New answers tagged academic-life
2
Your proposed email text sounds a little pushy because you are sending this to someone whom you do not know personally.
My suggestion:
"Dear Prof. Bob, I hope this email finds you well. I'm following up to make sure that the previous email does not get buried, as I imagine you must be quite busy during this period. I would be very grateful if you could ...
2
First of all, I wish nothing but for you to get back in shape as soon as possible.
I will try to give an answer that is more general, so as to be useful to other people dealing with anxiety or other mental health issues.
(1) You are experiencing FOMO as well as impostor syndrome. Many people across the world are facing the same challenges as you, especially ...
8
As others have said, practices vary considerably. A couple of factors may be at play when academia doesn't pay relocation costs:
Salaries for grad students and postdocs are often derived from grant funding. Typically, funding organisations impose detailed rules about what can, and cannot, be paid for using their money. It may not be possible to pay for ...
16
The premise of the question is incorrect. Both industry and academia use a variety of strategies for funding moving expenses. The strategies are largely based on niche economic conditions.
In my experience, moving expenses are provided for many postdoc positions, but my experience is not a random sample. The dollar amount varied greatly.
Positions that ...
0
My two cents : I don't agree with your first premise:
The transition from a PhD position to a postdoctoral position: A postdoc has to work much more independently than a PhD student, and maybe people struggle with this.
My experience of supervision as a PhD student :
First 2 month : 30min / 1h talk with supervisor ~ once every two days during lunch.
...
0
If we leave aside financial reasons and difficulty of finding a job, it's simply difficult because most people aren't that good at doing research.
I have actually thought about this a lot: I'm curious as to why my friend who was a stellar student in his Mathematics degree and got a high First (obviously seems to know a fair amount of mathematics) has really ...
11
I doubt there is a common answer across all disciplines. I'd highlight a few challenging inflection points, whose relative painfulness will vary.
1a. Being genuinely self-driven (work ethic). During a Ph.D., one is meeting frequently with an advisor, who may themselves have deadlines. There is at least annual reporting of progress to stay enrolled (varies a ...
14
In my field (cond-mat physics), there are really two main reasons. First, a lot of people want a job in the industry, and they leave after a PhD. Then, if you want to find a postdoc job, chances are that you'll get it rather soon: there are many open postdoc positions (in Europe, at least) and it is usually a problem to find a candidate to fill it, not vice ...
16
In addition to the point that @AnonymousPhysicist makes that there are far fewer postdocs positions available than there are PhD students, and far few faculty positions available that there are postdocs, there is also the up-or-out mentality: after a certain number of years as a postdoc, many people will start to think you are past it - that if you were any ...
8
The academic career after PhD starts with at least one postdoc position. In order to get a postdoc offer you need to show strong ability and talent to do research (in math it means good letters of recommendation, publications, good PhD granting department, well known and good advisor, etc.). To transition from a postdoc to a tenure track position you need ...
62
Most PhD students will not have academic careers. This is not because the duties of academic careers are "hard." Academic careers do involve hard duties. But so do non-academic careers.
Most PhD students will not have academic careers for economic reasons. There is simply not enough demand to employ more academics. The economic factors have ...
6
There is no action needed or appropriate on your part unless you are part of some official investigation.
You might want to be wary of both parties in the future, however. Especially the email sender. Accusing others with such mail is a form of defamation.
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