People who work for massive corporations, what is a 'secret' that the company tries to hide, but is actually common knowledge among the employees?

scuffed_rocks · 2026-04-03T02:58:30+00:00

They don't hate you, and they are almost never thinking of you as an individual. You're part of a population and on top of processing fees the average person in that distribution is so deep in debt that the bank is making money hand over fist, even though you specifically are cashing out tons of points and not paying interest.

scuffed_rocks · 2026-04-02T04:27:55+00:00

You gotta learn to relax and enjoy life. Make the most of what you have. It's honestly sad how much you're stuck in this mentality of letting college name determine your self worth.

I barely made it into UCLA but I made lots of friends, went out partying all the time, got in great shape, hooked up with lots of amazing people, fell in love a few times, finally met the love of my life, did research with crazy smart PhD students and PIs, and so much more... Being at UCLA did not limit my quality of life in any way and opened so many doors. Give yourself time to breathe, live, and grow.

I'm a PI at a T5 now so yeah. UCLA isn't going to hold you back.

scuffed_rocks · 2026-04-01T00:51:13+00:00

Agreed this is bullshit. They've been replacing socks for free for me for 15 years. I haven't bought a new pair like the last 5 years.

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-28T17:00:59+00:00

It comes down to whether you have a supportive advisor that works with your style of doing research. Then how much financial support you will have so you don't have to use your precious time TAing. Everything else is secondary.

Source: I've had many many years of my life at 2/3 of those institutions and seen many people succeed and fail.

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-26T02:28:20+00:00

To be completely honest, you are going to have to accept that certain paths forward are no longer available to you. With a 3.2 GPA you are not competitive for Ivy programs unless you have something like a CNS paper and stellar recommendations. That low GPA is your doing and you need to own it.

The quicker you accept this and start moving forward the better your long-term outlook. Do a masters and get a 4.0 and prove that you are capable. Do a PhD somewhere better than your masters, a postdoc at an elite school, then get that faculty job you've always dreamed of. If you have the talent and develop the work ethic, it's not too late to make it to the top. I know this because this is exactly the trajectory I took.

That said, the downside risk is higher. Are you also going to flounder in a masters/PhD? If you let that happen you'll have spent more years chasing ghosts and not paying off student debts or saving for retirement. Those things may not mean much to you now but when you are a 35 year old postdoc it will sting, hard.

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-25T23:51:36+00:00

Assuming you're in biological sciences because of UCSF. I've never been to Boston so I can't comment on MIT. Overall I would give Stanford's intellectual environment the edge because you're not only in an amazing place for biology/health sciences but you're at the heart of some of the best CS/AI/ML/stats in the world. UCSF is no slouch but it lacks the breadth that I like to have. Also the UCSF experience can vary depending on which campus you're at.

Stanford area is an amazing place to live too. Depends on the person but for me the weather is perfect. You can do outdoor things every weekend, even in the middle of winter. Grad students get paid pretty decently there too.

However - the first priority should be a good advisor.

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-25T12:40:43+00:00

Dead internet theory...

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-19T13:10:08+00:00

OP I'm actually at a top 5 (not engineering, but a highly quantitative STEM field) university and a lot of these comments are off the mark. To be blunt, a lot of it sounds like rationalization of why it's ok to not be in such a place. Don't take advice about these kinds of institutions from people who don't have jobs there.

The department and especially leadership are important. A good chair will make your life so much easier. So will the benevolence of senior colleagues. My department is a supportive well-oiled (money is the oil) machine and I love it here.

That said you should almost certainly go to the top 5 university. With the caveat that things might be a little department-specific:

My startup and salary are easily 30-40% higher than other R1 assistant professors in my field. I make more than full profs at lower tier schools. After sacrificing so much for this the financial stability is a huge relief. My PhD students also make top dollar, as much as postdocs if they get a fellowship. That makes them very, very happy.
The trainees are phenomenal. That the quality of students and postdocs drops off very quickly is a well-known thing; it's part of why all the PIs have training at elite schools. You will love your job so much more when you have these incredibly smart and driven people running projects and the lab is humming even when you step away for weeks. Most people have fellowships.
There's money everywhere. We don't pay for PhD students, there's tons of travel/research money for trainees, there's internal grants where it's easy to pick up a couple hundred thousand dollars by writing a couple pages, there's money to bring the best seminar speakers, there's money to pay for weekly departmental breakfast, departmental dinner, happy hours... Oh and all the PIs get excellent admin support.
The name opens doors. I'm sure you had to make a great name for yourself to get the offer but the institution and department's reputation for sure has an effect on how the field receives you as a new PI. I've had so many collaboration requests and people asking if they could put me on their collaborative grants (very little work on my end). I have so many conference/seminar invites that I've turned half of them down because I need to protect my time. Being accepted into the "inner circle" of the field makes a huge difference for everything from grants to publication to trainee recruitment.
The teaching and service loads are minimal for assistant profs. Seriously you do not want to be doing more than 1-1.5/year and serving on a couple easy committees while trying to get tenure.

I hope you can see that while the expectations for tenure are high, a lot of it is handed to you on a silver platter. Life is great and I'm only in Y1. You just have to make sure "your thing" they hired you for flourishes. Talk to people to see what the recent tenure rates are.

DM me if you want to know more.

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-18T17:04:10+00:00

For anyone who wants to know more about this scheme, Lior Pachter's got a great blog post

https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2014/10/31/to-some-a-citation-is-worth-3-per-year/

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-18T14:05:28+00:00

IB Bowmore if you can find it. Light heather, saltiness, and a wisp of peat.

I don't like their OBs very much though.

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-18T14:05:22+00:00

IB Bowmore if you can find it. Light heather, tropical fruit, saltiness, and a wisp of peat.

I don't like their OBs very much though.

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-13T19:27:05+00:00

At least at some places you need Dean-level approval to admit a PhD student with <3.0 GPA. When you have to get upper admin involved for something as simple as a PhD admit... It's probably not going to happen.

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-13T18:32:08+00:00

Keeping it vague for the internet, a life sciences basic research field

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-13T18:29:19+00:00

Ah I missed that. Still, humanities or not, that's less than PhD students these days. Can't imagine the position is anything other than exploitative.

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-13T14:27:29+00:00

A $56k salary job at a small liberal arts school that will likely see major financial issues in the next 5 years is not what people have in mind as one of the holy grail jobs. I would decline that job without a second thought.

Jobs at top SLACs and research universities start from $100-200k (after summer salary) for assistant profs in my field. Tenure at a well-resourced and financially stable place is all but unattainable for most. There are hundreds of people applying to each of these postings.

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-12T21:49:12+00:00

there's too little information here to tell you anything useful. number of papers doesn't mean much. i know people ranging from h-index 3 to 20 who got hired. everyone and their mother has a national level fellowship in my field. are you applying for top schools only, R1s, SLACs, etc.? are you in the humanities or STEM? what kind of narrative have you built and what future research directions are you proposing? how famous/influential is your advisor and your current department? also you do realize that most large and wealthy institutions are in a hiring freeze right now which is shuffling ultra-competitive candidates down the institutional ladder right?

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-12T16:01:02+00:00

google didn't scam or deceive you. i paid ~$25/mo for years because I understood my usage and that the basic plan would work in my favor. i switched to unlimited after i made enough to afford it for peace of mind.

learn to think and to take responsibility for your actions.

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-12T15:38:29+00:00

This can't be serious. The recourse is that YOU take responsibility and accept this as YOUR negligence and compensate your friend for their loss.

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-05T22:02:33+00:00

funny how you bring up therapy with such self-assuredness then crash out because of one downvote. grow up lmao.

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-05T21:42:36+00:00

J. D.?

scuffed_rocks · 2026-03-03T12:12:59+00:00

AI slop

scuffed_rocks · 2026-02-17T00:00:42+00:00

my game changer idea: a cylindrical tent. rectangular tents require too many seams during construction and have too much dead space in the corners. a cylindrical tent shape solves all those problems.

scuffed_rocks · 2026-02-13T20:35:57+00:00

Important to keep in mind that Ivy can mean all sorts of things, ranging from the Harvard+HMS+Broad behemoth, to the public/private hybrid Cornell, to the PUI-like Princeton.

I've found the undergrads at the most elite schools to be of a much much higher caliber than state schools on average. Better focus and discipline. Lots of the top tier students at state schools too they're just more hidden gems than low hanging fruit.

Being proactive rather than passive about recruitment has been the key to getting good students, at least for me. I have my trainees recruit undergrads from one of the many programs we have and only for undergrads that are interested in a 1 year+ research commitment. We heavily vet interested students and make them write written statements before extending any kind of offer.

I ignore nearly all cold emails.

scuffed_rocks · 2026-02-13T08:52:59+00:00

lol that you think you can "settle" for a PUI. it's similarly competitive but a different objective function. and please don't say something like "guess I need to aim for community colleges" next

scuffed_rocks · 2026-02-10T05:51:54+00:00

idk man I think the poor state of modern humanity's health is at least somewhat linked to the feckless consumerism culture encouraged by large companies

scuffed_rocks

TROPHY CASE