External feedback is important in our job. The right conversation can prevent you from presenting to international experts a whole study based on wrong assumptions (inspired by true events involving weeks of my life that nobody is going to give back to me). What if the external feedback comes from someone who’s not a scientist? Is their point of view, unchained by years of religious beliefs ...[Read More]
Chairing conference sessions, organising social events, writing on the EGU blog site: extra-curricular activities can help rounding up our scientific and academic identity. But let’s face it, they take up time and they can be stressful. Seynabou has been (surely very democratically, as it always happens) appointed as group meetings organiser but finds herself in high waters: Help!? I am in charge ...[Read More]
Luiza is an active collaborator and wants to share every piece of her progress with her colleagues. However, there are some in her email chain particularly ‘busy’. At the end of her tether, she heaves a sigh: What to do if someone DOESN’T EMAIL BACK? Dear Luiza, Não se atreva tirar o cavalinho da chuva. Never give up. They’ll probably end up emailing you back. Someday. Unless  ...[Read More]
Air travel is a thing of the past, or at least it has been in the past couple years. Nowadays conferences are attended from the comfort of our closet home-office. Although there are undeniable advantages in not being in the USA (please keep me out of there!), Sadia wonders: How to stay awake until 3am to present your poster at a virtual US conference? Dear Sadia, You are talking about a possible c ...[Read More]
Ruggero has travelled a tough PhD journey. Foraging for his last bits of energy to continue onward on the treacherous odyssey of academia, he murmurs: How can I (re)gain some confidence after it has been shattered during my PhD? Dear Ruggero, Ciao bello. Does that help? Never mind. Just kidding. I cannot imagine how badly your confidence was shattered during your PhD. That’s a pretty tough d ...[Read More]
There are no stupid questions. How many times have we heard that from colleagues and in classrooms? Obviously an exceedingly sizeable chunk of our community does not receive stupid questions often enough. Even silly questions have their merits though, and obviously they deserve an answer, at least to avoid them being asked in the future. My very busy mailbox has recently seen a staggering increase ...[Read More]
Angela is one to stress out just a wee bit every time a conference is right around the corner. It’s almost like she consistently doesn’t prepare in time. Ever so slightly concerned, her office mate asks: How last minute is too last minute when preparing for a conference? Dear Angela, Just take a breather and come down from your academic productivity high! It’s an untenable situat ...[Read More]
`Segmentation fault’. One of the most annoying things ever to appear on our screens. Right up there with `fftw.h not found’. Compilation errors are the (rock-hard) bread and (rancid) butter of any of us that need to debug write codes. Tahina is deeply down the rabbit hole and asks: Why does my code not compile? Dear Tahina, I am assuming you already thoroughly searched Stack Exchange f ...[Read More]
Enzo submitted his manuscript for review at one of those well-known, Earth science-niche journals. However, shortly thereafter he received an email by his editor that it was rejected. Reason being that not enough research was added in the manuscript. Furious, he bellows: When is my research open enough to be published? Dear Enzo, I know, right? It seems that over the past few years the need to giv ...[Read More]
To leave or not to leave (academia)? If I had a penny for every time I heard the various declinations of this question…I would have left academia. Gisele has thoughts about a specific aspect of this topic and joins the choir: How do you leave academia without feeling like a failure? Dear Gisele, You cannot. But then again, it’s better to feel like a failure and cry about it in a Lambor ...[Read More]
