Recent comms! for DrPineap and oxthorin respectively 🍄💥
Me, watching my life go by while I’m in grad school
So I’ve been Having Ideas About My Future lately. And right now this one feels like the very beginning of a soap bubble - the part where you’ve started to blow into it but it hasn’t closed around itself yet. And I want to be really cautious with it so it doesn’t just pop before it can even get into the air, so I wasn’t gonna talk about it for a while, but also.
[Click through for a very long post about Maddy’s Career Options - replies are fine but please be gentle with my baby bubble hopes]
My dissertation is super stressful you guys
Also, writing a historical novel about a real murderer of women means reading autopsy reports. Lots of them.
I honestly didn’t take into account how emotionally draining this would be.
P.S. - late Victorian autopsy photographs are fucking terrifying
Anonymous asked:
Hello! Hope you're having a great day! I have a question about going to graduate shool. I am about to get my master's and have been offered a PhD position. Unfortunately, or luckily, haven't decided which yet, it's in a field very loosely related to my previous academic work. It sounds interesting though and maybe a chance to get more interdiciplinary experience. My question is, why did you decide to pursue a graduates degree and if you have any advide for someone thinking about doing the same?
I’m assuming you saw my post about That Scene in Endgame where they’re all channeling their inner grad student lol
Hey! Congrats on your masters and on the PhD, that’s awesome!! :) Interdisciplinary experience is the BOMB because everyone is all about interdisciplinary research these days, so that’s really cool to get a chance to be in a field like that and it would definitely expand your options in the future.
I got into research from a very young age, because I was one of those kids who had a lot of questions that nobody could answer. Eventually I was like “fuck it I’ll do it myself” and jumped headfirst into academia.
Here are my two biggest pieces of advice for people in grad school/going into grad school:
1. Make sure you’re studying something that you, personally, are passionate about. A lot of people will end up in a lab doing their supervisor’s research because they decide that they like it well enough, but if you’re not studying what you’re super passionate about most people will eventually experience burnout and disinterest. For me personally I found it really helpful to start with an end goal (what do I want to do/know?) and then work backwards (how do I get there?).2. Make sure you’re in an environment that’s allowing you to evolve and grow, and with a supervisor who wants to shape you into a unique researcher, not just a clone of them. A lot of people in my program were in toxic lab environments where their supervisors wanted to keep them around forever as free labour rather than develop them as researchers. A good supervisor will be someone who wants you to succeed and focuses on your academic and personal development, rather than using you to their advantage. If you don’t know much about the supervisor you’re thinking of working with, it helps to contact their current/former students to ask questions about the environment and what kind of a supervisor they are.
I hope this is somewhat helpful, feel free to spam my inbox more if you have any more questions and good luck with everything! :)
me: ugh I’m so over grad school apps
also me: *literally only talks about grad shool*
G U Y S
YA GIRL GOT INTO GRAD SHOOL! If you’re in NYC, hit me up. (Also help me find a place to live.)
The Gift of Work
I have always liked The Ultimate Gift, a movie based off a book by Jim Stovall. In this movie
A billionaire’s great nephew is a spoiled, entitled young man who values little in life. He has everything he wants, spends lavishly and has little to do with his family, no real friends, no cares or goals to speak of other than select hedonistic pursuits. He’s an empty vessel filling his personal void with with luxuries but he doesn’t realize how miserable he is because he’s never known anything else.
Upon his death, the billionaire (“Red”) leaves his great nephew Jason an inheritance, of sorts. In order to earn it, he must learn twelve lessons—gifts—over the coming year. If he fails at any point to fulfill the requirements, as determined by the executor of the estate, he loses everything.
Jason's first real gift is to learn "the privilege and satisfaction that comes from doing an honest day’s work.”
I think I take this for granted, being a recent college grad, I had worked through shool and get that hard work is necessary for a good future. I just don't think it's really clucked in for me that work is something to appreciate.
For me it is a means to and end, something forced upon us that is tiring and inconvenient. Two of us really wouldn't want to go outside and hang out with people, share in experiences and making memories? But work teaches us things like valuing time, money, family, and the things we take for granted when we don't have them in moderation.
I for one grew up isolated and never really had a need for anything. I was an employee void just filling the with sleep and entertainment.
Having worked through college, I think work taught me to appreciate not only that and relationships but also taught me to value my own will and the skills God has given me.
When I work this month, I want to do so joyfully. I want to do my best foryself and others. I want to honor God through my work. No matter what kind of work I am doing.
having to catch my dad up on like What Is Grad School because he doesnt get all my end of shool day car rants like my mom......last night he asked if i was going to apply to [current uni] and said "NO!" bc like...........i cant do what i want to there.....and im not staying at home for my whole goddamned life omg...and then he looked annoyed like SORRY i cant just apply to schools where i like the mascot there are considerations like advisors and shit akdbsbdjdj
i really was having a bad brain day/weekend huh.......had mentor group lunch and im ready to do grad shool again
last night i had, and i swear im not making this up to be silly, i had a dream that my department asked me to develop a new course and for some reason it had to be a course about pizza. and i said well ive noticed the students are struggling with writing so maybe it should be a writing flag. so it was a course in which people learned writing skills by writing solely about pizza.
So working in a genetics lab is great, and I’m honestly having fun working on my thesis over winter break. But also I’m jealous of my colleagues who do stuff with animals and plants and not incredibly large files of DNA because they can post really cool pictures of their work and if I did that all you’d see is a bunch of white letters on a black background
petitioning to add Black Panther to the list of film options for my Multiculturalism Class!!
asswatthama reblogged
my entire academic career
me: I should have done this earlier
me: [sweats nervously]
My sister got accepted into pharmacology grad shool, so to celebrate, I’m buying her a kid’s chemistry set for her birthday.
love means letting go (1/2)
Summary: ““I don’t have to leave,” he says, but there’s a longing in his voice, a regret in the words. She shakes her head, unwilling to let him suffer for her happiness. “Yes, you do.” He sighs. “Yeah, I do.”” - Finn is graduating, and Rey knows she has to let him go.
Rated: G
Words: 774
notes: angsty high shool au!
also on ao3
“Congratulations to the class of 2017!” Poe cheers into the microphone, and the 300 identical black caps are thrown into the air.
Through the crowd, Rey can see Finn hugging everyone around him, laughing and cheering with a giddy joy. A faint smile pushes at her lips, but her eyes watch with a bittersweet sadness. He's done high school now, off to better and bigger things, while she stays another year. He's moving to Toronto, while she stays back home. He's leaving her behind, while she's helplessly watching him go.
Since he announced his plans, since he ran into her house screaming because his acceptance letter had arrived, Rey has been dreading this moment. She's tried her damndest to be happy, to be proud, because she really, truly is.
So I got my transcripts today
(cut for elaboration on the theme)
Starting a paper is the HARDEST part of the whole writing a research paper situation. But I wrote my intro and it’s finally forming into something more than just my name and “fuck this” as a title
Anonymous asked:
(1/2 🐱)I'm an autistic physics undergrad. My original plan was to get a PhD and be the head of a research team, but now I plan to stop after my bachelor's. I just want to be done with school and get a job with regular hours where I can work on physics and not be in charge of other people. I feel like I'm taking the easy way out. My mom always brings up how I tested with a genius IQ as a kid and my parents always expect me to be the best, ...
(2/2 🐱)... but half the time I don't even have the energy to cook for myself after I get home in the evening. I feel like I'm not good enough. I see you being so happy with your grad work and it's people like you that made me want to do research, but I just don't think I can make it through that much shool. Is being a lab tech or something similar a thing? All of the Adults (TM) I know have PhDs; are there other options? Sorry this is more venting than question :/
Lab tech is definitely a legitimate job, and there are people who are very happy to build careers as techs precisely because the don’t want to deal with bullshit of academia.
There’s no shame in stopping after your BS. It does make it harder to find a job in research, but not impossible. Grad school is hard, and exhausting, and destroys a lot of good scientists for arbitrary and often cruel reasons that no one is willing to actually step up and fix.
If you don’t think you want to deal with it, just don’t. Don’t force yourself to because other people want you to.
And remember, you can always decide to go to grad school later. You might work for a couple of years and find that you were just burnt out on school and decide to go back. Lots of folks do that too.
The best thing you can do for yourself right now is to take some time off, work, and decide later if you want to go to grad school or not. You’ve got lots of time, and there’s no shame in whatever you decide to do.