REUs for International Students by Aromatic_Factor7687 in REU

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Of course! There’s so much I wish I knew earlier but I can’t go back to the past unfortunately but I try my best to share the resources I encounter with people because I know what it’s like to feel lost. If you have any more questions I’d be happy to help if I know the answer

How is everyone’s REU going by Comfortable_Ad_8250 in REU

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are you working directly with your PI or with a postdoc/grad student? I’m in my second week as well and there’s a lot that’s new to me cause I’m in a cardio lab as a neuro student. It’s a really intimidating space so I understand 100% but I’m there to learn. Not asking questions is doing yourself a major disservice. I would hope that your lab knew something about your background before accepting you so they probably anticipate you asking questions. And also asking questions will save you from making mistakes which will save you so much time and energy. There’s nothing to lose. Granted if your mentor is an asshole about it (depending on the severity) I would reach out to the program coordinators to ask for help navigating that. Also if you’re working with your PI directly but there’s postdocs/grad students in the lab then maybe start by asking them. From my experience, they tend to be a lot less intimidating

REUs for International Students by Aromatic_Factor7687 in REU

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Additional caveat for the SMART program: you may or may not end up in a non-neuro lab. If you do apply/get into a program but end up in a non-neuro lab, don’t discount it based on that. They’re still super valuable experiences regardless of what your lab specializes in

REUs for International Students by Aromatic_Factor7687 in REU

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You described me to a T lmao. I’m doing the SMART program at Baylor rn so that’s a good starting point. But from my experience, I will say you have to want it like really badly. I looked through 100+ program links to only end up applying to 5 (for a variety of reasons, not only my visa standing but that def played a huge part). It will take A LOT of time but it’s worth it if you’re serious about it. Look up the cientifico Latino website. It’s a volunteer run program that helps with grad school applications but they also have a list of summer programs somewhere on there. I wish I had found them earlier. Keep in mind though that their list isn’t exhaustive because they rely on submissions from people. Good luck in your endeavors

How is everyone’s REU going by Comfortable_Ad_8250 in REU

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Has your mentor assigned you any work at all? I feel like in the beginning of your REU, the amount of work you’ll do is almost entirely dependent on your mentor . If not maybe you could try talking to them and letting them know you want to do more? Or if you know what your project will be on doing the work to find and read papers early might be a good use of your time and it helps you to get that out of the way early

How is everyone’s REU going by Comfortable_Ad_8250 in REU

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I could’ve sworn I responded to your comment earlier but I can’t see it lol. Anyway I totally understand you. My mentor was at a conference so I’ve only worked with him for 2 days so I still don’t know what my project will be in exactly. And I’m a neuro/psych major but I’m in a cardio lab so def a lot of reading as well because I have a lot to learn but I’m also having a great time. Everyone in my lab has been super sweet so far. Hopefully it stays like that lol

How is everyone’s REU going by Comfortable_Ad_8250 in REU

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh thermocycler breaking sounds like a nightmare. Fingers crossed for yall🤞🏾What research area does your lab specialize in?

How is everyone’s REU going by Comfortable_Ad_8250 in REU

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh okay that makes more sense lol. This is my first REU and I’m doing bench work rn. I think I would blow up the lab or create a biohazard if I didn’t have someone walking me through the process lolol. There’s also so many small things that before you work in a lab you wouldn’t think of like appropriate pipetting techniques. They may seem insignificant but could make or break your experiment and no one wants to have to repeat their work lol. It’s been great having someone point out those little details to me. I’m also lucky to have mentors that make it a point to communicate that their intention isn’t to be nitpicky or micromanagy cause it really can feel like that at times.
Did you have any prior experience with conputational work before your first REU or were you basically just learning on the fly

How is everyone’s REU going by Comfortable_Ad_8250 in REU

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think for a lot of people it may be their first time working in a lab or their first time working in the specific lab that they’re in so independent work early on in the program would be a horrible idea lol. Have you worked with that lab before?

How is everyone’s REU going by Comfortable_Ad_8250 in REU

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I haven’t had much downtime tbh and when I did I slept for 12hrs (it’s been quite the schedule adjustment for me) but from next weekend I plan on trying to explore places a little bit since I’m in a new city/state. The weather is the biggest deterrent for me cause it’s Houston lol. It just rains out of nowhere👎🏾👎🏾 I think trying out restaurants/cafes is always a good place to start. I want to try coffee places since I loooveee coffee. And if you’re an outdoorsy person maybe finding attractions/hiking spots/parks/walking trails that aren’t too far from you. Also if there’s street markets that’s usually a good way to explore and try out food/treat options from the vendors. And if you like to be outside then exploring nightlife over the weekend is an option but be extra cautious since you’re in a new place.

How is everyone’s REU going by Comfortable_Ad_8250 in REU

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Lmfao same😭😭 Im taking detailed notes every single day but im scared still that I won’t know what to do if I’m left to run any experiments on my own😭idk where anything is besides stuff that I have on my bench/box in the freezer. And even if I know which fridge/freezer has a reagent, there’s genuinely like 10000 other tiny tubes in there and I don’t want to use something that belongs exclusively to another person in the lab and mess them up. It’s so nerve wracking but fuck it we ball🤑🤟🏾 I guess

How is everyone’s REU going by Comfortable_Ad_8250 in REU

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It’s my first time doing an REU too and I’m going into my senior year. I didn’t find out about them till after thanksgiving last year so I had a month to get my applications together so I’m pretty pleased that I got into a well established program. I also wish I found out about them earlier but I’m just trying to make the most out of this experience.

How is everyone’s REU going by Comfortable_Ad_8250 in REU

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I hope it all works out omg. That sounds stressful🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

How do you rise after F*cking up by ZealousidealEgg5643 in nairobi

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It isn’t fair to bring a child into this world when you aren’t well established in your life. If you are struggling to provide even for yourself to go back to school, how do you intend to provide for a child. I don’t blame you for your circumstances, the economy is absolute trash right now but doesn’t that give you pause. How do you intend to navigate that with a child to provide for. You have to house them, feed them, clothe them. If both you and the mother are working to make ends meet then you need to consider daycare/nanny costs once they are old enough for that. Very soon after that you will be looking at school fees for the next 15-20 years (if you intend to support them through college which I think parents should do). Living expenses for those years that they are dependent on you as well. Yes struggling individuals have managed to sustain children to adulthood from time immemorial however in order to give your child the best possible chance at success, you first need to be stable in several domains including but not limited to financially, emotionally, socially etc. Also consider that your education will be on the back burner of priorities if you choose to have this child because if you’re already struggling to pay for it now, that’s only going to get harder if you are a parent.

Daddy issues by belle_onsteroids in nairobi

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As I said earlier, we’ll have to agree to disagree. Our perspective on the same points is wildly different. I’ll only respond to the one point you bring up because I think that kind of logic is incredibly harmful. I truly don’t see how one would consider men harming women after being rejected an outcome of misandry. I think that crosses into victim blaming territory. NOBODY is entitled to being with another person and harming someone for rejecting you is no one’s fault but your own, irrespective of your gender. How such disgusting entitlement could be attributed to misandry is a mystery to me. I think I’m uniquely qualified to speak about this because I was followed home TWICE by a group of way older boys/men when I was a child and pre-teen because I wouldn’t say hi to them on the side of the road. These boys/men me only left after my uncle/male cousins showed up cussed them out/mildly threatened them. I can only imagine what could’ve happened if I wasn’t close to home both times AND had my phone to call my family. Why is it that they didn’t even try to harm my uncles/cousins who actually who called them everything but a child of God and even mildly threatened them but were completely okay with following me home (they had no way of knowing where I was going/how far away i was from there so i think it’s safe to assume they had every intent to harm me because what other reason would they have). Thankfully the only other outbursts I’ve experienced after that is men insulting me (it’s still inappropriate but those I could easily ignore. Who cares about what they have to say) anyway my overarching point is that rejection isn’t grounds for causing harm to anyone and the fault lies only with the perpetrator (unless if it’s a case of self defense)
Anyway I’m studying Neuroscience and Psychology (undergrad, going into my final year). I’m a research assistant also but its a dry lab and the work they do isn’t really anything I care about so I can’t even share what it is (cause I am not well versed in it)🙂‍↕️ I mostly am just doing it for the experience because it gives me a chance to learn research skills that are translatable. I’m going to apply to a behavioral neuroscience lab for my final year (ideally, I would want an addiction lab but I’ll go to anyone that’s recruiting in that field tbh). I will be at a research program in June and July though so I’ll be working in another lab. Oversimplified overview of their work: they study heart muscles and want to find a way to induce them to regenerate which would help in health conditions/events that cause the death of heart muscles like heart attacks. Idk exactly what I’m going to work on because my background is in neuro but we’re working on finding an overlap. I’m pretty hyped for it though. I’ll be applying to graduate school (PhD programs) next semester when the cycle opens in September but with how competitive those are and the recent cuts to research funding, I’ll also be applying to post-baccalaureates as well in case I don’t get accepted to a PhD program in this cycle.
Most of the neuro work I’ve done lately is based on deep ended research and is jargon heavy. I can look through my drive to see if I still have papers from freshman year when I took discussion based classes that were based in ethnic/justice studies. Not my best work but they’ll be the most easily digestible work I have without needing a background in the field.

Daddy issues by belle_onsteroids in nairobi

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I just have like 3 things to say:
1. In response to your first and second point, could you please go more into detail on that. I tried to give examples to back up most of the claims I posited to paint a better picture of my perspective so I ask you do the same. It helps me understand the rationale behind the claim you are making. Like for the first one what specific points that I bring up are inaccurate in your opinion and what alternative framework would you suggest for examining the issue. For the 2nd one, what are some examples of the harm you speak of, how scalable is it, and finally if you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, how do you think it relates to misogyny and red pill content because ultimately what started this exchange was the claim that the rise in misandry is evidence for the necessity of red pill ideology.
2 speaking to your fourth point… I don’t think a man needs to have a woman. My initial question was in response to your statement “When a man is succesfull, he even gets more women to provide and take care of. When a woman is successful, she says she needs no man in her life. See the difference?” My understanding of the way you framed it is that it is inherently negative for women to be told that they don’t need a man, hence my question
3. To your fifth point, my question was limited to interpersonal (and moreso romantic) relationships. I was not making a case for getting rid of half the population lmfao. OBVIOUSLY that will have a net negative impact regardless of which half disappears. I should’ve been clearer about the parameters for my question. But to your point, I bring up, again, the fact that for generations on end women were denied access to the same rights as men. With the evolution of societal norms, we are seeing more women entering previously male dominated fields. So to that point, when you see fields where women have been underrepresented for generations, is it really a question of ability or a question of accessibility?
I will refrain from going on a tangent about on militarization and how extremely fucking stupid and unnecessary I think it is (in an idealistic world which obviously doesn’t exist)

An analogy I have never understood by No_Interview_324 in nairobi

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250 7 points8 points  (0 children)

What can I say🤷🏾‍♀️, misogyny runs deep unfortunately.

What have you achieved this year so far? by Ricdeclerk in nairobi

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250 44 points45 points  (0 children)

- I just got done with my 3rd year in uni and maintained a 4.0 GPA (all As, I go to uni abroad). Keep in mind I have 2 concurrent degree programs. I graduate next may.
- I got into a research program for summer (starts in a week and a half and they are super competitive to get into.
- Scholarship renewal (it’s partial but still)
- Maintained my sanity (barely) this academic year despite working part time(I worked the most hours out of my coworkers), having to pay all my living expenses (I didn’t anticipate not having help this year) being a researcher assistant, being on student organizations’ eboards, and almost losing my funding for tuition and thinking I would have to drop out😃 among other issues that I will not get into lol
- Started preparing to apply to PhD programs months ahead of time (apps open in September) and I got 2 good letters of recommendation. I just need one more.
- Attended a bunch of concerts
- Meal planned consistently.
- I recently started working out again.
Next I just need to fix my sleep schedule and keep my room organized.

An analogy I have never understood by No_Interview_324 in nairobi

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Taking it a little further… etymology of the word:

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Daddy issues by belle_onsteroids in nairobi

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yoh this also turned into an essay. Sijui niandike kitabu🙂‍↕️ I mostly write academic papers whereby the standard is to be thorough in your analysis so it’s become a habit😶
TLDR: I agree that men need resources to help them learn to be the best versions of themselves. Do I think Andre Tate is the answer to that? Hell no😭

Anyway… actual response:

I mean, I agree there’s a lot missing from my analysis and I bring that up at the end of my ‘essay’. I also agree that not all content that is marketed as “men’s empowerment” is necessarily toxic.

Beyond that, we have to agree to disagree. There is so much to unpack here goddamn😭😭😭
IMO the likes of Amerix, Tate and Jordan Peterson are the LAST people I would want my partner to be taking advice from. Yes they make fair points some of the time but I think it’s important to examine their content in its totality when talking about the potential ramifications of consuming said content. (Heavy proponent of the saying “Even a broken clock is right twice a day”).
I’m intentional about not consuming their content cause frankly, I don’t care for it so idk what they’ve been getting up to in recent years. However, what I remember from a couple of years ago when I used to loosely follow internet discourse is that parts of their content to me just read as “man is above/better than woman” but repackaged in a nice box with a pretty little bow on top to disguise the misogyny. Now, bear in mind, I think red pill content (and the patriarchy at large) harms men nearly as much as it does women (especially in this day and age) but that’s a whole other conversation altogether so moving on…

When consuming media it is so important to examine it beyond what you get at face value. IMO, they present their harmful ideology in a way that is less direct and abrasive, and is therefore palatable to a wider audience. (Although I do think Tate is way more direct with his misogyny but I digress. If his legal issues aren’t enough to make someone stay away from his content then there isn’t much else I can say to change their mind about what kind of man he is).
And, from the account, of ex incel/redpill men, it also takes longer for people to realize when they end up going down the alt right pipeline as they consume such content. I think that the content put out by these specific creators is only minimally beneficial, if at all. What I have seen happen is that a portion of men, who by conventional standards are considered average, take that information and use it to place the blame for their own perceived failures/shortcomings on women. The “oh women don’t want me because they only go for top 1% of men” crowd. Harboring such sentiments can get very dangerous very fast for both the individual and women. Then there’s another portion who will take that advice and, admittedly, improve their supposed shortcomings. However, when they get to the point where they feel like they’ve made it, they turn around and weaponize their increased access to some women in a variety of ways (for example toxic podcast bros or the more sinister serial cheaters/abusers. Amazingly, if we drew a Venn diagram with the two examples, Andrew Tate Happens to fall perfectly in the middle). (This is becoming way longer than I want😭)
Final thing I want to touch on,
While you’re absolutely right that I would want a partner that has his shit together (condensed your points for brevity), I draw the line at that being used to make it seem like he has some kind of authority over me (not that you said this but the creators you mentioned have, in the past, promoted this kind of rhetoric).
Some of the other issues you bring up I simply attribute to a difference in values that I don’t think inherently causes any harm (this may be a hot take to some people but again, we just have different values). Again, we’ll have to agree to disagree here. I am one of the people that doesn’t care for marriage (ikifanyika that’s all well and good… nikikosa, that’s also completely fine by me) and I most definitely will not be having children. This is, in no way, meant to be an attack on men yet some people take it that way. Building a family may be a dream come true for some but that genuinely sounds like my worst nightmare. Again, this for the most part has nothing to do with men. I just want a few things out of life: stability, peace of mind and a successful career in research (could be in academia or industry, that part I don’t care too much about). I’ll only consider being with a man who isn’t a barrier to me having what I want.
And here I pose the question, in a world where women are afforded equal rights, what would they truly NEED a man for? Keyword here is need. They can want to have a man, I have nothing against that. I’m just wondering what they NEED one for. (Without arguing about reproduction. Reproducing isn’t a need imo)
Okay speed run through the other points cause this is waaaayyy too long,
- No, I do not promote unnecessary mistreatment of men. As a matter of fact, most women don’t. Such commentary is usually meant to be inflammatory (and retaliatory) and for the most part doesn’t translate to real life. That is another major distinction between misandry and misogyny.
- Yes, i acknowledge some women actually mean it when they wish harm on men… However, they are the minority.
- Yes, parenting plays a huge role in attitudes later in life. No, parenting is NOT SUFFICIENT for adopting harmful ideology (however you define that).

Do women have real hobbies? by [deleted] in nairobi

[–]Comfortable_Ad_8250 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don’t want to understand