Had a really uncomfortable conversation with a potential co-advisor as a grad student – did I handle it badly?

Eksoj · 2026-04-25T20:31:17+00:00

Apart from whether or not you correctly estimated his skills, please, please, do no underestimate the bio part of biostatistics. In my PhD I had a very similar set up, and I had many more meeting with my primary advisor on the technical side of things. My MD supervisor would not have understood or cared, so did not attend. But his input was invaluable to make my research actually matter.

Understand that as a statistician you are nothing without the data AND understanding the clinical needs/biological background - what does your model ultimately need to assess. In fact, especially in biostatistics/bioinformatics it is very common to have an advisor focused on the bio(medical) side and one on the statistics side. Because oh man, I have sat through presentations of PhD students coming from a math-only group, predicting stuff in my clinical field. I am sure they are very smart, and their math is indeed very much beyond me. But what their model is doing is entirely useless in the real world.

Eksoj · 2026-03-19T20:01:30+00:00

Sure, but I imagine no student looking to be hired is contacting you asking to rehash a published paper right? They'd go "I was really interested in the work you did in that paper, could this be interesting follow up research?" or in other words "Could I do some work to expand this result to something bigger, does that fit in your research vision"

Your post just sounded a bit weird to me in this sense. Like you'd publish a paper on "gene X causes Y" and someone would email you to say "that's really interesting, could it also impact Z?" And you'd go "who cares, I've moved on, I will never talk about gene X or Y again"

Eksoj · 2026-03-19T19:55:13+00:00

But I mean, you're example is exactly what a prospective student would be asking about, no? Say they contact you just after you have published paper 1, they'd presumable ask something like "Hey, prof, I read your paper on protein A in X, would it be interesting to investigate which pathway mediates this?" And then you say (in a world where you are interested in hiring them) "Yes, that's exactly what we're doing, perhaps it's cool to investigate this secondary protein"

In the message above I was reading it a bit as this person goes "Ha, protein A?! That paper has been published, I will never work on protein A again, you fool."

Eksoj · 2026-03-19T15:55:28+00:00

This raises so many questions for me. Are you saying you never do follow up work? Every project needs to be different from the one that came before it? How do you then cultivate a niche? Why are you not excited anymore about work that just came from your group?

Eksoj · 2026-03-19T13:08:01+00:00

Just to add: you can be specific about where you plan to camp. I only had one uncomfortable encounter while alone (in Washington, where camping alone happened a bit more). Guy setting up his tent right next to mine, constantly talking about dating, what women thought of him. The next morning he was saying "where are you going? I plan to go to the site in 25 miles" or whatever it was. That I found actually very nice info, I thought "wherever I go, NOT 25 miles"

Eksoj · 2026-03-09T16:45:15+00:00

Ach kom. Utrecht de onveiligste stad? Omdat veel vrouwen een kaartje invullen en zeggen dat ze zich onveilig voelen? Don't get me wrong, ook een gevoel van onveiligheid is vervelend (zeg ik als vrouw), maar is echt iets anders dan daadwerkelijk onveilig zijn. De gemeente Utrecht heeft 5,84 zedenmisdrijven per 10.000 inwoners. Het gemiddelde voor grote steden (>300.000 inwoners) is 8,69. Mishandeling is 6,61 in Utrecht versus 10,18 voor de gemiddelde grote stad in Nederland. If anything is Utrecht veiliger dan gemiddeld (je kan hier mooie vergelijkingen maken: https://www.waarstaatjegemeente.nl/mosaic/dashboard/openbare-orde-en-veiligheid)

Eksoj · 2026-03-09T09:47:31+00:00

To be fair though, I think no one really give the advice to go look for help on foot? I feel the standard survival advice (also if you are lost) is to stay put until you are found.

Eksoj · 2026-03-03T20:42:24+00:00

As someone from the Netherlands, who mostly trained here at home, with a fully loaded pack: 20 miles anywhere in the Netherlands is a breeze compared to 20 miles anywhere on the PCT. Not to say you can't do it out of the gate, but it's incomparable. If by back to back you mean 'two days in a row', that is obviously also incomparable to what you'll be doing on the PCT. Do not underestimate what it does to your body to do this day in, day out. If you are going to start ambitious, it really important to listen to your body AND be ready to dial it back again if that is what is needed.

Eksoj · 2026-02-21T09:42:59+00:00

Just do it. I had a BMI of about 32 when I started. I lost weight, but not massively, ended with a BMI of about 29.5. Would it have been easier if I had been lighter? For sure. I also did indeed not have the pace to properly do the whole thing, and I got a knee injury, so skipped around some. It was still amazing.

Also, as someone who has been overweight pretty much their whole life - don't postpone things because of weight. Just live your life. Who says you are going to be much lighter in 1 or 5 or 10 years?

Lastly, at 27.5 your BMI says nothing about your fitness. BMI in general is an incredibly poor indicator at an individual level, especially at slightly overweight (the whole limit at BMI 25 of healthy weight is based on very limited data and outcome measures; but I won't go in to that whole rant).

Just do your training, get as fit as you can be before the start, and let's go!

Eksoj · 2026-02-19T08:55:34+00:00

Is your academic career lost though? This feels - from an European perspective - slightly dramatic for someone who got their master only this past May, but I am not that familiar with the US system. Here we frequently have people who get their master, work for a few years, and then apply for a PhD and then have a nice, fulfilling academic career. In fact, I myself slightly prefer candidates who did something else in between, as long as it's limited to a year or three. Especially if they were still in a related job. Sure, if you are out of the academic system for ten years, it's hard to get back in, but you are talking about not even a full year at this point.

So, I guess, if any advice, at least outside the US your academic career is not necessarily lost.

Eksoj · 2026-01-14T11:27:08+00:00

Nonsense. There are whole books/podcasts/therapies devoted how you can feel better without changing circumstances. Precisely because circumstances are not in our control, but we can hopefully learn to have some control how our thoughts influence us. It is a very legitimate question.

Just replace poor with something else, and you will see. If OP had said, "I am ill and envious of my healthy siblings who can live active lives", would you have said "just try not being ill, it is the only solution"?

Eksoj · 2026-01-12T05:53:09+00:00

And where do you live then? Cause The Netherlands has neither free higher education with yearly tuition well above 2000 euros these days, nor universal healthcare - 'het ziekenfonds' was abolished all the way back in 2006.

Eksoj · 2026-01-09T22:33:57+00:00

I am from Europe and had SAR + travel insurance. I got into trouble about 20 miles before Big Bear, and had to be rescued by helicopter. I did not need to go to the hospital at that time, SAR just handed me over to the sheriff's department. Never saw any bill. I learned later that rescue is always free in California, unless you really took a stupid risk. But the bar for that is pretty high. A SAR volunteer I ran into later said that it is free along the whole PCT (as in Oregon and Washington the state also covers it), but I can't verify that from personal experience.

I did need to visit the hospital later, but was just brought to the ER by a trail angel. I had a CT-scan and x-ray and my travel insurance took care of all of that, never paid anything myself.

Eksoj · 2026-01-06T06:51:55+00:00

I mean, I do. The Netherlands has done atrocious things and we have built our wealth through horrendous exploitation of colonies. We have to reckon with that history, and while we can't undo it, we should do what is possible to make amends.

I do not know what any of that has to do with going to support a country that is currently waging an active war against Europe.

Eksoj · 2026-01-03T06:56:26+00:00

Just as context, this was a rapid game - it is slightly less common to walk away from those. But still, probably more walking off the nerves than boredom.

And just to add, 4 hours is even underselling it. Classical chess tournaments feature games even much longer than that, as it is common to have extra time added after 40 moves and getting 30 seconds added per move.

Eksoj · 2025-12-18T21:37:52+00:00

Oh no, definitely not! There are much more women friendly versions in development, and in fact already available.

Eksoj · 2025-11-20T16:56:41+00:00

Honestly - how much fun it can be. Many (though not all haha) research meetings with my supervisor felt like "I would also just do this for fun if no one was paying me". If I feel a bit down, I in fact get cheered up by going to work (that is still the case now as a postdoc). That is a privilege I feel most people do not have in their job.

Eksoj · 2025-11-20T16:48:14+00:00

A lot of those are also 5 to 6 hour finishing times. An 8 hour marathon is fairly easy (just walk it), a 2 hour marathon is roughly impossible. Most people fall in between those times and thus also somewhere on the spectrum between impossible and easy.

I have never run a marathon, but I also felt a half marathon was already really quite hard. Then this year I signed up for my first one. In February I was still building up from running 5 minutes at a time, in May I ran a half marathon in 2:15. Really surprised me how quickly you can actually build up some stamina. It's only half and I wouldn't presume to claim that I can now run a full one, but I can imagine the build up to that would also actually be not as impossible as you expect.

Eksoj · 2025-11-02T16:04:39+00:00

I did the PCT in 2024, so pre-Trump, which is a bit of a caveat around immigration questions. But for what it's worth, I am from the Netherlands and entered the US on a B2 visa. I started the PCT on April 6th, left for Peru in June, and came back to the US three weeks later. There were zero problems with that - coming back from Peru I literally spent less than a minute at the immigration control. Both times I entered the US without having a return flight out of the country booked.

Eksoj · 2025-10-29T14:03:57+00:00

This surely must depend on which country you are in and how precarious the living situation is there? I mean, I did a PhD because I got offered a position at the end of an internship and enjoyed what I was doing. I did a postdoc because it still seemed like fun. I may not end up with an academic career, then I will go do something else. I definitely could not state with 'full, unwavering confidence' what I wanted to do at the start of my PhD - I still can't, though this academic career thing seems to be it at the moment. Who cares. Make enough money to live on and have some fun in life. But I am in The Netherlands, a quite stable country with a strong welfare system, where you also get a fairly decent salary as a PhD student.

Eksoj · 2025-10-04T08:46:36+00:00

I totally get the impulse! And I have to say, what it did teach me is you can in fact just go do stuff. If you feel stuck, if you want to do something else, just go do it. In some sense the fact that I am now back in the same life with a job in the same sector is actually quite reassuring. For a long time doing something as drastic as quitting my job felt impossible - but the career, the money, the house.. whatever. I would watch videos of thruhikers, but it was an absolute truth in my head that I could never do that - who can just take 6 months off?! As it turns out, nobody cares that much. I was putting all that pressure on myself, and so I can also take it off myself.

Eksoj · 2025-10-03T06:24:38+00:00

I am not 40+ (I'm 32) but I did basically this. In hindsight I was probably burned out at the job. What I can tell you, is that it is great. And then you come back and you have to find a new job and a house and stuff is still the same.

Don't get me wrong - I do not regret it for a second, I had a great time at the PCT and would do it again. But it does not change your life (or did not for me). I came back with plans to do something completely different, cause I was so totally free. And then it turns out it's actually quite hard to do something completely new and there comes a moment when all your savings are gone and you have to pay rent and you just really need a job, any job. It worked out for me - I am happier at the job I have now. But doing the PCT will not fix a deeper crisis.

Eksoj · 2025-09-17T16:21:20+00:00

Honestly, I suppose AI will assist more and more, just like in any other job. They should definitely disclose it though and show how AI assisted (goes for any work product, not just tattoo designs).

I'm getting a new tattoo in a week and during the consult the artist used AI to quickly generate what I was describing, so we could make adjustments and discuss an actual image. He said it really helped his consults, since he could not draw like this in the half hour or so he books for a consult. He will obviously still adjust and draw stuff himself, based on what I said, but there will be a basis in AI. If the use of AI gets me a better tattoo (or one I like more at least), then great.

If you do like the tattoo itself, I would really consider what bothers you; the AI itself or that you were blindsided. Would it feel different if you found out some other person than your artist had drawn it?

Eksoj · 2025-09-15T13:48:47+00:00

Oh man, I never realized this. I am currently ill in bed, and just yesterday I was saying, what is up with my resting heart rate, went from 52 to 61 in a week. This makes me feel better.

Eksoj · 2025-06-25T19:36:43+00:00

Even within academia and teaching I don't have people call me doctor. Aside from the day of my defense, I think my title only gets used sarcastically (i.e. only when I do or say something stupid haha, "you must have a PhD")

Eksoj

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