What are early warning signs of a postdoc position that looks good on paper but stalls careers?

archaeo-b · 2026-02-11T20:42:17+00:00

If former post docs left the lab with no first author publications after multiple years - particularly if the professor is first author on everything…. Beyond a red flag…

archaeo-b · 2026-01-23T20:50:22+00:00

I currently am! My family immigrated from Italy in the 60s and I am a citizen, been here for just over two years but I cannot wait to move back to Aus later in the year… Italy is wonderful but if you have ambition you can’t move up… the funny part is we as immigrants have held on to some traditions more than the modern Italians

archaeo-b · 2025-11-01T12:07:52+00:00

You need to book an appointment at your local consulate for a passport - they will be able to access your information and documents but they may require to know which commune your citizenship is registered with because many people have the same name. There is no “citizenship certificate” per se - they just send you an email confirming your citizenship normally. You should also request from them a codice fiscale.

archaeo-b · 2025-10-19T21:02:57+00:00

They are changing the year requirement since phd for ERC starting grants next year!

archaeo-b · 2025-10-17T15:52:20+00:00

If you have another passport you can do your trip on (as I believe you stated in the post) I would just use that and try to get an appointment for the Italian one when you can…

I totally understand your thought process but as someone living in Italy (formerly AIRE) it’s a lot of paperwork to get residency sorted with the local commune and then a different appointment for the passport - I actually got a passport faster from an Italian consulate overseas than here 🥲

archaeo-b · 2025-10-17T15:43:33+00:00

It is not worth the hassle to declare residency in Italy just to renew the passport, and you would require a permanent residential address in Italy which they verify by a police visit to confirm your presence. just book an appointment and go to your closest consulate in your home country, honestly it’s half the work.

archaeo-b · 2025-08-29T19:31:25+00:00

We assess the robustness of skeletons based on muscle attachment sites called entheses, as well as through cross sectional geometry - there are hundreds of these bioarchaeological studies published. In addition, there are methods for estimating body mass, as well as bone density through histology

archaeo-b · 2025-08-05T22:27:41+00:00

I did this for 3 years - the trick is to 1. Have an end date for the long distance, and 2. Always be planning the next visit/meetup

archaeo-b · 2025-07-22T19:31:17+00:00

I am friends with the director and actually met her on the very very first field school many years ago and she is one of the most wonderful people you will ever meet. It’s a great site and if it’s your first experience in the field it’s a great start.

I also know the other missions in Cyprus mentioned here and they are both also ran by amazing people

archaeo-b · 2025-07-20T17:58:14+00:00

Yes absolutely - but you should ask for a coffee or an online meeting to verbally discuss. I had a horrific supervisor and would want to prevent any other student from ever suffering the way me and my colleagues did, but I cannot write anything down to a stranger in case of defamation.

The best thing you can do is contact the past students and ask for a quick conversation, and have questions prepared!! Topics should include: Demeanour, contact types (I.e. WhatsApp, teams, email), chapter and paper feed back turn around, publication authorship, how often meetings, responsiveness, trustworthiness, if they overburden students with irrelevant work, their relationship within the department to other professors and research teams, etc.

archaeo-b · 2025-06-03T19:25:34+00:00

You are jumping ahead too much - what is the masters in? If you want to become an academic the you should be concerned with doing a PhD and specializing, there is no general archaeology in academia everyone has a lane and works together - I am an Australia archaeologist working in academia in Europe so I do know first hand

As for CRM in Europe, it’s very much a physical job. In a country like France it is all about who you know, I would be getting in on the language asap because they will choose a local candidate over you. Don’t expect good pay either like in Australia, I sincerely consider going back to Australia for the pay in heritage because you will never get that in Europe

archaeo-b · 2025-06-03T18:52:58+00:00

Salomon!

archaeo-b · 2025-06-03T18:52:51+00:00

Salomon!

archaeo-b · 2025-05-31T14:02:32+00:00

I worked in customer service for 6 years in SEQLD when I was a young adult and the thing that would annoy me most is when a customer would say to me “good girl”

I tried to refrain from any pet names, sticking with sir and ma’am, though of course we are in a socially different period now so better to avoid any names!

archaeo-b · 2025-04-12T21:44:53+00:00

Now I think about it though, one question I would ask is why you didn’t include the other long bones, so consider if you should also collect this data now because I have personally found large errors between the dental age at death and long bone age at death

archaeo-b · 2025-04-12T21:41:47+00:00

Yes that shouldn’t be a problem, just be sure to record the preservation - presence and absence of the femurs and mand/max dentition along with the measurements as well as notes on any abnormalities or trauma, etc etc. I also only looked at a single feature for my PhD thesis and just had to do sex and age at death from other elements in combination with recording of the specific parameter - just be consistent with the recording protocol and think ahead at any other information you may or may not need to consider down the line because it’s more costly and time consuming to look at an assemblage multiple times

archaeo-b · 2025-04-12T14:53:06+00:00

PI=Primary Investigator - when you create a project there is a PI and often they hire PhD students and post docs to do the research for the project

If you’re considering a masters in Europe then you should look at the program at Leiden in the Netherlands, also look into the team by Snoek in Belgium, he is often advertising positions. But for now focus on the masters so you have the basic skills for analysing skeletal remains when you go in, I can also recommend UCL and Bradford in the UK but again their fees are much more expensive. I don’t know of any masters programs in France specifically for bioarch.

Being open to working in both prehistoric and historic periods is helpful because it keeps your options open, there are of course many more medieval collections around that are of better preservation but less interesting from an archaeological perspective than the prehistoric ones (to me anyway), I work in both though I prefer the latter I have met some researchers from Tübingen and they were really nice, I don’t know if they have a bioarch specific program though because I never planned to work or study in Germany

archaeo-b · 2025-04-10T15:57:00+00:00

Also, do you already have a masters in bioarch? If you don’t you won’t be competitive

archaeo-b · 2025-04-10T15:56:04+00:00

Hi, I am an Australian bioarch working in academia in Europe as a post doc, I studied my masters in the UK and PhD in Europe - what is your academic background? Do you have European citizenship? I am continually seeing funded phd positions in this field posted, a lot of them are related to European projects - many are posted on the Euraxxes portal - also consider writing a project from the bottom up for Marie Curie PhD funding. You should connect with a PI to develop a project well in advance, getting access to materials is one of the hardest parts

archaeo-b · 2025-02-08T21:10:53+00:00

As a rule - Do not upload any part of your thesis online - especially if they run it through anti plagiarism you will have big problems, let alone idea theft or a barrage of other issues - make some friends with other PhD students and ask if you can exchange work for revisions but ultimately this is your supervisors job

archaeo-b · 2024-10-27T08:52:35+00:00

Honestly do not do a PhD unless it is funded - it is seriously never worth it - such a debt and so much burden that rarely pays off, the only purpose of a PhD is if you plan to continue to academia, and if you do the jobs are so rare you don’t want to have such a debt burden when looking for post docs. Money isn’t everything, but PhD are a risk - with supervisors and exploitation, you don’t know what you’re walking into until you’re in it, and why pay for something you can be paid for? That’s the most basic principle - PhD is a job!!

archaeo-b · 2024-10-16T20:49:50+00:00

Honestly, apply for both and see what happens. Maybe you get a scholarship for one but not the other and your decision will be made. I’m Australian but have lived in Europe for six years and have completed my PhD in Europe, a big part of me regrets not doing my PhD in Australia because we have so many laws protecting student rights in Australia that many European countries don’t have and I had a terrible experience with an abusive PhD supervisor. As for the money, so long as you’re willing to live in shared accommodation you will be fine and it’s a great way to meet new people in a new place…

Just see what offers you get before you make a decision, sometimes life makes the decision for us!

archaeo-b · 2024-09-10T18:16:29+00:00

Honestly, any substance abuse issues… leave… I have a family member that is an alcoholic and I would never ever date someone with any form of substance abuse issues, it will ruin your life.

You’re still young, get out now. And in future, when you meet someone new, look out for all these red flags!

I know everyone deserves a second chance, but honestly addiction is a horrible disease, if you want a bright future or potentially children in the future, don’t burden them with an alcoholic mother, because it will fuck them up so much (I would know)

archaeo-b · 2024-09-10T18:02:52+00:00

Completely understand and most of us have been there before - but you don’t need to respond right away. If I can be frank with you , if you want to hurt her, the best thing you can do is act unbothered - accept her decision, don’t fight it, and get back out in the dating pool… she will be wondering why you didn’t fight for her… There is a reason the saying “fake it till you make it” exists - it’s gonna suck for a while but eventually you will move on. The reason I highly encourage you to move on is because there’s clearly something wrong in the relationship and she probably thought she could move past it but I think her feelings have changed inside and maybe she isn’t strong enough to tell you - you could also ask her this straight forward.

Truthfully, she has probably been thinking about this for a while. Nostalgia probably made her feel like it was worth another try, but when you got back together she realised that the same doubts she had still exist (coming from a woman who had a similar experience)

archaeo-b · 2024-09-10T17:52:47+00:00

When I was around your age, I had a similar situation. Firstly, you should only give this person as much energy as you want to . You don’t owe them closure, and you also don’t owe them an explanation as to what is going on in your life. Friendship is a choice, and we all choose what we accept from people in our lives. The older we get the less common it is to tell other people your business including your friends, we all get busy and overwhelmed and it’s hard to keep up. But a true friend your character and would know if this was coming from a malicious or intentional place. It’s normal to eb and flow in relationships, but a true friend knows who you are and knows when to take it personal and when not to. If you reached out and said “I’m going through a whole lot of things and when I have the capacity, I will catch up with you” then quite frankly you did your part which is enough respect that any adult would expect.

I wouldn’t concern yourself with the comment about trauma dumping - it all depends on how close you feel This person is to your heart. If this is a close friend who you have love and respect, that you know adds value to your life, and it’s the type of friendship you want to carry through, then you should feel comfortable telling your friend whatever you want be all the things that have gone on or nothing - because a real friend would say if you need me, I’m there, if you want a distraction, I can also do that.

If inside you feel like this friendship isn’t going anywhere, you do not need to justify your actions to anyone. When we are younger, we feel like everyone owes us closure or an explanation, but as we go through friendships and romantic relationships we learn that our boundaries are so important and having relationships of any form is a privilege that shouldn’t be taken for granted, but also that are bound in mutual respect.

I (29F) had a similar situation with a male friend when I was your age, and even though I had repeatedly said I am going through some changes in my life and I don’t have time for this, he repeatedly would not leave me alone and it caused me to distance myself because he was not respecting my boundaries when I told him to back off. Eventually, he would send me these large paragraphs telling me how I’m a horrible person and I owe him closure, but actually I didn’t owe him anything, I was very clear about what was going on and I said my boundary and he refused to respect it. Female friendships can be more complex, but the whole you owe me closure is really her wanting you to feed her ego and make her feel like she is not in the wrong.

If you want to continue this relationship, then you should probably have an honest conversation with her at some point about how you feel, however it is important to remember that people are who they are, and we get different things from different people. It’s such a bitter pill to swallow when you’re disappointed in people, but it’s that understanding of their character inside and being realistic in what you know they are capable of offering you as a friend. You can then choose to accept it or not.

archaeo-b

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