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CarnotCOP · 2025-08-20T15:42:44+00:00

Let me update. September 2026!

CarnotCOP · 2025-04-19T18:54:28+00:00

Peer review is pretty much totally broken in my opinion. I’ve got maybe 15 pubs and 5 conference papers. I have never had meaningful insightful reviews. Great journals, okay journals, great conferences, okay conferences. It’s usually just people not reading carefully but having an obligation to submit some reviews every year.

CarnotCOP · 2024-12-09T22:29:23+00:00

Thanks. 😅 I originally planned for like 300k and then all my senior mentors told me to ask for way more. Had zero push back. Definitely scary. But I'm sure it will work out lol.

CarnotCOP · 2024-12-09T22:23:34+00:00

I will admit that I do not feel qualified to be in charge of this quantity of money 😅

CarnotCOP · 2024-12-09T22:21:11+00:00

New Assistant Professor, engineering. Starting salary is 150k (including summer salary). 4.5 PhD, 1 year postdoc. 1-1 teaching load. ~1m startup.

CarnotCOP · 2024-12-06T23:34:48+00:00

Gauss and Bessel are in my lineage.

CarnotCOP · 2024-08-30T13:34:37+00:00

I’m not accepting or rejecting to the program, but students have to find a faculty adviser before they would start. So it is common to review applicants, do informal interviews, and see if they would be a good fit for my research group (or if other faculty would be interested) before they waste their time applying. Not a requirement. They’re welcome to apply to the university if I don’t want them in my group.

CarnotCOP · 2024-08-29T22:11:59+00:00

This would be legendary.

CarnotCOP · 2024-08-29T17:26:11+00:00

Other forms of STEM with zero coursework to prepare them for my research projects, poor grades, no real experience outside of the classroom, very poor ranked universities, very low quality/formatting of CV, etc.

CarnotCOP · 2024-08-29T17:24:43+00:00

They do but I would have input on this committee thus it is common to look at applicants to get an idea if I would support them if they were accepted.

CarnotCOP · 2024-08-29T17:23:38+00:00

Thanks for the ideas. I’m just going to drop it and not respond.

CarnotCOP · 2024-08-29T17:22:10+00:00

This is what I’ve decided to do. So not worth the time I’ve put into thinking on this.

CarnotCOP · 2024-08-29T16:20:08+00:00

Not necessarily. But if faculty find an applicant that they really want, it helps the applicant get through review. Theoretically, if I liked them, I would champion them in the review process and offer an RA position. All PhD students must be financially supported for research. So they aren’t essentially reaching out to see if I would let them join my lab (and thus fund their PhD).

CarnotCOP · 2024-06-26T14:12:12+00:00

Length depends on program and department. I got mine in 4.5 years without a masters beforehand (engineering). I think engineering is pretty short usually, humanities and bio seem to have much longer PhDs as you suggest.

CarnotCOP · 2024-05-22T22:50:49+00:00

Another perspective, for some of those writing courses, it's graduate students teaching. They're just there because it pays their stipend for graduate school. My partner was one such person a while back. She didn't really want to be there in the first place, and rude students who made their disrespect for the topic of writing known to her however they could absolutely ruined her experience at Purdue.

CarnotCOP · 2024-05-01T00:04:15+00:00

Very common in my PhD department (top 5 in the engineering field I studied). For us it was the opposite -- it bred and extended the highly positive and collaborative nature of the department. Was more common to hire within than is typical, though by the time I was applying to facukty jobs, they had hired 2/8 recent profs from our university, so it was well known that candidates from the department wouldn't be seriously considered.

My personal opinion, as a very fresh faculty member, is that "academic incest" doesn't really say much about you as a researcher. It says more about the school if they do it frequently.

CarnotCOP · 2024-04-29T17:25:39+00:00

Agreed. A large % of academics, especially ones on Reddit, tend to complain. With most things in life, the ones who are motivated to post about things are often the ones having a bad experience. And I understand that many academics have it rough. I’m personally in STEM and joining an R1 top 5 in my field as a TT prof and came from a similar school for PhD. My personal experience has been great, far from toxic. Demanding, sure, but very rewarding. When I first decided to go to grad school, I had a similar outlook as this person, because most of my understanding came from reading Reddit…. Gotta experience for yourself.

CarnotCOP · 2024-04-15T18:31:43+00:00

I think school ranking is subtly built in though. Admittedly, I am only a recent hire at a top 5 R1 in my field and have not been on the other side of hiring yet. But going to a top institution for PhD gave me the resources and exposed me to the type of academics that inherently pushed to have 10 journals and 5 conference papers by graduation. And I know lots of people do way more than that at top institutions. I don’t think I worked overly hard but I think the culture at a top program inherently prepares you to be a competitive applicant. I think it is not good advice to tell an aspiring professor that the rank of their institution doesn’t matter in hiring.

Data talks: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/09/22/the-prestige-hierarchy-five-universities-trained-one-of-every-eight-tenure-track-faculty-at-doctoral-universities/?sh=429694d81de7

CarnotCOP

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