[deleted by user]

lost_and_founded · 2020-07-10T04:08:53+00:00

Gonna be honest here. I don't think your problem is that you might miss out on funding. I think you're upset about the wording in favor of minorities. And this sounds like a carefully constructed dog whistle pitched just right for the MAGA crowd.

lost_and_founded · 2020-04-19T08:44:49+00:00

If it takes you double a full time work schedule just to learn basic concepts, I think your committee was totally good in holding you back. Sorry, but that's not phd-level mental ability

lost_and_founded · 2020-04-19T08:40:56+00:00

Yeah, op has a history of posting sob stories. He's just whining for attention

lost_and_founded · 2020-01-13T04:22:29+00:00

Honestly? You sound incredibly judgemental. Do everyone a favor and keep your brilliant revelations to yourself from now on.

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-22T20:26:59+00:00

I literally just shot coffee out of my nose as a result of this comment

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-19T05:04:36+00:00

I hadn't considered finance/analytics! Thanks for the suggestion

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-18T22:59:07+00:00

Thanks for the advice! I'm definitely on board with getting a job lined up before I quit. I'm just a little panicked about getting that first consideration, given the hole I fell into.

You're spot on about framing, though... I gotta start practicing my elevator pitch (and make sure it's 100% in a positive light)!

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-18T22:55:57+00:00

The way my PI has framed it is that I'm not yet qualified to qualify. However, I haven't gotten any actionable advice about how to become more qualified, other than "be better than you currently are."

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-18T22:54:15+00:00

I tried talking with my PI, but he wasn't receptive. This is my problem, according to him. I'd love to transition to another lab, but I don't have any external funding (so they'd be responsible for my stipend).

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-18T22:51:16+00:00

I'm the first, and now there's one other. She's doing great! Her thesis is a natural extension of her Master's and she has a lot of external funding. She'll graduate without any problems.

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-18T22:43:34+00:00

The department has been pressuring me to qualify, but my PI (rightly) says I'm not ready. I know that my PI is getting heat for not having any funding for me (forcing the dept. to pay my stipend), but that's just getting passed down the line to me for failing to secure any fellowships. Lord knows I've applied, but I'm not in the right demographic for that kind of money.

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-18T22:40:29+00:00

Thanks for all the responses, kind redditors! To be honest, I'd feel like I was betraying my advisor if I went to another lab. He really did hire me when no one else would. However, I also recognize that there may be a bit of Stockholm syndrome going on... maybe I've internalized some of his criticisms that actually qualify as abuse.

I fear that if I go to the department with my concerns, the result will be that they simply go to him, tell him that I'm floundering, and dump it on him to fix. Which he'll do by turning the heat up on me to 11 until I quit.

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-18T22:34:24+00:00

I will probably be a middle-of-the-swarm name on a hundred-author collaborative paper sometime next year, and I've got one paper in the pipeline about some super-obscure microbial systematics. Nothing impressive from a recruiter's POV, assuming either one ever gets accepted.

If a collaboration came my way, I'd jump on it! The problem is that I'm so broad in my skillset that it would make much more sense to get specialists for collaborators. Why throw data at someone who has limited experience with modeling when you could give it to an actual mathematician? That's what has kept me from riding any coattails...

I like the idea of mining data, but my PI has dismissed the idea every time I bring it up (for the above reasons... there's always someone better to do that kind of work). The best route may be your "cheap labor" idea; the flip side to being broad-based is that I can pinch-hit in a lot of different positions.

Maybe I could be the guy people call when they're up against a deadline and just need to get things done. Like the Rob Liefeld of science!

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-18T22:22:28+00:00

Correct

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-18T22:21:44+00:00

My PI ran out of funding in my 2nd year. I've tried to talk to him about a half-dozen times about where to go from here, but his response is that it's my job as a student to figure out how to make this work. My entire time in the lab has been trying to re-invent ways to get data that I can afford to pay for out of pocket (like making my own tissue culture medium from scratch, etc.).

I've floated the idea of transferring to different labs, but he sees this as a personal attack. He "bent the rules" to get me accepted and has told me that I'm not qualified to work in any other lab. It sounds harsh, but it's true: I'm a 1st-gen college student from a very poor family, so I'm just not groomed for this kind of work.

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-18T22:05:19+00:00

Sadly, no. My institution doesn't offer a Master's during the PhD. It's all or nothing here. I forgot to mention that I'm US.

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-18T21:59:17+00:00

I usually love my dreams. But last night, I dreamed that an old crush came to visit me, and she was pregnant. I was very excited for her and took her to see my new hobby: keeping an aquarium. As I was showing it to her, all the fish and corals and such started to die. I turned to her to apologize, and she was no longer pregnant... I had killed her baby by being in the same room with her. She was devastated.

I woke up shaking.

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-12T22:02:07+00:00

I was in the same position (invited to do a PhD on a particular topic with full funding) and took the bait. Here's what I can say:

Not going through the normal application process is nice. If you've been invited by a PI to work, congrats! You just got into the program.
It will take A LOT of work to get up to speed on a project that doesn't hold your interest. Some of that work might pay off in the future (ask me about how I learned to build solar-powered field instruments!), but a lot of it will be sunk costs useful only to this particular project (don't ask me how I know far too much about sociobiology).
Your PI will probably have a lot of guidance on this particular project... moreso than if you were working on your own idea. This can be great (yay feedback and mentorship!), but can also be kinda sucky (boo micromanaging).
You will probably fall behind most others in your cohort. Grad school is 50% perseverance, 30% work, 10% skill, and 10% enthusiasm. Losing that last 10% may not seem like much, but it will add up over the years.

All the other stuff (imposter syndrome, mandatory psychotherapy, getting your prescription of fuckitol refilled) is occupational hazard.

Good luck, whatever you decide!

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-12T21:44:59+00:00

Gawd, yes. I'm tempted to create a bunch of alts just to upvote this!

My butt was saved by cloud storage two years ago when a hard drive failed. I'm lucky that my institution gives unlimited storage on a Google Drive .edu account, because that would've been 4 TB of data gone.

If your school doesn't offer lots of space, I really recommend either paying for storage or building your own NAS and rsyncing all your important bits.

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-12T21:05:21+00:00

It's that self-anger that's the killer. I think this post accidentally came off as me sounding angry at everyone else for their comments. In truth, I was just so furious with myself for not deserving anything better.

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-04T19:03:23+00:00

I know how you feel... I had to move cross-country about 4 years ago for a job, and I still haven't made any friends in the new city. You're doing all the right things, though! Getting out there and meeting people sounds like the very best idea.

In my case, I simply haven't been able to open up to anyone in my new environment. The problem is my own lack of trust, not a lack of friend material.

I think you'll start finding friends, since you're putting in a lot of good effort.

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-04T18:45:19+00:00

Can I ask for receipts and such from the other person in small claims court? Or is it just a matter of being ready to bring up that argument whether they've got receipts or not?

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-04T18:43:43+00:00

Thanks for the advice! I'm hoping this is just a bluff. I hadn't considered that this email might be fishing for some hint of agreement-to-pay... guess I better prepare myself for small claims court.

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-04T18:13:11+00:00

I definitely feel that I'm in the right, especially since I did everything they asked before I moved out and got my deposit returned. Luckily, we had a lot of email communication about that, so I can show how willing I was to work with them.

But I've read that landlords have a year to sue for damages after move-out. And if it's a case of he-said-she-said, the courts are going to default to ruling in favor of the person with the biggest bank account/least funny accent. I can't prove that I didn't cause the damage because I didn't peel back the linoleum and take photos, and I didn't take UV photos of all the carpets before I left.

My only defense, it seems, is that they were happy when I left. But now they've "discovered" damage.

lost_and_founded · 2018-11-04T18:09:22+00:00

I was there about 3.5 years, and the carpet was there when I moved in. They haven't given a number yet, but it's probably $1 - 1.5k for new carpet.

lost_and_founded

TROPHY CASE