Jay likes to put in a couple of continuous hours on his project. No distractions. No students. No nothing. Nothing, but focus and progress. And then his supervisor wants to talk. Again. He grumbles: How often should you meet with your supervisor as a PhD student? Dear Jay, Unfortunately there is no one-fits-all answer to this here question. It simply depends on the PhD student. And the supervisor. ...[Read More]
Teresa has attended a conference or two. She published a paper or three, co-convened an EGU session or four and was ‘part of a research team’ or five (meaning: did most of the work and ended up as co-author number ‘who-cares’ in the list). Disillusioned she sighs: How do I get senior scientists to take me seriously as an academic? Dear Teresa, I know, right? One could almos ...[Read More]
We live in crazy times! Remember the times when we could just hang out with people without fear of being infected by a life-threatening desease? Me neither. Fasim asks a question that must be keeping a lot of us up at night: First day on new job in quarantine…what do I do? Dear Fasim, First of all, be happy you actually landed said job. In today’s market that is always good cause for celebra ...[Read More]
While savouring a refreshing beverage and browsing through news of [yet another] dystopian summer, Ethan keeps receiving notifications from his e-mail. It turns out that he is insistently being asked to review (again and again) a paper. Naturally, he turns to me to ask: How can I refuse doing paper reviews? Dear Ethan, A question as old as time academia! The increase in publication volumes in the ...[Read More]
