#postdoc life

[the-everqueen]

academic tasks sorted by difficulty (least to most hard):

editing a chapter/article/paper

drafting an outline for a chapter/article/paper

giving a conference presentation

writing a chapter/article/paper

developing a theoretical framework

writing a conference presentation

making the powerpoint for a conference presentation

opening the doc with peer review comments

reading the peer review comments

doing anything about the peer review comments

#welcome to academia #postdoc life #obviously this is not considering things like classes/readings/etc. #guess what i'm doing today :) :) :)

[biocheminpics]

Started assisting in an inorganic chemistry lab. There were some beautiful colors produced in the lab by the students. Here's a small sampling.

#science #science side of tumblr #sciblr #chemistry #inorganic chemistry #synthesis #teaching #postdoc life

[medsocionwheels]

Data Prep Day!

Finally fully back at work and in R/RStudio today. Today's goal was to set up some basic structural topic models using a dataframe of information about PubMed publications on post-acute COVID-19 sequalae.

No exciting results today, but if you're interested in topic modeling or wrangling data in R, I made a video so you can follow along with me while I code. Not a formal lesson, more of a "come to work with me" thing. Enjoy!

Highlights:

Full Video:

#come to work with me #postdoc life #postdoctoral research #public health #complex systems #pubmed #text as data #R #R studio #coding #data science #learn to code #code with me #research #academic research #science #phdblr #gradblr #studyblr #scienceblr #long covid #covid #covid research #Youtube

[sleeplessant]

After much suffering, I can finally say I'm pretty fucking stupid for someone with a PhD.

#phd life #physics #science girlie #woman in stem #finally phDone #i feel like the biggest imposter but that won't stop me getting a postdoc salary

[thatwizardofearthsea]

Also PhD and PD periods are super hard on one's mental and physical capacities. There is huge instability. You're constantly expected to fight for having a funding in order to do your job but also live. That is insane. That is an inhumane system to continue. Nobody can be a genius under that kind of pressure. There is a reason of brain drain from academia.

#phdblr #academia #academic burnout #postdoc #life sciences #leaving academia

[miss-biophys]

Researcher’s dream continues. 🥳🥂🍾

My research papers were cited in 300 scientific studies.

2012 ... 1st paper published as a BSc. student

2019 ... PhD award, start of postdoc, 8 papers published

2020 ... 100 citations

2021 ... 200 citations

2022 ... 11 papers published, others in preparation

2023 ... 300 citations

This is encouraging! Achievements like this bring me joy and motivation to keep doing good science. Especially in times when I feel like the results just don’t come and I have to work really hard for it.

#research #science #women in science #postdoc #university #academia #achievement #physics #biophysics #life sciences #stem #scientific writing #recognition #motivation #hard work is rewarded #let's celebrate #original content

[sulkykarris]

Working from home so my cat can sunbathe on the balcony.

#vesemir the cat #university life #postdoc hell

[jynersq]

really pisses me the fuck OFF when STEM faculty turn up their noses at industry and act like they’re somehow practicing a purer and more altruistic form of science because they’re not in it for the money. no, it’s not just a job for these holy professors like it is for those 9-5 industry shmucks — for academics, science is a passion, it’s a calling, and if you’re not working far more hours than what you’re paid for (aka, grad students working 50+ hours a week despite only being paid for a 50% appointment) well, you just don’t care enough. you just don’t have enough passion. how sad.

meanwhile the entire academic research system only functions because of underpaid and often completely unpaid graduate student and postdoc labor!!!!! and to say this is not a defense of industry: corporations have their big fucking evil problems. but academia is not less exploitative and not better and i want people to stop fucking acting like it is. or that it’s good to participate in your own exploitation!

#i fucking hate it here #to the postdoc shortage in the life sciences i say: fucking GOOD. #academia is reaping the fucking whirlwind and i’m going to sit on my porch and watch. #e #stem #academia

[frustrated-researcher-diary]

#1 Introductions

Hello everyone,

It seems a little bit strange to write my thoughts and make them public, but here goes.

Ever since I started university back in 2012, I sort of knew that I wanted to stay in academia and become a researcher. The thought of studying and learning being the main tasks of my job made me feel very privileged. That, and also the possibility of being a teaching assistant and helping students out. All of this has led me to pursue a PhD. Boy, I did not know what I was going on in for. Doing PhD and a Master of Science are two completely different things - and I really underestimated the challenges that were ahead of me.

In the latter, you are basically walking on a threaded path, so to speak. You get assignments, study on textbooks you are given, pass exams that you need to take within specific deadlines, and the grades should give you enough of a validation of the good job done. Everything has been organized for the students, whose sole requirement is to ... """basically""" (I am using many quotes to stress the fact that I know it is not easy - been there, folks) follow the path laid out for them and study, I guess.

On the contrary, when you start a PhD, you are walking in uncharted territory. Of course, your supervisors make sure that you do not fail spectacularly, but at the end of the day you are the master of your fate. (Almost) Nobody gives you a schedule, a list of things to do, or a set of deadlines. You need to build them on your own and stick to them. You need to work on your research, devote some time in the middle to side activities (teaching, projects, contracts with industries), publish papers, and yadda yadda yadda.

Although it was pretty rough, I actually managed to finish my PhD in January 2022. Then, my supervisors (I also call them bosses from hereafter) asked me to my surprise if I ever considered pursuing a post-doc. My instantaneous reply was that I had to think about it.

And I really did. It took me some months to actually convince myself that research was "still" the path for me. I am using the quotes because, sure, during the PhD you learn a lot and build many useful skills, but you also grow to hate what you do from time to time. This can happen for different reasons. In my case, sometimes the research was too complicated, and I realised I was not as smart as I hoped I was. Oftentimes, imposter syndrome kicked in, and I believed that everybody but me had what it takes to deserve to stay in academia. In multiple occasions, I just wanted to know where Reviewer #2 (who heavily criticized the n-th paper that I submitted to a journal) lived, reach their house and hurt them with every fiber of my being. Other times, I just thought that I could have avoided the hassle of doing the PhD in the first place and started working right away in the industry to save enough money to get a house - or save myself at least multiple headaches and recurring episodes of me questioning my life choices.

I knew that becoming a post-doc implied accepting an unsteady job that might not lead to me becoming a professor. I also knew it meant having a lower wage than the one I would have gotten if worked in industry, which inevitably makes the purchase of a house much harder. I also knew it meant mostly anybody around me among my friends and family would have understood what I really do for a living. Nonetheless, I decided to go for it. Despite all, I felt that I was a somewhat decent teacher and that I could have improved in the research department in the future.

So, I applied for the post-doc call in November 2022, which I luckily ended up winning. And boy, even in this case, despite me thinking about it for months, I did not expect it was going to be so hard. Just as a Master of Science is different from a PhD, also being a post-doc is different from being a PhD candidate. During the Phd, my bosses made sure that research was going well, that it was scientifically sound and feasible. On the contrary, during this first year as a post-doc they have given me more freedom in this regard - perhaps because they expect me to become independent and learn that I will not always have them by my side. I think their "experiment" failed. Very much. Indeed, it is almost the end of my first year as a postdoc now, and I can not stop feeling unmotivated and disappointed. I am also afraid that my bosses, who put so much trust in me, feel the same.

I submitted two papers to different journals. One of them got rejected: reviewers said that the paper was not novel enough, which is ironic, considering that it required me one year to actually finish it. I think the other paper is doomed as well. Some might think that, after a Phd, I should be accostumed to paper rejection, but it sadly seems that I have not reached that level of maturity. Now I just think that whatever I do is pointless and will get rejected anyway, so why bother?

To make things worst, there is this constant reminder that in order to have good chances of becoming a professor I need to have as soon as possible a good H-index, get awards, do some side activities (that I could not be less interested in). There is a conundrum. On the one hand, you are privileged to do research, and people understand that research is a risk-related activity - meaning that its outcomes may not always be valuable. On the other hand, you are expected to give valuable research results to become an academic.

As you might understand from this excruciatingly long rant (sorry), I am not feeling very well (and you may also believe that I am overdramatic - which may be true). I am questioning my choice of pursuing a post-doc and my whole life as well (I said I am aware of being overdramatic). I am 30 now, and I hoped that by this age I had everything figured out, from my working life to my romantic one (which is a whole other story). Instead, I am none of the sort. I still live with my parents trying to save enough money to eventually get a house, still trying to find a partner, and still trying to figure out what I really want to do in the future. A true testament to this is the fact that I am writing this on a Saturday night, as if I had nothing better to do.

I wanted to talk with someone about my feelings over this last couple of weeks, but I could not find somebody who could relate that much. As I said before, friends and family do not exactly understand what I do. I could talk to my bosses at Uni, but I am afraid of their reaction. There are my colleagues, but I feel everybody has a lot on their plate, and I do not want them to give them another issue. In any case, I do not want to give up. I need to find by myself the spark that pushed me to go on with this job. Eventually, I will find again the motivation and excitement that convinced me (and also my bosses, apparently) that becoming a post-doc was not a bad idea after all.

I decided to write this post (or should I say rant?) for two main reasons. The first one is to use this as a reminder in the future of the things that I felt. Maybe this post could be followed by other ones on a regular basis as an entry for a diary to keep track of my progress, I don't know. The second one is to be hopefully of aid to whoever reads it. If you, too, are a frustrated researcher (be it a PhD or a post doc) you are not alone. It may sound cheesy, but I believe that there are not enough posts and websites dealing with this. Everybody in academia goes through similar struggles and if they say otherwise.. they are lying. Hardly nobody has everything figured out, even in their 30s.

D.

Ps: English is not my mother tongue, so I apologize for any mistake. Doing my best here 😅

#university #postdoc #research scientist #rant post #phd life

[the-everqueen]

re: my last post. i'm also hypersensitive this semester to being put in the position of "child." i recently detailed to my therapist how a lot of people irl have positioned me as childish, naive, infantile, etc. and then this week i had a whole moment where i reviewed my childhood and made a long list of flags for autism. and it's about agency! it's about how i'm never a subject to a lot of people, i'm a convenient accessory or a tool for their own egos. i spent my whole undergrad education being talked down to and treated as a "kid," and then i finally got a taste of being treated as a professional in grad school, and now i'm back to "kid." i hate this! i get i'm not "passing" as neurotypical and i need to mask harder but also they need to fucking reevaluate their ableism!

#about me #postdoc life #like i get they don't KNOW they're stomping on trauma but also #can we maybe think about what gets designated as ''normal''?? #also i hate this idea that being partnered with the goal being monogamous marriage and eventually having kids #is somehow the pinnacle of adulthood #this is your brain on autism #< my new autism tag

[phdingifs]

Explaining to your friends and family what a postdoc is

#phd #phd life #postdoc #academia #college #university #back to school #kill me #higher ed #writing #publishing #grad #grad school

[medsocionwheels]

Let's Talk Imposter Syndrome in Academia

Or really, about how it doesn't immediately disappear once that degree is in hand. Sometimes I have to remind myself that grad school is over and I'm the one in charge now.

#phdblr #postdoc #postdoc life #postdoctoral researcher #PI #principal investigator #research #collaborative research #science #social science #sociology #public health #interdisciplinary research #imposter syndrome #wait who's in charge here #oh right it's me #Instagram

[ascendantarabesque]

Actually near tears with happiness

So, I’m an astronomer IRL, and in my field unless you have tenure jobs are often only 2-3 years, if that. Finding permanent positions is HARD, which makes retirement planning hard, setting up a house hard, planning for kids hard. Astronomy is amazing but I am the only one of my PhD cohort still in astronomy because of the awful uncertainty, and everyone I talk with keeps on saying how they couldn’t believe my luck in managing to stay in the field. I was also by far the dumbest of my cohort, which doesn’t mean I’m dumb but they were all frighteningly smart. So the fact that they couldn’t find positions in the field boggles my mind. Most astronomers aren’t astronomers anymore because of the low pay/lack of stability/ lack of positions/high rate of burnout and wanting a normal life.

To add more perspective to this, there are folks in my department who have retired after 40 years of 2-3 year contracts at the institution. They took crappy retirement plans because they had no idea if they would be able to stick around. Every other year they had to apply for new grants to try and stay on. These are folks who are TITANS in the astronomy field, just not the tenured ones.

My bosses at my current position, which is my dream job, just told me they’ve secured my position for TEN years. Like, y’all I know that’s what they were angling for but there was always a chance it wasn’t going to happen because funding is limited and a lot of people are vying for the money. They had to really fight for me to get one of the long term slots. I gambled when I took the position and went for a retirement plan that required I be around for ten years to get vested. I literally said it’s okay if my retirement funds go poof if I can’t stay for ten years, which was risky. But now I’m going to actually have a decent retirement plan! I can angle for buying a house and actually STAYING there and making it a home. I can actually forward plan for kids!

#astronomy #we need more permanent academic jobs #tenure shouldn’t be the only way #we need more research scientist support #soft money sucks for stability #academic roving life is fun for seeing the world but hell for stability #may all postdocs find research scientist/academic jobs that don’t go poof every few years

[thatwizardofearthsea]

Today is another academic rant day...I've seen many PIs keep shaming people for looking for alternative careers. ‪PIs really need to decide whether academia is work or a calling cause many of them also suggest the second one. If it is work then it should be entitled to the labor rights by hours, salaries, pension etc. but it isn't, it is exploitative. Where is the shame searching for stability?

#academia #phdblr #life sciences #leaving academia #gradblr #postdoc

[miss-biophys]

Not bad...

Almost 80 citations of my research articles in the last year... I would say it’s not bad. It eases a bit my feeling of “I don’t know what I am doing here!” that I sometimes have. 

#postdoc #research #science #output #research articles #women in science #physics #biophysics #life sciences #chemistry #citations #achievements #impostor syndrome #bright future #google scholar #original content

[the-weerdo]

Oh, I passed the EPPP. :)

#postdoc #phdblr #clinical psych #psychblr #gradblr #phd life