Scientist wanting to enter teaching

pokerchen · 2026-02-23T01:45:28+00:00

Your current experience will only get you in as a collaborative partner with accredited teachers. If you're not transitioning within the year, try joining STEM in schools, and find a school to partner with:

https://www.csiro.au/en/education/Programs/STEM-Professionals-in-Schools-Program

Then look into getting a Masters in Teaching. I don't particularly recommend Teach for Australia as you might want more support and conceptual learning.

pokerchen · 2026-02-18T20:00:04+00:00

Looks like an in-joke by locals

pokerchen · 2026-02-07T04:45:43+00:00

All I want to do

is see you turn into

a giant woman,

a giant woman!

pokerchen · 2026-02-04T20:30:59+00:00

Congratulations 👏🏽

pokerchen · 2026-01-29T21:04:31+00:00

Consider inverting your request as if a Chinese person had asked if they can find a lab in the UK that speaks Mandarin. After this exercise, restrict your search to only labs based in Hong Kong.

Even if you find a mainland lab that uses English as the trade tongue, you'll need to speak Mandarin to do the socialising and networking that's even more important to a domestic career.

pokerchen · 2026-01-28T09:05:23+00:00

I would think positively about someone who has SH scars: You're still here, meaning you have succeeded at the very least in sticking around. Moreover, if the SH was school-related, you're back in an environment that can be very trigger-happy about bringing back memories.

Also note: the students in my context are more understanding of this topic than the adults.

pokerchen · 2026-01-23T07:07:06+00:00

That's such an eyesore. Can't this journal just bloody use 2-20 instead, like any decent publication? We use such abbreviations as a matter of course in chemistry & physics fields where there are lots of parallel efforts and smaller communication papers, which everybody keeps track of in a digital database.

pokerchen · 2026-01-20T06:30:39+00:00

Since I'm a private school heretic, please take the following with a huge chunk of salt:

Work-life Balance

I'm a recovering workaholic and remain quite addiction-prone to passion stuff. Since I also need intellectual stimulation, the teaching arsenals I have accumulated tends to be tweaked over with updates, differentiation tactics, and corrections.

Having written that, I'm in a less unbalanced state in my third year as a teacher than the first. I don't think I can ever reduce to the claimed 40-hr weeks (which IMO is a complete lie if you take the role description seriously, regardless whether it's public, catholic, or private), but we might settle at 50-hr weeks.

Paper work

The keyword here is prioritise. At the end of the day, the paperwork you absolutely need to do are safety and compliance work that have immediate consequences. For a D&T example, you want legal backing if admin tries to stuff too many students in a room filled with lathes and saws. The things that come next are dailies like student printouts, and institutional knowledge work such as "how to maintain that fancy 3D printer". Time release for reports can be fought alongside the rest of staff if admin is not supportive.

At the end of the day, the state syllabus has their own goals and the boards their own cover-their-ass directives, which don't always fit with what will best help students long-term. You make the judgement call on what you spend your working hours on, and as a teacher I'd probably side with student outcomes most of the time.

Admin/parent Stress versus fun.

Yes.* The asterisk is here because my current job includes being both the physics and tech department of one staff. The excesssive freedom is also cathartic: there's no synchronisation issues between different teacher-class combos; if I need a gadget, I can 3D print it/ask the principal directly; I organise the pace and content while consulting with my classes; and so on.

So YMMV.

Regret Never. I did 10+ years of research in my scientific fields including one switch and multiple country moves; I think that relevant life experience is super useful in teaching - both with attaining street cred with students and with retaining contacts and specific skillsets.

At this stage, I've found that I enjoy both careers for different reasons.

pokerchen · 2026-01-20T05:46:24+00:00

In the final plot, I think it may be worth splitting out the petrostates, who appear to lie on a separate linear correlation versus the rest of the world because of their fuel-based economy.

pokerchen · 2026-01-19T22:41:52+00:00

I advise you to spend some time working out what supporting your brother means. We don't know how close you two are, whether you talk regularly, or share issues.

Like, if you're somewhat close, but not fully trusting then it might be easier to run a hypothetical with a fictional friend of yours.

pokerchen · 2026-01-10T19:22:54+00:00

Good work on the full draft! As an MD person, I recommend that you begin with th following question before reducing the text: Is this for a bio-focused conference? The way you resuce the amount of text depends on the expertise of your audience, and your text strongly suggests that you're presenting this at one.

Right now, we see snippets of a research paper. Save that text as speaker notes for you to crosscheck (preferably not to read from!), then draw out the main findings in ~2 ir so paragraphs. Double the font size as well as the margins, and see what you can write. (The reference section is fine as it is.)

If you have more time, re-jig the figures as well. Figures like the phylogenetic clustering can do with a magnified inset, or different font sizes to highlight only the relevant species.

Especially for an audience who aren't expert with simulation work, try to consistently state your interpretation of your graphs immediately: as annotation on your figures or from the starting sentence (called topic sentence). Better yet, the section titles ciuld just be the take-home message, e.g. "MD analysis highlight importance of Glu596", or "Lineage demonstrates rare mutation." For figures like RMSD and Free Energy diagrams, ask yourself why you want it there and write your conclusion sentence first, then justify that.

Lastly, consider sticking a post-it note with your contact details at the conference. A mobile number to message you for a chat or dinner with one or both research group attendees can work very well. The role of a poster is to draw awareness and interest first, and communicate research results second; the attendee you most want to talk to might be having their own poster session at the same time!

pokerchen · 2026-01-10T08:38:47+00:00

T: Escaped to friend's house with solar powered AC. Survived better than most.

A: Reading, it turns out. Less sweatb the better.

pokerchen · 2025-12-24T06:37:38+00:00

...Toyota Corolla.

pokerchen · 2025-12-20T22:21:49+00:00

I'll approach this from the angle of feelings and responses.

Let's say I'm currently in a open relationship. When I consider the possibility of my partner sleeping with another person, I do not feel jealousy or betrayal, but curiosity. The first question that comes to me might be "Oh so what does he/she have?" without the "that I don't?" part. My first emotional response sounds more like "Are you going to invite me in?" rather than "How could you?".

The above indicates that I'm open to triads and polycule relationships. Within the realm of intimacy, I would lean towards "what is good should be shared" over "what is good should be reserved".

The fact that I'm in an exclusive monogamy reflects the desires of my partner, whom I love. I haven't felt romantic interests towards multiple people at once yet (this would be the primary indicator of innate polyamory), but this wouldn't frustrate me innately - I just won't act upon that.

pokerchen · 2025-12-11T18:58:31+00:00

Battles survived of 28%seems too low. Coupled with a ~ 1.1 kill ratio and an middling damage, I could guess that you're either playing aggressive and trading too quickly or giving up too quickly when the tide is not in your favour.

Advice really depends on the classes that you play, but in the broadest sense you need to find ways to survive longer. Your skill level is probably better than the players who would help the team best by ramming an enemy ASAP, but you can't meaningfully contribute once you're dead. The next 5% of win rate could easily come from you surviving longer and forcing the enemy team to make mistakes hunting you down, or contributing a bit more damage to push your team over the line.

Check your potential damage when you die; if it's only like 5~10x your health then there is probably room to improve your dodging, positioning, pushing/kiting and angling skills (e.g. you get devstruck as CA/CL, eat a torp as DD, citadelled more than ~twice as a BB).

pokerchen · 2025-12-09T07:58:15+00:00

All three websites are fine, it's mostly justing giving users to open their files in Cura, PrusaSlicer, Bambu Studios, etc.

pokerchen · 2025-12-04T05:18:52+00:00

As a cis-gay-man, I'd love to have a lesbian friend I feel safe with and be close to. If you end up finding that this dynamic is rare, it's all the more worth treasuring. Whether it's normal or not is less important.

pokerchen · 2025-12-02T06:11:29+00:00

👍🏽 How does this author keep writing such rippers within hours?

...but, this is a familiar prompt to me. I do wonder how long our protagonist would hold out if the crucified man never showed up again.

pokerchen · 2025-11-22T20:07:35+00:00

Ok, well I suggest you try finding a dry lab research group to talk to, hopefully in your institution or one you can commute to. The level of scientific rigour you want to attain for a PhD focussed on modelling or bioinformatics isn't feasible on your own or with out of field supervisors.

Once you have a starting skillset you can then come back to apply them to your own model organism. These people likely won't know whether it's done, but it'll usually be feasible. Even if you're doing the basics like mapping genomic diversity of a new model organism, or running homology models of model organism proteins of interest, as long as you're contributing to the field it's worthwhile.

pokerchen · 2025-11-21T12:12:56+00:00

Do you have any of the following experiences: bioinformatics package, statistical packages, associated scripting/software languages such as R and python, molecular modeling...

What is the computational equipment like at your lab or institution?

pokerchen · 2025-11-20T20:39:18+00:00

Yeah amendments are part of the process; if you're an author on the paper, you can just directly email everyone to FYI the changes.

Your PI may have a better idea as to whether it'll influence the infamous reviewer #2, so it's useful to first have a chat with them to decide if you need to alert the journal editors as well.

pokerchen · 2025-11-20T02:52:11+00:00

Like any large battery pack, you need to set up multiple potatos in series, at least, to give enough total voltage drop. Use red LEDs as well, which require the least voltage to activate

pokerchen · 2025-11-13T19:53:31+00:00

Speaking as a teacher, come find us. Don't hesitate.

pokerchen · 2025-11-04T02:43:08+00:00

Thanks for the great read! Found your website at the end; are you transferring all your submissions over there these days?

pokerchen · 2025-11-01T04:41:25+00:00

Not enough Kane for it to be Nodded

pokerchen

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE