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]
We are all underpaid and underappreciated. That is almost the dictionary definition of academic jobs. We bounce from one barely acceptable contract to the next, hoping to finally land a tenure-track position that allows us to swim in money like Scrooge McDuck. But before that, science itself should be its own reward and sustenance. Sometimes though, we hear from a friend of a friend about a collea ...[Read More]
Mabi has seen a smattering of presentations at conferences. Some of those had the annotation “invited talk”. She wonders: How do you get invited to give a talk? Dear Mabi, Easy: get noticed. I don’t just mean that you should write a stellar paper. There might just be a chance that people miss it. Out of laziness, a crammed schedule or plain disinterest (wrongfully so, of course). ...[Read More]
Abasi really is in the final stretches of his PhD voyage. It’s time to pick the external member of his panel. This role is always a wild card: it could make your viva experience either a 1-hour short ego booster, or a 5-hours long living hell of questioning. He ponders: Who to choose as your external PhD committee member? Dear Abasi, Lots of variables to consider here, and potentially lots o ...[Read More]
