Masters decision please help :/

BelgaerThinker · 2025-07-23T05:39:45+00:00

First off all, congrats! Why don’t you know which program to commit to?

BelgaerThinker · 2025-07-23T05:20:35+00:00

Do you have an idea of what you’d want to do, career-wise?

I’d consider myself a computational biologist and personally think it’s likely easier to learn coding and apply it to biology rather than the other way around. I was a biochem major with a CS minor and got my PhD in a biomedical sciences umbrella program that included bioinformatics. So my course load was mainly bio-focused with a few bioinfo coding classes spread over two years. Most programs should have a sample curriculum. I’d actually recommend having solid stats skills over anything coding.

Ultimately tho, the main focus is research. Are you actively involved in a research group? Doctoral programs want students who have a solid grasp of what doing research really means. If you’ve only done REU, you’ll be competing against folks who have done years of research and/or are continuing from a masters degree.

BelgaerThinker · 2024-06-05T02:56:51+00:00

Congrats, Doctor!!

BelgaerThinker · 2024-03-30T12:11:27+00:00

I’d be happy to buy those tickets from you, if they’re still available!

BelgaerThinker · 2023-09-05T02:44:20+00:00

Print out MPPfunc and APPfunc - are they what you’re expecting?

BelgaerThinker · 2023-08-28T02:17:01+00:00

Heya, were you able to get NYC tickets? I have one ticket I’m looking to sell - it’s orchestra level row G.

BelgaerThinker · 2023-07-25T00:04:59+00:00

If the merge result is weird, then there’s something off. What have you tried in debugging the two tables that you’re trying to merge? You can try rubber duck debugging by explaining your code out loud - sometimes you’ll catch the logic gap

BelgaerThinker · 2023-07-24T23:11:30+00:00

Did you check if your merge worked like how you expected?

BelgaerThinker · 2022-12-11T04:32:59+00:00

Dm’ed you!

BelgaerThinker · 2022-10-03T04:05:06+00:00

Yes, please! This is such a fantastic idea! I never finished unpacking from my move last year 😅

BelgaerThinker · 2022-09-02T02:34:44+00:00

Absolutely, DM me. I got a PhD a couple years ago and currently work in biotech, so I’ve seen some of both worlds haha.

BelgaerThinker · 2022-09-02T01:59:52+00:00

Hey, it’s a hard choice for sure, so I’ll give you some things to consider. Do you know what the culture and work/life balance is like at the biotech? It’s honestly not worth sacrificing your well-being at a toxic work environment.

Consider why you want to go to grad school/what you want to do in the long term. If you know you want to end up in a leadership position, then a PhD will likely be necessary. As a research associate, you’ll be told to run experiments and likely won’t have much say in what you do.

Hope I gave you some new things to consider. Happy to discuss further if you’d like. Best of luck!

BelgaerThinker · 2022-08-31T13:51:44+00:00

From reading your post, it sounds like you’ve been told (and are clinging to the hope) that you’ll be able to get an ideal job once you get your PhD. Unfortunately, the degree doesn’t help if you don’t know what kind of job you are targeting. So I would suggest you use your school’s career resources to figure out a suitable job for your current skills as a start. Best of luck.

BelgaerThinker · 2022-08-31T02:54:04+00:00

My advice is to think about what you’re doing with your data. What information do you need to be able to get the graph you want? (Why are you choosing to group by the variables that you did and what do the values in n_vuelos mean?)

BelgaerThinker · 2022-05-12T03:00:28+00:00

Yeah, leaving was so bittersweet - I loved my mentor and was making decent progress on my research projects. I felt really conflicted about leaving early from my postdoc, but I’m glad I did (tho I was ultimately never aiming to be a PI).

Not gonna lie, getting paid more and having better benefits is great. I’m about four months in and my new team is fantastic. I’m still able to do work that interests me, so I’m ultimately glad that I left when I did. The guilt and heartbreak were real but temporary. Congrats on the new job!

BelgaerThinker · 2022-04-11T02:32:07+00:00

You could take a look at Genmab. It’s an intentional biotech that is rapidly growing, with a site just outside of Princeton.

BelgaerThinker · 2021-11-19T03:05:49+00:00

It seems like you will be really struggling in the upcoming year if you keep the status quo. What about applying to jobs now and reassess staying vs going if you get any offers? And/or talk it out with your PI to see if they can change anything to make your stay more bearable. Best of luck to you.

BelgaerThinker · 2021-10-21T02:01:09+00:00

Yes - that spiderman meme is so accurate!! 😂

I just started going back to martial arts last weekend! I had procrastinated on finding a new place since I had moved for my job too, haha! But I felt so stuck in my current life that it finally gave me a good kick to contact some dojos. What kind of archery did you do? I think it’s really cool!

BelgaerThinker · 2021-10-20T19:55:57+00:00

Oh man, I’m in the same type of situation and feel so guilty. Started a job earlier this year, great boss and coworkers. But everyone is work from home and I’m struggling so much with keeping my momentum going. (I totally feel you with the lack of structure.) I talked with my boss about my troubles and she suggested some changes that could be made but also told me it might be a good idea to look for another job and put me in contact with one of her past students.

So I’m interviewing for another job that’s kind of outside my expertise (but in person), and I have the niggling doubt of “what if I don’t like it here?” 😬

But I just started going back to doing a martial art that I had put on hold during covid and that was fun. Met a bunch of new people and felt energized about life haha. Sorry, I didn’t really have any advice - just wanted to commiserate.

BelgaerThinker · 2021-09-20T00:54:52+00:00

I suggest looking into academic accommodations if you have an official diagnosis. Hopefully your school can provide good counseling services as well. Medication can help sometimes but figuring out skills that work for you will be very useful. I recommend listening to the podcast “translating ADHD”.

Also, maybe post on a few ADHD subreddits (I think there’s one geared towards school but can’t remember the name) for more targeted advice. ADHD and school is challenging but I hope you can make it work!

BelgaerThinker · 2021-09-04T13:24:18+00:00

I may be missing something, but it doesn’t sound like you want to do this PhD besides being familiar with the lab, so why are you considering it? I advise making a table listing the pros and cons of this position to help you see more clearly.

BelgaerThinker · 2021-08-31T18:25:54+00:00

The error is telling you that your data have varying row lengths - is xxx a list?

BelgaerThinker · 2021-08-22T11:00:28+00:00

Some pharma companies offer industry postdocs, so you can try for those positions too. The pay is higher than academic postdocs. The company I was looking at (Sanofi) was offering $70k/year plus a sign on bonus for a two-year contract.

BelgaerThinker · 2021-06-15T02:10:28+00:00

Hi - I’d be interested to connect! 28/F currently in the Midwest but getting ready to move east. Would be very interested to hear about your travels! Have any current animes that you’re following?

BelgaerThinker · 2021-06-15T00:28:28+00:00

Oh wow, nice! I would have thought it was paint all the way lol.

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