paradistribution

[paradistribution]

About to start the last half of my PhD. I'm struggling to find motivation for my research and to continue with this program. I'm doing well in my courses and projects but it has taken a toll on my health.

[paradistribution]

Anyone else have chronic illness that is in their PhD program? I am struggling with my energy levels lately. I even started exercising again and it just makes it worse. Any tips on how to talk to your advisors when this happens?

[paradistribution]

Submitter comment: "I think you'll appreciate this paper from Zeng et al. 2019, Growth model interpretation of planet size distribution.

"It's. a lot."

[paradistribution]

The worst part about being a TA for a graduate course is how many of the Master's students blatently lie to us about unexcused absences in the hopes of getting points back. It's exhausting.

[paradistribution]

[paradistribution]

Anybody else in grad school absolutely loathe when Spring semesters start back up?

[paradistribution]

Reblog and put in the tags where you live, and whether or not you’ve had Covid yet.

[paradistribution]

QUALIFYING EXAMS ARE DONE!

I finally finished my last day of exams! It did not go as planned with my disability accommodations. It was a very intense and unfair 2 days of qualifying exams. Qualifying exams, especially, in the STEM fields are clearly a way to keep disabled people out of higher education. I'm working on getting this fixed in my department currently and changing some of these outdated views on disabilities.

[paradistribution]

Sorry for the inactivity!

This first year of pursuing a PhD has been crazy busy! This summer I will write up some tips for first year PhD students pursuing STEM.

Tomorrow is the first day of qualifying exams. For those who do not know they are exams that test your knowledge so far in a PhD program (some programs issue them the first year, like mine) . So, tomorrow I get to take 3 exams back to back based on topics I learned back during the Fall Semester. Then on Wednesday I get to take 2 exams based on the topics I just finished this term. And yes, I still had to take finals in all of these classes.

We had roughly less than two weeks to study EVERYTHING. This test helps determine whether or not we stay in the program.

This has been extremely stressful because only one professor narrowed done the topics for us. We had approximately 300 main theorems and definitions to memorize and know how to apply them in Statistics.

I know I have done all I can do tomorrow. I had to make some judgements on what I found important to review. PhD programs are challenging but I can't believe how much I have learned this year! I just can't wait until this hurdle in the journey to earning my doctorate is complete!

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions about grad school, pursuing grad school with a disability or chronic illness or just applying to programs in general :)

[paradistribution]

Wordle but there's no character similarity, it's just semantic similarity according to Word2Vec.

Blurred out my word guesses so you can play today's.

[paradistribution]

Last Day of my First Term of my PhD Program!

So, I did it! I am about to sit through my last lecture in Probability Theory which turned out to just be measure theory with a dash of probability. This was definitely my least favorite class this term. Now, I just have two finals and an R project left! I'm almost finished with my R project which is an R package built from scratch! I'm hoping I have enough spoons to get through these finals next week! Wish me luck and good luck to all of you taking finals!

[paradistribution]

Sorry I have not been as active on here as I was hoping (first year PhD amiright?) but im about finished with my first term of grad school in Statistics and it has been challenging. (I'm looking at you measure theory). Also having multiple chronic illnesses that make it difficult to think clearly has really hindered my performance this first term. Thankfully I have very supportive teachers who constantly remind us to make sure we focus on research and not the grades. I'm still worried about take Qualifying exams in May but I know next term will be a lighter course load which should help. But send me the good thoughts that I can get through finals! Hope y'all are doing well!

[paradistribution]

A fascinating overlap of apparently far fields, Mathematics and Biology, sometimes through Physics (see e.g. mathematical biophysics), sometimes directly through pure mathematics (as it happens in statistics, automata theory or algebraic biology, for example). I suggest this informative wiki entry as a good introduction: Mathematical and theoretical biology. All the info about the activities in the links included below:

The year of Mathematical Biology 2018 is a joint venture of the European Mathematical Society (EMS) and the European Society for Mathematical and Theoretical Biology (ESMTB). The main objectives are to celebrate the huge increase and importance of applications of mathematics to biology and life sciences in the last years and to foster the feedback loop between life sciences and mathematics for years to come. Applications of mathematics in Biology are completely opening new pathways of interactions and they are a huge source of new mathematical problems.

[paradistribution]

for my linear algebra professor who knows about this blog now

[paradistribution]

What it feels like presenting your research plans to your doctoral committee:

[paradistribution]

Whoo hoo! I got my assignment as a graduate student assistant teacher and my office assignment! I will be a grader for a section of statistics for biology! I am super excited to start graduate school.

[paradistribution]

Where’s that post that’s like ‘real analysis is just applied triangle equality’