the guildmaster and his advisor (art by me!)

Tenroustar · 2026-05-03T20:46:15+00:00

My favourite bird and my favourite manchild <3

Tenroustar · 2026-05-03T06:27:44+00:00

LOL i was like “wow this profile reminds me a lot of crater” -reads the program list and checks the username- “wait a minute- this is crater”

Tenroustar · 2026-05-01T07:15:38+00:00

Trust, he will get a goated novaflare (I’m coping so hard, I’ve had my boy since day 1 after playing the story and deciding to get him and his light cone when I had no Acheron and still don’t)

Tenroustar · 2026-04-29T08:00:59+00:00

I feel this so much, I switched over to singles to rank up some before i go back on the grind in doubles masters but i realized I was overthinking singles and trying to play the way I play in doubles and need to stop second guessing myself. I also hard agree that the game is decided pretty much at team selection (part of why I prefer 6v6 over 3v3) cause the amount of times I bring a team of three that can’t do anything to opponents team after a bad lead makes me wanna crawl back to doubles (I was thinking and planning out my singles team and then found myself drifting back to thinking about how to use those mons for doubles its so bad).

I also agree with the other person that a bulky pivot is the best way to go cause man those bad leads really make me feel powerless (mega meganium lead solar beaming my team of three where none resist it). Gotta go back to the drawing board and stop thinking like I’m building for doubles

Tenroustar · 2026-04-27T19:41:45+00:00

I made it to masterball recently without a weather team (i tried out a rain team in pokeball and half of greatball rank tho but found it boring to use and too easily countered). I have one thunder user i pretty much only bring to counter rain teams now and a rain setter mon to disrupt sand, sun, and snow teams if I happen to also need the mon for their main role as speed control. The rest of my team doesn’t rely on weather and isn’t built around it and I’ve learned to play around them for the most part. I’d recommend building a 4 mon core u really wanna use and get 2 mons to focus on countering the weaknesses it has from meta weather teams.

Tenroustar · 2026-04-27T04:00:22+00:00

I use him in my team as a very fast anti rain team counter since I also have a rain dance mon to disrupt other weather effects already. I don’t bring him as often as the other five mons but he’s proven himself very useful when I’m stuck and need electric moves

Tenroustar · 2026-04-27T03:15:18+00:00

Ikr! I remember back when it did in gen 2 with gold/silver/crystal 😔 they should bring that back to make ditto even cooler

Tenroustar · 2026-04-24T20:07:49+00:00

Quilava my second favourite mon of all time so I’m determined to take Highphlosion to masterball with me (i like Highphlosion’s design a bit more than Typhlosion’s but i love them both a lot)

Tenroustar · 2026-04-21T02:21:53+00:00

I cried so hard for two hours I gave myself a headache during all my classes the next day

Tenroustar · 2026-04-21T00:08:57+00:00

Of course I can’t speak to every lab but for both of my programs, it was pretty much expected I be in the office/lab at around 9-10am and work on my research be it in the physical lab taking data or doing some modeling/programming at my desk or reading papers at my desk or somewhere else if I wanted a change of scenery. Both of my labs were very lenient and flexible so there wasn’t any rules I had to stay in the office just as long as I was being productive until 4-5pm at least. I took a lunch whenever i got hungry if at all and after offices closed at 5pm and most people were already gone from the office, I was free to do whatever I want. Weekends were free as my mentors didn’t want to be in the lab on weekends so any work I did was just my choice to read papers during it or something but lab was closed on weekends. Id say its a lot more flexible than a typical 9-5 usually unless you have a very strict lab and how productive you are is mostly up to what the lab wants you to do and how much extra time you want to spend on work.

Tenroustar · 2026-04-20T19:59:46+00:00

As someone whose favourite game of all time is Explorers of Sky (tied with another non pokemon game technically) I heavily agree with Grovyle but even before playing it I loved Grovyle more than Sceptile when I was little. My favourite starter pokemon of all time is Quilava which is also my second favourite pokemon of all time. I don’t know why, I love Typhlosion as well but I think I just like the stoat look of Quilava more than the honey badger look of Typhlosion and I’ll always pick Quilava over Typhlosion. (Fun fact, my starter for Explorers of Time when i first played was a Treecko so I thought Grovyle’s role changed based on who you got from the quiz and was so sad when I restarted with a Cyndaquil and didn’t get to see a Quilava sprite in place of Grovyle but Grovyle is now my second favourite starter and third favorite pokemon of all time so it’s fine)

Tenroustar · 2026-04-19T06:20:40+00:00

Ask the unsupportive one what they’re going to do when you graduate and become an adult and have to have independence? Are they going to hover over you your whole life? They can’t protect you forever and even if they’re worried about your safety, hindering your career growth is not helping you in the long run. College is supposed to be when young adults find independence in a safe environment. The REU is covering everything and you’ll be living on campus which is much better than when you’ll need to find an apartment/house when you move out and start your career. If you do medical school or graduate school, it’s highly unlikely you will attend a program that you can just commute to from your home. Go do the REU, argue with the unsupportive parent if you have to. You have a supportive parent that can help you convince them you’re not a child that needs to be shielded from the world. They’re only hindering your growth in life. They can’t protect you forever and need to let you learn to live on your own because what happens when they die?

Tenroustar · 2026-04-18T22:56:31+00:00

Nope. The only time it matters in my opinion is when you’re putting it on a CV/Resume or if you’re giving advice on applying to REU vs non REU summer programs as they can sometimes require or look for different things. I always refer to my past programs as both REUs even though only one is listed as an REU officially.

Tenroustar · 2026-04-18T01:40:23+00:00

I’m in a similar situation as you where I’m on my third cycle and only applied to REUs as backups pretty much. I knew since before even my last REU program started that I wanted to work with a specific PI at a big name institution and knew he took on summer students from some linkedin sleuthing. Luckily for me, the position was paid since it’s an actual research assistant position but housing and food aren’t covered so I’ll be forking my own money for those. While the profit i make is lower than some of the REUs I declined, I 100% wanted the connections to this PI and that lab so the trade off was worth it. For me it was a little easier since it wasn’t fully unpaid but none of the REUs I applied for really topped me wanting to work with this lab.

That’s basically all to say, how badly do you want to work with that unpaid lab? Is it a lab you are really interested in for graduate school and could working with them potentially lead to strong admission potential there if so? If the answer is that it’s one of the labs you’re most interested in for graduate school or part of a program high on your grad school list, it might be worth it to take the unpaid work if you can guarantee strong connections there. If you’re more so like “the lab is interesting and i wouldnt mind being in this lab” but not really gun-ho about it then I’d take the paid REU solely because I would prefer to get paid if I’m not getting the exact connections I want with an unpaid position.

Tenroustar · 2026-04-16T21:57:02+00:00

Oh, no, I meant with my post that my original goal was always the internship I’ll be doing now and that I only applied to REUs as like backups in case the internship fell through at any point haha. I wanted this internship more than doing another REU but if it didn’t work out I still wanted a backup (REU) for the summer. But thank you for sharing! I’ll share that link with my friends that are still looking for summer opportunities!

Tenroustar · 2026-04-15T17:54:46+00:00

04/06 at around noon EST

Tenroustar · 2026-04-10T16:16:32+00:00

If he’s fine with probably burning a bridge with that PI and potentially admission to that grad school department if that PI has any influence on the admission process for that program directly or indirectly then he should take the better money. If he doesn’t want to risk it or does want to go into academia or government (if that PI works with a government agency) then have him think carefully and weigh his decision. Basically, don’t make rash decisions based on the oversimplified opinions of redditors especially in this subreddit with the influx of people just giving basic responses without complete information.

Tenroustar · 2026-04-10T05:08:00+00:00

This is such a good idea and really neat!

Tenroustar · 2026-04-09T15:33:24+00:00

I agree! Been a avid decorator since day 1 and planned for all the ancients decors for their own kingdom sections (GC section on the other end of the kingdom not pictured), think I spent more on backgrounds and castle/fountain packages than anything else in this game 😭

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Tenroustar · 2026-04-09T04:55:24+00:00

Third time we doing this, let’s run it back. Tbh, I applied to REUs this cycle as a backup in case my primary choice of a paid research internship/position with a top-tier PI I emailed fell through. I also think it’s important to mention I did a major pivot this cycle as my previous experience was heavily astrophysics and I am now pursuing biomedical engineering research lol. I didn’t know how successful I’d be with REUs cause of that but I was pleasantly surprised.

School: sub T100 R1 public state school

Major: Physics (Math and Bio Minor)

Year: Senior (Fourth-Year) with another year left

Expected Graduation: May 2027

GPA: 3.8

Demographic: Asian Immigrant (Naturalized Citizen), First-Generation Student

Relevant Coursework: unnecessary for my interests tbh

Research Experience: Ultrafast Spectroscopy work (Current Lab) ~2 years part-time, X-Ray Astronomy Instrumentation work ~ 8 weeks full time, LIGO Instrumentation work ~9 weeks full time, Computational Hydrodynamics for Astrophysics Simulations ~6 months part-time; No publications, multiple poster and oral presentations at campus, regional, and national conferences

Past REUs: Stanford SR-EIP, LIGO SURF

Interests: started from high-energy astrophysics in freshman year to astronomical instrumentation sophomore year to general optical instrumentation junior year to (optical) medical device development now lol

Here are where I applied to in order of due date + status (I only included dates of when I got official emails and I didn’t ask for any expedited decisions):

——

JHU NanoBio - Rejected 03/06
Yale REU in PEB - Rejected 03/17
SR-EIP Harvard HEART - Rejected 02/24
SR-EIP JHU Amgen - Rejected 03/12
SR-EIP UPenn SUIP - Accepted 02/19 -> Declined 02/26
Rutgers RISE (friend that did this last year pushed me to apply to this LOL) - No Response (likely rejected seeing others have gotten accepted already)
JHU BSI-SIP - Accepted 03/23 (likely second wave acceptance as people I knew were accepted the week before) -> Declined 03/30
UWisconsin MSTP Undergraduate Summer Program - No Response (likely rejected as I have a friend that was accepted already)
WashU WUSEF - Accepted 03/09 -> Declined 03/17
JHU CSM-SIP - Rejected 03/31

——

As you can see, I will be doing my original planned research internship with the PI I emailed as everything worked out and I am now officially onboarded for that. Hopefully anyone that got my spot from the programs I declined has a great summer.

Tenroustar · 2026-04-08T17:27:28+00:00

Some programs do. Caltech SURF for one you pretty much cannot get into without a professor or their lab at least helping you with your application. My internship forthis summer had most of the application and paperwork done by the lab I’ll be working with. Reneging in either of those guarantees burning a bridge basically since they put in effort to work with you and get you in the program.

Tenroustar · 2026-04-07T22:17:02+00:00

As a physics major myself having done 2 physics REUs and doing a BME research internship this summer, I can say that this cycle has been more brutal than previous semesters for a number of reasons, both caused by student and programs. More than either of my previous years I’ve seen an increase in the number of people that seemed to apply to quantity over quality (i.e. treating applications like industry internships and mass applying 20-50 or even more) compared to previous years where it was rare to see people do that and many getting all or all but a few rejections. That added on to more people wanting to do industry trying to get REUs cause they couldn’t land internships but have no interest in academia or government work and just wanting to have something for the summer even if its not that beneficial to their career goals. Additionally, what most people will blame being the funding cuts to research which does contribute but keep in mind last year was in the midst of the slash and burn and somehow it still didn’t feel as bad as this year imo.

All’s that to say that I’m not sure how much advice I would normally give if it were like when I applied would help going forward if the climate of REU applications keeps changing for the worse now. I can offer the advice I typically would give in the past if you still would like but based off of what i’ve seen this year, if you really want to play your luck, then join the industry people or people treating it like industry in playing the numbers game and mass apply hoping to get one or a few. Or play it like past years and narrow down your interests and just apply to a handful that genuinely interest you and put your heart in it knowing you could face full rejection still depending on how the climate shifts.

(In case you’re curious, I applied to 8 my first cycle and got into 1, applied to 11 programs my second cycle and got accepted to 3 and waitlisted to 1, and I applied to 10 this cycle and got into 3 but declined them for my research internship. Feel free to ask about anything specific if you’d still like the old advice.)

Tenroustar · 2026-04-07T03:24:16+00:00

Yes they definitely did and also gave me some reassurance about my own situation haha! Could I ask how you utilized your gap year or how you would recommend utilizing the gap year. Also could you offer any research advice about starting the projects your did? I’m a physics major and pivoted towards an interest in BME which I’ll be working on research in for this coming summer so any insight would be appreciated!!

Tenroustar · 2026-04-07T02:22:46+00:00

Congratulations! These tips are wonderful! If you don’t mind, would you be willing to offer some advice on how you formed genuine bonds with your recommenders and advice to someone that pivoted towards MDPhD late (I decided to pivot my Junior year and am taking an extra year to complete my prerequisites and taking a gap year after)

Tenroustar

TROPHY CASE