Well, well, well, what do we have in here? Is that another fellow geoscientist going after a fund? Yes, seems like it. First of all good luck mate, a tough journey is ahead of you. I hope you have a lucky item with you to keep you alive during this period. So this time we have Boris asking: How do I secure funding? Dear Boris, Now, let’s get real. Securing funding for your research is like f ...[Read More]
Who doesn’t want to make themselves more at home at the office? We spend a lot of time there and there is nothing wrong in making it more homey for ourselves. But you wouldn’t want your colleagues to make themselves too much at home at the office. My office mates wouldn’t want me to keep my pet tarantula at the office. That’s why I had a sweet and short answer to Bob’ ...[Read More]
The amount of work required to apply for grants and jobs in academia seems unnecessarily endless. Both for permanent and (even worse) short-term positions one needs to prepare a bunch of hogwash that really makes you wonder: does anybody have the time to actually read this? Out in the real world, a CV and a cover letter are quite enough most of the times, but in academia? Nope! Let’s have ev ...[Read More]
As I already mentioned in the past, anonymity can lead to bad reviews. A state of namelessness can empower younger scientists to criticize manuscripts from potential future employers. But it also allows unaccommodating reviewers to stall a perfectly good submission for…reasons? Meia has encountered, or heard of such buffoons, and wonders: How to deal with an anonymous unreasonable reviewer? ...[Read More]
As academics, a lot of our time is invested in activities that are not seemingly related to our research. Teaching, organising seminars, writing EGU blog posts, reviewing papers. While I don’t deny the time consumingness of it, reviewing papers is a necessary and useful activity, at least as long as the publishing system works the way it currently does (that’s a topic for another post) ...[Read More]
Being the reasonable, far-sighted and moderate entity that it is, humanity is irreversibly destroying the habitability of the planet it was given. I hope (man, I *hope*) I don’t have to convince anybody about this *fact*. Most of us are not concerned about this. Some of us are a tad concerned about the fact that the IPCC has declared that keeping the excess temperature below 1.5 degrees has ...[Read More]
We have dealt with impostor syndrome before. Not only on this weekly column, but elsewhere in the EGU blog too. Time and time again early career researchers seem to think their peers are much smarter, promptly neglecting that everyone else has the same feelings. From the bottom of her early-career crisis, Shion asks: How do I convince myself that I know something (even if just a little bit) about ...[Read More]
It may be not be known to the wider lectureship of this column, but every year, around May, the headquarters of EGU-blogs are up for some important (and crucially, self inflicted) bit of house-keeping: the confirmation of the members of the blog team for the incoming editorial year. Those of you with colleagues that are here with me behind the curtains, might know about it from the relentless recr ...[Read More]
Anybody that has read at least one post of my weekly column, knows I am not shy about giving to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Or in this case clearly pointing at the problems in the academic world. Alba seems to have taken this one step further and asks: Why is no one in academia happy? Dear Alba, Believe me, I see where this is coming from, but this might be taking things a tiny bit too far, don ...[Read More]
You’ve spent months battling with radiators and cold wet weather, but the summer is finally upon us and to make things even worse we’re heading into a heatwave. The office that just weeks ago seemed impossible to keep warm is now so sweltering it feels as though you’re stepping into the sauna when you arrive each morning. Like most people, Jamie has been struggling with this, so I’m here to offer ...[Read More]