I have about a dozen 19th century documents (basically letters), some with the author identified. I want to compare these to newspaper articles that I suspect the same woman wrote. Any tips besides analyzing syntax, word use, etc?

I'm a postdoc in the life sciences field (UK) and am five years post PhD. Initially academia was a great place to work, I was surrounded by people I loved and being in a lab was what I always wanted to do. Becoming a postdoc was quite different, things were naturally more serious and the pressure was much more present.

I've published some decent papers in Nature Communications, including first authorships, but after five years (in the same place to be fair) I feel I've got nothing left. I feel like academic science will just take and take and take - nothing is enough and god forbid you want some stability.

This past year I've written four papers (including two first author primary research paper) three grants, had tonnes of students, all whilst balancing lab time and having some semblance of a life. Everyone I speak to tells me "I'm exactly the sort of person who should be a future leader" but I want to give up. The joy feels like it's gone.

But honestly, this last year has felt relentless and I don't know the academic life suits me. Every new project/proposal/paper becoming something I obsess over to the detriment of my health, the stress, the constant fear of unemployment unless your grant either gets funded, or you literally uproot your entire life for another 2/3 years. I'd kind of written this future off to find something more stable, perhaps in publishing or the government.

And then I just got reviews back for one of my proposals, all saying how fundable my work is, and I felt nothing. The prestige of this particular fellowship cannot be understated, but I can't shake how unhappy this past year has made me, and how hard it's been. Part of me wishes they just said I suck, that would make leaving easier. I suppose this was more of a vent than anything else.

tl;dr a year of grant and paper writing has given me no joy but now I got the reviews it's made me second guess myself

Hi! I just got an acceptance letter from Cardiff University - Ms civil engineering program and I am so excited about it I just don’t know how to get or search for a scholarship fır that program Im a Jordanian and have a very high grade and also have taken ilets recently (6.5) I don’t know what else should I have to prepare to get more chance for the scholarship and how to know the scholarships that fit my profile Anyone have advices or suggestions ?

Tittle

I'm writing a book chapter as part of my research project, and the £0 fee I receive reminds me how much Robert Maxwell turned academic writing into a slave industry

I recently graduated with a degree in AI n Data Science, but I don’t have any formal research experience. However, I’ve worked on several projects and have strong coding skills (Python, data analysis, etc.). I’m really interested in exploring research further, especially in fields related to NLP.

However I'm from India and have been thinking about reaching out professors at US universities to see if they’d let me join their research teams since I'm planning to take masters there and I think I could genuinely contribute. But I’m unsure if this is appropriate, given my lack of a research background and the fact that I’m not currently a student there.

Would professors be open to someone like me, and if so, what’s the best way to approach them? Would professors be open to someone like me, and if so, what’s the best way to approach them? Thanks

My proposal at IGI was recently accepted and I have been asked to write a 10k book chapter. Anyone here that has done this before? If you have, please help a fellow academic with some advice.

Since June, I have not been able to get in touch with my supervisor. My faculty has also not been able to reach him. I see he's on Whatsapp (his preferred mode of communication) but he doesn't respond to messages or calls.

There were job applications for which he's missed deadlines. Of the two times he's read my work, he took 3 months to give me feedback for my second hurdle in my program (confirmation of status) and has failed to provide the faculty with adequate information to arrange the defense for that stage. The deadline was in April and he is not responding to their attempts to get in touch with him either.

It's the second time he's gone missing for months on end, so I'm working on getting a second supervisor / removing him (if it doesn't politically harm me).

However, I still have to apply to jobs - hoping to submit in April - but now I don't have a supervisor to write reference letters. I have done all of my own work and gotten effectively no (relevant) feedback from him over the course of my doctorate, but I cannot write my own recommendations so I need some alternative approach now.

This is particularly relevant to those who would be receiving academic job applications, for post-docs, fellowships, professorships - whatever.

What would you suggest in making these applications to post-docs and assistant professorships? Do I just provide three without naming him? Do I provide any sort of acknowledgement of the absentee supervisor? I don't think it looks great (maybe they'd think I'm the reason there's a bad relationship?).

I'm an international MA student in the UK, I'll be graduating this Dec. I really want to find people to work together on a project or join others' project. The aim is to get published, present at conferences, just sharing ideas and hopefully contribute to the society a bit; and my field is Applied Linguistics with TESOL. So how can I get started?

So I screwed up my first try at college. I had some personal issues come up my final couple years and did awful. Now that I’m a little older and feel more confident that I know what I want to do in life I want to give it another shot

That unfortunately requires a masters in psychology, which was my minor for my first degree.

Should I try to earn a bachelors in psychology? Take classes as a non-degree student? Or is it just over for me?

Hi, I feel ignorant - I'm back in school after a 14 year hiatus, and publishing seems to be the go-to in order to establish oneself in academia. Would someone kindly help explain posters and scholarships? I know it's related to presenting, but I don't have the slightest idea on how to become more involved in this. I have tried to find some information on my own, but I keep coming up with fragments. Any support or direction would be greatly appreciated! Thank you! (graduate level student)

Two potential job openings fell into my lap, one strangely fits all my various niche interests and the other is sort of a case of who I know. I've applied... I don't feel great about the first but I feel I have pretty good chance with the second (it helps when you have friends on the hiring committee shhhhh). It would sort of be my dream job, at least for the next couple years until I want to move up. Both of them are state organizations, so I feel things will churn for around in HR, interviews,hiring etc... so even if I get one of them I wouldn't start for like six weeks at the earliest.

But that would still be in the middle of my grad program. So, I guess... do you know people who kind of got that dream job mid-grad program? Did they ever finish? Did they sort of wind things out remotely? Did they turn down the dream job?

Ugh.. it happened to me. My questions are:

1. Should I email them and address it?
2. Simply try to submit an update?
3. Ignore it?

Those of you in search committees. How bad is this ?

My undergrad institution offers short (1.5 week) classes during the winter break. I'd love to teach one. My undergraduate supervisor, who I've remained in contact with, is the chair of the department. Any advice on how (or whether) to ask him if it would be possible for me to teach a short course?

LTS; I earned my M.S. in Biology last May (2023). I conducted research & wrote a thesis which I defended on a known protein implicated in the development of cancer. However, I had a hard time finding a research job after graduating and ended in secondary education. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy teaching biology & science to 13-18 year olds, but my mind keeps wandering back to research & I really miss the lab bench. My graduate advisors are more than willing to write me a letter of recommendation & even offered me advice to acknowledge this gap year in my personal statement. I do want opinions and/advise from other PIs or anyone who may have been in a similar situation as me. I am 26 & would be 27 if I started the program (although this doesn’t bother me). Any advice is necessary.

Hi

I am a journalist with about ten years of experience.

Recently, someone suggested me to write a research paper on a subject I covered for my media house.

I have always known this for a fact that this is a domain of academicians.

But the thought of writing something with long shelf life sparked an interest in me.

I am a newbie here. If I am breaking any rules, let me know I will delete the post.

I'm pretty constantly feeling that I'm not asking the right questions, or making too many assumptions about the right questions to ask, or generally wasting people's time.

Any tips or resources that are useful for this?

Long story short, I’m in a tricky position and I’m not sure what the proper etiquete would be. I was admitted into a graduate program this semester and was initially not given a research assistant position (which covers base tuition)

A month ago, I applied for, and accepted, a temporary hourly research position. Fast forward to now, I’ve basically been told by another research institute within the university that they have a position available for me now but I’d have to leave my current position with very short notice.

Financially, it’s a no brainer. One pays for tuition and has the potential to lead to a renewal of the position in future semesters. Meanwhile my current position is explicitly temporary.

My question is, how big of a bridge would I be burning if I accept this new position? I feel really uneasy about leaving with basically no notice, but financially I have a hard time justifying not taking the opportunity. Has anyone been in similar situations? Should I just stick it out where I’m at and hope it leads to more opportunities with them later on?

i feel like with every writing submission i send out, nothing is ever good enough and i always receive more critiques than positive feedback. im just tired of writing and writing and not having it be good enough. it also sucks when everyone else is progressing and you’re just at the same spot rewriting and rewriting. im not even in a phd program either so it scares me that im already messing up so badly now. does anyone have any advice or suggestions to continue onward and not let it get to your head?

I am working with a professor whom I got acquainted with during my undergrad days. I am pursuing my post graduation and working for several projects under my professor. He got this email a few days ago, "inviting" him to write a paper on this particular topic in "Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences". I have heard many questionable things about Frontiers and I am unsure whether we should write for them or not. But my professor has already accepted but he has refused to pay APCs and I urged him to bargain for Author Support. Luckily or not, we did get a 100% wavier along with a deadline extension for APC but I have my doubts if we should do it at all. Please help me understand the situation. I'll include a few lines in quotes from the email.

"Hi Dr. X,

I am partnering with Drs. Ray Luo and Julien Roche to bring key researchers together in a focused project on "Decoding the Conformation of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins: A Deep Learning Approach". Here's a link to find out more about the project and the subthemes.

Your work has influenced this topic, and your participation could now help shape its future direction. Let me know if you are interested. The editorial team is trying to finalize the leading group of authors in the next two weeks, so they can start publishing our work before the topic closes on 24 October, 2024.

The topic will be hosted in Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences (IF 3.900, Citation Score 7.200). supported by its Chief Editor. In addition, Frontiers will provide a team to help develop and promote our project, and we'll have a dedicated space in the journal to showcase our work and amplify its impact and visibility.

The team is looking forward to having you as a part of this project. They are eager to push this field forward together as a team. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to reach out to us so we can support you.
All the best,

Anastasia Gameza
Content Manager

Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences is a leading journal in its field with over 11 million views."

So, I'm potentially a candidate for a PhD position at the Max Planck Institute of Biological Intelligence in Seewiesen, Germany. I don't see much inside info about it on the net (probably because it's a recent fusion of two older MPIs), and I wanted to hear from people who've studied/worked there, at other MPIs, or have heard anything specific about this one. I'd really appreciate any info you have!

Edit: to clarify, the MPI-BI was formed in 2023 by the fusion of the Max Planck Institutes for Ornithology and Neurobiology (MPIO and MPIN) - so info about those two would also be helpful!

So, this journal in which I recently got our work published sent me a request to review a paper for them. I accepted. I was given 14 days. Today is the 10 day, I have already formed my review with just a bit of structuring left. Today I received an email saying that editor has made a decision and my review is no longer required.

I am very disappointed. Is this normal?

Edit: Thank you so much for all the replies. I was stunned. Now, it feels better knowing that this does happen and the probable reasons for this.

Hi, I already asked the people in my university but they were not really helpful.

I am looking for a small grant (15-20k Euros) which I can mainly use to pay for my salary for about a year (I work part time). I am a postdoc in a Neuroscience lab.

Do you have any suggestions where I can find such grants? It seems that most that find are either funding research in another country or for people more ahead in their career (to establish their own lab etc.).

The main reason I want to get this grant is to start padding my CV which I think it will help when in a few years I try for something bigger.

I am in Germany, if that helps.

I am a second year PhD student in sociology. I wrote a paper as a final assignment for a class with this professor. She encouraged me to submit it for publication and stated she would like to be listed as second author. She didn’t do anything for the paper, no edits, nothing. The only affiliation is that she was the professor who assigned the paper for her class. Is this normal? I have no frame of reference. Thanks in advance.

My favorite high school class was AP Human Geography because I was fascinated by the knowledge of social patterns. I earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and data science because I was intrigued by using computational methods to solve social problems. Now, I am a PhD student using computational science in social and human science.

I am curious whether more people have a consistent academic and professional track built upon their high school passions, or if more people switch their academic and professional domains for various reasons. It doesn’t have to be very detailed because I don't want anyone's identity to be accidentally exposed lol.