f | 1,601,394,163 | 1,601,393,860 | 56 | 12 | 1. Don't give up if they don't respond to your email. Send 5 follow-ups. Most people don't hate you, or make fun of you; they are just busy, and bad with email management. Always follow-up, again and again. 2. Learn to write shorter emails. 3. Finish things. Starting things is easy. Finishing is hard. Put 75% of your efforts in finishing things. 3. Fight perfectionism. Treat everything as a draft (treat your entire life as a draft!). Nobody cares about perfection, as perfect things remain unreleased / unpublished / unfinished / unhappened. As "Done Manifesto" put it: making something makes you right. 3. Publishing more is more important than publishing in good journals. Impact is a lottery; don't obsess about it. 3. When teaching, don't worry about grades. And in general, remember that you are not a drill sergeant, prepping for a space invasion. Teaching may be super-exciting, so it's important to set limits on your time, or it takes 100% of your time. 4. Connect with people. Talk to people; meet new people; speak publicly; make it a habit. It's called "networking" sometimes, which makes one sound like a tool, but the core idea is that we are in it together, and we depend on each other _a lot_. Take a habit of getting to know at least 1 new person every n days. It's especially important now, with everyone so isolated. Not sure how to do it in practice, but you need to find a way! | Decide what matters to you in terms of happiness. Getting a TT job is already difficult, getting a TT job in a good location (whatever that means for you- close to family, close to friends and a support network, employment options for a partner, city or rural, etc.) is very difficult. | 1 | 303 | 4.666667 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g724prh | g726s7w | 1,601,387,295 | 1,601,388,334 | 42 | 49 | I would say to decide what your end goal is with your degree and make every effort to spend time working towards that goal. For example, I wanted to go towards professoring at a small teaching focused college and the advisor I first picked didn't really care what my goals were. I ended up quitting the first lab and switched to an advisor who was willing to help me work toward my goals but I essentially wasted my first year and a half because my advisor only wanted me to spend my time in the lab and discouraged me from spending time on my teaching. | 1. Plan ahead. Have an idea of what you will be doing after your PhD and work towards it! Build your resume towards your dream position! 2. Organize your work-life balance. 3. Choose a mentor who likes to treat his students as colleagues. 4. Always stand up for yourself. 5. Build your network. | 0 | 1,039 | 1.166667 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g7254v2 | g726s7w | 1,601,387,503 | 1,601,388,334 | 24 | 49 | in the vein of uncommon or contrarian advice: “implement things from scratch instead of relying on or trying to modify existing open-source implementations”. Working in applied computational statistical methods development I wasted a huge amount of time trying to wrap my head around convoluted, buggy backends after being convinced not to reinvent square wheels. Unfortunately off-the-shelf wheels were riddled with holes that were very difficult for me to fix (as someone without a formal CS background — any fairly trivial change would require that I edit a dozen files, none of which was documented anywhere). Things went much smoother when I started doing everything except low-medium level stuff from scratch (i.e. using only very established statistical computing libraries... which incidentally went eschewed by other software I’d been trying to modify and use, which is where a lot of the bugs came from). Getting novel algorithmic tricks implemented went from something very frustrating to something with much more rapid turnaround. | 1. Plan ahead. Have an idea of what you will be doing after your PhD and work towards it! Build your resume towards your dream position! 2. Organize your work-life balance. 3. Choose a mentor who likes to treat his students as colleagues. 4. Always stand up for yourself. 5. Build your network. | 0 | 831 | 2.041667 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g7280ce | g73191m | 1,601,388,873 | 1,601,400,879 | 30 | 31 | My 5c. Focus on the work your advisor sets but don’t be afraid to venture into other parts of the literature that you find interesting. Be as happy as you can be during the challenges you will face. My biggest regret is not being able to stay more positive and happy throughout what were some of the most difficult and challenging times of my life. The professors I worked with changed my life for the better and they will probably never know or understand how difficult it was for me to finish my studies, or how useful their help was in getting me there. Be focused. The process can be demoralizing, humiliating and seem impossible at times, it’s critically important to remain focused. Be grateful to the professors and those around you especially when it feels like they’re busy with other things and not focused on whatever it is that is critically important to your project. Pretty much everyone in academia, especially professors, are doing what they do because they want to help other people, and not enough thanks is given for that. Be kind. Spend a few minutes a day being kind to the staff at the university. Tell them a joke or an insight into your work etc... Learn to use a digital citation manager endnote or zotero on day 1. File everything so that if you returned to the file system in ten years you could easily pick up where you left off. Go to as many relevant science-based conferences as you can. | Cliche, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Apply for that fellowship. Nominate yourself for that award. Submit to that top tier journal. Someone will get it and they are made out of DNA and insecurity just like you. | 0 | 12,006 | 1.033333 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g7280ce | g7254v2 | 1,601,388,873 | 1,601,387,503 | 30 | 24 | My 5c. Focus on the work your advisor sets but don’t be afraid to venture into other parts of the literature that you find interesting. Be as happy as you can be during the challenges you will face. My biggest regret is not being able to stay more positive and happy throughout what were some of the most difficult and challenging times of my life. The professors I worked with changed my life for the better and they will probably never know or understand how difficult it was for me to finish my studies, or how useful their help was in getting me there. Be focused. The process can be demoralizing, humiliating and seem impossible at times, it’s critically important to remain focused. Be grateful to the professors and those around you especially when it feels like they’re busy with other things and not focused on whatever it is that is critically important to your project. Pretty much everyone in academia, especially professors, are doing what they do because they want to help other people, and not enough thanks is given for that. Be kind. Spend a few minutes a day being kind to the staff at the university. Tell them a joke or an insight into your work etc... Learn to use a digital citation manager endnote or zotero on day 1. File everything so that if you returned to the file system in ten years you could easily pick up where you left off. Go to as many relevant science-based conferences as you can. | in the vein of uncommon or contrarian advice: “implement things from scratch instead of relying on or trying to modify existing open-source implementations”. Working in applied computational statistical methods development I wasted a huge amount of time trying to wrap my head around convoluted, buggy backends after being convinced not to reinvent square wheels. Unfortunately off-the-shelf wheels were riddled with holes that were very difficult for me to fix (as someone without a formal CS background — any fairly trivial change would require that I edit a dozen files, none of which was documented anywhere). Things went much smoother when I started doing everything except low-medium level stuff from scratch (i.e. using only very established statistical computing libraries... which incidentally went eschewed by other software I’d been trying to modify and use, which is where a lot of the bugs came from). Getting novel algorithmic tricks implemented went from something very frustrating to something with much more rapid turnaround. | 1 | 1,370 | 1.25 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g73191m | g7254v2 | 1,601,400,879 | 1,601,387,503 | 31 | 24 | Cliche, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Apply for that fellowship. Nominate yourself for that award. Submit to that top tier journal. Someone will get it and they are made out of DNA and insecurity just like you. | in the vein of uncommon or contrarian advice: “implement things from scratch instead of relying on or trying to modify existing open-source implementations”. Working in applied computational statistical methods development I wasted a huge amount of time trying to wrap my head around convoluted, buggy backends after being convinced not to reinvent square wheels. Unfortunately off-the-shelf wheels were riddled with holes that were very difficult for me to fix (as someone without a formal CS background — any fairly trivial change would require that I edit a dozen files, none of which was documented anywhere). Things went much smoother when I started doing everything except low-medium level stuff from scratch (i.e. using only very established statistical computing libraries... which incidentally went eschewed by other software I’d been trying to modify and use, which is where a lot of the bugs came from). Getting novel algorithmic tricks implemented went from something very frustrating to something with much more rapid turnaround. | 1 | 13,376 | 1.291667 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72oan1 | g73191m | 1,601,395,648 | 1,601,400,879 | 18 | 31 | Evaluate your personality, work style, etc. to see if it is a good match for academia. The most successful academics are aggressive, ambitious, extroverted, self-promoters, confident public speakers, and good at schmoozing/sucking up. It is part of the game. If you love research but want to be left alone to do it, would feel uncomfortable constantly patting yourself on the back publicly (conferences, social media, etc.), don’t want to suck up to people year-round to get grants and collaborators, and dislike public speaking, an academic job is not a good fit for you. This does not mean the PhD is not a good idea, just working in academia. Look at industry/agency jobs and not academia if you do not have the qualities in my first paragraph or don’t think you could develop them. | Cliche, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Apply for that fellowship. Nominate yourself for that award. Submit to that top tier journal. Someone will get it and they are made out of DNA and insecurity just like you. | 0 | 5,231 | 1.722222 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g73191m | g72xsue | 1,601,400,879 | 1,601,399,257 | 31 | 17 | Cliche, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Apply for that fellowship. Nominate yourself for that award. Submit to that top tier journal. Someone will get it and they are made out of DNA and insecurity just like you. | To **my** younger academic self: don’t do it. For the love of god, just don’t. To someone else’s: Cultivate good self-management habits (Follow a schedule, make to-do lists, etc). You’re only really accountable to yourself. Re-evaluate the standards you set for yourself regularly. What looks trivial to you is not necessarily trivial to someone who hasn’t put in the work you have. Don’t be afraid of failure: failing often and learning from your failures is how you get somewhere. | 1 | 1,622 | 1.823529 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72dh0d | g73191m | 1,601,391,249 | 1,601,400,879 | 16 | 31 | Get out. Now. | Cliche, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Apply for that fellowship. Nominate yourself for that award. Submit to that top tier journal. Someone will get it and they are made out of DNA and insecurity just like you. | 0 | 9,630 | 1.9375 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72kbwc | g73191m | 1,601,394,089 | 1,601,400,879 | 15 | 31 | Find an advisor that isn’t dog shit | Cliche, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Apply for that fellowship. Nominate yourself for that award. Submit to that top tier journal. Someone will get it and they are made out of DNA and insecurity just like you. | 0 | 6,790 | 2.066667 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g73191m | g72ajly | 1,601,400,879 | 1,601,389,950 | 31 | 14 | Cliche, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Apply for that fellowship. Nominate yourself for that award. Submit to that top tier journal. Someone will get it and they are made out of DNA and insecurity just like you. | Don’t bother with Twitter - no hiring committee gives a shit. | 1 | 10,929 | 2.214286 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72js2f | g73191m | 1,601,393,860 | 1,601,400,879 | 12 | 31 | Decide what matters to you in terms of happiness. Getting a TT job is already difficult, getting a TT job in a good location (whatever that means for you- close to family, close to friends and a support network, employment options for a partner, city or rural, etc.) is very difficult. | Cliche, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Apply for that fellowship. Nominate yourself for that award. Submit to that top tier journal. Someone will get it and they are made out of DNA and insecurity just like you. | 0 | 7,019 | 2.583333 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g73191m | g72m7ef | 1,601,400,879 | 1,601,394,840 | 31 | 13 | Cliche, but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Apply for that fellowship. Nominate yourself for that award. Submit to that top tier journal. Someone will get it and they are made out of DNA and insecurity just like you. | Stay out of the department politics and toxicity. Put your head down, work hard, while also leaving time for yourself and your family. Learn to negotiate and occasionally say no to requests. | 1 | 6,039 | 2.384615 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72dh0d | g72oan1 | 1,601,391,249 | 1,601,395,648 | 16 | 18 | Get out. Now. | Evaluate your personality, work style, etc. to see if it is a good match for academia. The most successful academics are aggressive, ambitious, extroverted, self-promoters, confident public speakers, and good at schmoozing/sucking up. It is part of the game. If you love research but want to be left alone to do it, would feel uncomfortable constantly patting yourself on the back publicly (conferences, social media, etc.), don’t want to suck up to people year-round to get grants and collaborators, and dislike public speaking, an academic job is not a good fit for you. This does not mean the PhD is not a good idea, just working in academia. Look at industry/agency jobs and not academia if you do not have the qualities in my first paragraph or don’t think you could develop them. | 0 | 4,399 | 1.125 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72kbwc | g72oan1 | 1,601,394,089 | 1,601,395,648 | 15 | 18 | Find an advisor that isn’t dog shit | Evaluate your personality, work style, etc. to see if it is a good match for academia. The most successful academics are aggressive, ambitious, extroverted, self-promoters, confident public speakers, and good at schmoozing/sucking up. It is part of the game. If you love research but want to be left alone to do it, would feel uncomfortable constantly patting yourself on the back publicly (conferences, social media, etc.), don’t want to suck up to people year-round to get grants and collaborators, and dislike public speaking, an academic job is not a good fit for you. This does not mean the PhD is not a good idea, just working in academia. Look at industry/agency jobs and not academia if you do not have the qualities in my first paragraph or don’t think you could develop them. | 0 | 1,559 | 1.2 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72oan1 | g72ajly | 1,601,395,648 | 1,601,389,950 | 18 | 14 | Evaluate your personality, work style, etc. to see if it is a good match for academia. The most successful academics are aggressive, ambitious, extroverted, self-promoters, confident public speakers, and good at schmoozing/sucking up. It is part of the game. If you love research but want to be left alone to do it, would feel uncomfortable constantly patting yourself on the back publicly (conferences, social media, etc.), don’t want to suck up to people year-round to get grants and collaborators, and dislike public speaking, an academic job is not a good fit for you. This does not mean the PhD is not a good idea, just working in academia. Look at industry/agency jobs and not academia if you do not have the qualities in my first paragraph or don’t think you could develop them. | Don’t bother with Twitter - no hiring committee gives a shit. | 1 | 5,698 | 1.285714 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72oan1 | g72js2f | 1,601,395,648 | 1,601,393,860 | 18 | 12 | Evaluate your personality, work style, etc. to see if it is a good match for academia. The most successful academics are aggressive, ambitious, extroverted, self-promoters, confident public speakers, and good at schmoozing/sucking up. It is part of the game. If you love research but want to be left alone to do it, would feel uncomfortable constantly patting yourself on the back publicly (conferences, social media, etc.), don’t want to suck up to people year-round to get grants and collaborators, and dislike public speaking, an academic job is not a good fit for you. This does not mean the PhD is not a good idea, just working in academia. Look at industry/agency jobs and not academia if you do not have the qualities in my first paragraph or don’t think you could develop them. | Decide what matters to you in terms of happiness. Getting a TT job is already difficult, getting a TT job in a good location (whatever that means for you- close to family, close to friends and a support network, employment options for a partner, city or rural, etc.) is very difficult. | 1 | 1,788 | 1.5 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72m7ef | g72oan1 | 1,601,394,840 | 1,601,395,648 | 13 | 18 | Stay out of the department politics and toxicity. Put your head down, work hard, while also leaving time for yourself and your family. Learn to negotiate and occasionally say no to requests. | Evaluate your personality, work style, etc. to see if it is a good match for academia. The most successful academics are aggressive, ambitious, extroverted, self-promoters, confident public speakers, and good at schmoozing/sucking up. It is part of the game. If you love research but want to be left alone to do it, would feel uncomfortable constantly patting yourself on the back publicly (conferences, social media, etc.), don’t want to suck up to people year-round to get grants and collaborators, and dislike public speaking, an academic job is not a good fit for you. This does not mean the PhD is not a good idea, just working in academia. Look at industry/agency jobs and not academia if you do not have the qualities in my first paragraph or don’t think you could develop them. | 0 | 808 | 1.384615 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72dh0d | g72xsue | 1,601,391,249 | 1,601,399,257 | 16 | 17 | Get out. Now. | To **my** younger academic self: don’t do it. For the love of god, just don’t. To someone else’s: Cultivate good self-management habits (Follow a schedule, make to-do lists, etc). You’re only really accountable to yourself. Re-evaluate the standards you set for yourself regularly. What looks trivial to you is not necessarily trivial to someone who hasn’t put in the work you have. Don’t be afraid of failure: failing often and learning from your failures is how you get somewhere. | 0 | 8,008 | 1.0625 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72xsue | g72kbwc | 1,601,399,257 | 1,601,394,089 | 17 | 15 | To **my** younger academic self: don’t do it. For the love of god, just don’t. To someone else’s: Cultivate good self-management habits (Follow a schedule, make to-do lists, etc). You’re only really accountable to yourself. Re-evaluate the standards you set for yourself regularly. What looks trivial to you is not necessarily trivial to someone who hasn’t put in the work you have. Don’t be afraid of failure: failing often and learning from your failures is how you get somewhere. | Find an advisor that isn’t dog shit | 1 | 5,168 | 1.133333 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72ajly | g72xsue | 1,601,389,950 | 1,601,399,257 | 14 | 17 | Don’t bother with Twitter - no hiring committee gives a shit. | To **my** younger academic self: don’t do it. For the love of god, just don’t. To someone else’s: Cultivate good self-management habits (Follow a schedule, make to-do lists, etc). You’re only really accountable to yourself. Re-evaluate the standards you set for yourself regularly. What looks trivial to you is not necessarily trivial to someone who hasn’t put in the work you have. Don’t be afraid of failure: failing often and learning from your failures is how you get somewhere. | 0 | 9,307 | 1.214286 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72xsue | g72js2f | 1,601,399,257 | 1,601,393,860 | 17 | 12 | To **my** younger academic self: don’t do it. For the love of god, just don’t. To someone else’s: Cultivate good self-management habits (Follow a schedule, make to-do lists, etc). You’re only really accountable to yourself. Re-evaluate the standards you set for yourself regularly. What looks trivial to you is not necessarily trivial to someone who hasn’t put in the work you have. Don’t be afraid of failure: failing often and learning from your failures is how you get somewhere. | Decide what matters to you in terms of happiness. Getting a TT job is already difficult, getting a TT job in a good location (whatever that means for you- close to family, close to friends and a support network, employment options for a partner, city or rural, etc.) is very difficult. | 1 | 5,397 | 1.416667 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72m7ef | g72xsue | 1,601,394,840 | 1,601,399,257 | 13 | 17 | Stay out of the department politics and toxicity. Put your head down, work hard, while also leaving time for yourself and your family. Learn to negotiate and occasionally say no to requests. | To **my** younger academic self: don’t do it. For the love of god, just don’t. To someone else’s: Cultivate good self-management habits (Follow a schedule, make to-do lists, etc). You’re only really accountable to yourself. Re-evaluate the standards you set for yourself regularly. What looks trivial to you is not necessarily trivial to someone who hasn’t put in the work you have. Don’t be afraid of failure: failing often and learning from your failures is how you get somewhere. | 0 | 4,417 | 1.307692 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72dh0d | g72ajly | 1,601,391,249 | 1,601,389,950 | 16 | 14 | Get out. Now. | Don’t bother with Twitter - no hiring committee gives a shit. | 1 | 1,299 | 1.142857 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72kbwc | g72ajly | 1,601,394,089 | 1,601,389,950 | 15 | 14 | Find an advisor that isn’t dog shit | Don’t bother with Twitter - no hiring committee gives a shit. | 1 | 4,139 | 1.071429 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72js2f | g72kbwc | 1,601,393,860 | 1,601,394,089 | 12 | 15 | Decide what matters to you in terms of happiness. Getting a TT job is already difficult, getting a TT job in a good location (whatever that means for you- close to family, close to friends and a support network, employment options for a partner, city or rural, etc.) is very difficult. | Find an advisor that isn’t dog shit | 0 | 229 | 1.25 |
j1yk75 | askacademia_train | 1 | Advice to your younger academic self If you could go back and tell your younger self one thing about academia or the PhD process, what would you say? What did you wish you had known early on? I’ve been asked to speak at an induction day for new PhD students and would love to hear your experiences/advice (as students and/or supervisors) - and to share them with my group and others on here. Apologies if there’s a recent thread on this. | g72js2f | g72m7ef | 1,601,393,860 | 1,601,394,840 | 12 | 13 | Decide what matters to you in terms of happiness. Getting a TT job is already difficult, getting a TT job in a good location (whatever that means for you- close to family, close to friends and a support network, employment options for a partner, city or rural, etc.) is very difficult. | Stay out of the department politics and toxicity. Put your head down, work hard, while also leaving time for yourself and your family. Learn to negotiate and occasionally say no to requests. | 0 | 980 | 1.083333 |
o2tc11 | askacademia_train | 0.96 | PIs, what do you find most impressive about exceptional grad students? I know it's not about knowing the answers to everything (as I was once led to believe), but a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them. This is especially so if one worked in an interdisciplinary field. What then, separates mediocre, good, and exceptional students? When is the last time a student genuinely impressed you? What did he/she do? I'm less curious about the specific outcomes (publications, high grades, engagement, etc.), but more about the characteristics and habits great students have. Could it be creativity? Productivity? The ability to ask relevant research questions and design experiments? The ability to conduct experiments independently and discuss the results meaningfully? Put another way, aside from tangible results, what (soft) skills should I aim to gain in grad school to become a better academic? What makes you say, *wow, I am really impressed by this student*? Hope the question is clear. Thanks for your input! | h28hjlu | h28fpn1 | 1,624,039,338 | 1,624,038,525 | 197 | 137 | Students who have impressed me most have (1) had the desire and ability to become strong in the fundamentals of the field and then (2) work with me as partners in pushing research in a direction that they find personally interesting. I suppose that’s a combination of ability, interest, and professionalism. | Being someone I can trust to do good work without needing to manage you much is really what it boils down to. Like if I give a deadline, I expect it to be met. If it can't be, that's ok as long as there's an extenuating circumstance and I know about it ahead of time. Regularly meeting deadlines, being concientious (but not anxious - I have enough of my own anxiety, I don't need yours), responding well to constructive feedback, being dependable, and actually being interested in the work. Being respectful obviously too, and having good boundaries | 1 | 813 | 1.437956 |
o2tc11 | askacademia_train | 0.96 | PIs, what do you find most impressive about exceptional grad students? I know it's not about knowing the answers to everything (as I was once led to believe), but a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them. This is especially so if one worked in an interdisciplinary field. What then, separates mediocre, good, and exceptional students? When is the last time a student genuinely impressed you? What did he/she do? I'm less curious about the specific outcomes (publications, high grades, engagement, etc.), but more about the characteristics and habits great students have. Could it be creativity? Productivity? The ability to ask relevant research questions and design experiments? The ability to conduct experiments independently and discuss the results meaningfully? Put another way, aside from tangible results, what (soft) skills should I aim to gain in grad school to become a better academic? What makes you say, *wow, I am really impressed by this student*? Hope the question is clear. Thanks for your input! | h289ksk | h28hjlu | 1,624,035,756 | 1,624,039,338 | 62 | 197 | “…a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them.” No, it’s really not. There are two really big misunderstandings on this. First, “there’s no such thing as a stupid question” is absolutely false. Second, “it doesn’t hurt to ask” is also not true. Hopefully for you, you aren’t using the term “dumb question” correctly. A dumb question is one where the answer should be obvious to you (not just obvious to the person your asking), or you’ve been told before, or one you can look up yourself as quickly as it takes you to ask. A dumb question is one that annoys the person you ask because they shouldn’t have to answer it for you. And this is where “it doesn’t hurt to ask” is dead wrong. Everyone asks dumb questions on occasion, but someone who does it “a lot” is someone I can’t trust to work on complicated projects, or without more supervision than I give other students, and that means it’s someone I can’t write a good letter of recommendation for. Students at all levels need to figure out how to tell if a question is a stupid question or not. If you’re not sure, ask. A few times doesn’t hurt. But from someone who hopes to be an independent researcher one day, you really need to figure it out quick. | Students who have impressed me most have (1) had the desire and ability to become strong in the fundamentals of the field and then (2) work with me as partners in pushing research in a direction that they find personally interesting. I suppose that’s a combination of ability, interest, and professionalism. | 0 | 3,582 | 3.177419 |
o2tc11 | askacademia_train | 0.96 | PIs, what do you find most impressive about exceptional grad students? I know it's not about knowing the answers to everything (as I was once led to believe), but a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them. This is especially so if one worked in an interdisciplinary field. What then, separates mediocre, good, and exceptional students? When is the last time a student genuinely impressed you? What did he/she do? I'm less curious about the specific outcomes (publications, high grades, engagement, etc.), but more about the characteristics and habits great students have. Could it be creativity? Productivity? The ability to ask relevant research questions and design experiments? The ability to conduct experiments independently and discuss the results meaningfully? Put another way, aside from tangible results, what (soft) skills should I aim to gain in grad school to become a better academic? What makes you say, *wow, I am really impressed by this student*? Hope the question is clear. Thanks for your input! | h28xuby | h28fpn1 | 1,624,046,689 | 1,624,038,525 | 140 | 137 | The best grad students seem to have their own agenda that is interdependent with their mentor's research. They use their mentor for advice, but don't need hand holding for everything. They are driven by their own goals and find a mentor that facilities progress in that direction. | Being someone I can trust to do good work without needing to manage you much is really what it boils down to. Like if I give a deadline, I expect it to be met. If it can't be, that's ok as long as there's an extenuating circumstance and I know about it ahead of time. Regularly meeting deadlines, being concientious (but not anxious - I have enough of my own anxiety, I don't need yours), responding well to constructive feedback, being dependable, and actually being interested in the work. Being respectful obviously too, and having good boundaries | 1 | 8,164 | 1.021898 |
o2tc11 | askacademia_train | 0.96 | PIs, what do you find most impressive about exceptional grad students? I know it's not about knowing the answers to everything (as I was once led to believe), but a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them. This is especially so if one worked in an interdisciplinary field. What then, separates mediocre, good, and exceptional students? When is the last time a student genuinely impressed you? What did he/she do? I'm less curious about the specific outcomes (publications, high grades, engagement, etc.), but more about the characteristics and habits great students have. Could it be creativity? Productivity? The ability to ask relevant research questions and design experiments? The ability to conduct experiments independently and discuss the results meaningfully? Put another way, aside from tangible results, what (soft) skills should I aim to gain in grad school to become a better academic? What makes you say, *wow, I am really impressed by this student*? Hope the question is clear. Thanks for your input! | h28xuby | h289ksk | 1,624,046,689 | 1,624,035,756 | 140 | 62 | The best grad students seem to have their own agenda that is interdependent with their mentor's research. They use their mentor for advice, but don't need hand holding for everything. They are driven by their own goals and find a mentor that facilities progress in that direction. | “…a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them.” No, it’s really not. There are two really big misunderstandings on this. First, “there’s no such thing as a stupid question” is absolutely false. Second, “it doesn’t hurt to ask” is also not true. Hopefully for you, you aren’t using the term “dumb question” correctly. A dumb question is one where the answer should be obvious to you (not just obvious to the person your asking), or you’ve been told before, or one you can look up yourself as quickly as it takes you to ask. A dumb question is one that annoys the person you ask because they shouldn’t have to answer it for you. And this is where “it doesn’t hurt to ask” is dead wrong. Everyone asks dumb questions on occasion, but someone who does it “a lot” is someone I can’t trust to work on complicated projects, or without more supervision than I give other students, and that means it’s someone I can’t write a good letter of recommendation for. Students at all levels need to figure out how to tell if a question is a stupid question or not. If you’re not sure, ask. A few times doesn’t hurt. But from someone who hopes to be an independent researcher one day, you really need to figure it out quick. | 1 | 10,933 | 2.258065 |
o2tc11 | askacademia_train | 0.96 | PIs, what do you find most impressive about exceptional grad students? I know it's not about knowing the answers to everything (as I was once led to believe), but a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them. This is especially so if one worked in an interdisciplinary field. What then, separates mediocre, good, and exceptional students? When is the last time a student genuinely impressed you? What did he/she do? I'm less curious about the specific outcomes (publications, high grades, engagement, etc.), but more about the characteristics and habits great students have. Could it be creativity? Productivity? The ability to ask relevant research questions and design experiments? The ability to conduct experiments independently and discuss the results meaningfully? Put another way, aside from tangible results, what (soft) skills should I aim to gain in grad school to become a better academic? What makes you say, *wow, I am really impressed by this student*? Hope the question is clear. Thanks for your input! | h28shbp | h28xuby | 1,624,044,292 | 1,624,046,689 | 47 | 140 | Time management skills. I just graduated with my MA and there were two other students in my cohort that I was constantly impressed by because of their insane time management skills. One of them is a mother to twin girls who works a part time job outside of her GTA responsibilities and she was constantly submitting grant applications, writing multiple manuscripts, and consistently working on her research in the lab. The other also worked a job outside of her GTA responsibilities and lab work on top of planning a massive wedding complete with meticulously crafted 3D representations of the venue and decor. I have absolutely no idea how they managed to do all of the stuff that they did with only 24 hours in a day. I am exceptionally jealous of and massively impressed with their time management skills. | The best grad students seem to have their own agenda that is interdependent with their mentor's research. They use their mentor for advice, but don't need hand holding for everything. They are driven by their own goals and find a mentor that facilities progress in that direction. | 0 | 2,397 | 2.978723 |
o2tc11 | askacademia_train | 0.96 | PIs, what do you find most impressive about exceptional grad students? I know it's not about knowing the answers to everything (as I was once led to believe), but a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them. This is especially so if one worked in an interdisciplinary field. What then, separates mediocre, good, and exceptional students? When is the last time a student genuinely impressed you? What did he/she do? I'm less curious about the specific outcomes (publications, high grades, engagement, etc.), but more about the characteristics and habits great students have. Could it be creativity? Productivity? The ability to ask relevant research questions and design experiments? The ability to conduct experiments independently and discuss the results meaningfully? Put another way, aside from tangible results, what (soft) skills should I aim to gain in grad school to become a better academic? What makes you say, *wow, I am really impressed by this student*? Hope the question is clear. Thanks for your input! | h28fpn1 | h289ksk | 1,624,038,525 | 1,624,035,756 | 137 | 62 | Being someone I can trust to do good work without needing to manage you much is really what it boils down to. Like if I give a deadline, I expect it to be met. If it can't be, that's ok as long as there's an extenuating circumstance and I know about it ahead of time. Regularly meeting deadlines, being concientious (but not anxious - I have enough of my own anxiety, I don't need yours), responding well to constructive feedback, being dependable, and actually being interested in the work. Being respectful obviously too, and having good boundaries | “…a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them.” No, it’s really not. There are two really big misunderstandings on this. First, “there’s no such thing as a stupid question” is absolutely false. Second, “it doesn’t hurt to ask” is also not true. Hopefully for you, you aren’t using the term “dumb question” correctly. A dumb question is one where the answer should be obvious to you (not just obvious to the person your asking), or you’ve been told before, or one you can look up yourself as quickly as it takes you to ask. A dumb question is one that annoys the person you ask because they shouldn’t have to answer it for you. And this is where “it doesn’t hurt to ask” is dead wrong. Everyone asks dumb questions on occasion, but someone who does it “a lot” is someone I can’t trust to work on complicated projects, or without more supervision than I give other students, and that means it’s someone I can’t write a good letter of recommendation for. Students at all levels need to figure out how to tell if a question is a stupid question or not. If you’re not sure, ask. A few times doesn’t hurt. But from someone who hopes to be an independent researcher one day, you really need to figure it out quick. | 1 | 2,769 | 2.209677 |
o2tc11 | askacademia_train | 0.96 | PIs, what do you find most impressive about exceptional grad students? I know it's not about knowing the answers to everything (as I was once led to believe), but a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them. This is especially so if one worked in an interdisciplinary field. What then, separates mediocre, good, and exceptional students? When is the last time a student genuinely impressed you? What did he/she do? I'm less curious about the specific outcomes (publications, high grades, engagement, etc.), but more about the characteristics and habits great students have. Could it be creativity? Productivity? The ability to ask relevant research questions and design experiments? The ability to conduct experiments independently and discuss the results meaningfully? Put another way, aside from tangible results, what (soft) skills should I aim to gain in grad school to become a better academic? What makes you say, *wow, I am really impressed by this student*? Hope the question is clear. Thanks for your input! | h289ksk | h29d7ex | 1,624,035,756 | 1,624,053,993 | 62 | 90 | “…a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them.” No, it’s really not. There are two really big misunderstandings on this. First, “there’s no such thing as a stupid question” is absolutely false. Second, “it doesn’t hurt to ask” is also not true. Hopefully for you, you aren’t using the term “dumb question” correctly. A dumb question is one where the answer should be obvious to you (not just obvious to the person your asking), or you’ve been told before, or one you can look up yourself as quickly as it takes you to ask. A dumb question is one that annoys the person you ask because they shouldn’t have to answer it for you. And this is where “it doesn’t hurt to ask” is dead wrong. Everyone asks dumb questions on occasion, but someone who does it “a lot” is someone I can’t trust to work on complicated projects, or without more supervision than I give other students, and that means it’s someone I can’t write a good letter of recommendation for. Students at all levels need to figure out how to tell if a question is a stupid question or not. If you’re not sure, ask. A few times doesn’t hurt. But from someone who hopes to be an independent researcher one day, you really need to figure it out quick. | Honestly I don't think most PIs are good at determining who the good grad students are. Because most PIs are terrible managers. Largely disinterested in their students, too results-oriented, too quick to micromanage when students start to have problems... I think the point of graduate school is to learn to become an independent researcher. The most impressive graduate students are the ones that can do that well. That doesn't necessarily mean ignoring your PI, but to transition from using them as mentors to collaborators. | 0 | 18,237 | 1.451613 |
o2tc11 | askacademia_train | 0.96 | PIs, what do you find most impressive about exceptional grad students? I know it's not about knowing the answers to everything (as I was once led to believe), but a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them. This is especially so if one worked in an interdisciplinary field. What then, separates mediocre, good, and exceptional students? When is the last time a student genuinely impressed you? What did he/she do? I'm less curious about the specific outcomes (publications, high grades, engagement, etc.), but more about the characteristics and habits great students have. Could it be creativity? Productivity? The ability to ask relevant research questions and design experiments? The ability to conduct experiments independently and discuss the results meaningfully? Put another way, aside from tangible results, what (soft) skills should I aim to gain in grad school to become a better academic? What makes you say, *wow, I am really impressed by this student*? Hope the question is clear. Thanks for your input! | h28shbp | h29d7ex | 1,624,044,292 | 1,624,053,993 | 47 | 90 | Time management skills. I just graduated with my MA and there were two other students in my cohort that I was constantly impressed by because of their insane time management skills. One of them is a mother to twin girls who works a part time job outside of her GTA responsibilities and she was constantly submitting grant applications, writing multiple manuscripts, and consistently working on her research in the lab. The other also worked a job outside of her GTA responsibilities and lab work on top of planning a massive wedding complete with meticulously crafted 3D representations of the venue and decor. I have absolutely no idea how they managed to do all of the stuff that they did with only 24 hours in a day. I am exceptionally jealous of and massively impressed with their time management skills. | Honestly I don't think most PIs are good at determining who the good grad students are. Because most PIs are terrible managers. Largely disinterested in their students, too results-oriented, too quick to micromanage when students start to have problems... I think the point of graduate school is to learn to become an independent researcher. The most impressive graduate students are the ones that can do that well. That doesn't necessarily mean ignoring your PI, but to transition from using them as mentors to collaborators. | 0 | 9,701 | 1.914894 |
o2tc11 | askacademia_train | 0.96 | PIs, what do you find most impressive about exceptional grad students? I know it's not about knowing the answers to everything (as I was once led to believe), but a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them. This is especially so if one worked in an interdisciplinary field. What then, separates mediocre, good, and exceptional students? When is the last time a student genuinely impressed you? What did he/she do? I'm less curious about the specific outcomes (publications, high grades, engagement, etc.), but more about the characteristics and habits great students have. Could it be creativity? Productivity? The ability to ask relevant research questions and design experiments? The ability to conduct experiments independently and discuss the results meaningfully? Put another way, aside from tangible results, what (soft) skills should I aim to gain in grad school to become a better academic? What makes you say, *wow, I am really impressed by this student*? Hope the question is clear. Thanks for your input! | h29mmel | h289ksk | 1,624,059,087 | 1,624,035,756 | 86 | 62 | >What then, separates mediocre, good, and exceptional students? When is the last time a student genuinely impressed you? What did he/she do? Intellectual curiosity matched with serious effort to engage with the literature. In addition to their time doing experiments, READING READING READING dozens and dozens and DOZENS of papers to a level of understanding to actually develop an *intellectual* vision and an understanding of where the field - and related fields is at - then in following years, identify problems or niches and start to attack them - or at least make plans. This requires a lot of time and commitment. | “…a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them.” No, it’s really not. There are two really big misunderstandings on this. First, “there’s no such thing as a stupid question” is absolutely false. Second, “it doesn’t hurt to ask” is also not true. Hopefully for you, you aren’t using the term “dumb question” correctly. A dumb question is one where the answer should be obvious to you (not just obvious to the person your asking), or you’ve been told before, or one you can look up yourself as quickly as it takes you to ask. A dumb question is one that annoys the person you ask because they shouldn’t have to answer it for you. And this is where “it doesn’t hurt to ask” is dead wrong. Everyone asks dumb questions on occasion, but someone who does it “a lot” is someone I can’t trust to work on complicated projects, or without more supervision than I give other students, and that means it’s someone I can’t write a good letter of recommendation for. Students at all levels need to figure out how to tell if a question is a stupid question or not. If you’re not sure, ask. A few times doesn’t hurt. But from someone who hopes to be an independent researcher one day, you really need to figure it out quick. | 1 | 23,331 | 1.387097 |
o2tc11 | askacademia_train | 0.96 | PIs, what do you find most impressive about exceptional grad students? I know it's not about knowing the answers to everything (as I was once led to believe), but a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them. This is especially so if one worked in an interdisciplinary field. What then, separates mediocre, good, and exceptional students? When is the last time a student genuinely impressed you? What did he/she do? I'm less curious about the specific outcomes (publications, high grades, engagement, etc.), but more about the characteristics and habits great students have. Could it be creativity? Productivity? The ability to ask relevant research questions and design experiments? The ability to conduct experiments independently and discuss the results meaningfully? Put another way, aside from tangible results, what (soft) skills should I aim to gain in grad school to become a better academic? What makes you say, *wow, I am really impressed by this student*? Hope the question is clear. Thanks for your input! | h28shbp | h29mmel | 1,624,044,292 | 1,624,059,087 | 47 | 86 | Time management skills. I just graduated with my MA and there were two other students in my cohort that I was constantly impressed by because of their insane time management skills. One of them is a mother to twin girls who works a part time job outside of her GTA responsibilities and she was constantly submitting grant applications, writing multiple manuscripts, and consistently working on her research in the lab. The other also worked a job outside of her GTA responsibilities and lab work on top of planning a massive wedding complete with meticulously crafted 3D representations of the venue and decor. I have absolutely no idea how they managed to do all of the stuff that they did with only 24 hours in a day. I am exceptionally jealous of and massively impressed with their time management skills. | >What then, separates mediocre, good, and exceptional students? When is the last time a student genuinely impressed you? What did he/she do? Intellectual curiosity matched with serious effort to engage with the literature. In addition to their time doing experiments, READING READING READING dozens and dozens and DOZENS of papers to a level of understanding to actually develop an *intellectual* vision and an understanding of where the field - and related fields is at - then in following years, identify problems or niches and start to attack them - or at least make plans. This requires a lot of time and commitment. | 0 | 14,795 | 1.829787 |
o2tc11 | askacademia_train | 0.96 | PIs, what do you find most impressive about exceptional grad students? I know it's not about knowing the answers to everything (as I was once led to believe), but a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them. This is especially so if one worked in an interdisciplinary field. What then, separates mediocre, good, and exceptional students? When is the last time a student genuinely impressed you? What did he/she do? I'm less curious about the specific outcomes (publications, high grades, engagement, etc.), but more about the characteristics and habits great students have. Could it be creativity? Productivity? The ability to ask relevant research questions and design experiments? The ability to conduct experiments independently and discuss the results meaningfully? Put another way, aside from tangible results, what (soft) skills should I aim to gain in grad school to become a better academic? What makes you say, *wow, I am really impressed by this student*? Hope the question is clear. Thanks for your input! | h2aefo0 | h2aexcm | 1,624,074,495 | 1,624,074,781 | 18 | 25 | One of the things that separates the good students from the exceptional students is that the good students will take and follow directions and complete tasks to the letter. The exceptional students appreciate the bigger picture in which those tasks were given and, while completing them, can go beyond to provide insightful contributions/make meaningful decisions. | I've seen a lot of people go on to get really competitive academic and industry jobs and the number one skill they have had (along with genuine intellectual curiosity), bar none, is time management. These were mostly people who did *not* work crazy long hours or most (if any) weekends, often because of family commitments. Some had to make it 9 to 5, if thats not possible it never really extends much beyond that because 1) they couldn't and 2) I really think its counterproductive. They were people who could stay focused and organized to produce a steady stream of small steps forward and deliverables day in and day out with an eye on a goal (usually a big paper or a fellowship etc). From a mangers perspective, someone like this is the best, especially if they can communicate what is working and what isn't. | 0 | 286 | 1.388889 |
o2tc11 | askacademia_train | 0.96 | PIs, what do you find most impressive about exceptional grad students? I know it's not about knowing the answers to everything (as I was once led to believe), but a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them. This is especially so if one worked in an interdisciplinary field. What then, separates mediocre, good, and exceptional students? When is the last time a student genuinely impressed you? What did he/she do? I'm less curious about the specific outcomes (publications, high grades, engagement, etc.), but more about the characteristics and habits great students have. Could it be creativity? Productivity? The ability to ask relevant research questions and design experiments? The ability to conduct experiments independently and discuss the results meaningfully? Put another way, aside from tangible results, what (soft) skills should I aim to gain in grad school to become a better academic? What makes you say, *wow, I am really impressed by this student*? Hope the question is clear. Thanks for your input! | h2aexcm | h29o3qz | 1,624,074,781 | 1,624,059,918 | 25 | 7 | I've seen a lot of people go on to get really competitive academic and industry jobs and the number one skill they have had (along with genuine intellectual curiosity), bar none, is time management. These were mostly people who did *not* work crazy long hours or most (if any) weekends, often because of family commitments. Some had to make it 9 to 5, if thats not possible it never really extends much beyond that because 1) they couldn't and 2) I really think its counterproductive. They were people who could stay focused and organized to produce a steady stream of small steps forward and deliverables day in and day out with an eye on a goal (usually a big paper or a fellowship etc). From a mangers perspective, someone like this is the best, especially if they can communicate what is working and what isn't. | I think a lot of it boils down to finding a right mentor. A lot of success in grad school depends on luck and whether your project is successful or not. That is of course the essence of research. In my opinion, I have seen everyone of my cohorts work hard but the results vary because of varying factors. For example, a good student with a PI who doesn’t the mentor the student would go through a hard time. | 1 | 14,863 | 3.571429 |
o2tc11 | askacademia_train | 0.96 | PIs, what do you find most impressive about exceptional grad students? I know it's not about knowing the answers to everything (as I was once led to believe), but a part of grad school and growing is asking dumb questions, lots of them. This is especially so if one worked in an interdisciplinary field. What then, separates mediocre, good, and exceptional students? When is the last time a student genuinely impressed you? What did he/she do? I'm less curious about the specific outcomes (publications, high grades, engagement, etc.), but more about the characteristics and habits great students have. Could it be creativity? Productivity? The ability to ask relevant research questions and design experiments? The ability to conduct experiments independently and discuss the results meaningfully? Put another way, aside from tangible results, what (soft) skills should I aim to gain in grad school to become a better academic? What makes you say, *wow, I am really impressed by this student*? Hope the question is clear. Thanks for your input! | h2aefo0 | h29o3qz | 1,624,074,495 | 1,624,059,918 | 18 | 7 | One of the things that separates the good students from the exceptional students is that the good students will take and follow directions and complete tasks to the letter. The exceptional students appreciate the bigger picture in which those tasks were given and, while completing them, can go beyond to provide insightful contributions/make meaningful decisions. | I think a lot of it boils down to finding a right mentor. A lot of success in grad school depends on luck and whether your project is successful or not. That is of course the essence of research. In my opinion, I have seen everyone of my cohorts work hard but the results vary because of varying factors. For example, a good student with a PI who doesn’t the mentor the student would go through a hard time. | 1 | 14,577 | 2.571429 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcmf96 | ejcnodt | 1,553,533,073 | 1,553,533,893 | 124 | 229 | Field botany. Crunchy types. "GMO's are the devil, gluten is evil, Braden went dairy free and raw vegan in the same weekend. We're doing homeopathy for my son's ear ache. Who wants rainforest friendly granola?" | I’m in German Studies.... so Nazis.... lots and lots of fucking Nazis. | 0 | 820 | 1.846774 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcnodt | ejckfgu | 1,553,533,893 | 1,553,531,784 | 229 | 96 | I’m in German Studies.... so Nazis.... lots and lots of fucking Nazis. | I do geochronology and a lot of my group works on Early Earth. We get weird postcards a couple times a year, and weird emails several times a year. My supervisor also has been "cited" by Answers in Genesis multiple times... ​ Edit: I realized I didn't specify what type of weird it was. Mostly creationists insisting the Earth isn't that old, or that radiogenic elements' decay constants are actually much higher, etc. | 1 | 2,109 | 2.385417 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcnodt | ejclz9z | 1,553,533,893 | 1,553,532,789 | 229 | 82 | I’m in German Studies.... so Nazis.... lots and lots of fucking Nazis. | Celtic studies/medieval Irish history attracts a lot of people who identify with pop-history representations of Irish culture/society who are absolutely furious to discover that much of what's out there (especially with regards to the religion[s] practised in Ireland prior to Christianisation) is not an accurate representation of the historical record. | 1 | 1,104 | 2.792683 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcnk3f | ejcnodt | 1,553,533,818 | 1,553,533,893 | 68 | 229 | Assyriology, Sumerology, and Biblical Studies. Anything from Ancient Aliens folks to biblical fundamentalists to Atheist fundamentalists. Absolute insanity. | I’m in German Studies.... so Nazis.... lots and lots of fucking Nazis. | 0 | 75 | 3.367647 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcnodt | ejcmrmy | 1,553,533,893 | 1,553,533,294 | 229 | 57 | I’m in German Studies.... so Nazis.... lots and lots of fucking Nazis. | Libertarians. CS PhD. It's.... upsetting | 1 | 599 | 4.017544 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcms3f | ejcnodt | 1,553,533,302 | 1,553,533,893 | 56 | 229 | Anthropology/human evolution/fossils. I get angry Creationists and the “is this totally normal rock I found in my back yard a precious fossil?” types. The latter is usually accompanied by a blurry, low resolution photo of said rock. | I’m in German Studies.... so Nazis.... lots and lots of fucking Nazis. | 0 | 591 | 4.089286 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcm9le | ejcnodt | 1,553,532,973 | 1,553,533,893 | 52 | 229 | I'm in psychology/neuroscience. We get lots of theoretical physicists writing nonsense about consciousness. | I’m in German Studies.... so Nazis.... lots and lots of fucking Nazis. | 0 | 920 | 4.403846 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcnio9 | ejcnodt | 1,553,533,793 | 1,553,533,893 | 46 | 229 | I did a lot of work on spherical robots (before Star Wars came out), and I still get people emailing me about BB8. | I’m in German Studies.... so Nazis.... lots and lots of fucking Nazis. | 0 | 100 | 4.978261 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejco4po | ejcmf96 | 1,553,534,190 | 1,553,533,073 | 134 | 124 | History of science: a lot of aggressive atheists who think that Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Richard Dawkins are leading scholars, and that science is some sort of special, removed form of knowledge. | Field botany. Crunchy types. "GMO's are the devil, gluten is evil, Braden went dairy free and raw vegan in the same weekend. We're doing homeopathy for my son's ear ache. Who wants rainforest friendly granola?" | 1 | 1,117 | 1.080645 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejckfgu | ejco4po | 1,553,531,784 | 1,553,534,190 | 96 | 134 | I do geochronology and a lot of my group works on Early Earth. We get weird postcards a couple times a year, and weird emails several times a year. My supervisor also has been "cited" by Answers in Genesis multiple times... ​ Edit: I realized I didn't specify what type of weird it was. Mostly creationists insisting the Earth isn't that old, or that radiogenic elements' decay constants are actually much higher, etc. | History of science: a lot of aggressive atheists who think that Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Richard Dawkins are leading scholars, and that science is some sort of special, removed form of knowledge. | 0 | 2,406 | 1.395833 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejco4po | ejclz9z | 1,553,534,190 | 1,553,532,789 | 134 | 82 | History of science: a lot of aggressive atheists who think that Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Richard Dawkins are leading scholars, and that science is some sort of special, removed form of knowledge. | Celtic studies/medieval Irish history attracts a lot of people who identify with pop-history representations of Irish culture/society who are absolutely furious to discover that much of what's out there (especially with regards to the religion[s] practised in Ireland prior to Christianisation) is not an accurate representation of the historical record. | 1 | 1,401 | 1.634146 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejco4po | ejcnk3f | 1,553,534,190 | 1,553,533,818 | 134 | 68 | History of science: a lot of aggressive atheists who think that Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Richard Dawkins are leading scholars, and that science is some sort of special, removed form of knowledge. | Assyriology, Sumerology, and Biblical Studies. Anything from Ancient Aliens folks to biblical fundamentalists to Atheist fundamentalists. Absolute insanity. | 1 | 372 | 1.970588 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcmrmy | ejco4po | 1,553,533,294 | 1,553,534,190 | 57 | 134 | Libertarians. CS PhD. It's.... upsetting | History of science: a lot of aggressive atheists who think that Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Richard Dawkins are leading scholars, and that science is some sort of special, removed form of knowledge. | 0 | 896 | 2.350877 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejco4po | ejcms3f | 1,553,534,190 | 1,553,533,302 | 134 | 56 | History of science: a lot of aggressive atheists who think that Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Richard Dawkins are leading scholars, and that science is some sort of special, removed form of knowledge. | Anthropology/human evolution/fossils. I get angry Creationists and the “is this totally normal rock I found in my back yard a precious fossil?” types. The latter is usually accompanied by a blurry, low resolution photo of said rock. | 1 | 888 | 2.392857 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejco4po | ejcnuid | 1,553,534,190 | 1,553,534,005 | 134 | 60 | History of science: a lot of aggressive atheists who think that Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Richard Dawkins are leading scholars, and that science is some sort of special, removed form of knowledge. | The people who just saw their first abstract painting (or god forbid, found out how much an abstract painting sold for at auction) and want to tell us that we are either all delusional or in a conspiracy against "true" art. | 1 | 185 | 2.233333 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejco4po | ejcm9le | 1,553,534,190 | 1,553,532,973 | 134 | 52 | History of science: a lot of aggressive atheists who think that Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Richard Dawkins are leading scholars, and that science is some sort of special, removed form of knowledge. | I'm in psychology/neuroscience. We get lots of theoretical physicists writing nonsense about consciousness. | 1 | 1,217 | 2.576923 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcnio9 | ejco4po | 1,553,533,793 | 1,553,534,190 | 46 | 134 | I did a lot of work on spherical robots (before Star Wars came out), and I still get people emailing me about BB8. | History of science: a lot of aggressive atheists who think that Carl Sagan, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and Richard Dawkins are leading scholars, and that science is some sort of special, removed form of knowledge. | 0 | 397 | 2.913043 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcmf96 | ejckfgu | 1,553,533,073 | 1,553,531,784 | 124 | 96 | Field botany. Crunchy types. "GMO's are the devil, gluten is evil, Braden went dairy free and raw vegan in the same weekend. We're doing homeopathy for my son's ear ache. Who wants rainforest friendly granola?" | I do geochronology and a lot of my group works on Early Earth. We get weird postcards a couple times a year, and weird emails several times a year. My supervisor also has been "cited" by Answers in Genesis multiple times... ​ Edit: I realized I didn't specify what type of weird it was. Mostly creationists insisting the Earth isn't that old, or that radiogenic elements' decay constants are actually much higher, etc. | 1 | 1,289 | 1.291667 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcmf96 | ejclz9z | 1,553,533,073 | 1,553,532,789 | 124 | 82 | Field botany. Crunchy types. "GMO's are the devil, gluten is evil, Braden went dairy free and raw vegan in the same weekend. We're doing homeopathy for my son's ear ache. Who wants rainforest friendly granola?" | Celtic studies/medieval Irish history attracts a lot of people who identify with pop-history representations of Irish culture/society who are absolutely furious to discover that much of what's out there (especially with regards to the religion[s] practised in Ireland prior to Christianisation) is not an accurate representation of the historical record. | 1 | 284 | 1.512195 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcm9le | ejcmf96 | 1,553,532,973 | 1,553,533,073 | 52 | 124 | I'm in psychology/neuroscience. We get lots of theoretical physicists writing nonsense about consciousness. | Field botany. Crunchy types. "GMO's are the devil, gluten is evil, Braden went dairy free and raw vegan in the same weekend. We're doing homeopathy for my son's ear ache. Who wants rainforest friendly granola?" | 0 | 100 | 2.384615 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejckfgu | ejcpb0z | 1,553,531,784 | 1,553,534,943 | 96 | 118 | I do geochronology and a lot of my group works on Early Earth. We get weird postcards a couple times a year, and weird emails several times a year. My supervisor also has been "cited" by Answers in Genesis multiple times... ​ Edit: I realized I didn't specify what type of weird it was. Mostly creationists insisting the Earth isn't that old, or that radiogenic elements' decay constants are actually much higher, etc. | Physics. We get messages from so called geniuses, who think they have solved physics theories and want somebody to help them. They think they can design perpetual motion machines and speak in garbled nonsense. It's pretty sad to see to be honest. The most absurd I received recently made some claim and it had a 16 significant figures number for a length of a device he suggested I build. I was showing my colleague the email and discussing. He should probably just publish his measuring device, the fact he's claiming a civilian level device is measuring something so precise he could probably make a lot of money. | 0 | 3,159 | 1.229167 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejclz9z | ejcpb0z | 1,553,532,789 | 1,553,534,943 | 82 | 118 | Celtic studies/medieval Irish history attracts a lot of people who identify with pop-history representations of Irish culture/society who are absolutely furious to discover that much of what's out there (especially with regards to the religion[s] practised in Ireland prior to Christianisation) is not an accurate representation of the historical record. | Physics. We get messages from so called geniuses, who think they have solved physics theories and want somebody to help them. They think they can design perpetual motion machines and speak in garbled nonsense. It's pretty sad to see to be honest. The most absurd I received recently made some claim and it had a 16 significant figures number for a length of a device he suggested I build. I was showing my colleague the email and discussing. He should probably just publish his measuring device, the fact he's claiming a civilian level device is measuring something so precise he could probably make a lot of money. | 0 | 2,154 | 1.439024 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcnk3f | ejcpb0z | 1,553,533,818 | 1,553,534,943 | 68 | 118 | Assyriology, Sumerology, and Biblical Studies. Anything from Ancient Aliens folks to biblical fundamentalists to Atheist fundamentalists. Absolute insanity. | Physics. We get messages from so called geniuses, who think they have solved physics theories and want somebody to help them. They think they can design perpetual motion machines and speak in garbled nonsense. It's pretty sad to see to be honest. The most absurd I received recently made some claim and it had a 16 significant figures number for a length of a device he suggested I build. I was showing my colleague the email and discussing. He should probably just publish his measuring device, the fact he's claiming a civilian level device is measuring something so precise he could probably make a lot of money. | 0 | 1,125 | 1.735294 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcmrmy | ejcpb0z | 1,553,533,294 | 1,553,534,943 | 57 | 118 | Libertarians. CS PhD. It's.... upsetting | Physics. We get messages from so called geniuses, who think they have solved physics theories and want somebody to help them. They think they can design perpetual motion machines and speak in garbled nonsense. It's pretty sad to see to be honest. The most absurd I received recently made some claim and it had a 16 significant figures number for a length of a device he suggested I build. I was showing my colleague the email and discussing. He should probably just publish his measuring device, the fact he's claiming a civilian level device is measuring something so precise he could probably make a lot of money. | 0 | 1,649 | 2.070175 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcpb0z | ejcms3f | 1,553,534,943 | 1,553,533,302 | 118 | 56 | Physics. We get messages from so called geniuses, who think they have solved physics theories and want somebody to help them. They think they can design perpetual motion machines and speak in garbled nonsense. It's pretty sad to see to be honest. The most absurd I received recently made some claim and it had a 16 significant figures number for a length of a device he suggested I build. I was showing my colleague the email and discussing. He should probably just publish his measuring device, the fact he's claiming a civilian level device is measuring something so precise he could probably make a lot of money. | Anthropology/human evolution/fossils. I get angry Creationists and the “is this totally normal rock I found in my back yard a precious fossil?” types. The latter is usually accompanied by a blurry, low resolution photo of said rock. | 1 | 1,641 | 2.107143 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcnuid | ejcpb0z | 1,553,534,005 | 1,553,534,943 | 60 | 118 | The people who just saw their first abstract painting (or god forbid, found out how much an abstract painting sold for at auction) and want to tell us that we are either all delusional or in a conspiracy against "true" art. | Physics. We get messages from so called geniuses, who think they have solved physics theories and want somebody to help them. They think they can design perpetual motion machines and speak in garbled nonsense. It's pretty sad to see to be honest. The most absurd I received recently made some claim and it had a 16 significant figures number for a length of a device he suggested I build. I was showing my colleague the email and discussing. He should probably just publish his measuring device, the fact he's claiming a civilian level device is measuring something so precise he could probably make a lot of money. | 0 | 938 | 1.966667 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcoqy4 | ejcpb0z | 1,553,534,584 | 1,553,534,943 | 55 | 118 | If you work in a geology department expect lots of excited emails and occasional drop-ins by someone who is super-anxious to know how much the "meteorite" they just found on their property is worth. (The answer is that it's slag; it's always slag.) | Physics. We get messages from so called geniuses, who think they have solved physics theories and want somebody to help them. They think they can design perpetual motion machines and speak in garbled nonsense. It's pretty sad to see to be honest. The most absurd I received recently made some claim and it had a 16 significant figures number for a length of a device he suggested I build. I was showing my colleague the email and discussing. He should probably just publish his measuring device, the fact he's claiming a civilian level device is measuring something so precise he could probably make a lot of money. | 0 | 359 | 2.145455 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcm9le | ejcpb0z | 1,553,532,973 | 1,553,534,943 | 52 | 118 | I'm in psychology/neuroscience. We get lots of theoretical physicists writing nonsense about consciousness. | Physics. We get messages from so called geniuses, who think they have solved physics theories and want somebody to help them. They think they can design perpetual motion machines and speak in garbled nonsense. It's pretty sad to see to be honest. The most absurd I received recently made some claim and it had a 16 significant figures number for a length of a device he suggested I build. I was showing my colleague the email and discussing. He should probably just publish his measuring device, the fact he's claiming a civilian level device is measuring something so precise he could probably make a lot of money. | 0 | 1,970 | 2.269231 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcnio9 | ejcpb0z | 1,553,533,793 | 1,553,534,943 | 46 | 118 | I did a lot of work on spherical robots (before Star Wars came out), and I still get people emailing me about BB8. | Physics. We get messages from so called geniuses, who think they have solved physics theories and want somebody to help them. They think they can design perpetual motion machines and speak in garbled nonsense. It's pretty sad to see to be honest. The most absurd I received recently made some claim and it had a 16 significant figures number for a length of a device he suggested I build. I was showing my colleague the email and discussing. He should probably just publish his measuring device, the fact he's claiming a civilian level device is measuring something so precise he could probably make a lot of money. | 0 | 1,150 | 2.565217 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcobh4 | ejcpb0z | 1,553,534,310 | 1,553,534,943 | 35 | 118 | Political Science. Right-wing, left-wing, every branch of near-fanatic political ideology. Class arguments between democratic socialists, strict libertarians, and one student who believes the best system is a benevolent autocracy. Everyone seems to be extreme in other beliefs as well, religious/historical/veganism. Especially since presidential election 2016, it's been rough. ​ | Physics. We get messages from so called geniuses, who think they have solved physics theories and want somebody to help them. They think they can design perpetual motion machines and speak in garbled nonsense. It's pretty sad to see to be honest. The most absurd I received recently made some claim and it had a 16 significant figures number for a length of a device he suggested I build. I was showing my colleague the email and discussing. He should probably just publish his measuring device, the fact he's claiming a civilian level device is measuring something so precise he could probably make a lot of money. | 0 | 633 | 3.371429 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcoo5q | ejcpb0z | 1,553,534,536 | 1,553,534,943 | 36 | 118 | I'm in clinical psychopharmacology; I conduct human lab studies investigating various adverse effects of cannabis (e.g. driving impairment, cognitive performance impairment). We actually get some very well-informed and well-reasoned cannabis advocates who provide some much-needed perspective in the field. On the other hand, we also get a number of emails or voicemails from people who are clearly stoned and not very well educated at all who want to offer us opinions on how to improve our research. | Physics. We get messages from so called geniuses, who think they have solved physics theories and want somebody to help them. They think they can design perpetual motion machines and speak in garbled nonsense. It's pretty sad to see to be honest. The most absurd I received recently made some claim and it had a 16 significant figures number for a length of a device he suggested I build. I was showing my colleague the email and discussing. He should probably just publish his measuring device, the fact he's claiming a civilian level device is measuring something so precise he could probably make a lot of money. | 0 | 407 | 3.277778 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejco7iq | ejcpb0z | 1,553,534,239 | 1,553,534,943 | 34 | 118 | I'm in English literature and pretty much every department has its own token Deleuze & Guattari and/or Derrida enthusiast. | Physics. We get messages from so called geniuses, who think they have solved physics theories and want somebody to help them. They think they can design perpetual motion machines and speak in garbled nonsense. It's pretty sad to see to be honest. The most absurd I received recently made some claim and it had a 16 significant figures number for a length of a device he suggested I build. I was showing my colleague the email and discussing. He should probably just publish his measuring device, the fact he's claiming a civilian level device is measuring something so precise he could probably make a lot of money. | 0 | 704 | 3.470588 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcurpr | ejclz9z | 1,553,538,467 | 1,553,532,789 | 89 | 82 | I'm a climatologist. You can figure out the rest. The president of the United States is one of them. | Celtic studies/medieval Irish history attracts a lot of people who identify with pop-history representations of Irish culture/society who are absolutely furious to discover that much of what's out there (especially with regards to the religion[s] practised in Ireland prior to Christianisation) is not an accurate representation of the historical record. | 1 | 5,678 | 1.085366 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcurpr | ejcpfwe | 1,553,538,467 | 1,553,535,032 | 89 | 70 | I'm a climatologist. You can figure out the rest. The president of the United States is one of them. | Special Education in an urban areas: We get a lot of “poor them” people who are all about inspiration porn. We also have the urban savior (usually white, middle class). And then occasionally the total crack pots who mention horrific actions they have taken in their classrooms as if they are the norm. In the field as a whole (but not in my higher ed program anyway) we now have a huge group of “reformists” who know nothing about child psychology, evidence based practices or teaching and learning history, research and pedagogy but “know that they can fix schools if we all just....” | 1 | 3,435 | 1.271429 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcnk3f | ejcurpr | 1,553,533,818 | 1,553,538,467 | 68 | 89 | Assyriology, Sumerology, and Biblical Studies. Anything from Ancient Aliens folks to biblical fundamentalists to Atheist fundamentalists. Absolute insanity. | I'm a climatologist. You can figure out the rest. The president of the United States is one of them. | 0 | 4,649 | 1.308824 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcsbmc | ejcurpr | 1,553,536,877 | 1,553,538,467 | 66 | 89 | Three kinds of cranks attracted to archaeology: 1) the old fogeys who go to your public lecture "I have a question, interesting talk by the way. When I was young (some long story about how adventurous they used to be and how them and their friends found a shipwreck or cave painting, with no question at the end)." Includes the old fogeys who have a long winded story that culminates in them trying to entice you into researching or accessioning some run of the mill vintage thing they own. 2) the noble savage adherents. While it's great to have the general public engaged in indigenous archaeology, plenty of people take it a bit far and seem to believe indigenous people have mystical powers and magical connections to nature. This can be a damaging stereotype just as much as more negative stereotypes. 3) the conspiracy theorists who watch ancient aliens or Nazi grave hunters or whatever. Thankfully not as common as you might think. | I'm a climatologist. You can figure out the rest. The president of the United States is one of them. | 0 | 1,590 | 1.348485 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcmrmy | ejcurpr | 1,553,533,294 | 1,553,538,467 | 57 | 89 | Libertarians. CS PhD. It's.... upsetting | I'm a climatologist. You can figure out the rest. The president of the United States is one of them. | 0 | 5,173 | 1.561404 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcurpr | ejcms3f | 1,553,538,467 | 1,553,533,302 | 89 | 56 | I'm a climatologist. You can figure out the rest. The president of the United States is one of them. | Anthropology/human evolution/fossils. I get angry Creationists and the “is this totally normal rock I found in my back yard a precious fossil?” types. The latter is usually accompanied by a blurry, low resolution photo of said rock. | 1 | 5,165 | 1.589286 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcurpr | ejcnuid | 1,553,538,467 | 1,553,534,005 | 89 | 60 | I'm a climatologist. You can figure out the rest. The president of the United States is one of them. | The people who just saw their first abstract painting (or god forbid, found out how much an abstract painting sold for at auction) and want to tell us that we are either all delusional or in a conspiracy against "true" art. | 1 | 4,462 | 1.483333 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcoqy4 | ejcurpr | 1,553,534,584 | 1,553,538,467 | 55 | 89 | If you work in a geology department expect lots of excited emails and occasional drop-ins by someone who is super-anxious to know how much the "meteorite" they just found on their property is worth. (The answer is that it's slag; it's always slag.) | I'm a climatologist. You can figure out the rest. The president of the United States is one of them. | 0 | 3,883 | 1.618182 |
b5com1 | askacademia_train | 0.98 | What type of cranks does your discipline attract? I'm in religious studies and just got an email from someone letting me know his bizarre theories about the Bible. | ejcurpr | ejcm9le | 1,553,538,467 | 1,553,532,973 | 89 | 52 | I'm a climatologist. You can figure out the rest. The president of the United States is one of them. | I'm in psychology/neuroscience. We get lots of theoretical physicists writing nonsense about consciousness. | 1 | 5,494 | 1.711538 |
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