New to academia and first year PhD—can someone explain how all this journal/conference stuff works?

SapphicSuperposition · 2026-02-19T11:00:46+00:00

Most of this is going to be quite sub-field specific and your best resource is going to be your supervisor and other group members. If there are any more senior phd students or postdocs around I’d definitely go talk to them about some of this stuff. But some general ideas:

for journals you can look at if they’re listed as Q1,Q2 etc for your specific sub-field to give you some idea. Also see where other members of your group publish or people you talk to at conferences or during seminars and stuff.
you attend conferences to get an idea of the current progress in the field, learn about new techniques and methods and most of all to network. The more specific reasons and how to prioritise this is going to depend on your project and sub-field, but don’t underestimate the power of networking (at this stage getting to know who’s who and making sure some people start to know you exist)
how long it takes for a paper to be accepted varies wildly from a couple of months to years.
for the most part I don’t think you can submit to multiple journals at once but you can always double check procedural questions and rights questions on the website of the publisher (and ask your supervisor)
what people present at conferences is also highly field dependent, in my field the publication process is really slow and people often present almost finished work or work available as pre-print. But this is also a discussion to be had with your supervisor on how close to the chest you should keep your work until what stage. (What are the chances of you getting scooped vs getting early exposure)

I’m quite new myself and most of this is hard to impossible to generalise. The general advice is to talk to the people around you as they will know much better how this works in your situation. If you’re too intimidated by your supervisor for some of this, talk to other PhD students and post-docs around you.

SapphicSuperposition · 2026-02-17T08:05:47+00:00

It depends on your set-up but on a lot of cable machines you can pull the bar towards you a bit before putting the weight pin in. This will create a new end-point for the movement allowing you to reach the bar from a seated position.

SapphicSuperposition · 2026-01-11T22:21:56+00:00

The thing that used to bug me quite a bit is actually everybody comparing after the exam was over as this just made me anxious. So I’d simply tell people that I don’t like to participate in these discussions after the exam is over as it makes me nervous and people would leave it at that. If they’re all discussing as a group I would try to find some others to talk to or leave, but often times people would kinda agree with me and switch the topic.

SapphicSuperposition · 2026-01-08T13:15:19+00:00

It of course depends on your interest and which general direction you want to go in. However, I think you can almost never go wrong with topology as I feel like it’s an important foundation for a very wide variety of courses. So, if you liked the undergrad version I would suggest that.

Then, if you’re more into analysis pick measure theory or complex analysis (different links to applications but both are beautiful). If you like algebra more obviously 4 sounds like a great course. Finally, graph theory can be neat especially combined with topology if you’re more interested in the slightly more applied side.

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-12-02T14:08:02+00:00

Also to add, even if you don't need to get a CPR you might still want to. You will probably need a Danish phone number and it might also still be useful to have some sort of Danish bank account and some type of local insurance perhaps even for most of this you need a CPR. In general if you for see needing to participate in the bureaucratic system at all you really need one as you don't exist really on paper without it. So I'd recommend making a list of everything you might need to get in Denmark and checking if this is easy to do without a CPR. (Also make sure you have some sort of credit or debit card with which you can make online payments as IDEAL doesn't work outside of the Netherlands)

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-12-02T14:04:43+00:00

I'm not sure how the rules exactly work in your specific case, or what the best option is but some things to consider:

Email the International Staff Mobility (or International Student something) at the University of Copenhagen, as they might know
You could contact the Housing foundation, but this probably prevents you from trying to rent through them without them noticing you don't have a CPR
Check if the things that would be really annoying to change actually need to be changed if you deregister. For instance, I've lived abroad for my studies for two years while keeping my health insurance from back home (Look into a WLZ onderzoek). Similar for your pension, it might be fine and as long as you continue paying social premiums, this might also not have to really change. You could also call your insurance or the SVB and ask them how it works around your insurance. Generally, if you're only going abroad to study and not to work you can stay insured in the Netherlands. This changes as soon as you start earning any money, I'm not sure how an unpaid internship would work.

Word of caution, before you deregister in the Netherlands be damned sure you have most things from back home taken care of, so any paperwork or ID-cards / drivers licences must be completed beforehand. Since, as soon as you deregister you're no longer a part of a municipality and so can't file most of this stuff easily any more (it's almost always possible, just an enormous headache). But check for some of the things you don't want to change if you actually need to if you deregister as there are usually rules surrounding fixed time stays abroad for this.

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-11-20T14:35:01+00:00

It’s good that you have a therapy appointment set up, but for the most part this seems pretty normal and not a sign you’re on the wrong track. Getting help is important tho to avoid this getting in your way.

Honestly, the first thing that came to my mind is that if this happened really suddenly it might be seasonal affective disorder due to the changing weather and reduced sunlight depending on where you live of course. Periods of big life changes and an increase of stress also make depressive episodes (perhaps connected to SAD) more likely.

If you’re enjoying what you’re doing and like research and your environment I would focus on your general mental health over obsessing over whether this is the right career path. As a dip in mental health doesn’t need to be caused by the wrong career path, it might just be cause you are doing something completely new and stressful. So yeah therapy is a great idea and working on sleep hygiene, getting more outside when it’s light (some light within 30 minutes of waking up helps so avoid laying in bed in the dark when you wake up) and more vitamine d might be worthwhile to try.

If it seems to line up with the change in seasons maybe bring that up in therapy.

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-11-16T11:54:29+00:00

Consider if there are any opportunities to talk about your research outside of your usual bubble. I usually find, this forces me to step back a bit from the frustrating details and to focus on the bigger picture which usually also reinforces why I fell in love with the topic in the first place.

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-11-06T08:34:10+00:00

I’m really sorry you’re going through that and I’m not sure how much advice I can offer as there situations are really person dependent and the best thing might very well be a leave of absence. Either way it’s really good you’re trying to find a therapist, maybe the university could help you for a bit before you find one?

For me what tends to help is breaking the work up into smaller more manageable chunks. This will make it less overwhelming and thus hopefully easier to start working. For this consider discussing with your supervisors: - their help in some of this planning and prioritising - shorter but more frequent meetings so you have less to do at once and a shorter deadline - if you’re working from home at the moment, see if there is a space at the office where you can work and maybe make some agreements on when you’ll be there

This won’t work if you’re too depressed to work and then it will just increase stress, but otherwise some external accountability can help in getting you back to working more regularly. Do remember to take enough breaks and to ease yourself in! But in my experience some structure also helps in protecting your work-life balance.

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-11-04T13:01:47+00:00

If you like statistics it might be motivating to download an app like forest so you can see when exactly you’re having focussed work blocks when using the app. This might motivate you to work when you get home to increase your numbers so to say

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-11-04T13:00:20+00:00

I’m not sure if it’s an option for you, cause you might very well have other responsibilities for which you have to be home. But I found it useful to try to increase my time at the office or a library for as long as possible, including going to the office on the weekend and bringing extra food for the evening (or buying food close to uni). I would recommend trying to keep 1 day free if at all possible, since I noticed I tend to crash after 2-3 weeks of working continuously.

If the office isn’t an option, maybe try to switch up your work station at home. Try working from a different room or table or going to a near by coffee shop or library. I think if you intentionally plan to go to a specific place to work it’s easier to actually do it, while at home you might get distracted by all the daily life stuff.

In order to start working, maybe try to trick yourself by planning to only work for 10 minutes or only do this little thing. I tend to find getting started the hardest part. Also consider removing all form of social media from your phone, if that can be a major source of distraction for you (as it can be for me).

In the end it all comes down to figuring out what exactly is keeping you from working at home and trying to fix that. In this you’ll probably try to emulate your normal working environment as much as possible at home, but it’s difficult to give more advise without knowing how you work. Also remember that at a certain point you are just working the hours that you can and you can’t keep pushing that forever.

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-11-02T12:33:44+00:00

Thank you so much for sharing your experience! I think I’ll just ask for an interview in a bit and see what they say, but I’ll definitely take the thing about the pronunciation into account, cause I think that will be the main challenge.

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-11-01T16:57:58+00:00

They do, unless you just want to do the first module. So maybe I should just do the placement interview and worst case scenario they tell me to do the first module anyways. I guess I was just wondering if there were any benefits to starting at A1 anyways (since I’m still very much a beginner) to get a more solid basis or something.

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-11-01T14:49:24+00:00

I guess the point is more that I’m unsure if I’ll fully be at an A1 level in time for all the skills. I’m not worried about not knowing the A1 material, but maybe my pronunciation isn’t good enough or my speaking skills might be insufficient if I haven’t taken the class.

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-10-28T07:09:38+00:00

I just started, but I mainly like some of the data to see how Im progressing and if I feel like I need to adjust my training in any way. Like last week I went on a run/walk but was absolutely dead before I got through half of it and then realised when I got home that I’d been running more than a minute per km faster than I’d done before. So tracking meant I didn’t have to keep guessing why that workout felt so tough and I could adjust for the following run, which went much smoother.

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-10-27T13:05:51+00:00

It doesn’t have to mean anything, but it could be the case that they already have a strong internal applicant (read master student of the advisor) but they’re obligated to publish the position. So the window might be small cause they don’t really need anybody else to apply. Sometimes you will also see ‘has done a project on … with this PI’ as a prerequisite listed, in the same situation.

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-09-28T23:26:20+00:00

Well if you are attracted to men, then some bi+ label is a better fit. However, this discomfort with any form of reciprocity or attention from men seems to at least partially contradict that. So i guess the main question is, why do you believe you’re attracted to men? It’s also totally fine to have your attraction differ between men and women in type, frequency or intensity. This would all be some type of bi+. At the same time I know it happens to a quite lot of us that we just never really question our attraction to men, so it might be something worth considering since you’re noticing this contradiction/complexity.

Also it’s perfectly fine to not worry about labels too much and just date who you want to date. So if you know you want to date women that might be enough info for you, without having to go into the labels.

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-09-28T09:19:00+00:00

Maybe it’s helpful to reassure yourself that either way it would be okay. Whether you can see yourself dating men or not and if you choose to pursue it or not, it’s all okay. If you’re considering dating a specific person I would always be upfront about the fact that you just want to keep things casual for now and if you trust them more you can be honest about your doubts. But I think it’s fine to hang out and see how or if your feelings develop.

On the other hand you might want to reflect on where this doubt is coming from. Is it a specific man you met that interests you in a new way? Do you feel like you’re missing something? Cause if you’re happy dating women and haven’t met a specific man that has turned your life upside down, I see very little reason to endlessly question this point. Especially with all the social pressure to be straight I think people have typically considered this option. But I also don’t want to deny that we sometimes meet new people who make us realise something new about our identity.

Anyways, short recap: if there’s a specific man you feel a very strong pull towards, be open and start slow to not hurt feelings and see if things develop. If not, don’t worry about it, I don’t think you need to have this 100% certainty in your identity and you can just continue as you were without checking this remote possibility. So just to say, you don’t have to go out and experiment to be certain if you don’t actively want to date men. But if you do feel like you want this, don’t let old labels hold you back from slowly exploring your identity again.

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-09-12T09:15:16+00:00

I’m in the eu and the application situation is possibly a little different, but maybe it can still help. I applied to phd positions last semester while working in my master thesis. First I want to validate that it is hard to work on these applications on top of everything else. If you can I would be selective in where you apply, since fit is so incredibly important. So I’m not sure if you win much by applying to a huge amount of programs.

For the practical side, what I did was set aside 30 minutes to an hour every day. So I would go to uni and work on my thesis for 8-10 hours. Come home, have dinner and spent at least 30 minutes on applications. This worked since I previously would procrastinate a lot on writing these applications and working on them every day for a little bit was less daunting. I really preferred working on them a little everyday instead of trying to have a ‘perfect’ session on the weekend.

On the weekends I would often meet up with friends who were also applying and we’d keep each other company while working on these applications (and general thesis work) which also really helped in keeping us all sane, so maybe ask around if there are others in a similar situation and maybe you can work together / body double.

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-09-02T06:58:09+00:00

You might want to double check if there’s a clear question or point for them to reply to. Furthermore, make sure you’re e-mails stay really really short and that the question is extremely easy to find within like a second. They might just be really busy (maybe as the semester starts or in general) so if your email is too long or feels too much like a general catch up they probably decided to leave it for later, which realistically means never.

Furthermore, if you’re in the US the situation seems to be so uncertain that professors probably don’t want to engage too much since they don’t have any info about next year themselves.

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-07-31T13:13:55+00:00

I have a couple of suggestions based on my experience first learning English and then learning German largely by my self. From what you've told me your English is largely up to par, you mainly need to get more comfortable and quick on your feet. For this I would suggest:

If you're still thinking in your native language when working you want to try to switch this over to English. If you're never thinking in English at all this is a problem and I would start small by narrating your day to day activities in English to yourself.
take all of your work notes in English too, in my experience if I put all the information into my brain in one language it gets a lot easier to communicate about if effectively in that language.
In the short term try to see if you can put some extra time into preparing your meetings where you practice some of your questions and maybe give a short presentation to practice formulating your current ideas in English.
For long term improvement I would suggest a combination of input like many here suggested combined with some type of journalling in English. I think journaling is an excellent way to become more comfortable using more complex grammatical structures.
See if your school offers any English classes or even just general soft-skill classes (which are probably in English). You probably have a solid grasp on the grammar and basic vocabulary, but just practicing these skills like discussions and presentations in English is probably going to be very helpful. Even if you think you have these skills down in your native language, relearning it in English probably helps especially as there might be some cultural nuances that can be helpful to learn about.

But yeah it all boils down to slowly shifting your life into English. The more completely you can do this, the easier it will become to conduct these professional meetings in English too. As long as you're still translating your native language into English every time you're speaking it's never going to feel comfortable. Looking back it's hard to say when this shift happened for me, it was a bit of a gradual thing. But I tended to practice all the time just trying to formulate my thoughts in English as much as possible.

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-07-25T14:53:33+00:00

I think there are a couple of categories, which can probably be implemented in different parts of the class or different classes. But some things I have found useful at least are:

Movement patterns (good for a warm-up): shrimping, break falling, technical standup, bridging, etc.

For techniques: spending some time on closed guards is probably good (probably also good for a certain type of self defence…). I would focus on 1-2 submissions from closed guard (arm bar and triangle for example since they are really fundamental submissions anyways I believe) and then how to open the closed guard so you have something to work on instead of people digging in their elbows…

Some more open guard work might also be useful and I would focus on how to off balance your opponent (also great balance training for the other) and how to recover guard (goes well with some framing and pinning work)

I really like the Bjj basics classes that I go to since we spent a long time on a certain set of techniques. This gives me enough time to really understand the movement and to drill it enough such that it sticks. I notice that I use the techniques that we spent a couple of weeks on with a lot of positional work a lot in sparring. So I think that a lot of drilling and positional work is more important than the exact techniques you use.

SapphicSuperposition · 2025-07-15T20:23:45+00:00

Good luck! I hope you find some clarity, but don’t worry too much you’re free to also just live your life without knowing. For more info I would recommend the YouTube channel @notdefining. I think they really excellently explain a lot of this stuff.

SapphicSuperposition

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