#postdoc

[miss-biophys]

Work on a scientific article

What it actuallly entails:

Come up with an idea, define an interesting problem

Do thorough literature research. Maybe similar stuff was already done. Define the knowledge gap well.

Plan in detail, how we can solve the problem, design experiments

Reach out to potential collaborators, agree with them on a plan

Buy necessary equipment, chemicals

Do pilot experiment, optimize the conditions to get reliable data

Perform experiments, calculations, make everything multiple times so it's reliable

Analyze the data

Urge collaborators to deliver their parts

Coordinate your progress with the collaborators

Manage the collaborations, organize meetings

Be diplomatic, you don't want to make enemies in academia

Agree with direct colleagues, who worked on it, what will be the message of the article. Will it be a long story and we need to add some more data? Or will it be short and right to the point and we write a short "letter"?

Do literature research again. Maybe new stuff appeared, and for sure your data must be confronted and discussed with already known facts.

Write the first draft of the article

Send it around for feedback, first only to direct colleagues from your lab

Incorporate the feedback, maybe do more experiments and more analysis

Rewrite the manuscript

Send it around the second, third, fourth, fifth... time

Incorporate the feedback

Send the manuscript to all collaborators.

Wait for the feedback, urge everyone to give it, maybe you don't have all data from all the collaborators yet

Incorporate feedback

Prepare the manuscript for journal submission

Get approval from all co-authors

Submit the manuscript

Wait for editor response, hopefully they send it to reviewers. If not, you need to rewrite a bit the article to adhere to the new journal's format and send somewhere else.

Get reviewers' reports, deal with them, reply truthfully, make effort to explain everything even if you know that the reviewer's suggestion is just impossible or irrelevant. Be diplomatic.

Maybe you need to do an additional experiment, analysis, or rewrite a major part fo the manuscript. This can take months.

Submit revised manuscript with all the changes

Wait for editor's nad reviewers' comments in the second round. You can get many rounds of review and still get rejected.

Finally get a "Congratulations, your manuscript has been accepted for publication"

Pop a shampagne! You deserve it!

What part of this do you usually do in different career stages:

BSc. and MSc. students: Perform experiments and analyze data

PhD students: Do all the experimental and analysis parts, write the manuscript, discuss with their supervisor and direct colleagues, incorporate feedback. But does not have to come up with their own idea and manage collaborations and diplomacy.

Postdocs: Do literally everything on the list

Group leader/Professor: Do the thinking and managing parts, help with writing and feedback, provide discussions and insight. Do not perform actual experiments and analysis.

Being a postdoc is the transformation between the student and the group leader.

As such, we just have to do all these tasks. It's stressful. It's challenging. It's definitely not boring. I am taking every opportunity to get a student, who can help with the experimental repetitions so I have time for all the other stuff.

[thatwizardofearthsea]

Also PhD and PD periods are super hard on one's mental and physical capacities. There is huge instability. You're constantly expected to fight for having a funding in order to do your job but also live. That is insane. That is an inhumane system to continue. Nobody can be a genius under that kind of pressure. There is a reason of brain drain from academia.

[therunningphysicist]

what is going on with you? you are here, but don't post anything. is everything okay?

hello friend! yes I mostly just lurk these days. I've taken a step back from social media over the last year or two, as far as how much I post. but there are people here on tumblr that I have followed for a while that I still like to keep up with and see how they are doing! one of these days I will probably start posting on here more again, but in the meantime here's some updates:

I got married in September! it was in Chicago, and was absolutely perfect with all my favorite people there with us

I'm still living in the DC area - about to complete my postdoc at NIH and am in the process of being promoted to Research Fellow in the same lab

my research has been going really well the last year or two - I have two projects I'm spearheading that I'm SUPER excited about, and in the last year(ish) I published three papers, gave talks at two research conferences, and wrote a chapter for a textbook

earlier this year, my husband and I were looking at buying a house and actually had a place under contract. but the housing market has gone to shit (especially in the DC area) so we are just going to rent for the foreseeable future and keep saving money

I will be running the 2024 Chicago Marathon! so you will probably see some running posts in the future as I start training for that

thanks for reaching out and asking how I'm doing! things are going well, just very busy the last year with work, family, and planning a wedding - but I promise I'll be around more in 2024!

[lastlovelasts]

Coming tomorrow!! 👩🏻‍🏫👩🏻‍💻

My dissertation publication/article is still in edits but once it comes out you can bet your body I'm going to continue to let it disseminate and flourish!! To grow and give birth to a publication isn't a cute little hobby; it’s an academic’s dream and scholarly journey.

Writing is life. A 141-pg bound dissertation transformed into 16 pages is a piece of my soul fabric made tangible, and I'm honored to hear about and read your relevant scholarly work too!

#dissertation #published #author #phdresearch #postdoclife #writingforpublication #nursing #science #STEM #WomeninSTEM #STEAM #WomeninSTEAM

[econsociology]

Benefit from this great list of academic opportunities: 11 calls for papers (some are partly funded), 8 PhD scholarships, 5 postdocs, 4 jobs, and 2 summer schools in economic sociology, political economy, work and labor studies, and related fields, with deadlines from July 10 till August 26 >>

[biocheminpics]

First postdoc hurdle feels got me like:

Seriously though. It felt like a victory lap of science until the problems started. And now it seems like, no matter how hard you want to solve those circumstantial problems, people cannot seem to get out of their own way. I unfortunately need to be vague. But goddamn is it frustrating.

[burntoutatelier]

I implied to my PhD advisor that I had some knowledge of psychedelics, which ended up with me introducing her to my plug. Maybe I can skip a postdoc or two if I roll a REALLLLY good blunt. What a world we live in.

In other news, I'm coming up on two tabs of acid with a couple still-open SH wounds on my forearms so that's something. I have some fun shows so it'll be a good time I think probably. Tonight I'm making choices and they're likely bad ones, but if you followed this blog and expected no self-destruction I think you may need your eyes checked.

[lonewolflink]

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[frustrated-researcher-diary]

#1 Introductions

Hello everyone,

It seems a little bit strange to write my thoughts and make them public, but here goes.

Ever since I started university back in 2012, I sort of knew that I wanted to stay in academia and become a researcher. The thought of studying and learning being the main tasks of my job made me feel very privileged. That, and also the possibility of being a teaching assistant and helping students out. All of this has led me to pursue a PhD. Boy, I did not know what I was going on in for. Doing PhD and a Master of Science are two completely different things - and I really underestimated the challenges that were ahead of me.

In the latter, you are basically walking on a threaded path, so to speak. You get assignments, study on textbooks you are given, pass exams that you need to take within specific deadlines, and the grades should give you enough of a validation of the good job done. Everything has been organized for the students, whose sole requirement is to ... """basically""" (I am using many quotes to stress the fact that I know it is not easy - been there, folks) follow the path laid out for them and study, I guess.

On the contrary, when you start a PhD, you are walking in uncharted territory. Of course, your supervisors make sure that you do not fail spectacularly, but at the end of the day you are the master of your fate. (Almost) Nobody gives you a schedule, a list of things to do, or a set of deadlines. You need to build them on your own and stick to them. You need to work on your research, devote some time in the middle to side activities (teaching, projects, contracts with industries), publish papers, and yadda yadda yadda.

Although it was pretty rough, I actually managed to finish my PhD in January 2022. Then, my supervisors (I also call them bosses from hereafter) asked me to my surprise if I ever considered pursuing a post-doc. My instantaneous reply was that I had to think about it.

And I really did. It took me some months to actually convince myself that research was "still" the path for me. I am using the quotes because, sure, during the PhD you learn a lot and build many useful skills, but you also grow to hate what you do from time to time. This can happen for different reasons. In my case, sometimes the research was too complicated, and I realised I was not as smart as I hoped I was. Oftentimes, imposter syndrome kicked in, and I believed that everybody but me had what it takes to deserve to stay in academia. In multiple occasions, I just wanted to know where Reviewer #2 (who heavily criticized the n-th paper that I submitted to a journal) lived, reach their house and hurt them with every fiber of my being. Other times, I just thought that I could have avoided the hassle of doing the PhD in the first place and started working right away in the industry to save enough money to get a house - or save myself at least multiple headaches and recurring episodes of me questioning my life choices.

I knew that becoming a post-doc implied accepting an unsteady job that might not lead to me becoming a professor. I also knew it meant having a lower wage than the one I would have gotten if worked in industry, which inevitably makes the purchase of a house much harder. I also knew it meant mostly anybody around me among my friends and family would have understood what I really do for a living. Nonetheless, I decided to go for it. Despite all, I felt that I was a somewhat decent teacher and that I could have improved in the research department in the future.

So, I applied for the post-doc call in November 2022, which I luckily ended up winning. And boy, even in this case, despite me thinking about it for months, I did not expect it was going to be so hard. Just as a Master of Science is different from a PhD, also being a post-doc is different from being a PhD candidate. During the Phd, my bosses made sure that research was going well, that it was scientifically sound and feasible. On the contrary, during this first year as a post-doc they have given me more freedom in this regard - perhaps because they expect me to become independent and learn that I will not always have them by my side. I think their "experiment" failed. Very much. Indeed, it is almost the end of my first year as a postdoc now, and I can not stop feeling unmotivated and disappointed. I am also afraid that my bosses, who put so much trust in me, feel the same.

I submitted two papers to different journals. One of them got rejected: reviewers said that the paper was not novel enough, which is ironic, considering that it required me one year to actually finish it. I think the other paper is doomed as well. Some might think that, after a Phd, I should be accostumed to paper rejection, but it sadly seems that I have not reached that level of maturity. Now I just think that whatever I do is pointless and will get rejected anyway, so why bother?

To make things worst, there is this constant reminder that in order to have good chances of becoming a professor I need to have as soon as possible a good H-index, get awards, do some side activities (that I could not be less interested in). There is a conundrum. On the one hand, you are privileged to do research, and people understand that research is a risk-related activity - meaning that its outcomes may not always be valuable. On the other hand, you are expected to give valuable research results to become an academic.

As you might understand from this excruciatingly long rant (sorry), I am not feeling very well (and you may also believe that I am overdramatic - which may be true). I am questioning my choice of pursuing a post-doc and my whole life as well (I said I am aware of being overdramatic). I am 30 now, and I hoped that by this age I had everything figured out, from my working life to my romantic one (which is a whole other story). Instead, I am none of the sort. I still live with my parents trying to save enough money to eventually get a house, still trying to find a partner, and still trying to figure out what I really want to do in the future. A true testament to this is the fact that I am writing this on a Saturday night, as if I had nothing better to do.

I wanted to talk with someone about my feelings over this last couple of weeks, but I could not find somebody who could relate that much. As I said before, friends and family do not exactly understand what I do. I could talk to my bosses at Uni, but I am afraid of their reaction. There are my colleagues, but I feel everybody has a lot on their plate, and I do not want them to give them another issue. In any case, I do not want to give up. I need to find by myself the spark that pushed me to go on with this job. Eventually, I will find again the motivation and excitement that convinced me (and also my bosses, apparently) that becoming a post-doc was not a bad idea after all.

I decided to write this post (or should I say rant?) for two main reasons. The first one is to use this as a reminder in the future of the things that I felt. Maybe this post could be followed by other ones on a regular basis as an entry for a diary to keep track of my progress, I don't know. The second one is to be hopefully of aid to whoever reads it. If you, too, are a frustrated researcher (be it a PhD or a post doc) you are not alone. It may sound cheesy, but I believe that there are not enough posts and websites dealing with this. Everybody in academia goes through similar struggles and if they say otherwise.. they are lying. Hardly nobody has everything figured out, even in their 30s.

D.

Ps: English is not my mother tongue, so I apologize for any mistake. Doing my best here 😅

[miss-biophys]

Feeling like a pro in Atomic Force Microscopy

...to be honest I probably should really tell myself that at this point I really am the professional in this method. After 4 years of working with 2 different atomic force microscopes, now I started with a 3rd one, again a new type from a different company.

Only after 2 hours of training on the new machine, I could observe membranes of resistant bacteria all by myself. The membranes are the yellow pancakes sitting flat on the dark support. They are less than 8 nm high (0.000000008 m), as is visible in the blue and red profile lines. So it's super tricky to actually see them. Atomic force microscope touches the surface of my membranes and surrounding support with a tiny tip like with a finger and reconstructs the surface topology. On top of the small size, the cellular membranes are super soft so also the touching finger must be super soft to see them without damaging them.

[thatwizardofearthsea]

Today is another academic rant day...I've seen many PIs keep shaming people for looking for alternative careers. ‪PIs really need to decide whether academia is work or a calling cause many of them also suggest the second one. If it is work then it should be entitled to the labor rights by hours, salaries, pension etc. but it isn't, it is exploitative. Where is the shame searching for stability?

[the-weerdo]

Oh, I passed the EPPP. :)

[acsec]

finally got my récépissé (extension of my current residence permit while they process the new one) 🥰 thankful to the Préfecture du Haut-Rhin for accommodating our request to « accelerate » the issuance of the récépissé because our research project would be greatly delayed if I stop doing experiments (and we have a publication deadline for next month and the project is government funded also) 💙🤍❤️ omw back to Mulhouse from Colmar… I have a research meeting at 10am with our German colleagues, I might join the meeting in a cafe somewhere in the Gare coz I won’t reach home or lab before the meeting starts (also I am in télétravail mode today 😅) —- busy day haha 😅 #amazingadventuresofbeaujethro #hautrhin #prefecture #colmar #mulhouse #research #grandest #france #alsace #filipinoscientist #scientist #postdoc #researchengineer #biomaterials (at Colmar, Alsace, France) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnoYkzxNRox/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[econsociology]

Dive into this abundant list of Great Academic Opportunities: 10 jobs, 10 calls for papers, 5 PhD fellowships, 4 visiting posts, 2 postdocs, and a grant in economic sociology, political economy, and related fields with deadlines till October 30. Good luck!

[thaoeatworld]

On Leaving & Loneliness

While there are many reasons for people to daydream, I am (and continue to be) someone who uses it as an escape from my present reality. For me, it was a lot easier to fantasise about unlikely scenarios based on a series of loosely-tied-together-happenstance than it was to be bound to my present conditions. A true “jumper” of sorts. 

For some people, this was a very beautiful trait I posses. To them, I was a person capable of foreseeing impossible connections. I overlapped completely separate entities into new trajectories. To them, I was a creative. I was innovative. 

To others, this was an obvious weakness. I would become reliant on these unlikely dreams, so much so that it impacted me emotionally and physically. I would be stressed over something that was 98% unlikely to happen and when they didn’t happen I would agonise about them relentlessly. Naturally, this was a very unhelpful if not toxic way to live my life. Some people would say that I fetishise (my) suffering, others would say I enjoy “suffering twice”. And to some extent, maybe I do...I’m an academic after all.

This post is a tribute to the numerous ongoing transformations I’m experiencing at the moment. I will reflect on the following (1) deciding not to return to the United States after graduation (2) leaving Italy when I absolutely didn’t want to and (3) pursuing an academic career despite not wanting to at all. 

These are just a small part of my textual reflections that I choose to share into the digital void. It’s weird to think that I first joined tumblr at age 12/13 -- when Tumblr was just in beta and tumblarity was all the rage -- sharing my thoughts into said void were common. Nowadays, I’m feeling more hesitant and I’m not sure why. Is it the illusion of privacy? Is it the fear of being performative? Is the fear of judgment and unprofessionalism? I’m not sure. I’m not sure where this new-found concern manifested. I’ve always been an “open book” type of person. To me, my emotional transparency is a key part of what I do as an anthropologist.

By writing out my feelings, my process, and my analysis, I continue to build my over-growing toolkit for ethnography. It’s never complete, it’ll never be perfect, but it is me and my method. I do not glamourise myself as the research tool, if anything, I’m probably overly critical on all fronts. Some have accused me of being “too emotional” and you know, they’re right. I am very emotional. At times it inhibits me from truly appreciating or just experiencing what is going on around me. I become disoriented and overwhelmed. My own personal limbo, truly.

Grief is not linear. If anything, it’s like a connection of overlapping strands pulling you in different directions at different times and intensities. A meshwork composed of destructive memories, heavy sentiments, and occasional moments of clarity at best. For me, grief is a place. And that place was the United States. After almost 5 years abroad, spread across Japan, the U.K., and Italy, I was very much not looking forward to returning after I concluded my studies.

There’s a trope I always share with people about myself when they find out I grew up in the United States. I always tell them that I don’t really like my country, but I love my home-state with a passion. I love being from Maryland, but specifically the D.C. metropolitan area. I loved waking up to “Good morning Washington” -- I loved hopping on a short train to the centre and eating nice brunches with friends in undergrad. I loved going to random punk shows in basements, restaurant backrooms, and old churches. I love Old Bay seasoning on my boxed macaroni and cheese and mumbo sauce with my box of Chinese takeout fried chicken and fried rice. I love my friends, more than they will ever know. And yet...all of these things weren’t enough individually, or in combination, to convince me to return after graduation.

In my eyes if I were to return to my hometown, or anywhere NEAR it, I would be a failure. In my eyes, I had a lot of unfinished explorations around the world and going back to the U.S. after having a taste of that would be devastating. In my travels and studies, I met a lot of people who felt similar. To some extent, I think we were all running from something and hid it behind the joy and aesthetic of travel. However, I think for me, that’s changed a bit. Nowadays, I feel like the reason why I don’t want to go back permanently is because I learned to carry “home” with me and share it with others in different places. My “home” is in my connections, my friends who are around the world in various places-- my personal constellations of care. 

The grief about choosing to not return comes from the moments I have missed or will miss. I’ll miss my cousins’ kids growing up. I’ll miss the steps of my mother aging and healing from her traumatic past. I’ll miss moments of supporting my sister when she’s down and needing me. I’ll miss my friends getting married, giving birth, adopting pets, and buying houses. I grieve the possibilities that I know exist for me, but I’ve actively prevented myself from experiencing. I wish I could accept those possibilities and be happy with them, but yet, I left because I wanted something “more” but I’m unsure how that looks to begin with.

For a while, “more” was Italy. Living happily on my own, outside of studies, in Torino. While my Italian was nowhere near perfect, it was getting better after leaving an arguably toxic relationship and meeting new people. I was living in a new house with lots of sunlight and plants, I was making friends outside a university setting, and I was roller skating lots. I woke up each day mildly rattled with excitement and existential dread. Okay, university is over, what next? 

I considered the longevity of my career anxiety. My elementary school teacher Mrs. Klass did mention to me that I was always a nervous child when it came to fulfilling my dad’s wish of me being a doctor. I don’t think parents understand how much their comments and parenting impacts their children...or at least, I don’t think my parents did. I was, and continue to be, a hyper-sensitive person. I think about one of my long-standing film favourites: The Graduate (1967). Benjamin’s insistent disinterest and confusion mirrored my own. I too, was a graduate.  And I too, was looking to find “purpose” post-graduation. Cue Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence” to play in the background of my mind.

Similarly, I found myself looking for love in all the wrong places. Specifically from people who were not capable of giving me anything I wanted or needed. However, like Benjamin, I lent myself to the fantasy and dove in -- not paying attention to the consequences. And in my own ways, I paid for (and continue to pay for) these decisions. Even with these complexities, I didn’t want to leave. I love(d) Torino. I love(d) Italy.

For me, from February to the end of August this year, Torino was the centre of the universe. While my experiences were hectic and intense, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier in my entire life thus far. The relationships I forged during this period were intensely wonderful. The relationships I ended were decisively healing -- something I can only say in hindsight. I will not downplay the pain I felt when they were crumbling, but am I relieved to not have to deal with them further.

My grief about Torino stems from my return to it for graduation in October after moving away when I didn’t want to. My desire was to find a beautiful role somewhere in Italy in research about plants and or food. I wanted to work in nutrition, biodiversity, cultural heritage. I wanted to conduct impactful research. I wanted to earn a reasonable wage. All of these desires were unfounded during my job search period.

When I set foot in Italy for graduation after moving away for work, I felt torn between multiple realities. Like Oxford, it wasn’t just the place, it was the people which coloured my experience. Most of my positive experiences in Torino were constructed by a small group of people, all of which didn’t exist in my life anymore. One by one, those people left my life, and I wasn’t the same anymore. That was a painful thing to realise. I’m not trying to diminish the happy connections I still have in Torino, but when you spend all your time with a select few, and they’re not there anymore, you feel that. Strongly. You feel their absence, their ghosts linger, and you try (very diligently) to stop being haunted.  All you can hope is that that someday these ghosts disappear, for good.

I never believed I would leave Italy, but most especially not to move to the Netherlands. As some might know, I had a mixture of motives for moving. I did it for a bundle of intersecting reasons, some of which unraveled and disintegrated altogether upon arrival. That was devastating. I was very much destroyed. As they say, once you hit rock bottom, it’s only up from here on.

I would say that September 2022 to mid November 2022 has been one of the darkest periods of my entire life thus far. I was very open about this, to everyone. And I thank everyone in my life for their continued patience and grace with me, I will not forget it.

Happy to report that despite these outside bursts of grief and sadness, none of this stemmed from my new work position. I definitely wouldn’t say I’m the type of person who dreams of labour, but I will openly say that I am very much happy and enjoying my academic role as a lecturer. A few months ago, I was very much on the the “I’m a hardcore research person, teaching isn’t my main concern.” In retrospect, what a reductionist and naïve thing to say.

I love reading and learning new things. I love teaching students more deeply about topics I care about. I love working through complex ideas. I love being challenged. I love challenging others. I love building new relationships with people. I love watching my students grow.

I love my team. I feel very supported among my colleagues. I feel like my unusual approach to things are appreciated and that I’m being pushed in positive ways. Granted, this is just a review from my first term. As I jokingly say to my students, “You’re lucky you got me while I’m all bright and shiny. I’m sure this won’t last forever.”

So where does the grief about taking the academic role come into play? Well, it’s very sneaky. In some ways, landing this role means two “big” things: (1) I’m away from the person I cared about the most which contributed to our demise -- I effectively chose career over this person and (2) I’m a part of the system I critiqued so heavily for many years. It boils down to valuing my career over people on both fronts. Am I allowed to be critical to academia when I’m participating and perpetuating two very harmful parts of it?

Am I allowed to be upset about heartbreak when I chose to be with someone who is stuck in a similar position as me? Forced to choose between career progression and romance? Sadly romance never tends to win out in the infamous “two body problem” lest you’re married. We were no where close to being married. Heck, we couldn’t even agree on similar literature for a manuscript draft. Anyways, the grief manifests in the guilt of “wanting better” for myself while also understanding why such harm would be done towards me. I’m angry, and yet I find the choice justified because I’ve been brainwashed to accept the brokenness of the academic system instead of challenging it more outwardly. It’s embarrassing for me, my cowardice towards the situation.

The second layer of guilt comes from giving academia a singular chance, and loving it once I stepped in. I applied for one academic position after graduating and got it. Who does that? I felt so bad after hearing I had gotten the job. I kept thinking “I know so many awesome scholars who try again and again to get a job so why am I more special than them in any way?”

I spent so many years of my doctorate being jaded by the emotional damage inflicted on me by others in positions higher to me. In some ways, I felt like a punching bag -- an easy target. I kept my head down and suffered “alone” for a lot of it. I found solstice in the venting void that was #academictwitter. I made friends online, and persisted. I see the same cycle in job applications beginning again among my peers. I wanted to tell them it’ll be okay, but I’m not sure I can in good faith. Herein, once again, is where that grief arises. 

I wonder where this loneliness will lead me. The decision to uproot and briefly settle every few years is truly a marathon. Consider this as a brief dip into the realities of that journey, many of us early-career-academics, collectively rationalise and undertake. 

I have no answers to resolving some of the emotional tensions I’ve pointed out here beyond looking to and leaning on my constellations of care. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I also believe in the power of community. I trust and deeply love my chosen communities. 

By sharing my thoughts and reflections, I hope that others in a similar position to me (or not) can benefit from the solidarity in emotional transparency. I know I open myself up for criticism in such vulnerability, but criticism is just a part of the process isn’t it? I would like to think I’m an ongoing “work in process” human. It’s only up from here. 

To end, I’ll be silly and listen to a song that used to soothe me in my middle school years. A common misconception about people who like pop punk is that we’re all hyperactive and overly happy. I guess I’m one of those weird pop punk kids who only listens to *sad* pop punk. The sadder and whinier, the better. “Leaving” by The Starting Line (2003) seems most appropriate for the occasion.