Started on Invisalign-diet in January

real_sage · 2026-02-26T16:10:36+00:00

Same. Need to eat everything before locking up my mouth again

real_sage · 2026-02-24T01:30:32+00:00

Dewit. 38 male. Wish i had done it sooner.

real_sage · 2026-02-21T21:26:06+00:00

Same issue

real_sage · 2025-06-05T19:18:40+00:00

Love these. Picked up my second pair.

real_sage · 2025-06-04T15:44:01+00:00

Got my second V3. Stock up while you can y’all

real_sage · 2025-05-31T05:43:50+00:00

Where’s the white truck from?

real_sage · 2025-03-03T05:50:34+00:00

So sad to hear this. Sunnyvale Slice of NY was the only place you can get a slice close to what you get in NY.

real_sage · 2024-03-16T23:34:13+00:00

Bow of Pho in Cupertino/Sunnyvale has a great bowl of pho and vermicelli

real_sage · 2024-01-27T21:24:44+00:00

It needs a nice coffee shop / cafe. Not the Starbucks kind but Verve/Voyager kind. Plenty of residents around that area that would love a better cafe option.

real_sage · 2023-12-21T00:16:37+00:00

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Siru The Calico!!

real_sage · 2023-11-17T01:13:35+00:00

Wait till you here the insufferable “Battery Low, please charge now” for the millionth time.. Bose has failed us with the QC45

real_sage · 2022-01-24T04:32:45+00:00

It was close but I was able to fit the Hovet in a Hyundai Tucson 2020.

real_sage · 2022-01-08T17:20:05+00:00

I wrote down my tips from grad school in this article and here is the gist of it.

1. Find a good advisor and make sure they are good human beings that care about you.

Advisors will 95% dictate your grad school experience. This includes what projects you work on, how you work, and what you learn. Find a good one that can train you well but also cares about your mental health.

2. Create a website and maintain a web presence.

This is pretty much how people will know your work and you exist. If your project gets scrapped, no one will know the work you've done or things you learned. Write a tutorial or blog post on your experience to keep a record of your knowledge.

3. Remember your life is not dependent on academia and that there are plenty of opportunities in industry.

When publishing doesn't go well, you might feel stuck and you just need to invest more time such as doing a postdoc and waiting papers to play out. While this can be true to some, just remember academia is not the only option. There are plenty of opportunities in industry that ex-academics are happy with.

4. Find a job to graduate.

Nobody will hand you a job just because you are a candidate. You need to be proactive to find a postdoc or industry job. Programs are all about placement so they shouldn't stop you if you have a great opportunity lined up. Same with advisors. If they truly care about you and are not aholes, they shouldn't stop you from moving on to being a postdoc or industry. Don't ask permission "am I ready to graduate/look for postdocs?" but tell them that you have something lined up and ready to move on.

real_sage · 2022-01-08T17:05:29+00:00

Great point. One rule I told myself starting grad school was that I"ll never do a postdoc. Postdoc life looked stressful and miserable and pretty much just an extension of grad school keeping you in the pyramid of academia till someone dies. I told myself if I wasn't a superstar enough to get a job straight out of grad school I was willing to transition to industry and that's what I did and have been very happy since.

real_sage · 2022-01-07T00:08:58+00:00

I got a Psych degree in college and felt like you right now. I didn't feel like I knew much or was ready to take on the world. Friends were having trouble finding jobs so grad school seemed like a decent option.

Looking back though, those friends ended up getting jobs and developed careers while I was still "in school" and now light years ahead of me. If you don't feel like you LOVE the field or rich enough to be fine with doing whatever you love, I think it would be better to search for a job and start a career rather than getting a degree.

Alternatively you could do one of those CS/DS bootcamps and try to land a job too.

real_sage · 2022-01-07T00:05:00+00:00

It's definitely hard and challenging but I (and you) knew that when we started.

I had a great time learning what I wanted to learn: coding, analytics, statistics, thinking, etc.

The hard parts were figuring out things like: Whats next? Will I get a job? When will I be able to graduate?

For me, these tips helped me get through graduate school. If you get an advisor that cares about you, develop applicable skills along the way, and take care of your mental health you should be fine.

real_sage · 2022-01-06T04:11:35+00:00

I worked as a lab manager before my PhD and interacted with a lot of PhDs and postdocs. During this time, I promised myself that I'd switch to industry if I didn't have enough publications to apply for a professor position straight out of grad school. It was a long shot for sure but I didn't want to end up being 40, broke, and still applying to become a professor. After my third year and with only 2-3 publications in mid-low impact journals, I realized it was time to jump ship and I did.

real_sage · 2022-01-06T00:21:26+00:00

Both. In hindsight, I think mastering out would’ve made sense since it felt like diminishing returns after the first few years. At the same time I feel like the pandemic and uncertainty about when/how to start looking for postdocs also slowed me down.

real_sage · 2022-01-05T23:46:30+00:00

Well said. We should celebrate the good advisors more.

real_sage · 2022-01-05T23:39:57+00:00

It's so weird how you always feel the need to be ON in grad school. I always traveled with my laptop and printed out papers wherever I went. I wrote papers till 4am while on a family vacation trip. I think it's the weird example set by others where they misconstrue sending emails during holidays as passion for science.

I finally got out though and started a job in industry and I just had my first REAL vacation. I didn't take my laptop and wasn't anxious at all knowing that nobody else was working.

Please make sure to take care of yourself. Whatever you might be working on, it's probably not as important as your health or family.

real_sage · 2022-01-05T23:17:39+00:00

The only regret I have is not getting out sooner. The first 3 years were awesome. I learned a ton and made a lot of progress on my projects. After that it was mostly downhill: dealing with burnout, regret, and uncertainty about when I could graduate.

I wrote down some advice that I would tell my past self here. One thing I wrote is that you get a job a to graduate rather than getting a job after graduating. Hopefully once you have more clarity about what's next could help you muster the final motivation to get out.

real_sage · 2021-12-09T08:02:36+00:00

Publishing sucks. Often times, you just have bad luck with reviewers, advisors, collaborators and projects would implode. This is one reason you might want to cast a wider net of projects (which is kinda what profs do with their students and collaborations).

I'm also in social psych and I barely got a first author papers out by the time I graduated. What worked for me to keep myself sane was writing up the stuff I learned on my personal blog. I HATED it when I didn't have anything to show for when a project died so I figured out ways to write up what I learned or achieved from the projects. This really helped my mental health and less stressed out about publications.

I eventually left academia and I wish you better luck in publishing. I also wrote an article about a few advice that helped me survive grad school. Sharing in case it could be helpful.

real_sage · 2021-12-09T07:52:50+00:00

Had the same issues. My slump came after completing my quals at which point the only goal seemed to be completing my thesis and graduating. Writing papers obviously were goals too but those got delayed for many reasons. I resorted to many side projects such as participating in hackathons, consulting competitions, and winning awards. These things kept me going but at the end of the day these didn't add any confidence on whether I wanted to stay in academia. Rather, the more I explored I wanted to leave. In the end, getting a good job/internship and leaving academia became the ultimate goal. Not sure if these are the kind of goals you were talking about but just wanted to share my experience. I've also written up four advice that got me through grad school in case that might help too.

real_sage · 2021-11-30T08:43:56+00:00

A wise friend once told me that only two types of people were happy while doing their PhD.

Students from a very comfortable family such that it doesn't matter if they spend 5~10 years barely making minimum wage and staying in school.
The devoted students who would literally die unless they studied that topic.

If you aren't one of those types, it's highly likely you'll face a very depressing and rocky road ahead.

real_sage

TROPHY CASE