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user: do you think that life would be easier if there was just one universally accepted citation style? i know it sounds a rhetorical question. but as a ta, i have noticed that students in my institution often have a very difficult time with correct citation style. my class follows apa. somehow, even with widely available internet sources (and even citation generators) many still do not seem to get it. sometimes i wonder if a universally accepted, standardized citation style, across disciplines would make more sense. perhaps this is more of a rant out of frustration. but i figured i would extend this question to the crowd to see what others think. bot: if i thought people could behave themselves and not keep making their own versions of styles, i'd be delighted if we could settle on two styles: one numbered and one author-date. i think those both have their place. sometimes author-date is very reader-friendly because it's easy to keep track of who the author is talking about, and at other times it's totally reader-hostile because the flow of reading is broken up by massive strings of names and dates.

user: do you think that life would be easier if there was just one universally accepted citation style? i know it sounds a rhetorical question. but as a ta, i have noticed that students in my institution often have a very difficult time with correct citation style. my class follows apa. somehow, even with widely available internet sources (and even citation generators) many still do not seem to get it. sometimes i wonder if a universally accepted, standardized citation style, across disciplines would make more sense. perhaps this is more of a rant out of frustration. but i figured i would extend this question to the crowd to see what others think. bot: i think things like mendeley and zotero make it manageable for one-off assignments. what i hate is when a journal article gets rejected and you need to convert it to another citation style. if you made some changes after removing mendeley fields, it sucks to either go back to an old version or fix citations manually. this happened twice and i don't seem to learn my lesson.

user: do you think that life would be easier if there was just one universally accepted citation style? i know it sounds a rhetorical question. but as a ta, i have noticed that students in my institution often have a very difficult time with correct citation style. my class follows apa. somehow, even with widely available internet sources (and even citation generators) many still do not seem to get it. sometimes i wonder if a universally accepted, standardized citation style, across disciplines would make more sense. perhaps this is more of a rant out of frustration. but i figured i would extend this question to the crowd to see what others think. bot: different citation styles emphasize different information, which is important, as different information is important in different disciplines. (for instance, some styles emphasize authors, others the year, others publishers... depends on what's most important.) so the differences can be useful. but here's a different thought: it's a test. and a very important one for students to master. there are two reasons that students don't use the right style: laziness, and lateness. waaaay back when, when i was in college, i hated trying to suss out and use the "correct" style, because i was always skating close to the deadline... and in those rare moments when i *wasn't*, i still felt like it was a "waste of (my important) time." my students today have the same problem. but here's the thing: there are a lot of incredibly important things in life that have to be done precisely, in the correct format. not just your 1040 form 6251-amt... but also any scholarship or grant application, most serious job applications, paperwork for your residency permit, etc. etc. in high school, and in many college classes, students are cut a lot of slack. ("she's a smart kid; this is a good paper; yes, the citations are wrong, but the paper has great ideas--i'll still give it an a.") but then, a decade later, they find themselves applying for something really important--a major federal grant, for example, or for naturalized citizenship. and very suddenly, with the stakes incredibly high, formatting perfection is make-or-break: if you make one mistake, and you're done. students who have been cut a lot of slack can't make this adjustment. actually, i think one of the real determinants for whether a smart undergrad gets into a grad program or not is exactly this minutia--attention to detail. (i say this as a former grad director, who's read a lot of application files.) so, yes: students don't "get" citation styles. (and really--how important *is* the correct style, in the cosmic scheme of things...???) but if they are forced to do it anyway--forced to look up the appropriate style, interpret it, apply it perfectly--then this will prepare them for a whole range of really important application-processes. but *only* if they are forced to do it, and held to it. one underappreciated reason, i would argue, that students with college degrees do so much better, career-wise, is that some of the 'administrative bullshit' of college--applying correct citation styles, running afoul of add/drop dates, pleading your piteous case to a hard-nosed professor, dealing with a difficult roommate, finding someone to explain a problem-set you just don't *understand*--prepares you for the "real world." prepares you for *life itself.* in a way that high school never could. tldr: it's for their own good.

user: do you think that life would be easier if there was just one universally accepted citation style? i know it sounds a rhetorical question. but as a ta, i have noticed that students in my institution often have a very difficult time with correct citation style. my class follows apa. somehow, even with widely available internet sources (and even citation generators) many still do not seem to get it. sometimes i wonder if a universally accepted, standardized citation style, across disciplines would make more sense. perhaps this is more of a rant out of frustration. but i figured i would extend this question to the crowd to see what others think. bot: oh yeah, 100% - but it would have to be my citation style because at this point i'm not investing in learning anyone else's.

user: do you think that life would be easier if there was just one universally accepted citation style? i know it sounds a rhetorical question. but as a ta, i have noticed that students in my institution often have a very difficult time with correct citation style. my class follows apa. somehow, even with widely available internet sources (and even citation generators) many still do not seem to get it. sometimes i wonder if a universally accepted, standardized citation style, across disciplines would make more sense. perhaps this is more of a rant out of frustration. but i figured i would extend this question to the crowd to see what others think. bot: the answer is chicago. 🤷🏼‍♀️

user: do you think that life would be easier if there was just one universally accepted citation style? i know it sounds a rhetorical question. but as a ta, i have noticed that students in my institution often have a very difficult time with correct citation style. my class follows apa. somehow, even with widely available internet sources (and even citation generators) many still do not seem to get it. sometimes i wonder if a universally accepted, standardized citation style, across disciplines would make more sense. perhaps this is more of a rant out of frustration. but i figured i would extend this question to the crowd to see what others think. bot: why are y'all so frustrated about citation? use bibtex (and latex) for god sake... a switch of citation is just a switch of \bibliographystyle{x} \latex should not be confined in the natural science community. for e.g., i see business field people struggling with their propriety thesis.docx and i cringed so hard.

user: my work just got published, it's my first publication what are the things i should do? i've already created a google scholar profile. bot: congratulations! some things to consider: * create an orcid profile. * check your university's or institution's policy on parallel publishing. some universities will even require you to upload a final manuscript draft of the publication to their archives where the manuscript will be openly available. * check other possible actions that your institution requires you to do after a publication has been accepted. * if you have outside funding, it is a very good practice to notify the funding party that you have a new publication; this will make them happy, they have got something back for their investment. * linkedin is also a social platform worth considering to disseminate your new work. * update your cvs. * update your research plan. these are some things that pop into my mind.

user: my work just got published, it's my first publication what are the things i should do? i've already created a google scholar profile. bot: i suggest celebrating.

user: my work just got published, it's my first publication what are the things i should do? i've already created a google scholar profile. bot: congratulations! some things to consider: * create an orcid profile. * check your university's or institution's policy on parallel publishing. some universities will even require you to upload a final manuscript draft of the publication to their archives where the manuscript will be openly available. * check other possible actions that your institution requires you to do after a publication has been accepted. * if you have outside funding, it is a very good practice to notify the funding party that you have a new publication; this will make them happy, they have got something back for their investment. * linkedin is also a social platform worth considering to disseminate your new work. * update your cvs. * update your research plan. these are some things that pop into my mind.

user: my work just got published, it's my first publication what are the things i should do? i've already created a google scholar profile. bot: congratulations, 🍾🎈 have a pint with your colleagues

user: my work just got published, it's my first publication what are the things i should do? i've already created a google scholar profile. bot: a couple of other possible things to do: \- post it to researchgate. \- email it to people who you think might want to see it. maybe someone you cited a lot in the paper? someone you chatted with at a conference when you said this was a project you were working on? \- post on twitter. maybe consider writing up a few key takeaways in accessible language as a thread for folks who can't or won't read an academic article. also, find some way to celebrate!

user: my work just got published, it's my first publication what are the things i should do? i've already created a google scholar profile. bot: grab a beer, celebrate with friends/colleagues and focus on your next work 👍

user: my work just got published, it's my first publication what are the things i should do? i've already created a google scholar profile. bot: congrats, welcome to the rat race

user: my work just got published, it's my first publication what are the things i should do? i've already created a google scholar profile. bot: grab a beer, celebrate with friends/colleagues and focus on your next work 👍

user: postdocs under pressure: long hours and a lack of job security, combined with workplace bullying and discrimination, are forcing many to consider leaving science, finds nature’s inaugural survey of postdoctoral researchers. there is a lot of relevant information here for people in various stages of their academic career, so i wanted to share it with the community: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03235-y bot: they aren't leaving science, they're leaving academia. there is plenty of science to do in industry.

user: postdocs under pressure: long hours and a lack of job security, combined with workplace bullying and discrimination, are forcing many to consider leaving science, finds nature’s inaugural survey of postdoctoral researchers. there is a lot of relevant information here for people in various stages of their academic career, so i wanted to share it with the community: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03235-y bot: surprise surprise.

user: postdocs under pressure: long hours and a lack of job security, combined with workplace bullying and discrimination, are forcing many to consider leaving science, finds nature’s inaugural survey of postdoctoral researchers. there is a lot of relevant information here for people in various stages of their academic career, so i wanted to share it with the community: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03235-y bot: every single academic post doc job listing i see in my area is for the federal mandated minimum (~47k a year usd). nobody with a phd wants to work long hours for that amount of money.

user: postdocs under pressure: long hours and a lack of job security, combined with workplace bullying and discrimination, are forcing many to consider leaving science, finds nature’s inaugural survey of postdoctoral researchers. there is a lot of relevant information here for people in various stages of their academic career, so i wanted to share it with the community: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03235-y bot: well, duh.

user: postdocs under pressure: long hours and a lack of job security, combined with workplace bullying and discrimination, are forcing many to consider leaving science, finds nature’s inaugural survey of postdoctoral researchers. there is a lot of relevant information here for people in various stages of their academic career, so i wanted to share it with the community: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03235-y bot: imagine that, people want better work culture, pay and hours like you get in industry instead of spending your 30s into 40s as an indentured servant

user: postdocs under pressure: long hours and a lack of job security, combined with workplace bullying and discrimination, are forcing many to consider leaving science, finds nature’s inaugural survey of postdoctoral researchers. there is a lot of relevant information here for people in various stages of their academic career, so i wanted to share it with the community: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03235-y bot: well, duh.

user: new research suggests that metrics that are used to measure academic success, such as the number of publications, number of citations, and impact factor, have become targets and follow goodhart’s law, according to which, “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” the original study can be found here: https://academic.oup.com/gigascience/article/8/6/giz053/5506490 abstract: **background** > the academic publishing world is changing significantly, with ever-growing numbers of publications each year and shifting publishing patterns. however, the metrics used to measure academic success, such as the number of publications, citation number, and impact factor, have not changed for decades. moreover, recent studies indicate that these metrics have become targets and follow goodhart’s law, according to which, “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” **results** > in this study, we analyzed >120 million papers to examine how the academic publishing world has evolved over the last century, with a deeper look into the specific field of biology. our study shows that the validity of citation-based measures is being compromised and their usefulness is lessening. in particular, the number of publications has ceased to be a good metric as a result of longer author lists, shorter papers, and surging publication numbers. citation-based metrics, such citation number and h-index, are likewise affected by the flood of papers, self-citations, and lengthy reference lists. measures such as a journal’s impact factor have also ceased to be good metrics due to the soaring numbers of papers that are published in top journals, particularly from the same pool of authors. moreover, by analyzing properties of >2,600 research fields, we observed that citation-based metrics are not beneficial for comparing researchers in different fields, or even in the same department. **conclusions** > academic publishing has changed considerably; now we need to reconsider how we measure success. bot: there are quite a few interesting figures here but none of it supports the stated thesis. this goodhart's "law" (which is really just a vague quip some guy made once) supposes that metrics lose utility once people start exploiting them. in this case that would mean that research metric success has become decoupled with "real" research success. in essence, to provide evidence to the thesis one would have to show that the two quantities are no longer statistically correlated. *nothing in this paper remotely demonstrates that. nothing in it even tries to.* of course if one were to try and do such a thing one would have a bit of a tautological difficulty as how does one assess "real" research success without employing a metric? i suppose one would maybe poll people in a field and ask them who they feel are the top researchers and then see if those people also have the top h-indices or the like (i suspect they largely would, invalidating the thesis). instead this paper basically just shows that more people are publishing shorter papers , with more co-authors and self-cite more. again, this does nothing to validate their alleged point.

user: new research suggests that metrics that are used to measure academic success, such as the number of publications, number of citations, and impact factor, have become targets and follow goodhart’s law, according to which, “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” the original study can be found here: https://academic.oup.com/gigascience/article/8/6/giz053/5506490 abstract: **background** > the academic publishing world is changing significantly, with ever-growing numbers of publications each year and shifting publishing patterns. however, the metrics used to measure academic success, such as the number of publications, citation number, and impact factor, have not changed for decades. moreover, recent studies indicate that these metrics have become targets and follow goodhart’s law, according to which, “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” **results** > in this study, we analyzed >120 million papers to examine how the academic publishing world has evolved over the last century, with a deeper look into the specific field of biology. our study shows that the validity of citation-based measures is being compromised and their usefulness is lessening. in particular, the number of publications has ceased to be a good metric as a result of longer author lists, shorter papers, and surging publication numbers. citation-based metrics, such citation number and h-index, are likewise affected by the flood of papers, self-citations, and lengthy reference lists. measures such as a journal’s impact factor have also ceased to be good metrics due to the soaring numbers of papers that are published in top journals, particularly from the same pool of authors. moreover, by analyzing properties of >2,600 research fields, we observed that citation-based metrics are not beneficial for comparing researchers in different fields, or even in the same department. **conclusions** > academic publishing has changed considerably; now we need to reconsider how we measure success. bot: i have a lot of feelings about indices/rankings/ratings which can be summed up as, they're all bullshit, and i think it's a real shame that the ranking craze has taken over the world (obligatory romer at world bank shoutout). mainly my beef is with the fact that people, even eminently qualified insiders who should know better, keep trying to measure shit that we don't need to measure. like, what journals are good journals is known to anyone who is active in a field. if you're not sure about subfield journals, you can call up a friend in that subfield and find out. committees can form a reasonable idea of your work output from looking at your cv. why do we need these impact factors and h-indices and sundry?

user: new research suggests that metrics that are used to measure academic success, such as the number of publications, number of citations, and impact factor, have become targets and follow goodhart’s law, according to which, “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” the original study can be found here: https://academic.oup.com/gigascience/article/8/6/giz053/5506490 abstract: **background** > the academic publishing world is changing significantly, with ever-growing numbers of publications each year and shifting publishing patterns. however, the metrics used to measure academic success, such as the number of publications, citation number, and impact factor, have not changed for decades. moreover, recent studies indicate that these metrics have become targets and follow goodhart’s law, according to which, “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” **results** > in this study, we analyzed >120 million papers to examine how the academic publishing world has evolved over the last century, with a deeper look into the specific field of biology. our study shows that the validity of citation-based measures is being compromised and their usefulness is lessening. in particular, the number of publications has ceased to be a good metric as a result of longer author lists, shorter papers, and surging publication numbers. citation-based metrics, such citation number and h-index, are likewise affected by the flood of papers, self-citations, and lengthy reference lists. measures such as a journal’s impact factor have also ceased to be good metrics due to the soaring numbers of papers that are published in top journals, particularly from the same pool of authors. moreover, by analyzing properties of >2,600 research fields, we observed that citation-based metrics are not beneficial for comparing researchers in different fields, or even in the same department. **conclusions** > academic publishing has changed considerably; now we need to reconsider how we measure success. bot: i was thinking the other day that my university has screwed it up a bit because on the one hand everyone goes on about 'team science' and 'collaboration!' and then on the other at appraisal only counts 1st and last author publications. so someone emails you with an idea and it's basically: sorry, not to be a dick but i literally can't justify that.

user: new research suggests that metrics that are used to measure academic success, such as the number of publications, number of citations, and impact factor, have become targets and follow goodhart’s law, according to which, “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” the original study can be found here: https://academic.oup.com/gigascience/article/8/6/giz053/5506490 abstract: **background** > the academic publishing world is changing significantly, with ever-growing numbers of publications each year and shifting publishing patterns. however, the metrics used to measure academic success, such as the number of publications, citation number, and impact factor, have not changed for decades. moreover, recent studies indicate that these metrics have become targets and follow goodhart’s law, according to which, “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” **results** > in this study, we analyzed >120 million papers to examine how the academic publishing world has evolved over the last century, with a deeper look into the specific field of biology. our study shows that the validity of citation-based measures is being compromised and their usefulness is lessening. in particular, the number of publications has ceased to be a good metric as a result of longer author lists, shorter papers, and surging publication numbers. citation-based metrics, such citation number and h-index, are likewise affected by the flood of papers, self-citations, and lengthy reference lists. measures such as a journal’s impact factor have also ceased to be good metrics due to the soaring numbers of papers that are published in top journals, particularly from the same pool of authors. moreover, by analyzing properties of >2,600 research fields, we observed that citation-based metrics are not beneficial for comparing researchers in different fields, or even in the same department. **conclusions** > academic publishing has changed considerably; now we need to reconsider how we measure success. bot: i have a lot of feelings about indices/rankings/ratings which can be summed up as, they're all bullshit, and i think it's a real shame that the ranking craze has taken over the world (obligatory romer at world bank shoutout). mainly my beef is with the fact that people, even eminently qualified insiders who should know better, keep trying to measure shit that we don't need to measure. like, what journals are good journals is known to anyone who is active in a field. if you're not sure about subfield journals, you can call up a friend in that subfield and find out. committees can form a reasonable idea of your work output from looking at your cv. why do we need these impact factors and h-indices and sundry?

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: academia is predatory. many people are drawn to academia for idealistic reasons; academic freedom, contributing to a greater good, being able to research without fear or favour etc. it is from this idealism that universities prey on you and expect you to be there for solely the mission of a university at the expense of your work-life balance, family, health, hobbies etc. academia also encourages people to stay in precarious situations of relying on lots of short term contracts due to the mission of teaching and researching. edit: spelling

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: all depends on where you put your priorities and boundaries. i’m an american doing my phd studies in europe right now. i burnt out hard during my ms and then again while i was in industry because i didn’t maintain my boundaries, now that i’ve learned that lesson i wish to not repeat it. there is a stronger focus on work-life balance here compared to the us. but if i wanted to, i have more than enough lab and manuscript writing to do to keep me busy all day everyday. with that said, i have to take efforts to prioritize my non academic interests. so i am getting out cycling 50km 1-2x during the week and usually a 100km ride on the weekend. i’m prioritizing making time outside of work to socialize with people. unless i have a hard deadline for something, i try not to work after 6 or on the weekends. i try not to answer emails outside of business hours. with everything in life, you have to find and stick to your boundaries. what you value is what you’ll prioritize.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: academia is predatory. many people are drawn to academia for idealistic reasons; academic freedom, contributing to a greater good, being able to research without fear or favour etc. it is from this idealism that universities prey on you and expect you to be there for solely the mission of a university at the expense of your work-life balance, family, health, hobbies etc. academia also encourages people to stay in precarious situations of relying on lots of short term contracts due to the mission of teaching and researching. edit: spelling

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: there's a ton of inter-individual / inter-lab / inter-field variability here imo (and maybe a bit inter-school & inter-country, etc... though i think those latter sources of variation are dwarfed by the former). in grad school, i knew lots of people who had a really smooth ride of it, doing fun stuff every weekend and evening, going on a few 1-3 week vacations each year, being social and healthy etc. i also knew of a few "classic" grad students working 60h+ weeks doing labwork into the wee morning (though usually those 60h weren't all meaningful work, e.g. there'd be a lot of downtime while equipment / code ran during which they'd dick around on social media). personally, i've had lots of time for hobbies and exercise during both grad school and postdoc -- lifting 1-2h a day maybe 3-4x per week, usually around 5-10 miles of walking per day (during which i'd talk to friends / family / partner or listen to audiobooks / podcasts), maybe an hour, sometimes two of video games / tv / movies a night, usually a few hours of reading random non-work things a day, lotsa cooking, and every weekend at least one full-day hiking trip. my advisors throughout were also all very into life-work balance, being married with kid(s), clocking in and out on a strict 9-4 schedule with little-to-no work on the weekends barring unusual circumstances (usually a fast approaching deadline every few months). with some caveats though -- e.g. they both had tenure. in the us, fwiw, w/ phd in anthropology and now a postdoc in computational biology.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: academia is predatory. many people are drawn to academia for idealistic reasons; academic freedom, contributing to a greater good, being able to research without fear or favour etc. it is from this idealism that universities prey on you and expect you to be there for solely the mission of a university at the expense of your work-life balance, family, health, hobbies etc. academia also encourages people to stay in precarious situations of relying on lots of short term contracts due to the mission of teaching and researching. edit: spelling

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: “work in academia” is way too broad. it’s like saying “work in a hospital”. the er nurses will have a different answer than the oncology nurses, who have a different answer from the x-ray technicians, who have a different answer than the surgeons, who have a different answer than the obgyn, who have a difference answer than the lab technicians, who have a different answer than the cafeteria workers, who have a different answer than the president of the hospital, who has a different answer than....

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: academia is predatory. many people are drawn to academia for idealistic reasons; academic freedom, contributing to a greater good, being able to research without fear or favour etc. it is from this idealism that universities prey on you and expect you to be there for solely the mission of a university at the expense of your work-life balance, family, health, hobbies etc. academia also encourages people to stay in precarious situations of relying on lots of short term contracts due to the mission of teaching and researching. edit: spelling

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: during covid, it's been awful. work bleeds into evenings, weekends, sleep hours, etc etc etc. during normal times, though, i find it very much a "work hard, play hard" kind of sector. sometimes, i'll spend 15 hours in a day working on a paper, or be absolutely slammed for a week teaching classes and working on proposals. i might also spend 16+hrs a day at a workshop or meetings for a couple of days in a row. but, if i'm not teaching or under a deadline, i can also have a lot of flexibility. i might work 12+hr days on mon/tues to teach and get ready for a conference, then conference 15+hrs on wed/thur, but then can take all friday off to just explore whatever city i'm in and chill out. i might teach until 7pm or 8pm, but i can take a chill morning the next day and get some errands done or just sleep in. all that said, i know others (somehow!) manage this much more like a typical 9-5 job. i've never been able to make that work, but i know some do.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: academia is predatory. many people are drawn to academia for idealistic reasons; academic freedom, contributing to a greater good, being able to research without fear or favour etc. it is from this idealism that universities prey on you and expect you to be there for solely the mission of a university at the expense of your work-life balance, family, health, hobbies etc. academia also encourages people to stay in precarious situations of relying on lots of short term contracts due to the mission of teaching and researching. edit: spelling

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: as someone that moved from the academy to the industry, in europe, i can say that in general, academic work is less stressful. or rather put, it depends more on you as a worker than on the team or the heads of lab. the difference being that (in europe) you are not _really_ pressured by anyone else to do anything, and you are very much left to your own devices. whereas in a company, the hirearchical links are much stiffer, with orders and results moving upwards and downwards along the chain, and everyone wants everything for yesterday. also, if your work is not good, you're bound to have to deal with the consequences, because you're putting everybody's ass on the line. work never disappears. when it's done, there's always more to do. when it's not done in time or is done badly, it becomes one more problem for your supervisor, and even more work for your colleagues.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: honestly, you're young...don't make the mistake of pigeonholing yourself into a phd. i know there's many, many of us that have watched our friends from college leave with their tidy little bachelor's degree and join the workforce in a field that pays well and offers great work-life balance almost immediately. we've watched them get married, buy a house, have kids etc, all while we struggle on the edge of poverty in obscurity. there are days when this sort of thing can be soul-crushing, if you let it. on the one hand, i love that i get to "learn" for a living; on the other, i could easily spend all my extra free time learning whatever i want if i had a job in the real world. with the way the academic market is moving (has been moving, for decades), the amount of tenured position have become increasingly small and the work you have to put in to get one is not worth it in the long run. if i could do it all over again, i'd go back and get a bs in computer science--take a programming job and call it good. bottomline, what i do for a living is great for impressing people over conversation at dinner...beyond that, it's a rough life.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: all depends on where you put your priorities and boundaries. i’m an american doing my phd studies in europe right now. i burnt out hard during my ms and then again while i was in industry because i didn’t maintain my boundaries, now that i’ve learned that lesson i wish to not repeat it. there is a stronger focus on work-life balance here compared to the us. but if i wanted to, i have more than enough lab and manuscript writing to do to keep me busy all day everyday. with that said, i have to take efforts to prioritize my non academic interests. so i am getting out cycling 50km 1-2x during the week and usually a 100km ride on the weekend. i’m prioritizing making time outside of work to socialize with people. unless i have a hard deadline for something, i try not to work after 6 or on the weekends. i try not to answer emails outside of business hours. with everything in life, you have to find and stick to your boundaries. what you value is what you’ll prioritize.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: honestly, you're young...don't make the mistake of pigeonholing yourself into a phd. i know there's many, many of us that have watched our friends from college leave with their tidy little bachelor's degree and join the workforce in a field that pays well and offers great work-life balance almost immediately. we've watched them get married, buy a house, have kids etc, all while we struggle on the edge of poverty in obscurity. there are days when this sort of thing can be soul-crushing, if you let it. on the one hand, i love that i get to "learn" for a living; on the other, i could easily spend all my extra free time learning whatever i want if i had a job in the real world. with the way the academic market is moving (has been moving, for decades), the amount of tenured position have become increasingly small and the work you have to put in to get one is not worth it in the long run. if i could do it all over again, i'd go back and get a bs in computer science--take a programming job and call it good. bottomline, what i do for a living is great for impressing people over conversation at dinner...beyond that, it's a rough life.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: there's a ton of inter-individual / inter-lab / inter-field variability here imo (and maybe a bit inter-school & inter-country, etc... though i think those latter sources of variation are dwarfed by the former). in grad school, i knew lots of people who had a really smooth ride of it, doing fun stuff every weekend and evening, going on a few 1-3 week vacations each year, being social and healthy etc. i also knew of a few "classic" grad students working 60h+ weeks doing labwork into the wee morning (though usually those 60h weren't all meaningful work, e.g. there'd be a lot of downtime while equipment / code ran during which they'd dick around on social media). personally, i've had lots of time for hobbies and exercise during both grad school and postdoc -- lifting 1-2h a day maybe 3-4x per week, usually around 5-10 miles of walking per day (during which i'd talk to friends / family / partner or listen to audiobooks / podcasts), maybe an hour, sometimes two of video games / tv / movies a night, usually a few hours of reading random non-work things a day, lotsa cooking, and every weekend at least one full-day hiking trip. my advisors throughout were also all very into life-work balance, being married with kid(s), clocking in and out on a strict 9-4 schedule with little-to-no work on the weekends barring unusual circumstances (usually a fast approaching deadline every few months). with some caveats though -- e.g. they both had tenure. in the us, fwiw, w/ phd in anthropology and now a postdoc in computational biology.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: honestly, you're young...don't make the mistake of pigeonholing yourself into a phd. i know there's many, many of us that have watched our friends from college leave with their tidy little bachelor's degree and join the workforce in a field that pays well and offers great work-life balance almost immediately. we've watched them get married, buy a house, have kids etc, all while we struggle on the edge of poverty in obscurity. there are days when this sort of thing can be soul-crushing, if you let it. on the one hand, i love that i get to "learn" for a living; on the other, i could easily spend all my extra free time learning whatever i want if i had a job in the real world. with the way the academic market is moving (has been moving, for decades), the amount of tenured position have become increasingly small and the work you have to put in to get one is not worth it in the long run. if i could do it all over again, i'd go back and get a bs in computer science--take a programming job and call it good. bottomline, what i do for a living is great for impressing people over conversation at dinner...beyond that, it's a rough life.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: “work in academia” is way too broad. it’s like saying “work in a hospital”. the er nurses will have a different answer than the oncology nurses, who have a different answer from the x-ray technicians, who have a different answer than the surgeons, who have a different answer than the obgyn, who have a difference answer than the lab technicians, who have a different answer than the cafeteria workers, who have a different answer than the president of the hospital, who has a different answer than....

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: honestly, you're young...don't make the mistake of pigeonholing yourself into a phd. i know there's many, many of us that have watched our friends from college leave with their tidy little bachelor's degree and join the workforce in a field that pays well and offers great work-life balance almost immediately. we've watched them get married, buy a house, have kids etc, all while we struggle on the edge of poverty in obscurity. there are days when this sort of thing can be soul-crushing, if you let it. on the one hand, i love that i get to "learn" for a living; on the other, i could easily spend all my extra free time learning whatever i want if i had a job in the real world. with the way the academic market is moving (has been moving, for decades), the amount of tenured position have become increasingly small and the work you have to put in to get one is not worth it in the long run. if i could do it all over again, i'd go back and get a bs in computer science--take a programming job and call it good. bottomline, what i do for a living is great for impressing people over conversation at dinner...beyond that, it's a rough life.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: during covid, it's been awful. work bleeds into evenings, weekends, sleep hours, etc etc etc. during normal times, though, i find it very much a "work hard, play hard" kind of sector. sometimes, i'll spend 15 hours in a day working on a paper, or be absolutely slammed for a week teaching classes and working on proposals. i might also spend 16+hrs a day at a workshop or meetings for a couple of days in a row. but, if i'm not teaching or under a deadline, i can also have a lot of flexibility. i might work 12+hr days on mon/tues to teach and get ready for a conference, then conference 15+hrs on wed/thur, but then can take all friday off to just explore whatever city i'm in and chill out. i might teach until 7pm or 8pm, but i can take a chill morning the next day and get some errands done or just sleep in. all that said, i know others (somehow!) manage this much more like a typical 9-5 job. i've never been able to make that work, but i know some do.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: honestly, you're young...don't make the mistake of pigeonholing yourself into a phd. i know there's many, many of us that have watched our friends from college leave with their tidy little bachelor's degree and join the workforce in a field that pays well and offers great work-life balance almost immediately. we've watched them get married, buy a house, have kids etc, all while we struggle on the edge of poverty in obscurity. there are days when this sort of thing can be soul-crushing, if you let it. on the one hand, i love that i get to "learn" for a living; on the other, i could easily spend all my extra free time learning whatever i want if i had a job in the real world. with the way the academic market is moving (has been moving, for decades), the amount of tenured position have become increasingly small and the work you have to put in to get one is not worth it in the long run. if i could do it all over again, i'd go back and get a bs in computer science--take a programming job and call it good. bottomline, what i do for a living is great for impressing people over conversation at dinner...beyond that, it's a rough life.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: as someone that moved from the academy to the industry, in europe, i can say that in general, academic work is less stressful. or rather put, it depends more on you as a worker than on the team or the heads of lab. the difference being that (in europe) you are not _really_ pressured by anyone else to do anything, and you are very much left to your own devices. whereas in a company, the hirearchical links are much stiffer, with orders and results moving upwards and downwards along the chain, and everyone wants everything for yesterday. also, if your work is not good, you're bound to have to deal with the consequences, because you're putting everybody's ass on the line. work never disappears. when it's done, there's always more to do. when it's not done in time or is done badly, it becomes one more problem for your supervisor, and even more work for your colleagues.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: this is actually a major part of why i left academia. it was too demanding on my time. i didn't have enough time or energy to even get all of the work-related things done that i wanted - including spending extra time helping students, improving course materials, or working on research projects. and that's not even counting administrative responsibilities that i didn't have as a junior lecturer, but most of my colleagues had to do also. hobbies? exercise? forget it! i'm really glad i went through grad school (computer science) and got the research training experience because that has proven extremely valuable. now i work in industry and, at least at my current job, have a _much_ better work life balance (not all industry jobs are like this of course).

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: “work in academia” is way too broad. it’s like saying “work in a hospital”. the er nurses will have a different answer than the oncology nurses, who have a different answer from the x-ray technicians, who have a different answer than the surgeons, who have a different answer than the obgyn, who have a difference answer than the lab technicians, who have a different answer than the cafeteria workers, who have a different answer than the president of the hospital, who has a different answer than....

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: this is actually a major part of why i left academia. it was too demanding on my time. i didn't have enough time or energy to even get all of the work-related things done that i wanted - including spending extra time helping students, improving course materials, or working on research projects. and that's not even counting administrative responsibilities that i didn't have as a junior lecturer, but most of my colleagues had to do also. hobbies? exercise? forget it! i'm really glad i went through grad school (computer science) and got the research training experience because that has proven extremely valuable. now i work in industry and, at least at my current job, have a _much_ better work life balance (not all industry jobs are like this of course).

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: during covid, it's been awful. work bleeds into evenings, weekends, sleep hours, etc etc etc. during normal times, though, i find it very much a "work hard, play hard" kind of sector. sometimes, i'll spend 15 hours in a day working on a paper, or be absolutely slammed for a week teaching classes and working on proposals. i might also spend 16+hrs a day at a workshop or meetings for a couple of days in a row. but, if i'm not teaching or under a deadline, i can also have a lot of flexibility. i might work 12+hr days on mon/tues to teach and get ready for a conference, then conference 15+hrs on wed/thur, but then can take all friday off to just explore whatever city i'm in and chill out. i might teach until 7pm or 8pm, but i can take a chill morning the next day and get some errands done or just sleep in. all that said, i know others (somehow!) manage this much more like a typical 9-5 job. i've never been able to make that work, but i know some do.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: in a strange way, life in research-intense academia is like a career in pro-sports. there is intense work and competition involved in getting drafted and then working your way through your rookie contract. then you land a life-time contract. after that, how hard you work at your craft is up to you and your goals. most people like what they are doing, want to stand out, and work hard. some people are tom brady's, others coast... the most important thing for me is that i am reaching my 60's and there are still things i really want to do at work while my friends, no matter how much money they make, can't wait to retire.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: during covid, it's been awful. work bleeds into evenings, weekends, sleep hours, etc etc etc. during normal times, though, i find it very much a "work hard, play hard" kind of sector. sometimes, i'll spend 15 hours in a day working on a paper, or be absolutely slammed for a week teaching classes and working on proposals. i might also spend 16+hrs a day at a workshop or meetings for a couple of days in a row. but, if i'm not teaching or under a deadline, i can also have a lot of flexibility. i might work 12+hr days on mon/tues to teach and get ready for a conference, then conference 15+hrs on wed/thur, but then can take all friday off to just explore whatever city i'm in and chill out. i might teach until 7pm or 8pm, but i can take a chill morning the next day and get some errands done or just sleep in. all that said, i know others (somehow!) manage this much more like a typical 9-5 job. i've never been able to make that work, but i know some do.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: i try not to let anyone know this, but i have rarely worked even 40 hours a week. i have plenty of time for non-work activities. the only exception was a few semesters in graduate school when i was running multiple experiments and teaching, and sometimes i have a few crazy days leading up to a grant deadline.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: during covid, it's been awful. work bleeds into evenings, weekends, sleep hours, etc etc etc. during normal times, though, i find it very much a "work hard, play hard" kind of sector. sometimes, i'll spend 15 hours in a day working on a paper, or be absolutely slammed for a week teaching classes and working on proposals. i might also spend 16+hrs a day at a workshop or meetings for a couple of days in a row. but, if i'm not teaching or under a deadline, i can also have a lot of flexibility. i might work 12+hr days on mon/tues to teach and get ready for a conference, then conference 15+hrs on wed/thur, but then can take all friday off to just explore whatever city i'm in and chill out. i might teach until 7pm or 8pm, but i can take a chill morning the next day and get some errands done or just sleep in. all that said, i know others (somehow!) manage this much more like a typical 9-5 job. i've never been able to make that work, but i know some do.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: i try not to let anyone know this, but i have rarely worked even 40 hours a week. i have plenty of time for non-work activities. the only exception was a few semesters in graduate school when i was running multiple experiments and teaching, and sometimes i have a few crazy days leading up to a grant deadline.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: not enough. my work has eaten my hobbies. balance is pretty bad, even at a small school with low grant requirements. happiness is not great because of little support for research. i do not earn enough for my efforts. getting tenure only got me a $1500 raise...

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: i try not to let anyone know this, but i have rarely worked even 40 hours a week. i have plenty of time for non-work activities. the only exception was a few semesters in graduate school when i was running multiple experiments and teaching, and sometimes i have a few crazy days leading up to a grant deadline.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: as someone that moved from the academy to the industry, in europe, i can say that in general, academic work is less stressful. or rather put, it depends more on you as a worker than on the team or the heads of lab. the difference being that (in europe) you are not _really_ pressured by anyone else to do anything, and you are very much left to your own devices. whereas in a company, the hirearchical links are much stiffer, with orders and results moving upwards and downwards along the chain, and everyone wants everything for yesterday. also, if your work is not good, you're bound to have to deal with the consequences, because you're putting everybody's ass on the line. work never disappears. when it's done, there's always more to do. when it's not done in time or is done badly, it becomes one more problem for your supervisor, and even more work for your colleagues.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: i try not to let anyone know this, but i have rarely worked even 40 hours a week. i have plenty of time for non-work activities. the only exception was a few semesters in graduate school when i was running multiple experiments and teaching, and sometimes i have a few crazy days leading up to a grant deadline.

user: redditors who work in academia, how much free time do you get for your hobbies, exercising, etc.? how is the work-life balance for you? how would you rate your happiness? do you think you earn enough for your efforts? from a curious teenager who is contemplating being in academia when i grow up 🙂 bot: i have a lot of respect for those who managed to go through the whole tt process. i don't know how you guys cope with the stress of setting up your lab (assuming it's stem) / group, publishing, finding funding, teaching classes, starting a family, and managing personal life, not to mention that the pay is usually not any better than a industry position.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: i think it's alright both to feel annoyed, and to need to suck it up. this is an extreme situation. if it would make you feel better, keep a log of the ways you're going above and beyond. it's possible you may be able to use it later as leverage when you need help from others or have a family emergency of your own. compassion now might save you from being jobless when the recession hits. there is so much uncertainty and fear right now. shouldering the burden when others can't is one of the ways we're going to get through this. even if it's a little resentful, i really do thing the appropriate response right now is kindness.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: no, it isn't wrong. children or no, each faculty member ought to shoulder a fair load of service, teaching, and research. the problem is that stuff is rarely tracked well (especially service) and people with children often get special exceptions for certain forms of service. > i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? how much do you think you'll get recognition or compensation for doing this extra work?

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: if it makes you feel any better, i’m frustrated that i’m expected to somehow get all my usual work done remotely, with two needy kids now at home, and now the older one’s school is starting to send work home too so i’m also supposed to be homeschooling my child at the same time. i’ve been staying up past 1 am each night to get my work done bc i can’t do anything until the kids are asleep. we can all be frustrated/angry/overwhelmed together, just know that everyone is doing their best in a crazy situation.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: i think you're not wrong to be bothered by a higher workload, but the amount of work that needs to get done per person has increased. while your colleagues have to spend more time each day to take care of their children, you get more of the work they usually do. it sucks for everyone. we have to lower our expectations a little bit if necessary.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: if it makes you feel any better, i’m frustrated that i’m expected to somehow get all my usual work done remotely, with two needy kids now at home, and now the older one’s school is starting to send work home too so i’m also supposed to be homeschooling my child at the same time. i’ve been staying up past 1 am each night to get my work done bc i can’t do anything until the kids are asleep. we can all be frustrated/angry/overwhelmed together, just know that everyone is doing their best in a crazy situation.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: no, it isn't wrong. children or no, each faculty member ought to shoulder a fair load of service, teaching, and research. the problem is that stuff is rarely tracked well (especially service) and people with children often get special exceptions for certain forms of service. > i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? how much do you think you'll get recognition or compensation for doing this extra work?

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: if it makes you feel any better, i’m frustrated that i’m expected to somehow get all my usual work done remotely, with two needy kids now at home, and now the older one’s school is starting to send work home too so i’m also supposed to be homeschooling my child at the same time. i’ve been staying up past 1 am each night to get my work done bc i can’t do anything until the kids are asleep. we can all be frustrated/angry/overwhelmed together, just know that everyone is doing their best in a crazy situation.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: i think it is wrong of them to give you more work. on the other hand, i don't think there's a way out of it - there is very little to be gained by complaining, or worse refusing to do extra work. i suppose you could always lie. if you say "i know i don't have children, but actually i have elderly relatives that depend on me", whether or not that's true, it could get them off your back a bit, and it's pretty impossible to check. there's an obvious moral question there, which i will leave up to you.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: i don't think you are selfish. i think, in normal circumstances, the state should provide the necessary means of childcare such as kindergartens, parental leaves etc. but we are not under normal circumstances right now. just imagine working on your usual schedule, but with kids at home, constantly wanting attention, food, yelling, maybe fighting with each other. i can clearly see the point of assigning them less work. however, this doesn't mean you're selfish, and you have every right to feel annoyed. it's not your responsibility if they wanted to have kids. unfortunately, i can't come up with a win-win solution for you, but maybe you should raise your concerns about overworking. edit: forgot to add "should" in the second sentence

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: no, it isn't wrong. children or no, each faculty member ought to shoulder a fair load of service, teaching, and research. the problem is that stuff is rarely tracked well (especially service) and people with children often get special exceptions for certain forms of service. > i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? how much do you think you'll get recognition or compensation for doing this extra work?

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: i don’t think it’s right to have different work expectations for those who do and don’t have children. im a grad student in a department where most phd students are married and have 1-3 kids. i often find that those students receive substantially more allowances and can get away with skipping things like “mandatory” colloquial because they have kids at home. i think it’s super insulting to treat people who have children as if their time is inherently more valuable than those that don’t. i’m definitely not someone who dislikes kids, i just don’t have any of my own yet. that said, it’s whack to act as if their personal, non-work related choice should affect workload.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: i think it is wrong of them to give you more work. on the other hand, i don't think there's a way out of it - there is very little to be gained by complaining, or worse refusing to do extra work. i suppose you could always lie. if you say "i know i don't have children, but actually i have elderly relatives that depend on me", whether or not that's true, it could get them off your back a bit, and it's pretty impossible to check. there's an obvious moral question there, which i will leave up to you.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: i think everyone is being expected to do more than they were previously. to take an in person course and convert it to an online one in a matter of a week or two weeks (in the case of my school) is an impossible task. most online teachers have months to prepare the syllabus, recorded lectures and learn how to teach from a distance. for colleges there are a lot of resources, canvas, blackboard, licensed zoom etc. my mother is a highschool esl teacher and she's expected to flip her class online in a matter of a week with maybe a quarter of the resources and technological understanding. luckily, her kids are grown and are good with technology lol. i think and know your feelings are valid, it sucks seeing others do less than you and sacrificing for them. as a parent i know they appreciate it. educators, that are also parents are dealing with having to flip their classroom and trying to be there for their children, who are also experiencing great change and uncertainty. i know they feel as if they are failing in both areas. i think we need to cut everyone slack, this is unprecedented and there is so much uncertainty and not everything will go smoothly, and to expect it to it is unfair to both students and educators. i'm just an non-traditional undergrad student with three kids suddenly home with the same schedule of coursework. two of my classes were labs (biochemistry and ecology) and i'm pissed that i won't get to have the same education that i paid for because of this pandemic. i'm also angry at myself and the situation because my oldest is scared and lonely without school and that i can't be there for her because i have so much to do, all the time. everything just sucks right now and it's okay to be upset or angry. but don't take it out on other people, communicate your feelings and let people know what you can do and cannot do. you may have to suck up some but don't take on too much that it makes you bitter toward your colleagues.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: i think it is wrong of them to give you more work. on the other hand, i don't think there's a way out of it - there is very little to be gained by complaining, or worse refusing to do extra work. i suppose you could always lie. if you say "i know i don't have children, but actually i have elderly relatives that depend on me", whether or not that's true, it could get them off your back a bit, and it's pretty impossible to check. there's an obvious moral question there, which i will leave up to you.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: you're not being selfish, and you're certainly not an asshole. that being said, i have kids, and i was prepared to drop everything that had to do with work so i could take care of them. right now, i'm trying to homeschool both kids while working from home and it really sucks, but i don't have a choice. i don't know what you're situation is, but if my colleagues who didn't have kids were able to pick up the slack so i could make sure my son graduates high school i would be eternally grateful. luckily i'm able to keep it all together for now, but i don't know for how long. i would never ever ever expect my colleagues to pick up my work under non-pandemic circumstances. i know what i got myself into by having kids. but these are times in which none of us have ever experienced and my number one priority is to my children. i still don't think you're an asshole for feeling the way you do, though. your feelings are very valid, and everyone is so tense right now. i don't know if you're asking for advice, but maybe you could just hang in there for now and then make your feelings known when this is all over.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: i think it is wrong of them to give you more work. on the other hand, i don't think there's a way out of it - there is very little to be gained by complaining, or worse refusing to do extra work. i suppose you could always lie. if you say "i know i don't have children, but actually i have elderly relatives that depend on me", whether or not that's true, it could get them off your back a bit, and it's pretty impossible to check. there's an obvious moral question there, which i will leave up to you.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: asshole? no. feeling annoyed by the inconvenience of this whole situation is normal and understandable. need to suck it up? in this current situation? yes. these parents aren't just choosing to ignore their work. for the safety of themselves and others (including you), they're being asked to adjust their home lives. that adjustment means they will have less time to spend on their own work. by not sending their kids out into someone else's care, they're providing you (and everyone else who could possibly be infected) the service of reducing spread.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: i have a toddler at home, both parents working full time, and i don’t think you’re selfish. nevertheless, i feel like you should suck it up - times are extraordinary, and you never know when you’ll need your colleagues to have your back too. i’m personally working all hours of the day when i’m not looking after my daughter. i have no free time at all, including weekends.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: asshole? no. feeling annoyed by the inconvenience of this whole situation is normal and understandable. need to suck it up? in this current situation? yes. these parents aren't just choosing to ignore their work. for the safety of themselves and others (including you), they're being asked to adjust their home lives. that adjustment means they will have less time to spend on their own work. by not sending their kids out into someone else's care, they're providing you (and everyone else who could possibly be infected) the service of reducing spread.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: > i'm a lecturer are you paid as much as your tt colleagues? do you have benefits? do you have job security once this semester ends? i think my answer would be different if you were asked to pick up slack after another non-tt colleague who has to juggle childcare as well as not knowing where their next meal is coming from, and if you were asked to pick up the slack of people with job security who also happen to have children. i think people need to ask themselves what they can afford and only ask for help if they really can't afford not to. i don't think people with children blanket need more help than people without children. i don't think this is the time to play identity politics.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: asshole? no. feeling annoyed by the inconvenience of this whole situation is normal and understandable. need to suck it up? in this current situation? yes. these parents aren't just choosing to ignore their work. for the safety of themselves and others (including you), they're being asked to adjust their home lives. that adjustment means they will have less time to spend on their own work. by not sending their kids out into someone else's care, they're providing you (and everyone else who could possibly be infected) the service of reducing spread.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: just remember, most of the folks who are looking after young kids would love nothing more than to be sitting at their computer working. most would trade places in a heartbeat.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: asshole? no. feeling annoyed by the inconvenience of this whole situation is normal and understandable. need to suck it up? in this current situation? yes. these parents aren't just choosing to ignore their work. for the safety of themselves and others (including you), they're being asked to adjust their home lives. that adjustment means they will have less time to spend on their own work. by not sending their kids out into someone else's care, they're providing you (and everyone else who could possibly be infected) the service of reducing spread.

user: i feel like an asshole asking, but is it wrong to feel like i shouldn't get more work than my colleagues with children just because i haven't got children yet? i feel like a complete asshole asking this, as i know it's an emergency situation and the normal rules go out the window. i'm a lecturer, and it feels like management are giving extra work to those of us who don't have children, or whose children are grown up. i'm not in a stage of my life where children are possible at the moment (hopefully soon), but i feel angry and upset that myself and other colleagues without children are getting all the extra work that is normally shared across all colleagues equally. obviously i'm aware that colleagues who do have children are having to juggle work and their family situation, so i feel like i'm being unreasonable, but at the same time, this is work that i wouldn't have normally had in the usual non-covid circumstances. what do you think? i am right to feel annoyed, or am i being a selfish asshole and need to suck it up? bot: i'm not known for being emphatic. i think you should suck it up. here's why. when i was a kid with autism in highschool my special ed counselor person told me fair and equal are not the same. she said everyone should be treated fairly. but not necessarily equally. idk. that has stuck with me my whole life every time i question weather it's "fair" and usually it's not equal but it is fair. if you can't do it tell your boss hey i can't handle this. nbut if you can handle it. do it. a family member told me "embrace the tension, life doesn't get any easier" it just gets different. i would think you could probably take on even more right now one way or another. p.s. some people have said i don't think your being selfish or selfless but that's kind of a loaded question cuase no one is perfectly selfless or 100 percent selfish. life just doesn't really work that way. p.s.s when/if you have kids and are in a situation like this how would you like your peers to treat you?

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: my syllabus has the line, "if you need to miss lab for medical reasons, please notify me ahead of time via email. do not include descriptions or pictures of your symptoms in this email." you can probably imagine why.

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: yikes lol. how

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: my syllabus has the line, "if you need to miss lab for medical reasons, please notify me ahead of time via email. do not include descriptions or pictures of your symptoms in this email." you can probably imagine why.

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: i’d love to know the rationale the student had for doing that.

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: last year more than one of my colleagues literally had to add a line to their syllabi explicitly requiring students be "fully clothed" when appearing on camera for class. apparently several men thought it fine to zoom in from bed, shirtless, and at least one student was zooming from her dorm room when her semi-naked roommate walked behind her on camera. neither of these would have occurred to any of us before spring 2020.

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: yikes lol. how

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: last year more than one of my colleagues literally had to add a line to their syllabi explicitly requiring students be "fully clothed" when appearing on camera for class. apparently several men thought it fine to zoom in from bed, shirtless, and at least one student was zooming from her dorm room when her semi-naked roommate walked behind her on camera. neither of these would have occurred to any of us before spring 2020.

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: i’d love to know the rationale the student had for doing that.

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: that is actually hilarious. considering how mischievous the science gods are, it will probably sail right through. but then you can send the $4000 bill to the student.

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: yikes lol. how

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: syllabus: you cannot submit drafts after the final essay is due and receive credit for those drafts under any circumstances. had to write this in the syllabus because students skipped the drafting assignments, submitted the "final essay," and then went back to old assignment links and submitted chunks of their essay as if they had drafted it. the timestamps always made me laugh, but students pushing for credit did not.

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: i’d love to know the rationale the student had for doing that.

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: if you extend teaching.to lab supervisions so many stories. the heart stopping moment when a phd student decided to very violently shake a dewar of liquid nitrogen in front of her face to "demonstrate how to ensure samples are frozen" was a classic. words and my voice failed me and i seem to recall making several panicked high pitched squawks which were supposed to be "what are you doing" and "don't do that" but were mostly a fair impersonation of an upset macaw. my favourite though was the student who came to me to ask if we had another microfuge in the lab (we had three so a capacity of about 70 tubes). confused i asked him why he needed another centrifuge. he'd found some protocol which said "spin for 1 min per ml of culture" he'd interpreted it as spin 1ml aliquots of your culture for 1min so had very carefully divided 200ml of culture into 1ml aliquots, using a fresh pipette tip for each ml. his face when i explained he should have just put it in 4 50ml falcons and spun for 5 mins was hilarious. he was holding all 200 tubes with the mountain of discarded pipette tips behind him as we were talking which made it even better.

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: i’d love to know the rationale the student had for doing that.

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: "please move the giant marijuana plant from behind you before appearing on camera."

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: i’d love to know the rationale the student had for doing that.

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: > eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. not going to lie, i'm genuinely impressed - submitting a paper correctly in some journals' portals is hard enough when you're actually _intending_ to submit a paper. ask them who they suggested as reviewers!

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: i’d love to know the rationale the student had for doing that.

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: > eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. not going to lie, i'm genuinely impressed - submitting a paper correctly in some journals' portals is hard enough when you're actually _intending_ to submit a paper. ask them who they suggested as reviewers!

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: not the craziest by any means, but i remember the exact student that led me to write: “you will receive a zero if i or a member of the instructional even thinks you are playing video games in class.” before that semester, i thought video game addiction was a joke. i now think otherwise after seeing too many students fail out of college bc literally all they do is play video games and sleep.

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: > eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. not going to lie, i'm genuinely impressed - submitting a paper correctly in some journals' portals is hard enough when you're actually _intending_ to submit a paper. ask them who they suggested as reviewers!

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: if a student gets a paper accepted maybe you should ask the publisher to change the name to the student's name. it's quite an achievement to get something published and it would look good on the cv of the student. s/he has been proactive, taking initiative, and can write a decent paper it seems if it gets through peer review.

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: not the craziest on here, but i’m going to have to add “do not use text speak in emails”. i’ve got students emailing me with stuff like “yo”, “yah”, “yea”, “u (instead of you)”, “r (instead of are)”, “tryna”, “btw”, “goat”, etc. it probably wouldn’t irk me as much if they at least included a subject line, but seemingly none of them know to put something in the subject line. or address their emails with something other than “hey”. an email i got today: “when are finals” no punctuation, no greeting, no subject line, no closing remark. just three words. like texting a friend. except i’m the professor, and not their friend. 🙃 edit: i teach english, and i continually stress the importance and professionalism of grammar in academia, so you can imagine my frustration.

user: what are the wildest hijinks you never though you’d have to write a syllabus disclaimer about (and yet here we are)? this morning i woke up to an email from a top journal in my field confirming my submission. i definitely did not submit anything there. eventually i realized that instead of submitting their term paper to canvas, one of my students had somehow managed to submit it as a manuscript to a journal, under my name and identity. i can’t believe i have to put “do not submit your class papers as journal manuscripts under my name” in my syllabi. i just keep thinking about it and bursting into laughter. so, what are some of your “i can’t believe that just happened” teaching stories? this is not a thread for student bashing - just some good natured, end of the semester stress relief! bot: if a student gets a paper accepted maybe you should ask the publisher to change the name to the student's name. it's quite an achievement to get something published and it would look good on the cv of the student. s/he has been proactive, taking initiative, and can write a decent paper it seems if it gets through peer review.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: i worked for 60 hours per week for my first 2 years. i was burning out and decided to not do that anymore. i didn't tell my professor, i just stopped. i guess my advisor could have fired me, but that would've cost him years of work and training. now as faculty, i still work just 40 hours. partly because i learned to get a lot done in 40 hours, partly because i turned down the offers from departments where i could tell they expected more regardless of productivity, and partly because i'm in engineering and good faculty are hard to find, so they'll pretty much put up with whatever i feel like doing. moreover, i worked 6 hours total in my 4 week winter break. i worked zero hours fall break. i expect to work for 12 hours this week long spring break, simply because i'm behind on grading. my work-life balance is superb. beyond just bragging, my point is it's possible. admittedly, if you want to land a tt gig at a top 20 school, then it's probably not possible.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: i think it’s not fair. but, yea, i think it is expected. and, if you don’t, you probably won’t be competitive in the job market (unless your productivity is so high that you can compete with people that work all the time). even if you work weekend and holidays, i still don’t think you are guarantee a job. i am not a phd yet, so take it with a grain of salt.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: that is a toxic as fuck response, and i hope the chair of that meeting stepped in, and then took that prof aside. if they didn't the organisation has big issues. i make it very clear to my pgrs that working 40 hours a week effectively is in itself a good achievement. being at work for 70 hours is meaningless if they're not productive, and it's unhealthy and unfair in any case. academia demands enough of you already without sacrificing your evenings and weekends for a lacklustre income and no guarantees of jobs. fuck that. it's perfectly possible to be productive and successful at 40 hours a week with a bit of discipline. i treated my phd like an 8-5 and i encourage my phd students to do the same. my most recent graduated student did that, has 4 awesome 1st author papers including big name journals, won awards, and got a great job. weekends should be taken and the work will still be there on monday. will i ever be written about in the history textbooks? almost certainly not. but neither will 99.99% of the rest of the academics i deal with, so frankly i will take this one life i have and live it. and i expect those around me to do the same. expecting other people to fuck their lives up because you have a misguided sense of what is reasonable is not cool. don't enable that kind of fuckery. get the job done, and draw your own lines in the sand at what is achievable. don't become the sausage meat in someone elses grinder. you want to know why the mental health stats in gradschool are so terrifying? it's because it's a black hole of shitty expectations that students have on them - both from themselves, and from bad supervisors. a phd is taxing enough without also making it a physical and mental marathon with no downtime. work 40 hours well. hell, work 30 hours well. if you're working 70 hours i'll put money on half of them being unproductive.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: i think it’s not fair. but, yea, i think it is expected. and, if you don’t, you probably won’t be competitive in the job market (unless your productivity is so high that you can compete with people that work all the time). even if you work weekend and holidays, i still don’t think you are guarantee a job. i am not a phd yet, so take it with a grain of salt.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: when i’ve gotten professors to really talk about the weird/extreme hours my favorite thought is that while there’s an “expectation” to work late or on weekends you got the freedom to disappear for random hours during weekdays during work hours. like taking off a random wednesday afternoon for a family thing is a lot easier than anywhere else, but that’s because “they” assume you’ll still hit deadlines by doing a couple late hours or weekends

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: i think it’s not fair. but, yea, i think it is expected. and, if you don’t, you probably won’t be competitive in the job market (unless your productivity is so high that you can compete with people that work all the time). even if you work weekend and holidays, i still don’t think you are guarantee a job. i am not a phd yet, so take it with a grain of salt.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: in my experience, in eu, no it is not expected at all. sometimes you need to work a lot for some experiments, but no, a healthy work-life balance is much more efficient than 60-70h/week. also, most of the time when you hear that people is working more than 50 hours per week constantly you can be rather sure that many of those hours are used on non-productive stuff, they include lunches and breaks etc remeber to work for yourself, not for someone else with no recognition, your time is much more valuable than anything else.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: i think it’s not fair. but, yea, i think it is expected. and, if you don’t, you probably won’t be competitive in the job market (unless your productivity is so high that you can compete with people that work all the time). even if you work weekend and holidays, i still don’t think you are guarantee a job. i am not a phd yet, so take it with a grain of salt.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: yes and no. it's an outdated mindset that's still pretty much what academic culture is. there's a reason why studies show again and again that mental health problems are extremely common in academia, far more common than in other fields. even when your pi is chill you still most likely encounter this mindset from colleagues or collaborators. it's possible to be successful with overworking and especially if you manage to actually organise your work well you are pretty much guaranteed to get more work done then your tired and overworking colleagues.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: i think it’s not fair. but, yea, i think it is expected. and, if you don’t, you probably won’t be competitive in the job market (unless your productivity is so high that you can compete with people that work all the time). even if you work weekend and holidays, i still don’t think you are guarantee a job. i am not a phd yet, so take it with a grain of salt.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: i try to tell all of my phd candidates: hours of work is an input. at the end of the day, no one cares about your input, the world cares about your output. focus on creating quality outputs efficiently, and then you won't have to give up years of your life the way i did when i was a phd student and post doc.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: i am a 9-5er because my family is more important to me than my career, and fortunately i very rarely feel under pressure to work more. a colleague once called me a "part-timer", half-jokingly, which did irritate me, but ultimately i don't envy her lifestyle of spending her nights alone working on grants. i've made peace with the fact that many of my peers will get more papers, grants and jobs than i will because they've sacrificed other things, but i'm also inspired by people who i've seen be very successful while strictly maintaining a healthy work/life balance. i don't get the impression that the majority of my colleagues really 'love the science'. i think they feel happy to have a job where they are valued intellectually, but it's still just a job for most people. and at least those people can hold a conversation about something other than science.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: i try to tell all of my phd candidates: hours of work is an input. at the end of the day, no one cares about your input, the world cares about your output. focus on creating quality outputs efficiently, and then you won't have to give up years of your life the way i did when i was a phd student and post doc.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: were the questions and answers done anonymously or just the questions? i wonder if the "expert" who gave that response is the student's supervisor. i absolutely love my job. i love teaching, i love research, i love mentoring students, the works. i don't love being forced in to a corner where i'm forced to work more than i can for my mental or physical well-being. that has absolutely nothing to do with how much i love science and love my job. from my understanding, it's considered quite healthy to have hobbies outside of work - and if work is taking up 60-70 hours per week, that doesn't give much time for those, let alone a family or any relationships outside of work. there is this great organization called the national center for faculty development & diversity that really emphasizes work-life balance. i know several faculty members who follow their programs and are quite successful (have a life outside of work and are making research waves, while remaining excellent instructors), so it definitely can be done.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: i try to tell all of my phd candidates: hours of work is an input. at the end of the day, no one cares about your input, the world cares about your output. focus on creating quality outputs efficiently, and then you won't have to give up years of your life the way i did when i was a phd student and post doc.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: the problem is that you're expected to finish too much work all the time. even though you have a contract and it tells 45 hours work, there is no way to finish what you're asked to in that period. pis don't officially tell that since they might face some problems with the administration. they just overcome it by pushing you more and more in each time. in my opinion it is best to have boundaries from the beginning. i don't and can't work that much for a long period, it would burn me out.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: i try to tell all of my phd candidates: hours of work is an input. at the end of the day, no one cares about your input, the world cares about your output. focus on creating quality outputs efficiently, and then you won't have to give up years of your life the way i did when i was a phd student and post doc.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: simple fact is, job searches in academia are competitive to an utterly dysfunctional degree. if you don't put in those hours, you will be stacking up against a handful to dozens/hundreds of other applicants whose qualifications match or exceed your own, and have put in that extra time. who do you think is going to win out 999 times out of 1,000?

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: i try to tell all of my phd candidates: hours of work is an input. at the end of the day, no one cares about your input, the world cares about your output. focus on creating quality outputs efficiently, and then you won't have to give up years of your life the way i did when i was a phd student and post doc.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: you don't have to work 60-70 hours a week but a lot of your peers will. when it is time to look for jobs you may not be as competitive as your peers who put in the extra hours.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: i try to tell all of my phd candidates: hours of work is an input. at the end of the day, no one cares about your input, the world cares about your output. focus on creating quality outputs efficiently, and then you won't have to give up years of your life the way i did when i was a phd student and post doc.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: i think it’s not fair. but, yea, i think it is expected. and, if you don’t, you probably won’t be competitive in the job market (unless your productivity is so high that you can compete with people that work all the time). even if you work weekend and holidays, i still don’t think you are guarantee a job. i am not a phd yet, so take it with a grain of salt.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: that prof is a shithead. you need to work whatever amount of hours you require to finish the job. for me that works out to 40 hours on some weeks and more on others. > i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. you're not really putting in extra hours if you're not getting work done in the original hours. like, i get it: i struggle to concentrate for long periods of time, so i need to work in short bursts with frequent breaks, which means that i usually work into the evenings. but i don't consider myself to have worked 14 hours if what i actually did was work an hour on, an hour off.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: i think it’s not fair. but, yea, i think it is expected. and, if you don’t, you probably won’t be competitive in the job market (unless your productivity is so high that you can compete with people that work all the time). even if you work weekend and holidays, i still don’t think you are guarantee a job. i am not a phd yet, so take it with a grain of salt.

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: i think you should swing by that professor's lab on sunday at 3pm is see if the jerk is there. i'd bet not. if you're feeling very brave, leave a note on the lab door asking if he doesn't love science enough to be there at sunday at 3pm!

user: are you expected to work 60-70 hours a week in the academia? this is part rant and part question. i had an introductory meeting with about 15-16 other phd students who had just started and the session included a question answer session with professors where anonymous questions could be asked. one individual, whose supervisor expected him to work weekends as well, asked the professors how he can politely tell his supervisor that this isnt right. the response of one of the professors was: "we are in this because we love science. if you don't want to work weekends, perhaps you do not love science and you do not belong here. if that is the case, you should leave." i was rather shocked. i admit that i do put in extra hours because i want to and have to because of my horrible productivity throughout the day. however, what was suggested by the "expert" was that it is basically compulsory to do this. is that really what is expected in the academia? why is it like that? why isn't mental and physical health given their due importance? burn out is a thing. bot: i think it’s not fair. but, yea, i think it is expected. and, if you don’t, you probably won’t be competitive in the job market (unless your productivity is so high that you can compete with people that work all the time). even if you work weekend and holidays, i still don’t think you are guarantee a job. i am not a phd yet, so take it with a grain of salt.

user: female grad student in engineering having challenges working with men i’m noticing this pattern where i get sidelined by men who take over something i was working on, or male colleagues opening talking down to me in front of our superiors, or even the male students that i ta blaming their mistakes on me and i am getting extremely frustrated. even with the men in my cohort that i consider my friends, i have moments where i am talked down to, talked over, or my input is not taken as seriously. these moments like often derail me for the rest of the day, and reinforce all the icky imposter syndrome feelings i have going on. i tried to google but all i got was icky misoginistic “lean in” type rhetoric that just tells me to have less feelings and be one of the boys. do you have any advice? or any good reading material that you have found on this topic? bot: not in the exact same situation, but i feel you. men consciously or subconsciously do still treat women as inferior in stem. it sucks.

user: female grad student in engineering having challenges working with men i’m noticing this pattern where i get sidelined by men who take over something i was working on, or male colleagues opening talking down to me in front of our superiors, or even the male students that i ta blaming their mistakes on me and i am getting extremely frustrated. even with the men in my cohort that i consider my friends, i have moments where i am talked down to, talked over, or my input is not taken as seriously. these moments like often derail me for the rest of the day, and reinforce all the icky imposter syndrome feelings i have going on. i tried to google but all i got was icky misoginistic “lean in” type rhetoric that just tells me to have less feelings and be one of the boys. do you have any advice? or any good reading material that you have found on this topic? bot: as long as you keep evidence of the way you practice and work there should always be evidence to back you up and let them know that they can't blame their mistakes on you. on the other hand regarding the comments and treatment you can try to escalate things: correct them either in the spot or privately as it fits the situation, make a stand of your view and why x behaviour is offensive, take things up with a superior if things go out of control, and take note of the policies of where you are at so you can be protected. you can check r/twoxchromosomes and post in there to, is quite a supportive community and i have seen posts alike where other women offer their insights and experience.

user: female grad student in engineering having challenges working with men i’m noticing this pattern where i get sidelined by men who take over something i was working on, or male colleagues opening talking down to me in front of our superiors, or even the male students that i ta blaming their mistakes on me and i am getting extremely frustrated. even with the men in my cohort that i consider my friends, i have moments where i am talked down to, talked over, or my input is not taken as seriously. these moments like often derail me for the rest of the day, and reinforce all the icky imposter syndrome feelings i have going on. i tried to google but all i got was icky misoginistic “lean in” type rhetoric that just tells me to have less feelings and be one of the boys. do you have any advice? or any good reading material that you have found on this topic? bot: find a woman mentor. i am a female professor (geology) who used to work in a civil engineering department. there were 2 other women faculty, and the rest were men. i spent a lot of time trying to increase the number of women in our program. the key to survival is to find other women in your program (ideally professors, or more advanced grad students) and connect with them. they don't necessarily need to be doing what you do, and i'm not suggesting you should switch advisors (based on what you wrote so far), but you need to find a safe space to commiserate, give guidance for actions you can take, etc., etc. and to all the men in stem reading this, you also need to be active in the fight for equality in stem! if you see a male colleague/fellow student talking over a female, or taking over a project, or making an off-color joke, speak up! the "boys club" mentality will never change unless the "boys" are also fighting for the change! hang in there, op, you are not an impostor!

user: female grad student in engineering having challenges working with men i’m noticing this pattern where i get sidelined by men who take over something i was working on, or male colleagues opening talking down to me in front of our superiors, or even the male students that i ta blaming their mistakes on me and i am getting extremely frustrated. even with the men in my cohort that i consider my friends, i have moments where i am talked down to, talked over, or my input is not taken as seriously. these moments like often derail me for the rest of the day, and reinforce all the icky imposter syndrome feelings i have going on. i tried to google but all i got was icky misoginistic “lean in” type rhetoric that just tells me to have less feelings and be one of the boys. do you have any advice? or any good reading material that you have found on this topic? bot: as a male researcher, i know i probably do this inadvertently and i would appreciate knowing when i’m doing it so i can train that behavior out of myself. i know it’s not fair to ask this of you, but i think we would all benefit from being told when we’re stepping on our female colleagues.

user: female grad student in engineering having challenges working with men i’m noticing this pattern where i get sidelined by men who take over something i was working on, or male colleagues opening talking down to me in front of our superiors, or even the male students that i ta blaming their mistakes on me and i am getting extremely frustrated. even with the men in my cohort that i consider my friends, i have moments where i am talked down to, talked over, or my input is not taken as seriously. these moments like often derail me for the rest of the day, and reinforce all the icky imposter syndrome feelings i have going on. i tried to google but all i got was icky misoginistic “lean in” type rhetoric that just tells me to have less feelings and be one of the boys. do you have any advice? or any good reading material that you have found on this topic? bot: find a woman mentor. i am a female professor (geology) who used to work in a civil engineering department. there were 2 other women faculty, and the rest were men. i spent a lot of time trying to increase the number of women in our program. the key to survival is to find other women in your program (ideally professors, or more advanced grad students) and connect with them. they don't necessarily need to be doing what you do, and i'm not suggesting you should switch advisors (based on what you wrote so far), but you need to find a safe space to commiserate, give guidance for actions you can take, etc., etc. and to all the men in stem reading this, you also need to be active in the fight for equality in stem! if you see a male colleague/fellow student talking over a female, or taking over a project, or making an off-color joke, speak up! the "boys club" mentality will never change unless the "boys" are also fighting for the change! hang in there, op, you are not an impostor!

user: female grad student in engineering having challenges working with men i’m noticing this pattern where i get sidelined by men who take over something i was working on, or male colleagues opening talking down to me in front of our superiors, or even the male students that i ta blaming their mistakes on me and i am getting extremely frustrated. even with the men in my cohort that i consider my friends, i have moments where i am talked down to, talked over, or my input is not taken as seriously. these moments like often derail me for the rest of the day, and reinforce all the icky imposter syndrome feelings i have going on. i tried to google but all i got was icky misoginistic “lean in” type rhetoric that just tells me to have less feelings and be one of the boys. do you have any advice? or any good reading material that you have found on this topic? bot: as long as you keep evidence of the way you practice and work there should always be evidence to back you up and let them know that they can't blame their mistakes on you. on the other hand regarding the comments and treatment you can try to escalate things: correct them either in the spot or privately as it fits the situation, make a stand of your view and why x behaviour is offensive, take things up with a superior if things go out of control, and take note of the policies of where you are at so you can be protected. you can check r/twoxchromosomes and post in there to, is quite a supportive community and i have seen posts alike where other women offer their insights and experience.

user: female grad student in engineering having challenges working with men i’m noticing this pattern where i get sidelined by men who take over something i was working on, or male colleagues opening talking down to me in front of our superiors, or even the male students that i ta blaming their mistakes on me and i am getting extremely frustrated. even with the men in my cohort that i consider my friends, i have moments where i am talked down to, talked over, or my input is not taken as seriously. these moments like often derail me for the rest of the day, and reinforce all the icky imposter syndrome feelings i have going on. i tried to google but all i got was icky misoginistic “lean in” type rhetoric that just tells me to have less feelings and be one of the boys. do you have any advice? or any good reading material that you have found on this topic? bot: find a woman mentor. i am a female professor (geology) who used to work in a civil engineering department. there were 2 other women faculty, and the rest were men. i spent a lot of time trying to increase the number of women in our program. the key to survival is to find other women in your program (ideally professors, or more advanced grad students) and connect with them. they don't necessarily need to be doing what you do, and i'm not suggesting you should switch advisors (based on what you wrote so far), but you need to find a safe space to commiserate, give guidance for actions you can take, etc., etc. and to all the men in stem reading this, you also need to be active in the fight for equality in stem! if you see a male colleague/fellow student talking over a female, or taking over a project, or making an off-color joke, speak up! the "boys club" mentality will never change unless the "boys" are also fighting for the change! hang in there, op, you are not an impostor!

user: female grad student in engineering having challenges working with men i’m noticing this pattern where i get sidelined by men who take over something i was working on, or male colleagues opening talking down to me in front of our superiors, or even the male students that i ta blaming their mistakes on me and i am getting extremely frustrated. even with the men in my cohort that i consider my friends, i have moments where i am talked down to, talked over, or my input is not taken as seriously. these moments like often derail me for the rest of the day, and reinforce all the icky imposter syndrome feelings i have going on. i tried to google but all i got was icky misoginistic “lean in” type rhetoric that just tells me to have less feelings and be one of the boys. do you have any advice? or any good reading material that you have found on this topic? bot: can you tell us more about how you got sidelined on this project? usually it's the advisor's job to make it clear who is in charge of which project. don't let people just take things from you... i think the best thing you could do is to try to find a female professor to discuss your problems with. doesn't even need to be in the same department. either send them a cold email or show up to their office hours sometime and ask if they wouldn't mind talking to you about a couple of these kinds of things. i'm a guy so take it with a grain of salt.

user: female grad student in engineering having challenges working with men i’m noticing this pattern where i get sidelined by men who take over something i was working on, or male colleagues opening talking down to me in front of our superiors, or even the male students that i ta blaming their mistakes on me and i am getting extremely frustrated. even with the men in my cohort that i consider my friends, i have moments where i am talked down to, talked over, or my input is not taken as seriously. these moments like often derail me for the rest of the day, and reinforce all the icky imposter syndrome feelings i have going on. i tried to google but all i got was icky misoginistic “lean in” type rhetoric that just tells me to have less feelings and be one of the boys. do you have any advice? or any good reading material that you have found on this topic? bot: i can only speak from my experience, but i frequently get talked down/over in my lab group as well. it is hard to ignore, but after 4 years i realized it is a lot easier just to learn to not worry about it, plus realistically what can you do? i think my advice for not taking it personally is trying not to stew, when i sit and think about what happened for hours at a time it just makes me feel awful, but if i actively just move on right after it happens and try not to stew it seems to help me not feel so belittled. it may be worth noting anecdotally that lots of people in academia are condescending as fuck; i think a common theme is people thinking they are always the smartest person in the room and implicit biases don't help this. i am a male in an all male group with a female advisor, so there aren't really the same misogyny vibes of your lab, but i find it easier just to not worry about it myself versus trying to talk to/change people who are just going to be assholes by default. just my two cents.

user: female grad student in engineering having challenges working with men i’m noticing this pattern where i get sidelined by men who take over something i was working on, or male colleagues opening talking down to me in front of our superiors, or even the male students that i ta blaming their mistakes on me and i am getting extremely frustrated. even with the men in my cohort that i consider my friends, i have moments where i am talked down to, talked over, or my input is not taken as seriously. these moments like often derail me for the rest of the day, and reinforce all the icky imposter syndrome feelings i have going on. i tried to google but all i got was icky misoginistic “lean in” type rhetoric that just tells me to have less feelings and be one of the boys. do you have any advice? or any good reading material that you have found on this topic? bot: as long as you keep evidence of the way you practice and work there should always be evidence to back you up and let them know that they can't blame their mistakes on you. on the other hand regarding the comments and treatment you can try to escalate things: correct them either in the spot or privately as it fits the situation, make a stand of your view and why x behaviour is offensive, take things up with a superior if things go out of control, and take note of the policies of where you are at so you can be protected. you can check r/twoxchromosomes and post in there to, is quite a supportive community and i have seen posts alike where other women offer their insights and experience.

user: female grad student in engineering having challenges working with men i’m noticing this pattern where i get sidelined by men who take over something i was working on, or male colleagues opening talking down to me in front of our superiors, or even the male students that i ta blaming their mistakes on me and i am getting extremely frustrated. even with the men in my cohort that i consider my friends, i have moments where i am talked down to, talked over, or my input is not taken as seriously. these moments like often derail me for the rest of the day, and reinforce all the icky imposter syndrome feelings i have going on. i tried to google but all i got was icky misoginistic “lean in” type rhetoric that just tells me to have less feelings and be one of the boys. do you have any advice? or any good reading material that you have found on this topic? bot: welcome to the boys club called engineering. firstly congratulations on being here, we need women in engineering and there is an epic lack of female perspective in the area. i can understand that you are finding the environment challenging and hostile, and a lot of your male colleagues find your presence unusual from the status quo, however, this is not something that should stop you. you must take control and stand by your work. you have to stand up for yourself. if your little shits of students are blaming their mistakes on you, plainly point out their mistakes to them, don't be shy about it. try to explain their mistakes to them first and if they behave in a way that it is your fault, let them know you won't be afraid to penalize their sloppy work or escalate the matter accordingly. you are not their mom. in the lab where you work, you need to make sure that you establish boundaries on what your projects belong to you with your advisor and other folks at the lab. as a male student who is doing a ph.d. in engineering, i often found my senior colleagues at the lab try to take over my work in the final days in the name of "collaboration" etc. whenever this happened to me, i made sure to have a joint meeting with the entire team to establish the work and contributions they would be making, and when you do this these people fuck right off. they are freeloaders trying to get authorship. it is important to establish the authorship and contributions in your projects early on. assert yourself, don't be intimidated. you belong in the field don't let the biased field make you feel otherwise. definitely make friends in and outside your department, be part of ieee women or women in engineering groups, they can advise you much better.

user: female grad student in engineering having challenges working with men i’m noticing this pattern where i get sidelined by men who take over something i was working on, or male colleagues opening talking down to me in front of our superiors, or even the male students that i ta blaming their mistakes on me and i am getting extremely frustrated. even with the men in my cohort that i consider my friends, i have moments where i am talked down to, talked over, or my input is not taken as seriously. these moments like often derail me for the rest of the day, and reinforce all the icky imposter syndrome feelings i have going on. i tried to google but all i got was icky misoginistic “lean in” type rhetoric that just tells me to have less feelings and be one of the boys. do you have any advice? or any good reading material that you have found on this topic? bot: can you tell us more about how you got sidelined on this project? usually it's the advisor's job to make it clear who is in charge of which project. don't let people just take things from you... i think the best thing you could do is to try to find a female professor to discuss your problems with. doesn't even need to be in the same department. either send them a cold email or show up to their office hours sometime and ask if they wouldn't mind talking to you about a couple of these kinds of things. i'm a guy so take it with a grain of salt.

user: female grad student in engineering having challenges working with men i’m noticing this pattern where i get sidelined by men who take over something i was working on, or male colleagues opening talking down to me in front of our superiors, or even the male students that i ta blaming their mistakes on me and i am getting extremely frustrated. even with the men in my cohort that i consider my friends, i have moments where i am talked down to, talked over, or my input is not taken as seriously. these moments like often derail me for the rest of the day, and reinforce all the icky imposter syndrome feelings i have going on. i tried to google but all i got was icky misoginistic “lean in” type rhetoric that just tells me to have less feelings and be one of the boys. do you have any advice? or any good reading material that you have found on this topic? bot: here are some things you can do: 1. understand that they are part of a larger culture and it is so normal to them, they often don't even realise they are doing it. so, if you want to do something about it you have decide whether you want to draw their attention to it and when and how. or you have to suck it up. you may make this choice from incident to incident - you don't have to choose one path always. 2. understand you work in an environment where most people are socially and emotionally immature or even have disabilities in that area. they get away with it because they deliver something of value and they have privledge. so, factor in that not only are they unaware, when they become aware they may not care or understand what you are talking about. 3. find allies. there are people who likely don't treat you that way. gravitate toward them as much as possible. 4. find mentors. there are leaders who are encouraging and supportive. they might not even be in your discipline. find them and utilise their support. 5. go to hr/guild/student council. join groups that further women's issues or women in stem. go through appropriate channels to recommend that training on conscious and unconscious bias is part of the routine where you are. 6. when you have a situation where you are sidelined and you want to speak up do it respectfully (note kamala harris in one of the vp's debates. mike pence didn't even realise he was cutting her off as he is so used to it, but she held her ground) but firmly. 7. don't wait for anything to be handed to you. 8. don't all them into your personal life or do anything that is not 100 percent professional. 9. ensure if someone is taking credit for your work you immediately remedy the situation with evidence of your contribution and then query with the individual why they would say it was their work? (this is theft in academia and should be taken very seriously) 10. write down every incident you experience and then put it in a drawer. it creates a record in case you want to go formal with someone for repeated behaviour but you can also show it to someone else to determine if you are being too sensitive. 11. understand that women do this to other women as well - personally and professionally. it is a human condition that when you have privilege to want to hang on to it.there is no nirvana where everyone gets what they deserve. determine what you need to do to succeed (network, self-champion, etc) in your field and do it. it is really up to you to be resilient and positive.

user: female grad student in engineering having challenges working with men i’m noticing this pattern where i get sidelined by men who take over something i was working on, or male colleagues opening talking down to me in front of our superiors, or even the male students that i ta blaming their mistakes on me and i am getting extremely frustrated. even with the men in my cohort that i consider my friends, i have moments where i am talked down to, talked over, or my input is not taken as seriously. these moments like often derail me for the rest of the day, and reinforce all the icky imposter syndrome feelings i have going on. i tried to google but all i got was icky misoginistic “lean in” type rhetoric that just tells me to have less feelings and be one of the boys. do you have any advice? or any good reading material that you have found on this topic? bot: can you tell us more about how you got sidelined on this project? usually it's the advisor's job to make it clear who is in charge of which project. don't let people just take things from you... i think the best thing you could do is to try to find a female professor to discuss your problems with. doesn't even need to be in the same department. either send them a cold email or show up to their office hours sometime and ask if they wouldn't mind talking to you about a couple of these kinds of things. i'm a guy so take it with a grain of salt.

user: female grad student in engineering having challenges working with men i’m noticing this pattern where i get sidelined by men who take over something i was working on, or male colleagues opening talking down to me in front of our superiors, or even the male students that i ta blaming their mistakes on me and i am getting extremely frustrated. even with the men in my cohort that i consider my friends, i have moments where i am talked down to, talked over, or my input is not taken as seriously. these moments like often derail me for the rest of the day, and reinforce all the icky imposter syndrome feelings i have going on. i tried to google but all i got was icky misoginistic “lean in” type rhetoric that just tells me to have less feelings and be one of the boys. do you have any advice? or any good reading material that you have found on this topic? bot: as a male researcher, i know i probably do this inadvertently and i would appreciate knowing when i’m doing it so i can train that behavior out of myself. i know it’s not fair to ask this of you, but i think we would all benefit from being told when we’re stepping on our female colleagues.

user: female grad student in engineering having challenges working with men i’m noticing this pattern where i get sidelined by men who take over something i was working on, or male colleagues opening talking down to me in front of our superiors, or even the male students that i ta blaming their mistakes on me and i am getting extremely frustrated. even with the men in my cohort that i consider my friends, i have moments where i am talked down to, talked over, or my input is not taken as seriously. these moments like often derail me for the rest of the day, and reinforce all the icky imposter syndrome feelings i have going on. i tried to google but all i got was icky misoginistic “lean in” type rhetoric that just tells me to have less feelings and be one of the boys. do you have any advice? or any good reading material that you have found on this topic? bot: can you tell us more about how you got sidelined on this project? usually it's the advisor's job to make it clear who is in charge of which project. don't let people just take things from you... i think the best thing you could do is to try to find a female professor to discuss your problems with. doesn't even need to be in the same department. either send them a cold email or show up to their office hours sometime and ask if they wouldn't mind talking to you about a couple of these kinds of things. i'm a guy so take it with a grain of salt.

user: the university that i teach at (nyu) has gone remote because of the coronivirus. i teach two classes of over 100 students and give multiple choice exams. is there any possible way to stop them from cheating on the exams? bot: you can't stop it but you can minimize it. assuming you will offer exams on your lms (e.g. blackboard): 1. set the time for the exam in such way that it is 35-45 seconds per question. this makes it harder to google or look up the answers. advanced: google your questions to make sure the answers are not readily available. if they are, restructure the question. 2. make questions appear one at a time (not the entire exam). this makes it harder for one student to print out the exam and have others work on it. 3. randomize the order of how questions appear so there is no way to create a solutions key with question numbers. 4. make the exam available only at the same time as the on-campus exam time so everyone takes it at the same time. 5. do not provide the correct answers or the student score immediately, you can release those after everyone has taken the exam. hope this helps, good luck!

user: the university that i teach at (nyu) has gone remote because of the coronivirus. i teach two classes of over 100 students and give multiple choice exams. is there any possible way to stop them from cheating on the exams? bot: so i don't know if this is used in the usa, but it's widely used in canada. we use this thing called lockdown browser, it's mainly used with students who are online. when a student opens it, it blocks them from using external applications on their laptops/computers. professors can also enable the browser to video/audio record when students enter their tests, to ensure students don't cheat.

user: the university that i teach at (nyu) has gone remote because of the coronivirus. i teach two classes of over 100 students and give multiple choice exams. is there any possible way to stop them from cheating on the exams? bot: you can't stop it but you can minimize it. assuming you will offer exams on your lms (e.g. blackboard): 1. set the time for the exam in such way that it is 35-45 seconds per question. this makes it harder to google or look up the answers. advanced: google your questions to make sure the answers are not readily available. if they are, restructure the question. 2. make questions appear one at a time (not the entire exam). this makes it harder for one student to print out the exam and have others work on it. 3. randomize the order of how questions appear so there is no way to create a solutions key with question numbers. 4. make the exam available only at the same time as the on-campus exam time so everyone takes it at the same time. 5. do not provide the correct answers or the student score immediately, you can release those after everyone has taken the exam. hope this helps, good luck!

user: the university that i teach at (nyu) has gone remote because of the coronivirus. i teach two classes of over 100 students and give multiple choice exams. is there any possible way to stop them from cheating on the exams? bot: no.

user: the university that i teach at (nyu) has gone remote because of the coronivirus. i teach two classes of over 100 students and give multiple choice exams. is there any possible way to stop them from cheating on the exams? bot: you can't stop it but you can minimize it. assuming you will offer exams on your lms (e.g. blackboard): 1. set the time for the exam in such way that it is 35-45 seconds per question. this makes it harder to google or look up the answers. advanced: google your questions to make sure the answers are not readily available. if they are, restructure the question. 2. make questions appear one at a time (not the entire exam). this makes it harder for one student to print out the exam and have others work on it. 3. randomize the order of how questions appear so there is no way to create a solutions key with question numbers. 4. make the exam available only at the same time as the on-campus exam time so everyone takes it at the same time. 5. do not provide the correct answers or the student score immediately, you can release those after everyone has taken the exam. hope this helps, good luck!

user: the university that i teach at (nyu) has gone remote because of the coronivirus. i teach two classes of over 100 students and give multiple choice exams. is there any possible way to stop them from cheating on the exams? bot: you could create several versions of the exam where the questions/answers are ordered differently. it would stop wholesale copying. but it wouldn't stop people from working together.

user: the university that i teach at (nyu) has gone remote because of the coronivirus. i teach two classes of over 100 students and give multiple choice exams. is there any possible way to stop them from cheating on the exams? bot: you can't stop it but you can minimize it. assuming you will offer exams on your lms (e.g. blackboard): 1. set the time for the exam in such way that it is 35-45 seconds per question. this makes it harder to google or look up the answers. advanced: google your questions to make sure the answers are not readily available. if they are, restructure the question. 2. make questions appear one at a time (not the entire exam). this makes it harder for one student to print out the exam and have others work on it. 3. randomize the order of how questions appear so there is no way to create a solutions key with question numbers. 4. make the exam available only at the same time as the on-campus exam time so everyone takes it at the same time. 5. do not provide the correct answers or the student score immediately, you can release those after everyone has taken the exam. hope this helps, good luck!

user: the university that i teach at (nyu) has gone remote because of the coronivirus. i teach two classes of over 100 students and give multiple choice exams. is there any possible way to stop them from cheating on the exams? bot: you could use online proctoring services like proctor u. they have remote access to the student's screen, and will watch the student via webcam the entire time until they submit their exam. they need the student to verify id and also ask you to move your webcam around the room before beginning the exam.

user: the university that i teach at (nyu) has gone remote because of the coronivirus. i teach two classes of over 100 students and give multiple choice exams. is there any possible way to stop them from cheating on the exams? bot: so i don't know if this is used in the usa, but it's widely used in canada. we use this thing called lockdown browser, it's mainly used with students who are online. when a student opens it, it blocks them from using external applications on their laptops/computers. professors can also enable the browser to video/audio record when students enter their tests, to ensure students don't cheat.

user: the university that i teach at (nyu) has gone remote because of the coronivirus. i teach two classes of over 100 students and give multiple choice exams. is there any possible way to stop them from cheating on the exams? bot: you could create several versions of the exam where the questions/answers are ordered differently. it would stop wholesale copying. but it wouldn't stop people from working together.

user: the university that i teach at (nyu) has gone remote because of the coronivirus. i teach two classes of over 100 students and give multiple choice exams. is there any possible way to stop them from cheating on the exams? bot: a couple years ago, i made all my exams online and open-book for large lecture courses. i emphasize that they need to take careful notes during lectures and i have them submit lecture notes for 1/4 course credit. exams are timed as if taken during class tome. i still see a normal distribution of scores. remember, if they cheat they are cheating themselves.

user: the university that i teach at (nyu) has gone remote because of the coronivirus. i teach two classes of over 100 students and give multiple choice exams. is there any possible way to stop them from cheating on the exams? bot: someone else said a 15 minute oral exam... a takeoff of that idea.... how about after the written exam you do a five minute per student ask them a variation of 2 questions they got right over a video call. if they got it right on the exam and get it wrong on the video call they lose a chunk of points. also knowing this, maybe people will be more inclined to try to learn the material. the other angle is its a pandemic... tell the kids cheating is just cheating themselves out of the learning they are paying for and just for this circumstance let it be at that.

user: the university that i teach at (nyu) has gone remote because of the coronivirus. i teach two classes of over 100 students and give multiple choice exams. is there any possible way to stop them from cheating on the exams? bot: a couple years ago, i made all my exams online and open-book for large lecture courses. i emphasize that they need to take careful notes during lectures and i have them submit lecture notes for 1/4 course credit. exams are timed as if taken during class tome. i still see a normal distribution of scores. remember, if they cheat they are cheating themselves.

user: the university that i teach at (nyu) has gone remote because of the coronivirus. i teach two classes of over 100 students and give multiple choice exams. is there any possible way to stop them from cheating on the exams? bot: create different versions of the exam, randomize the questions, place a time limit.

user: the university that i teach at (nyu) has gone remote because of the coronivirus. i teach two classes of over 100 students and give multiple choice exams. is there any possible way to stop them from cheating on the exams? bot: i am a student and i just want to say please please don’t go the route of setting very strict time limits. i have a documented disability due to a processing disorder that slows me down so i can get extended time, but for students who aren’t diagnosed it harms them. in my opinion a good way to go about it is using essay style questions. you have a lot of students so i don’t know how practical it is, but this is a good way to gauge understanding and make it hard to cheat. if i don’t know the content well, i have a very hard time with an essay question no matter how much internet i have access to.

user: the university that i teach at (nyu) has gone remote because of the coronivirus. i teach two classes of over 100 students and give multiple choice exams. is there any possible way to stop them from cheating on the exams? bot: create different versions of the exam, randomize the questions, place a time limit.

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1465-5922.1996.00165.x you are welcome...

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: i came across a genetic screening approach called big papi yesterday 🤦‍♀️

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: classic favorite for these threads, be sure to check the figures. https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0001969

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: effects of packaging, equipment, and storage time on energy used for reheating beef stew. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=beef+stew&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3dsj-zvxqpwgkj

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: the case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an australian research institute. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc1322240/

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/556640/ you might regret this thread, i have a few, we had a bit of a competition going a while back at work to see who could find the best/worst/weirdest papers

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: the case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an australian research institute. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc1322240/

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: effects of packaging, equipment, and storage time on energy used for reheating beef stew. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=beef+stew&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3dsj-zvxqpwgkj

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: i was going to link what's the deal with birds but it appears that they've taken it down :'(

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: effects of packaging, equipment, and storage time on energy used for reheating beef stew. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=beef+stew&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3dsj-zvxqpwgkj

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: eve sedgwick’s essay “paranoid reading and reparative reading, or, you’re so vain you probably think this essay is about you” is still incredibly influential in my field

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: effects of packaging, equipment, and storage time on energy used for reheating beef stew. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=beef+stew&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3dsj-zvxqpwgkj

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: eve sedgwick’s essay “paranoid reading and reparative reading, or, you’re so vain you probably think this essay is about you” is still incredibly influential in my field

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: not a journal article, but i believe this conference title/theme deserves to be here: how deep is your law?

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: here's a few in philosophy, collected by mike otsuka. harry frankfurt, “on bullshit,” *raritan quarterly review* (1986) david enoch, “once you start using slippery slope arguments, you’re on a very slippery slope”, *oxford journal of legal studies* (2001) david enoch, “wouldn’t it be nice if p, therefore p”, *utilitas* (2009)

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: effects of packaging, equipment, and storage time on energy used for reheating beef stew. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=beef+stew&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5#d=gs_qabs&u=%23p%3dsj-zvxqpwgkj

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: here's a few in philosophy, collected by mike otsuka. harry frankfurt, “on bullshit,” *raritan quarterly review* (1986) david enoch, “once you start using slippery slope arguments, you’re on a very slippery slope”, *oxford journal of legal studies* (2001) david enoch, “wouldn’t it be nice if p, therefore p”, *utilitas* (2009)

user: what are some of the more absurd journal article titles you're come across? having recently come across "the hitchhikers guide to flow chemistry" and "will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic effect?" journal articles, i was quite amused by them. what are some other articles that you've come across that have weird/absurd/funny titles? also, what did it make you think of the authors who wrote them? bot: not a journal article, but i believe this conference title/theme deserves to be here: how deep is your law?

user: what is the strangest thing that happened to you during your phd? here is mine. i spent three months abroad at a laboratory in spain. the experiments required that i was there on the weekends. i only spoke a little spanish and on weekends the university was practically empty except security, so i was often there alone. one weekend the security guard came down to the lab and started talking in spanish to me. i couldn't follow everything he said, but i thought he said that he had to inspect a nearby building so my building would be empty for a while. a couple hours later i had finished for the day and went to the security desk. they have to lock you out - if i left at my own volition the doors unlock behind me and anyone can enter. the desk was empty. no security guard. i looked around and down the hall was an open door with light coming out. i presumed it was the security offices or something. i peered around the corner and this is what i saw: the security guard from earlier sat naked on a chair, legs crossed, staring into space. the chair was in the middle of the room. it was an office, not a changing room. embarassed, i walked away and was to about leave, but remembered i couldn't. i waited a few minutes and then approached again, this time making loud footsteps and knocking the wall. when i looked this time, the guard had gotten dressed and was buttoning his shirt. he asked if i was leaving and i said yes. he let me out and i left. i told my colleagues this, and now this is has become the highlight of my stay abroad. even my hosts and colleagues in spain first and foremost remember this incident better than anything else from my stay. the host professor wanted to know who it was, but i only saw the guard once after this, and none of my spanish colleagues were with me that time. tl;dr walked in on naked security guard during stay abroad. bot: throw away because people that know me would recognize this list immediately! 1) during my first month as a lab tech a very prominent researcher in a neighboring lab became infected with the bsl2 pathogen they were working with and died within 24 hours. the floor was closed and we were under investigation by multiple agencies and eventually they found there were no systemic issues with safety. unofficially it's assumed the pathogen entered their body while they took a medication in the lab. their family visited and we had on campus services eulogies etc. horrible for everyone in every way. 2) my second lab tech job, the professor "forgot" my agreement for employment was 20 months (not 24 months, because i would want to start graduate school after my second summer in the lab) so when i asked for a recommendation letter to apply to grad school he basically said no because he "only hires people who guarantee two full years in the lab, and if you go to grad school it will only be 20 months". multiple post-docs in the lab (who i worked under) had to basically convince him that he was wrong and just didn't remember that he said that "i seemed so capable that i wouldn't need a lot of training time, so 20 months instead of 24 months isn't a big deal" when he hired me. almost didn't get into grad school. 3) my first day as a rotation student in my phd program there was a bomb threat on campus, while we were in lab meeting. the professor told us not to worry about it, it was probably just someone who didn't want to take their first exam of the semester, and we kept meeting! the entire campus was closed and evacuated, we could see the streets flooding with people from our office window, and no one said anything. as a the new guy i couldn't speak up. someone's spouse saw it on the news and called/texted them basically demanding they leave. the prof. said "ok fine" and that one person left, no one else got up. lab meeting ended and the professor said we could leave campus if we wanted to. everyone left. basically could have gotten blown up because the professor didn't want to obey a bomb threat evacuation order and no one else in the lab would stand up to say we should leave. i didn't join that lab. 4) two members of this lab divorced their spouse/broke up with significant other to be together and are now married. 4) during one of my rotations one of the graduate students in the lab committed suicide in their home, unrelated to their phd work. we found out when lab members went to check on them when they didn't show up to the lab. family visited the lab, on and off campus services. horrible for everyone. 5) in the lab i ended up joining, the professor got a new prof. job in a different state and moved mid-way during my phd. 6) the first post-doc lab i joined, which i moved across the country for...the full tenured professor was "let go" with absolutely zero reason given to us as to why, which no amount of demanding to the prof, department, and president would reveal (private institution). the whole lab of almost 20 people shut down within 9 months of me joining. 7) moved across the country again for my current and technically "second" post-doc and now there's a global pandemic. tldr: i. am. cursed. people literally are dying or losing their jobs everywhere i go.

user: what is the strangest thing that happened to you during your phd? here is mine. i spent three months abroad at a laboratory in spain. the experiments required that i was there on the weekends. i only spoke a little spanish and on weekends the university was practically empty except security, so i was often there alone. one weekend the security guard came down to the lab and started talking in spanish to me. i couldn't follow everything he said, but i thought he said that he had to inspect a nearby building so my building would be empty for a while. a couple hours later i had finished for the day and went to the security desk. they have to lock you out - if i left at my own volition the doors unlock behind me and anyone can enter. the desk was empty. no security guard. i looked around and down the hall was an open door with light coming out. i presumed it was the security offices or something. i peered around the corner and this is what i saw: the security guard from earlier sat naked on a chair, legs crossed, staring into space. the chair was in the middle of the room. it was an office, not a changing room. embarassed, i walked away and was to about leave, but remembered i couldn't. i waited a few minutes and then approached again, this time making loud footsteps and knocking the wall. when i looked this time, the guard had gotten dressed and was buttoning his shirt. he asked if i was leaving and i said yes. he let me out and i left. i told my colleagues this, and now this is has become the highlight of my stay abroad. even my hosts and colleagues in spain first and foremost remember this incident better than anything else from my stay. the host professor wanted to know who it was, but i only saw the guard once after this, and none of my spanish colleagues were with me that time. tl;dr walked in on naked security guard during stay abroad. bot: my weirdest experience was being in a locked lab where everyone else was older and more mature than me. everyone else in lab was doing their own experiments and publishing papers. i had been the target of weird pranks in the lab, and i never suspected anyone in lab. seriously everyone was mature and had like 10 years on me. someone stole my phone when it was charging and put it in the chemical hood to charge. that was super creepy. another time, i came late to my desk at 5 pm. there was only 3 people in lab. i went to the bathroom, and came back 10 minutes later to find someone put old quizzes and exams in my bag. these quizzes were dated 7 months old and belonged to another lab member who was out of the country.... yet in that 10 minute span that i was gone, someone put prior old quizzes into my bag... i asked the 3 people in lab and they all had no idea. plus they were all post docs who didn’t need the quizzes. so i was dumbfounded as to why or how the quizzes ended up in my bag in 10 minutes. it was super weird.

user: what is the strangest thing that happened to you during your phd? here is mine. i spent three months abroad at a laboratory in spain. the experiments required that i was there on the weekends. i only spoke a little spanish and on weekends the university was practically empty except security, so i was often there alone. one weekend the security guard came down to the lab and started talking in spanish to me. i couldn't follow everything he said, but i thought he said that he had to inspect a nearby building so my building would be empty for a while. a couple hours later i had finished for the day and went to the security desk. they have to lock you out - if i left at my own volition the doors unlock behind me and anyone can enter. the desk was empty. no security guard. i looked around and down the hall was an open door with light coming out. i presumed it was the security offices or something. i peered around the corner and this is what i saw: the security guard from earlier sat naked on a chair, legs crossed, staring into space. the chair was in the middle of the room. it was an office, not a changing room. embarassed, i walked away and was to about leave, but remembered i couldn't. i waited a few minutes and then approached again, this time making loud footsteps and knocking the wall. when i looked this time, the guard had gotten dressed and was buttoning his shirt. he asked if i was leaving and i said yes. he let me out and i left. i told my colleagues this, and now this is has become the highlight of my stay abroad. even my hosts and colleagues in spain first and foremost remember this incident better than anything else from my stay. the host professor wanted to know who it was, but i only saw the guard once after this, and none of my spanish colleagues were with me that time. tl;dr walked in on naked security guard during stay abroad. bot: had to share a room with my pi at a conference. third night someone took the room next to us and had very enthusiastic, loud, talkative sex. walls were really thin, and it was like someone was banging on my headboard. both of us had already gone to bed, and i could tell my pi was pretending to be asleep. finally it ends and 5 minutes later we hear a knock on our front door. my pi answers and it’s a lady in her 60’s or 70’s in nothing but an open leopard print robe asking if we have any cigarettes. 5 years later and we still haven’t talked about it.

user: what is the strangest thing that happened to you during your phd? here is mine. i spent three months abroad at a laboratory in spain. the experiments required that i was there on the weekends. i only spoke a little spanish and on weekends the university was practically empty except security, so i was often there alone. one weekend the security guard came down to the lab and started talking in spanish to me. i couldn't follow everything he said, but i thought he said that he had to inspect a nearby building so my building would be empty for a while. a couple hours later i had finished for the day and went to the security desk. they have to lock you out - if i left at my own volition the doors unlock behind me and anyone can enter. the desk was empty. no security guard. i looked around and down the hall was an open door with light coming out. i presumed it was the security offices or something. i peered around the corner and this is what i saw: the security guard from earlier sat naked on a chair, legs crossed, staring into space. the chair was in the middle of the room. it was an office, not a changing room. embarassed, i walked away and was to about leave, but remembered i couldn't. i waited a few minutes and then approached again, this time making loud footsteps and knocking the wall. when i looked this time, the guard had gotten dressed and was buttoning his shirt. he asked if i was leaving and i said yes. he let me out and i left. i told my colleagues this, and now this is has become the highlight of my stay abroad. even my hosts and colleagues in spain first and foremost remember this incident better than anything else from my stay. the host professor wanted to know who it was, but i only saw the guard once after this, and none of my spanish colleagues were with me that time. tl;dr walked in on naked security guard during stay abroad. bot: i did field work on atmospheric samples during my phd, at and school in western canada. i forgot about a sample collection one day and wasn't really dressed for the weather, which was brutally cold and windy. and it wasn't just a quick sample swap, we were calibrating everything that day. i vaguely remember my pi dragging me to the vehicle after i fell and didn't get up. it was about a 45 minute drive and i was only barely coherent by the time we got back to the lab. i've lived with cold winters and outdoor work my entire life to that point, and had never even been close to that happening.

user: is academia so competitive now that it's pointless to try if you aren't exceptional/remarkable? people will suggest to major in engineering instead of physics or mathematics due to academia being so extremely competitive. has it reached a point to where if you're not, say, winning math olympiads during secondary school, you should probably not bother with a mathematics degree & academia, and instead default to engineering & industry instead? i'm wondering how the landscape looks for any and all fields right now, but especially stem. do you need to be effectively the #1 best applicant out of 300-3,000 applicants to recieve an offer? do you actually need 1-3 post-doctoral positions to have a chance? is all of that just hyperbole from bitter people? it reminds me of how some children in europe begin training at 5 years old in these expensive soccer camps, so that they can have a chance of being on a team when they grow up. is that what it's like now? are you competing with people like that? bot: i don't think being exceptional/remarkable is as noteworthy as people make it out to be. plenty of geniuses can't get a job. plenty of them quit before they evem graduate being average and knowing how to play the game (publishing, schmoozing with faculty, getting into tje right subfield, etc) is more important. work ethic is more important etc

user: is academia so competitive now that it's pointless to try if you aren't exceptional/remarkable? people will suggest to major in engineering instead of physics or mathematics due to academia being so extremely competitive. has it reached a point to where if you're not, say, winning math olympiads during secondary school, you should probably not bother with a mathematics degree & academia, and instead default to engineering & industry instead? i'm wondering how the landscape looks for any and all fields right now, but especially stem. do you need to be effectively the #1 best applicant out of 300-3,000 applicants to recieve an offer? do you actually need 1-3 post-doctoral positions to have a chance? is all of that just hyperbole from bitter people? it reminds me of how some children in europe begin training at 5 years old in these expensive soccer camps, so that they can have a chance of being on a team when they grow up. is that what it's like now? are you competing with people like that? bot: the top will always be competitive, no matter what field. i also suggest getting off the internet and talking to some people who are doing what you want to be doing, and also those who are on the path but maybe not yet as far (ie not tenured but are in the grad program/postdoc/getting the experiences you want to have or feel you need to have). the internet (and esp. reddit) is incredibly negative. i'm also kind of inclined to believe the people who are getting the jobs are not the ones freaking out about it on reddit/twitter/etc, so take that with a grain of salt. (and fwiw i am not in stem but i pay attention)

user: is academia so competitive now that it's pointless to try if you aren't exceptional/remarkable? people will suggest to major in engineering instead of physics or mathematics due to academia being so extremely competitive. has it reached a point to where if you're not, say, winning math olympiads during secondary school, you should probably not bother with a mathematics degree & academia, and instead default to engineering & industry instead? i'm wondering how the landscape looks for any and all fields right now, but especially stem. do you need to be effectively the #1 best applicant out of 300-3,000 applicants to recieve an offer? do you actually need 1-3 post-doctoral positions to have a chance? is all of that just hyperbole from bitter people? it reminds me of how some children in europe begin training at 5 years old in these expensive soccer camps, so that they can have a chance of being on a team when they grow up. is that what it's like now? are you competing with people like that? bot: i don't think being exceptional/remarkable is as noteworthy as people make it out to be. plenty of geniuses can't get a job. plenty of them quit before they evem graduate being average and knowing how to play the game (publishing, schmoozing with faculty, getting into tje right subfield, etc) is more important. work ethic is more important etc

user: is academia so competitive now that it's pointless to try if you aren't exceptional/remarkable? people will suggest to major in engineering instead of physics or mathematics due to academia being so extremely competitive. has it reached a point to where if you're not, say, winning math olympiads during secondary school, you should probably not bother with a mathematics degree & academia, and instead default to engineering & industry instead? i'm wondering how the landscape looks for any and all fields right now, but especially stem. do you need to be effectively the #1 best applicant out of 300-3,000 applicants to recieve an offer? do you actually need 1-3 post-doctoral positions to have a chance? is all of that just hyperbole from bitter people? it reminds me of how some children in europe begin training at 5 years old in these expensive soccer camps, so that they can have a chance of being on a team when they grow up. is that what it's like now? are you competing with people like that? bot: the top echelon of academia (regardless of the field) will always be competitive. it is up to you to decide if you're ok with a top 10 or a top 50 university. the right question to ask is, "are there enough jobs (both academia and industry) after a (insert major) degree". you could always end up in (say) finance with a math degree. it's just a question of identifying non-traditional career paths.

user: is academia so competitive now that it's pointless to try if you aren't exceptional/remarkable? people will suggest to major in engineering instead of physics or mathematics due to academia being so extremely competitive. has it reached a point to where if you're not, say, winning math olympiads during secondary school, you should probably not bother with a mathematics degree & academia, and instead default to engineering & industry instead? i'm wondering how the landscape looks for any and all fields right now, but especially stem. do you need to be effectively the #1 best applicant out of 300-3,000 applicants to recieve an offer? do you actually need 1-3 post-doctoral positions to have a chance? is all of that just hyperbole from bitter people? it reminds me of how some children in europe begin training at 5 years old in these expensive soccer camps, so that they can have a chance of being on a team when they grow up. is that what it's like now? are you competing with people like that? bot: i don't think being exceptional/remarkable is as noteworthy as people make it out to be. plenty of geniuses can't get a job. plenty of them quit before they evem graduate being average and knowing how to play the game (publishing, schmoozing with faculty, getting into tje right subfield, etc) is more important. work ethic is more important etc

user: is academia so competitive now that it's pointless to try if you aren't exceptional/remarkable? people will suggest to major in engineering instead of physics or mathematics due to academia being so extremely competitive. has it reached a point to where if you're not, say, winning math olympiads during secondary school, you should probably not bother with a mathematics degree & academia, and instead default to engineering & industry instead? i'm wondering how the landscape looks for any and all fields right now, but especially stem. do you need to be effectively the #1 best applicant out of 300-3,000 applicants to recieve an offer? do you actually need 1-3 post-doctoral positions to have a chance? is all of that just hyperbole from bitter people? it reminds me of how some children in europe begin training at 5 years old in these expensive soccer camps, so that they can have a chance of being on a team when they grow up. is that what it's like now? are you competing with people like that? bot: my perspective as a fairly new (pre-tenure) ee faculty at a non-r1. 1) yes, you need post docs unless you're an exceptional applicant in a few select fields (ee, cs). for something like physics or biology, the typical successful applicant will have 2 post docs from very reputable labs. i don't know the details for straight math faculty. 2) yes, you need to be the best out of a large pool of applicants. in ee, the pool size seems to be about 200. my schools psych and philosophy departments also had about 200 applicants for their searches this year (physics wasn't hiring). however, being the most qualified doesn't just mean highest research output or smartest, it also entails being a good fit both in personality and specific subfield. 3) math olympiads have nothing to do with research success. most of our faculty were near the top of their class, but very few were engaged in anything competitive. really, hiring committees will care very little about undergraduate activity and not at all about anything pre-university. personally, i'm in ee/bme and i'm not especially good at math. i'm technically competent, but squeaked by in my advanced math courses. i am, however, very good at communicating my ideas, managing projects, and making people feel comfortable and confident. being smart is less important than working hard and understanding "the game" of academia. 4) many faculty candidates have been aiming for a faculty position since undergrad. very few really started that path before then. i started targeting a faculty position my 2nd year of undergrad, got my name on a publication that same year and published at least once per year after that. i taught, took a pedagogy course, wrote and won grants, took r&d heavy internships, and built a substantial network of academic collaborations. my faculty job hunt was fairly easy: 3 offers from ~20 applications (i think, it could have been as few as 14 applications). physics and math will likely be a more difficult hunt no matter what, especially if you want to be at a research intensive university.

user: is academia so competitive now that it's pointless to try if you aren't exceptional/remarkable? people will suggest to major in engineering instead of physics or mathematics due to academia being so extremely competitive. has it reached a point to where if you're not, say, winning math olympiads during secondary school, you should probably not bother with a mathematics degree & academia, and instead default to engineering & industry instead? i'm wondering how the landscape looks for any and all fields right now, but especially stem. do you need to be effectively the #1 best applicant out of 300-3,000 applicants to recieve an offer? do you actually need 1-3 post-doctoral positions to have a chance? is all of that just hyperbole from bitter people? it reminds me of how some children in europe begin training at 5 years old in these expensive soccer camps, so that they can have a chance of being on a team when they grow up. is that what it's like now? are you competing with people like that? bot: i'm not sure i can speak about math here. but as a professor in a social science, i can say with 100% certainty: if you are interested in going into academia in the humanities or social sciences, you absolutely ***must*** be exceptional and even being exceptional is no guarantee of success.

user: is academia so competitive now that it's pointless to try if you aren't exceptional/remarkable? people will suggest to major in engineering instead of physics or mathematics due to academia being so extremely competitive. has it reached a point to where if you're not, say, winning math olympiads during secondary school, you should probably not bother with a mathematics degree & academia, and instead default to engineering & industry instead? i'm wondering how the landscape looks for any and all fields right now, but especially stem. do you need to be effectively the #1 best applicant out of 300-3,000 applicants to recieve an offer? do you actually need 1-3 post-doctoral positions to have a chance? is all of that just hyperbole from bitter people? it reminds me of how some children in europe begin training at 5 years old in these expensive soccer camps, so that they can have a chance of being on a team when they grow up. is that what it's like now? are you competing with people like that? bot: yes imo

user: is academia so competitive now that it's pointless to try if you aren't exceptional/remarkable? people will suggest to major in engineering instead of physics or mathematics due to academia being so extremely competitive. has it reached a point to where if you're not, say, winning math olympiads during secondary school, you should probably not bother with a mathematics degree & academia, and instead default to engineering & industry instead? i'm wondering how the landscape looks for any and all fields right now, but especially stem. do you need to be effectively the #1 best applicant out of 300-3,000 applicants to recieve an offer? do you actually need 1-3 post-doctoral positions to have a chance? is all of that just hyperbole from bitter people? it reminds me of how some children in europe begin training at 5 years old in these expensive soccer camps, so that they can have a chance of being on a team when they grow up. is that what it's like now? are you competing with people like that? bot: it depends so much on your discipline. i’m an english professor and, despite what most people think, the job prospects for the field in academia are pretty good - assuming you get your degree in rhetoric and composition. the prospects for literature and creative writing are soul crushingly bad. anecdotally i don’t know a single creative writing grad who got a full time gig except those who went on to get phds in rhet/comp (and that includes me) while, with one exception, the only lit phds i know who got full time jobs all got hired at community colleges (and the exception is working at a small liberal arts college). meanwhile, i’m considered a failure by many of my old colleagues in rhet/comp because i didn’t get a tenure track job at a research university (they’re all assholes though. i’m perfectly happy in my job).

user: is academia so competitive now that it's pointless to try if you aren't exceptional/remarkable? people will suggest to major in engineering instead of physics or mathematics due to academia being so extremely competitive. has it reached a point to where if you're not, say, winning math olympiads during secondary school, you should probably not bother with a mathematics degree & academia, and instead default to engineering & industry instead? i'm wondering how the landscape looks for any and all fields right now, but especially stem. do you need to be effectively the #1 best applicant out of 300-3,000 applicants to recieve an offer? do you actually need 1-3 post-doctoral positions to have a chance? is all of that just hyperbole from bitter people? it reminds me of how some children in europe begin training at 5 years old in these expensive soccer camps, so that they can have a chance of being on a team when they grow up. is that what it's like now? are you competing with people like that? bot: do you know what works in academia? the ability to publish , which is much more about your ability to write steadily every day than anything.

user: is academia so competitive now that it's pointless to try if you aren't exceptional/remarkable? people will suggest to major in engineering instead of physics or mathematics due to academia being so extremely competitive. has it reached a point to where if you're not, say, winning math olympiads during secondary school, you should probably not bother with a mathematics degree & academia, and instead default to engineering & industry instead? i'm wondering how the landscape looks for any and all fields right now, but especially stem. do you need to be effectively the #1 best applicant out of 300-3,000 applicants to recieve an offer? do you actually need 1-3 post-doctoral positions to have a chance? is all of that just hyperbole from bitter people? it reminds me of how some children in europe begin training at 5 years old in these expensive soccer camps, so that they can have a chance of being on a team when they grow up. is that what it's like now? are you competing with people like that? bot: it depends so much on your discipline. i’m an english professor and, despite what most people think, the job prospects for the field in academia are pretty good - assuming you get your degree in rhetoric and composition. the prospects for literature and creative writing are soul crushingly bad. anecdotally i don’t know a single creative writing grad who got a full time gig except those who went on to get phds in rhet/comp (and that includes me) while, with one exception, the only lit phds i know who got full time jobs all got hired at community colleges (and the exception is working at a small liberal arts college). meanwhile, i’m considered a failure by many of my old colleagues in rhet/comp because i didn’t get a tenure track job at a research university (they’re all assholes though. i’m perfectly happy in my job).

user: is academia so competitive now that it's pointless to try if you aren't exceptional/remarkable? people will suggest to major in engineering instead of physics or mathematics due to academia being so extremely competitive. has it reached a point to where if you're not, say, winning math olympiads during secondary school, you should probably not bother with a mathematics degree & academia, and instead default to engineering & industry instead? i'm wondering how the landscape looks for any and all fields right now, but especially stem. do you need to be effectively the #1 best applicant out of 300-3,000 applicants to recieve an offer? do you actually need 1-3 post-doctoral positions to have a chance? is all of that just hyperbole from bitter people? it reminds me of how some children in europe begin training at 5 years old in these expensive soccer camps, so that they can have a chance of being on a team when they grow up. is that what it's like now? are you competing with people like that? bot: yes imo

user: is academia so competitive now that it's pointless to try if you aren't exceptional/remarkable? people will suggest to major in engineering instead of physics or mathematics due to academia being so extremely competitive. has it reached a point to where if you're not, say, winning math olympiads during secondary school, you should probably not bother with a mathematics degree & academia, and instead default to engineering & industry instead? i'm wondering how the landscape looks for any and all fields right now, but especially stem. do you need to be effectively the #1 best applicant out of 300-3,000 applicants to recieve an offer? do you actually need 1-3 post-doctoral positions to have a chance? is all of that just hyperbole from bitter people? it reminds me of how some children in europe begin training at 5 years old in these expensive soccer camps, so that they can have a chance of being on a team when they grow up. is that what it's like now? are you competing with people like that? bot: \>do you need to be effectively the #1 best applicant out of 300-3,000 applicants to recieve an offer? r1 craziness aside, in my (now quite long) experience on search committees at puis pretty much anyone in the top 20 of a 200+ person field could do the job. certainly all of the short-listed candidates in a typical search call it the top half-dozen) are more than qualified on the basis of research, so at institutions like mine it's teaching skill and "fit" that makes the difference. while it's possible to prepare to be more competitive as an instructor, fit is so elusive a quality that it's impossible to describe and can seem quite capricious. there's no way to know how a given individual will interact with all the members of a search committee, a department, and the dean(s) during an interview, but quite often the debates in the final step come down to how the candidates will fit with the department, its mission, and its projected future needs. so no, you don't have to be #1 on any meaningful scale. being in the top 10% if often enough to get your file carefully considered and perhaps will get you a zoom interview. but you have to knock that out of the park *and* be a near-perfect match to the position (both the advertised part and the internal, unpublished requisites) to get an on-campus interview. from there it's usually a matter of not fucking up and fit. still, a 1-in-200+ shot at a given job isn't very good odds. honestly, i've often seen people who are *amazing* on paper who don't even make the short list in a search-- if something about how they interview, their attitudes, their references, their teaching reviews, etc. turns off even a couple of members of the search committee that's it, since they are looking for reasons to cut people from the pool. for example, i've seen what looked like really good candidates dropped after zoom/skype interviews when they haven't asked good questions back to the committee-- taken as evidence that they hadn't done their research on the institution so weren't really serious about the job.

user: is academia so competitive now that it's pointless to try if you aren't exceptional/remarkable? people will suggest to major in engineering instead of physics or mathematics due to academia being so extremely competitive. has it reached a point to where if you're not, say, winning math olympiads during secondary school, you should probably not bother with a mathematics degree & academia, and instead default to engineering & industry instead? i'm wondering how the landscape looks for any and all fields right now, but especially stem. do you need to be effectively the #1 best applicant out of 300-3,000 applicants to recieve an offer? do you actually need 1-3 post-doctoral positions to have a chance? is all of that just hyperbole from bitter people? it reminds me of how some children in europe begin training at 5 years old in these expensive soccer camps, so that they can have a chance of being on a team when they grow up. is that what it's like now? are you competing with people like that? bot: yes imo