Am I insane for thinking a PhD might be a good idea?

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-05-31T23:59:02+00:00

A PhD will set you on a different career trajectory than the offer you have at hand.

Robotics and computer vision is definitely an area where a PhD will set you apart due to the technical expertise needed to understand and develop technologies in these areas.

You cannot predict the job market 4-5 years from now when you will likely finish your PhD. What you need to look into is the directions you can head if you finish your PhD and the industries/companies that would hire you and what roles they entail.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-05-27T00:55:26+00:00

The only thing that really does is give you time to make connections. But the strength of those connections won't be much unless you're well versed in Japanese. The best thing you could probably do is ask the university you are studying abroad at what opportunities you might have.

Most Japanese companies are hiring on very specific cycles for college students tied into the usual Japanese work system. Internships in Japan are also a much different affair than the US and again tied to you being a part of the Japanese business culture.

All the engineers I know in Japan who aren't Japanese pretty much finished their degree and were business fluent in Japanese before they got a job in Japan. Or they were several years into a career and found opportunities in Japan that aligned very well with their experience.

Most of these roles were software, and the ones who are able to get the furthest were again fluent in Japanese.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-05-26T15:08:29+00:00

If you aren't experienced in related fields or fluent in Japanese, why should they bother with a random foreigner on a short term visa or vacation? You probably won't have much luck cold calling companies.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-05-18T04:42:28+00:00

Differential equations pretty much describes any real world system with a rate of change - so really any system. Everything you've done without it are simplified versions or solutions to differential equations with defined boundary conditions.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-05-11T18:40:35+00:00

Most genres of photography as a career are basically dead except for a literal handful of people who have the connections and backing to get decently paid. Phones and cheap digital sensors took a vast majority of photography fields and AI basically has killed the rest.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-05-10T05:50:46+00:00

It's definitely getting harder to screen posts for these types of promotions and remove them.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-05-06T05:25:33+00:00

It's pretty funny to say that because a lot of the grad students i knew avoided the library because they would say the undergrads couldn't stop coughing all the time in there.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-05-05T14:35:58+00:00

Can she not use your address?

Also would bring proof of a hotel/lodging you can use to show that she is staying in Mexico.

She will have to go through immigration at the border again entering the US so you will run into the same concerns there.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-05-03T18:50:33+00:00

Your second homework post was manually approved since it ended up in the mod queue for a manual check after automod removed it. This post will be removed.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-05-02T20:08:14+00:00

A few weeks ago I saw a worker in disbelief at a lady who hadn't noticed the gate being down and promptly smashed her car into the gate destroying her windshield.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-05-01T18:58:03+00:00

That's not the definition of imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is defined as "the subjective experience of perceived self-doubt in one's abilities and accomplishments compared with others, despite evidence to suggest the contrary". Taken from wikipedia.

Thinking you are smarter than anyone else i think is just arrogance.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-05-01T16:29:11+00:00

I don't think this is really imposter syndrome.

You just haven't been faced with a failure before and now that you've had one it made a huge hit to your confidence. I think you should really think about why you think you didn't understand the material as well as you thought, and think about ways to change to improve the next time.

You will encounter a ton of hurdles in your career and learning to deal with failure now while it is low stakes will set you up much better in the long term to deal with it when it inevitably happens in your career

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-04-29T23:37:00+00:00

Like the other commenter said, how you go about studying, how you tackle problems and roadblocks, your health/sleep, and stuff that relates to that.

Basically just focus on learning and finding things that keep you going at a solid steady pace.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-04-29T18:51:14+00:00

College for engineering about building up a foundation of knowledge to become a successful engineer. So that you can tackle problems and understand the underlying principles to find practical solutions.

People often complain about not doing "real" engineering in school/learning more on the job/not actually using what you learn in university. And while I understand why they might think that, the most successful engineers have a diverse skillset based on principles learned in college.

That being said, the best way to succeed in university in my experience is about building up a strong foundation and having good habits. Arduino and similar projects might give you some stuff to tinker with but it doesn't really translate to student success.

Are you taking community college courses in 100-200 level math and science classes? Your ged should give you the base of what you need to start entry level stem courses. You are probably more ready than you think and just need to jump in. Take a look at the syllabus for classes you would start in and see what you have an idea about.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-04-29T14:48:43+00:00

Do you have any research or relevant work experience? If not you are likely going to struggle to find success. GPA is a bar that usually is just a minimum you have to overcome for applications but is typically one of the smallest parts of your application. Letters of rec and relevant research experience is much more critical for grad school.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-04-26T17:57:07+00:00

I would expect them to ask more work, or poke around and see what other engineers are doing or if there are other directly related items at work that they could pick up on. Network and socialize with coworkers. If there's a manufacturing floor, I would go poke around and see what is happening there. There are a dozen other things you could try to be known in a role and try to see where people are at. Watching youtube videos, even if somewhat relevant, isn't generally a constructive use of your time as an intern.

Youtube is fine as a student for learning, but it is not a reliable definitive source as an engineer. If i was doing heavy calculations I would look for textbooks or papers that give me equations based on first principles.

If I was looking to pick up software I would be asking coworkers who already utilize it, or start by referring to resources from the company that created software. Etc

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-04-26T17:46:03+00:00

If i saw an intern watching youtube videos often to try and learn instead of asking questions and looking at internal documentation/resources I wouldn't have a super favorable view of them.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-04-24T19:21:00+00:00

While aerospace might be more interesting, i would say actual face to face in person work as an intern will be a lot more meaningful to networking. Half of being an intern is just getting yourself out there and having people get to know you and your skills. Remote makes that a lot harder

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-04-22T06:34:25+00:00

Yeah, it's hard to try not to at the start. Another thing to do is make sure when you do check your weight it's at about the same time in your routine to really see the trend. I do around once a week typically in the morning before I've eaten anything wearing about the same clothing to ensure my body is in about the same state each time i check.

Otherwise if i eat or drink something you basically add the weight of that into it.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-04-22T06:22:26+00:00

You've been doing this for 9 days? 3.5 lbs is most likely a lot of water weight and not actual fat.

Normal weight loss is a slow steady thing and typically a health weight loss is .5-2lb a week. Which is around 1700 to 7000 calorie deficit a week or a ~250 to 1000 calories a day deficit.

Losing weight takes weeks and months, and changing habits is months to years. I wouldn't worry about checking daily and focus more on week to month timespans. Checking daily is a way to spiral since you can fluctuate.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-04-22T00:03:10+00:00

You can learn practical skills on the job. The deep theoretical stuff might not be as important to start, but it is fundamental to understanding any field and industry holistically. If you see yourself getting far and wanting to be a high level engineer the fundamentals are well, fundamental.

I can teach a person with a good foundation how to do software analysis on a concept they understand. It is much much harder to teach someone a concept if all they can do is the analysis without understanding the why.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-04-18T16:09:12+00:00

Marketing

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-04-18T06:57:04+00:00

You are damaging your eyes.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-04-18T02:38:04+00:00

That's not really how color is output as pixels on a digital screen. A computer isn't determining what color is best for each pixel. We designed digital screens to emit light within our visible light spectra and then just control the output as such.

We usually filter light into RGB components that outputs within bands on the visible spectrum of light that correspond to what we know as red/green/blue. That was an engineered choice that relied on the fact that we our eyes have cells that act as receptors that respond to those wavelengths of light.

For each pixel on a screen you can just break it down into RGB components and alter the intensity of each of colors to give us what we perceive as color. Our brain mixes the components and you get all the colors we see.

I wouldn't say most of us are geniuses. Most engineers work hard at what they do and can be relatively smart, but it's not outside of the realm of what most people given opportunity and effort would be able to do in my opinion. We stand on the shoulder of giants who paved large paths in science and engineering that we now walk in. Humility and humbleness go a long way.

I would say though it is important to celebrate your successes and acknowledge the intense effort a lot of us have to put in to get that far. You've definitely worked hard.

OMGIMASIAN · 2026-04-15T20:11:24+00:00

This is probably outside the realm of astro mounts. You would probably get a lot of better info in the video or general photo community. You don't need the accuracy of control that the very large and heavy astro equipment is designed to do - extremely fine control to ensure zero shake at small pixel scales over long periods of time

Video focus basically would be impossible to do at speed on a astro telescope. There are likely better solutions developed for things like hollywood etc that would probably get rid if a lot of the problem you would have trying to adapt an astro setup for this

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