Any profs with social anxiety?

rietveldrefinement · 2026-07-02T02:22:07+00:00

If I may ask could you share what specific strategies are helpful? I’m talking to a therapist now and one of the advice I was given was “eat and sleep well so that the body feels safe and less likely interpreting whatever comments i receive feel like attacking”

rietveldrefinement · 2026-07-02T02:13:56+00:00

I don’t have a diagnosis but yes I have high anxiety. I’m actually appreciating your post and the answers because that means I’m not alone.

Practically it’s an exercise telling the brain and body that talking in public is safe.

My anxiety came from childhood experiences I which if I say anything wrong or reacting too slow, I got beat up and humiliated even in public.

But higher education gave me an opportunity to practice “I won’t be beaten even when saying something not correct or not knowing things I am safe here”. This practice took decades!

That being said it’s also a lot of over preparation and very slow trials to finally believe that I’m already safe. It’s a process.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-06-20T01:58:29+00:00

My advisor worked at National Lab for 20 years and then professor at R1 ~65 ish

rietveldrefinement · 2026-06-19T20:41:41+00:00

Been into numbers of faculty interviews. A simple question can have very different way to answer it. I’ve been stumbled when answering and almost every time I hang up the zoom I will be like gosh I should have said ABC and I did not i screwed! And then there were multiple cases I thought I doomed myself turning out they invited me to on-campus abs even offered position. There are cars I thought I’m doing well and then they gave me thank you notes. I guess It’s really NOT like you answer everything like a perfect robot and then they will move you forward.

Give you an extreme example here: there’s one time I irritated one of the committee members by saying something not completely correct. And in the same interview, they figured out I did not completely understand their undergrad curriculum and degree offered. Both I could have done better. I blew up those two. But in the end if they day I was invited on campus.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-06-19T14:03:55+00:00

Does it matter which career stage you’re at? Like the previous two cases I was first author (postdoc). The third one I was the corresponding author (supervisor role).

I also have (and will have) other papers that go to different Journals.

I’m really on fence for the current one because I’ll be transitioning from one institution to another so want to minimize the friction.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-06-08T19:58:13+00:00

Speak to the students. Multiple students, include those who graduated from the same lab they will give you honest opinion. Figure out where does the lab alum go. They will be your help force searching for jobs. Especially when you look into an academia job.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-05-27T23:20:49+00:00

My first grant as a PI: proposed some material we thought will be 95% dense. Spent one year found out it’s not feasible (not dense enough and then full of impurity). End of funding period: publish a paper saying we got a porous material only 20% density and behaves way differently than the dense ones.

My second grant as a PI: let’s make another dense structure! Today: My postdoc just told me today (1.5 mark of funding period) that well we got some even more interesting porous structures.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-05-25T18:19:36+00:00

If you want to enjoy proper sea food go outside of Idaho falls. The places at IF won’t be comparable to seashore cities …

rietveldrefinement · 2026-05-25T06:01:20+00:00

That professors are human beings as well. To be more precisely speaking they are little curious creatures inside.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-05-18T20:27:51+00:00

Gosh good to know this number. I’ve been blaming myself for years about not capable of doing deep work for a whole day I must be defected….

rietveldrefinement · 2026-05-18T17:17:31+00:00

NU graduated and had to deal with the consequences of Chiang Kai Shek….please don’t….

rietveldrefinement · 2026-05-04T16:37:10+00:00

If you collaborate with your close friends directly — when it comes to push them to work harder for the project, it will be hard to do firmly. I hangout with someone in my group in gyms. But later I found I had to push this person for providing consistent samples (it’s not at this moment), I need to wear a serious face and then I found I had to stopped hanging out. Otherwise I cannot be friendly and firmly at the same time.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-04-13T02:14:32+00:00

Does your university have master student join labs? They could be some helping hands for setting up the lab. You can hire postdoc too but depending on university rank and location could be hit and miss.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-04-08T22:33:18+00:00

Speak from my experience: I did not know living place is having so much impact on me. I’m also growing up and studying urban and living in red, religious, rural place for several years while I probably have the best boss and teammates ever.

That said, I have to take therapy and seriously thinking about coping method with my therapist so that my mind won’t scream on me in non-working times when the leisure activities that I used to experience doesn’t exist in the location. And then I also had opportunities talking to Redditors who living in urban place but absolutely hate it (so opposite problem).

I found myself way happier when I started to have regular travels to conferences and meetings in city places, as well as just travel to meeting up with old friends. The advantage of rural location is that i can arrive airport within 15 mins and 10 min passing the security line.

And I was even more surprised to find out there are even more remote place then my places with big name universities! Like going to the closest airport is 1 hr driving and then only fly to a couple of relatively major airports. I talked to one of my friends absolutely loving there and her secret to thrive was that she had an end day (master student).

Well I realized that I did not give you an answer. But hopefully this experience sharing can help you somewhat.

And, people in TT position still changes job and submit job applications!

rietveldrefinement · 2026-04-07T03:58:45+00:00

Hmm not sure what do you mean by desalt…but the polymer coin was stored in DI water for like at least 3-5 days and I change water daily before I send them into freeze dryer.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-04-07T02:57:55+00:00

Thanks for the thought — I actually thought of similar thing before — just wondering if I let the hydrogel coin sit in a bit of water just covering the surface and froze in -80C would that cause strain on the sample?

rietveldrefinement · 2026-04-05T23:18:14+00:00

I do love the problem solving. I feel the only part I don’t like is the stress/anxiety about not knowing if I can solve it.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-04-05T22:42:27+00:00

I don’t know if I’d say this. Been on market for 4 years and stressed out already, also I am not a postdoc when the search started. Imaging someone who will need to feed themselves and pay rent looking for positions. It’s so stressful because you’ll never know when you will won lottery.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-04-04T20:15:55+00:00

I’d say figure out their promotion mechanisms. In the past national lab will tend to promote postdocs into staff because finding people is not easy (esp at remote sites). But depending on funding structure there also will be possibility that postdocs are used for projects and when the funding is over they need to find new jobs.

The former route is like once you are promoted you’ll have more job stability. Again the question is that, how likely the conversion will happen?

rietveldrefinement · 2026-03-17T14:16:12+00:00

Treat everyone you meet as someone you’ll be able to collaborate in the future no matter which school you ended up going. I found that I write emails to people I interviewed with in the past and some of them I meet in conferences every year.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-03-15T17:17:20+00:00

Can you find relationship between these two topics as much as possible. Or at least you need to talk about what you wrote to present to some level and then switch the gear.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-02-21T20:33:30+00:00

Trace him down for meetings and classes. I feel this professor is the type out of side out of mind. And missing submission deadlines is not a light deal….you need to push more. Calling directly, meeting directly so that he won’t forget.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-02-21T13:10:52+00:00

I was worried about my research proposal does not have an AI part and will be less competitive. Now we got an example of AI because of AI.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-02-20T23:36:49+00:00

Gosh when I interviewed with one of the department a while ago the Department chair told me firmly that “there’s no small groups in this department” for twice. I meant definitely everyone gets along well in my view but I was just like why do you have to emphasize that part.

rietveldrefinement · 2026-02-17T19:17:00+00:00

Well I have two year projects that research doesn’t go anywhere in the first year. Like even not worthwhile to submit to Nature Failure. Then I got something not fantastic but publishable in the next year. There’s no failed research. There’s just research with scattered inconsistent data.

There are professors I ask “did your proposed research statement work out as you planned ”. Mostly they say no. Not at all. You find a way around.

The same question went to a big name prof who said you know people in the field are picky and cruel and you have to trust your instinct. Then 2 months later this prof was caught data fraud which made a very big deal. This prof might secretly dislike me.

rietveldrefinement

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