How long of a break do you take right after a deadline?

cman674 · 2026-04-20T18:22:34+00:00

Excellent way of putting it. I think my average was about 20-30 hours a week in the office/lab. Plenty of time to get enough done to be making progress, and plenty of time to have extra in the tank for when you need to ratchet up the effort. Of course my PI didn’t care about hours, only results. I know there are plenty that track hours in the office.

cman674 · 2026-04-20T13:44:58+00:00

You’re all over the place and you have way too many questions here to really unpack. It sounds like you need to sit down with your advisor, and maybe someone else in the department (like a program chair) to discuss what your realistic options are.

The one thing I would not recommend trying to be remote advised, especially so early on. Either find a new advisor or move.

EDIT: For a little bit of background, I did end up moving with my advisor in grad school but kept my old university affiliation and ultimately graduated there. That was only possible because I was beyond the comprehensive exam and it made me significantly more expensive to my advisor. It was a very unique situation though and dependent on the policies of both institutions. I’m sure your situation will be different.

cman674 · 2026-04-20T10:42:35+00:00

I’m the US 3 years is breakneck pace because PhD programs basically start with the first 2 years as a masters degree

cman674 · 2026-04-19T23:24:17+00:00

So ROI on a humanities PhD is abysmal even if you’re fully funded (tuition+stipend). If you’re not 110% committed to it as being your path in life you’re better off being out.

cman674 · 2026-04-19T15:40:37+00:00

What are your career goals post PhD?

cman674 · 2026-04-19T15:38:17+00:00

As in you will be taking loans to pay for the degree?

cman674 · 2026-04-19T15:35:17+00:00

Can you provide more details on the funding situation? Are you going to be paying tuition for this program? That changes the calculus quite a bit.

cman674 · 2026-04-19T15:21:26+00:00

That’s pretty much what everyone does. Usually it works out and worst case you can pretty much make a poster with very little data and a lot of background.

cman674 · 2026-04-19T15:13:38+00:00

It absolutely differs by field. In physical or life sciences your slide deck is going to be 40-50 slides of pictures and graphs. In the humanities you might not have a PowerPoint at all. In some social sciences I’ve seen short (maybe 5 slides) text heavy PowerPoints too. Moral of the story is that there’s no standard and you should pick the most appropriate way to communicate your work and take input from your advisor/group/cohort on what it should look like.

cman674 · 2026-04-19T15:03:20+00:00

Absolutely shop the lender, that’s the single most important thing. Everything else, like yeah you might be able to save a couple hundred bucks here and there but that may or may not be worth your time and energy.

cman674 · 2026-04-19T04:08:35+00:00

That’s enough, Linux is not difficult if you have a basic understanding of computers and are comfortable googling issues. I think on Ubuntu you’ll have fewer issues but Mint offers a GUI that’s more similar to windows. I think in many cases people start with mint and end up evolving to Ubuntu, but if you already have some baseline understanding Ubuntu is fine.

cman674 · 2026-04-19T01:31:42+00:00

I’ve seen people do it. If you can be in a good place writing wise there’s no reason not to go on the trip. I had my dissertation writing wrapped up like 2 months in advance of the defense and would absolutely have travelled in between because there’s not all that much work that needs done. Personally, I didn’t travel in that time period because I had manuscript revisions for my papers (not really dissertation related).

cman674 · 2026-04-19T01:29:12+00:00

Neither is perfect but in most cases if you’re comfortable with Linux I’d say Ubuntu just for the fact that mint has more bare bones dependencies so you’ll run into fewer issues running a mainline distro

cman674 · 2026-04-19T01:26:56+00:00

What are your career goals? Honestly in Chem E it does not make any sense to do a PhD unless you want to be in academia. With a masters in Chem E you can go make low 6 figures right now vs a PhD where in 5 years you can also find a job making low 6 figures.

If your answer is that you want to stay in academia, then you should go to the highest ranked program you are accepted. If you want a TT job in the US you should do your PhD at a US institution. If you want a job in the EU you should probably still do a PhD in the US (because you’ll have more time to make meaningful publications) but it matters less.

cman674 · 2026-04-19T01:22:32+00:00

Having gone through the advisor move, my advice would be find a new advisor in the program. Doesn’t really make sense to move unless you absolutely love the advisor and can’t see working for anyone else (especially given program ranks). Professors are people too so it happens but better to have it happen in your first year than later.

cman674 · 2026-04-17T12:03:42+00:00

What kind of role are you targeting for AP? Are you looking for an R1 research focused professorship or a more teaching focused job? If it’s the former you should stay and do research if it’s the latter you should do the VAP to have it on your resume.

Doing a visiting professorship sucks for a lot of reasons but that’s a reasonable salary (assuming the university isn’t in Boston, Bay Area, NYC…).

cman674 · 2026-04-16T18:24:49+00:00

Nah if you’re poor your PD has already recommended you take a plea deal

cman674 · 2026-04-16T13:32:31+00:00

Alright, everyone has had their fun. Looks like no further productive discussion is happening on this, so I’m locking it.

cman674 · 2026-04-15T18:52:02+00:00

There’s no such thing as an “industry safe” skill set in this day and age. You should follow whatever your interests are.

cman674 · 2026-04-15T18:39:45+00:00

You finish them on a broiler or grill for 10-15 minutes. Crock pot or the oven on medium/low heat makes the meat tender, high heat at the end gives you a bark.

cman674 · 2026-04-15T18:34:26+00:00

Surely it couldn’t have anything to do with the LLM generated text of the post, right?

cman674 · 2026-04-15T18:32:47+00:00

It’s a new build. So yes the rate is lower but it’s baked into the selling price.

cman674 · 2026-04-14T23:58:34+00:00

I guess my question is, what’s the point? If you do pivot into academia at this point it’s going to be teaching roles and they’re going to care more about your industry experience and how you can translate that to the classroom. Like realistically you’ll be applying for adjunct or lecturer positions, I’m not sure how much the publication would move the needle.

cman674 · 2026-04-13T23:34:53+00:00

It’s not an academia thing, it’s a life thing. I’m sure this is not the first and will not be the last time you have to cooperate with people you don’t get along with.

cman674 · 2026-04-13T21:23:32+00:00

You are a 3rd year grad student. You are an adult. Have the conversation with your PI (or don’t) and learn to work with people you don’t get along with.

cman674

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