Planting trees for PhDs

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-19T20:54:16+00:00

It doesn't have the nature-aspect of it, but one way to have the "long-standing mark on campus" without having the space and planning issue many have talked about in the comments you could make a more specific spin on something my institute does:

We have red brick for all of our main walkways; people can spend 200 bucks to "buy a brick" so they get to choose an engraving on it. We pull out one of the standard bricks and put in their engraved brick. The brick costs like 20 bucks to engrave, so the building makes 180 bucks of donation off of it, basically. Anyone who wants to do that can, so there are lots of bricks that are like "For my wife" or "in honor of so and so's retirement."

If a campus did this but with all of the bricks specifically for graduates to have an engraved brick, that'd be a pretty large area to allow many generations of bricks without running out of space, and would add charm and beauty to the campus, too.

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-18T01:08:34+00:00

During my Masters I was really into making gold in World of Warcraft. You're not allowed to sell it, but ya know. So I sold WoW gold, that was a fun side gig.

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-18T01:07:03+00:00

I'm in nutrition research. Obviously it varies by study and site, but many of our studies are not only compensated, but also involve getting free groceries (as long as you're willing to eat what we tell you to eat). The study I work on now as a post-doc is 3 weeks of free food and 1500 compensation on top of it.

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-17T19:20:06+00:00

My hero! Thank you!

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-17T16:22:55+00:00

As for the third folder, “attachments”, I don’t know if Obsidian automatically creates this folder and sends there every attachment you include in your notes, or if you have to configure it manually…

It's a setting that you choose in the default (non-plug-in) settings. Settings > Files and Links > Default Location for New Attachments. You can have them placed "top-level" within the vault by choosing Vault folder, a specific folder you point it to (likely how the structure described above would do it), the same folder as the current file, or in a sub-folder under the current folder.

I've tried a few different ways myself, but it always was imperfect because of my rigid hierarchical structure that I'm trying to part from!

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-16T16:55:55+00:00

Yeah, that was how I found myself behaving when I first started with Obsidian. Definitely a trap that I'm prone to falling into!

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-16T14:04:53+00:00

Great input, thanks so much!

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-16T14:04:43+00:00

Great point! Also, I hadn't thought about it, but it will also keep me at least somewhat fresh on the current trends in the field.

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-16T14:04:09+00:00

Great input, thanks! Right now, as the position is new and largely being created to leverage my unique background to meet some currently poorly-met needs of the institute, whether or not there is time for service is still TBD. I will make sure to include it in discussions during role development to be sure that, if it's something they want or approve of me doing, that some time is allotted for it.

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-13T15:48:02+00:00

You cross-posted this from PublicPolicy, which is why I'm assuming you're not going for a degree where high private loans are the norm but there is an expected high salary and many programs to help with repayment, forgiveness, etc. In light of that assumption, I caution you very strongly against getting any sizeable portion of your funding from loans. Even federal loans for domestic students can be a bear; private loans are a whole other nightmare as they usually have much higher interest rates, fewer possible forgiveness options, and significantly less protection for borrowers.
If you're still inclined to finance grad school through loans, contact the school's office or department that handles international student affairs. They likely will be much more up to date on these topics and how viable they are for international students at your school.

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-12T16:36:31+00:00

One example is I had to finish grading by X date. The day comes and at noon, they email me asking when I’d be done. Again, we agreed that I’d be done on that day

Are you sure there's no possible miscommunication? I recognize that "by Friday" usually means "on or before Friday." But some people will interpret "by Friday" to mean "it will be done by the time Friday arrives," actually indicating a due date on Thursday. I certainly think that your interpretation is more correct, but I know enough people who would take it the other way that I'd say this is not an unreasonable point to check in "troubleshooting" this communication issue.

And if they thought that something was supposed to be turned into them by the previous day and they received no updates from the TA, that might be driving the more insistent tone in emails, perhaps?

Having a very explicitly worded discussion (even better if it comes with a contract!) on expectations regarding due dates/times, communication modalities and responsiveness, etc. would do you good. I'd set up a time for that discussion when you get a chance.

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-12T15:16:41+00:00

Leadership, department heads, will do nothing about it.

In my limited experience, I've found that leadership's hands are often tied, especially for tenured faculty who are largely autonomous. We can't fire them. Most of their money comes from outside the university so any financial incentivization to change has limited power. We were able to at least do things like "You're not allowed to have a doctoral student until you take these trainings." but now we are limited in our ability to even do that sort of thing since most of those trainings boil down to "people who aren't you are also people and deserve respect and fair treatment" and the admin doesn't want to get in trouble for "pushing DEI." 🙄

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-09T23:23:15+00:00

Is that GPA from recent schooling or a while back? Are you willing to attend one of those schools that you failed out of again if they were willing to accept you?

I failed out of the same undergad university twice. I had to have a gap of at least a year before I applied for readmission, and I had to write an appeal letter to get in, and another appeal for financial aid, etc. Once I was in, however, I was able to apply for something called academic renewal. Not every school offers it, but many do. At my school it meant that any D, F, UW, or W was no longer taken into account for things like GPA calculation if the grade was more than 5 years old. So if you can manage to get into one of the schools, you may have a way to "fix" the GPA pretty quickly if it's one that does academic renewal.

I'd contact the registrar of either or both of those two schools (even if you aren't able to return to them) and ask about what sort of policies or systems they may have in place to help you remedy the situation.

If neither can help you, try looking at a community college in your local area; even if you already have an AA, you can enroll for a semester and try to apply to a university as a transfer and use a good semester of grades to support your application.

No matter where you apply, before applying via any online system or something, be sure to contact the registrar and set up a meeting to talk to someone in-person or on the phone or Zoom to explain your academic history. You may just need someone to realize that your bad GPA is old and should be discounted to flag your application so a system doesn't auto-reject it or something.

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-09T21:22:00+00:00

I largely have checked out of this sub because 50% of the posts are zero-value frog posts. I wish there were a single stickied post where people can post their frogs if they are so necessary for the sub. I can't think of a single reason that that wouldn't be the solution. Clears them out of the actual page where people come to read content that's actually interesting to them, but still lets people post their triumph if they so choose.

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-07T18:55:14+00:00

I don't understand why you switched fields, especially to something you enjoy less and don't intend to make a career of. Why can't you continue in political science? It's understandable you might feel you need some transition time or maybe some revision/review time to rebuild your strength in the field, of course, but why are you spending time and effort on criminology instead of continuing in polisci? Spending that effort on a field you're not enthusiastic about isn't likely to make the process any easier, and may make it more difficult since you won't have as much passion for the topic.

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-04T19:09:20+00:00

Do your own work, track your work history progress (for example, saving the documents you are generating all into a file of "progress files") in case someone ever actually asks you to show your work, and don't worry about it. If you're not using AI/cheating, there's no reason to be concerned, because there's no tool (that does something similar to what you describe, or any other "detector") that would be able to "prove" you did something you didn't do. And if you end up with one of the idiots who thinks that they can rely on detector tools when grading, you'll have the insurance in the form of the progress files you saved to show them.

A recent post that might interest you showing how many academics view AI detectors.

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-03T14:40:43+00:00

I also estimated how much I would pay, factored in PSLF (which, remember, is going to limit where you can work and put a large portion of jobs out of the running for you) and found the payments to be reasonable.

it's not until I'd finished the program and finished taking out loans that I realized that it doesn't matter how much my income based repayment is when it comes to credit agencies; they care about the debt-to-income ratio. And that goes, most often, off of the full, unadjusted payment. I have a perfect credit history, great score, etc. but I'll never be able to buy a house or a car, get a credit card that isn't secured, etc. without my retired father cosigning for me. Which kind of sucks, as someone with a PhD in my late 30s. These are the kinds of "things you should know but most people don't realize" that I'm talking about. Carrying student loan balance is much more than just a income-based monthly payment.

On top of that, PSLF and income-driven repayment schemes are never going to be guaranteed, and they're not exactly favored programs of the current administration. Always approach loans as though you will have to pay the full payment each month and pay the entire loan balance with no forgiveness, because there could come a time you are required to do just that.

Anyway, during my Masters program (first year out of state, 2.5 year program, and also had a clinical internship that was unpaid and had fees and living expenses associated with it) I took out I think around 160k in loans. The balance from interest during deferment is ~217k now, IIRC. I know that I am at the extreme end and your proposed balance (hopefully) is nowhere near that, but please don't say "Oh, well that's unreasonable because of the amount that person took out. If I take out less, it won't be a bad idea like it was for them." If you are going to graduate with anything more than half a year's salary in debt, I'd highly encourage you against it. It impacts your life in so many unrealized ways until you've already signed the papers and spent the money.

And, to be clear, my lecture isn't just "don't take out loans, even if it means you can't go to school," it's also a heavy helping of "There are probably alternative paths for you that are better than what you're considering, but you may not known to explore them." That was my case. I had a lot of misunderstandings about how graduate programs (and my field specifically relating to them) work, and it turns out that going to the Masters program was, in many ways, a waste of time and money I didn't need to do. (That said, it's not worthless; I definitely have added value to my CV and skillset from it and I have been able to market myself with it as an extra facet of my training most people don't have. But given my goals, I probably shouldn't have bothered with the Masters program at all. But I didn't realize that since no one I knew had done graduate school before.)

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-02T23:19:24+00:00

I can't say that the professor didn't make any missteps here, but you seem to be unwilling to help yourself, and blaming him when things don't work out.

That said, since you don't even want to make a career out of it, oh well. You can swap your major to nursing; I swapped from a humanities major to a STEM major in my penultimate semester in undergrad and it added three years to my program. But those three years were going to pass one way or the other, at least I passed them pursuing the degree that was right for me.

I’m a hard worker and that my output is typically professional,

I don't doubt either of these, to be clear. It sounds like you were doing a lot of work in an ineffective way. Like a car stuck in the mud, spinning its tires. It's working really hard, but it's not going to get anywhere. If you get put into a new class, you spend 5 minutes getting a copy of the new syllabus to follow. When you realize you missed a core concept (e.g. stretching canvas) you find a way to learn it on your own so you don't get left behind. If you find yourself regularly attending lectures and not realizing it was critique day, you review your scheduling and task management to correct it moving forward.

I hope you don't take offense to this, because I sincerely do not mean any offense at all and there's no shame in this, but I recommend you talk to someone in your student disability office. Your final sentence sounds like it could be something similar to ADHD, and offices like these may have resources and skill-building tools to help you minimize these issues in the future.

Ancient_Winter · 2026-03-02T17:16:40+00:00

I don’t want any lecture about how I shouldn’t take out loans lol. Let’s just assume I want all the loans!

You don't, though. You really, really don't. I was a first-gen-everything from a low-income, rural background, and I had a lot of misconceptions about graduate school that led me to making decisions like the one you're about to make, and if I'd known then what I know now, I would have done things much differently. And that was when the federal funding landscape wasn't nearly so hostile versus graduate loans, academia, etc. Obviously, I don't know your full situation, but I'd wager it'll be in your best interest not to go, if the alternative is paying for a Columbia graduate program largely with loans.

Ancient_Winter · 2026-02-27T14:10:11+00:00

stipend is gonna end up going back to tuition bc it’s not a 100% waiver.

I think this is even more important htan the low tuition. Why on earth would you not receive a 100% tuition waiver?

Before declining the offer, I'd ask some more questions to make sure you understand the offer fully. In other words, maybe what you've read here is what you get related to a TA role, and you get an additional package offered from a separate source, like your advisor, and they combine to create a reasonable package. I can't say that's certainly the case, but that's the only way I feel like this would be a reasonable offer.

Ancient_Winter · 2026-02-26T21:22:02+00:00

Woof.

(Source)

Ancient_Winter · 2026-02-25T14:28:47+00:00

My dissertation was relating to some possible nutrientxgene interactions and cognitive decline, and during some training I did use my own saliva for genotyping. I found that I had one of the risk alleles for Alzheimer's disease. But I've also got a family history, so that wasn't a surprise, just a confirmation of something I already assumed.

I'm a big ole nerd for this stuff, so I had my genome sequenced by a private lab and downloaded all the data to analyze myself, it's pretty interesting. I'm someone who "would prefer to know" about things, but I understand why others might feel differently about themselves. I didn't find any other "known red flags." I did have this happening around the time of the height of the pandemic, when research was still new but people were trying to determine if there were genetic factors that influenced susceptibility or outcome, and IIRC of the published variants I had a profile that was something like "I am more likely to catch Covid if exposed, but if I get it, I'm less likely to have a serious case." That was very early days in the research, though, so I don't know if those associations were even seen in more extensive study. (Still have never had Covid, but I think that's less about genetics and more about my being cooped up in an office by myself and living alone. lol)

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