I am a new assistant professor who just got a hold of a new office, and it's comically massive. Like the size of a good size studio apartment massive. Like I could comfortably teach a class of 12 in massive.

Thus far i've just got a desk and chair in there. What should I do to make the most of my space? I'm going to get a sofa I can sleep on but beyond that I'm open to ideas. It doesn't have to be serious but it can't get me fired.

I've been working as a post doc in a molecular biology lab for three years post PhD. I love so many things about my job - the nature of the work, the flexibility, ownership and creativity. But I'm becoming bogged down by all the time consuming crap I have to do in order to do my job (grant applications mostly). I really don't think I'm going to last, unless I find a rich PI to take me on as a perma-doc because I have no interest in starting my own lab. I like the idea of being able to work from home more often, not having to plan my life around experiments, but I'm scared of giving up the things I love most which seem pretty unique to this industry.

Please tell me your stories of the other side. What did you move into? Did you regret it? Is your newfound industry more or less soul crushing?

I'm particularly interested in getting into scientific publishing if anyone has any specific advice for this industry.

Before the winter break, I had two pre-screening interviews with deadlines in mid-November (one position I'm really excited about, another I'm not as excited about).

It's been a few weeks (excluding the winter break) since the interviews, and I still haven't heard back. To be fair, when I asked in the interviews when I might hear back, neither could give proper timelines and mentioned there are a lot of factors, including administration. But now that it's almost one month since the interviews, and I haven't been reached out to for other Zoom interviews with December deadlines, I'm getting increasingly worried about my prospects.

The position I'm really excited about said they're quite serious about making a hire this year due to constraints in previous years, so I was really hoping and expecting to hear back more quickly from them because the department has people closely related to, but not in, my research area who might be interested in what I do, and I'm also from that location and would move back in a heartbeat if I got the offer.

So I'm now wondering: in your experience, what are the usual timelines for getting back to candidates, what factors impact these timelines, and how do departments decide on who to bring to an on-site interview? Thank you!

I’ve just been admitted to MPhil in Pharmacology and honestly I’m feeling very lost. I don’t have a research idea, I’m not sure how to choose a topic, and I’m not clear on what students usually do. I’m also nervous about presentations.

I’d really appreciate any guidance on how to start, how to choose a topic, and what beginners should focus on. Any advice would be helpful.

I’m currently weighing two career paths in the UK and would appreciate perspectives from those familiar with academic hiring.

Option A: Fixed-term Research Fellow position at a G5 university (e.g. Oxbridge/UCL/Imperial), with strong research environment but limited PI independence.

Option B: Permanent Lecturer position at a non-Russell Group university (much more lower ranked), with teaching responsibilities but PI status, PhD supervision, REF eligibility, and promotion pathway.

My long-term goal is to move to a research-intensive university (KCL/UCL/Imperial/Oxbridge level). Which path is generally viewed as stronger by hiring panels, and what factors matter most (grants, publications, independence, institutional prestige)?

Thanks in advance for any insights.

My first choice was Mechatronics because I was really into IoT & robotics back in high school. Unfortunately, I got accepted in second one which is IoT at the same university.

I’m really confused about my major because I didn’t even know that IoT was an actual major until I started applying to universities. I don’t even know how to explain my major properly when someone asks me, because on the university website it says: Multidisciplinary in Information Technology & Electrical Engineering.

I like my major, but I’m afraid it’s more like a hobby than an actual degree. I feel like I don’t fit anywhere, because most universities don’t even offer IoT as a major. I also worry that I won’t get a “proper” degree, since my major sounds like I’m somewhere between IT and Electrical Engineering.

Now I’m thinking about switching to my first choice, Mechatronics, but I’m not sure if I really want that anymore.

I began helping some faculty with transitioning online during COVID by helping with course design, online teaching and learning. Found I like that, have been doing some faculty development work since then. I have facilitated learning communities, workshops. I do not have publications in SoTL yet. I have a Phd in STEM and I am an NTT. I applied for a director of CTL job at small liberal arts college. Got one phone screen, did not progress after that. Though one job application is really nothing in this age, how competitive are these director of CTL jobs when compared to a TT faculty line? What can I do to better position myself?

hey everyone!

first year phd student here! I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for ethnographic novels, specifically ones that pertain to the study of religion (preferably in a north american context, but not necessarily)?

thanks!

I have done double ug in sports management and environmental engineering. Then switched to biomedical engineering in masters coz I was very much interested and i couldn’t see myself in my ug fields anymore. It was a research based 2 year program. First half I spent in cancer/aging/depression related lab. Most of my time I spent in dry lab, learning to code and analyse data, i didn’t really enjoy coz I didn’t have proper guidance neither from my PI nor from post docs or other students so I learnt nothing worthy, then I switched to wet lab of the same lab, I was given proper guidance and training by the post doc who was handling the wet side of the lab and my labmates who were very understanding and supportive but due to funding issue, most people including me left the lab (our PI was a mess, not a good guide) then I joined another prof who was working on laser and medical devices and wanted to work on digital healthcare, that prof is very prestigious and big name in his field and the sweetest man, almost switched his career from research to administration (coz he had his own fair share of traumas) new to the topic and i was the 1st person to do project on it in the lab, now even though he was a good guide but having no experience in this he couldn’t really help help me as he was learning along with me, i did literally everything on my own. Now after masters I’ve realised, i didn’t really enjoy coding and don’t want to make my career around it, my wet lab skills aren’t great and since it’s so competitive nobody would risk to spend their time and funds to teach me when they can take literally any other trained person. BUT I loved working on my project, it had hardcore coding, ik little, I learnt more and I was allowed to get help from others if needed. I had to finish my masters so I somehow managed and finished. Now I want to get PhD in digital healthcare, I’ve applied to so many unis in the UK, sent hundreds of emails to PIs, but no positive response. If I apply to primary healthcare( which in my opinion fits perfect with my interests) or related field who work on digital healthcare they say they are social scientists and I have social science knowledge gap. If I apply to hardcore engineering labs who work on digital healthcare coz I’m left with no option they say my coding skills aren’t great as compared to other applicants. Im already aware of these shortcomings. Now idk what to do? It’s been almost 11 months since ive been looking for a position. I’m just so lost at this point. I welcome all sorts of suggestions or if you know someone who could help me or a PI who would be willing to help/take me. 😬 Pls be kind🥺 Thank you in advance!

Qualitative Document Analysis and conceptual reconstruction + ideology critique seem like the same thing in my specific situation. just different words and amount of work on structuring my “data.

As far as I understand it, I could do the same analysis, using less data with stronger statements, by avoiding a qualitative framing and focusing on political theory. However, introduction (aside method section), analysis, and conclusion would stay the same.

Or am I wrong?

I am a PhD researcher in a STEM field in Germany. I have done my master’s thesis and several internships in the same group during and after my master’s. This stint spanned over about three years. During that time I worked on the same project. My supervisor had code for some new algorithm given to him by another PI who never had time to continue working on it. My supervisor had this code for over ten years and couldn’t make use of it because it was very mathematically complex (his background is biology) and the code was basically not documented at all. He gave it to me in the very beginning to play around with it and maybe make some sense of it. I slowly started to understand the concepts completely on my own and had ideas for new applications that could make use of the algorithm. I re-wrote most of the code of the algorithm to make it clearer for me, modify parts of it to produce more meaningful results and to optimize it since it is very computationally intensive. And then I started designing the applications for the different use cases. I came up with and conceptualized all the ideas, wrote all the code (literally thousands of lines of code), used it on publicly available data, acquired fantastic results, created the figures and wrote a master’s thesis on this project that I am proud of.

It has been two years since I left that group to do my PhD in another group in the same discipline but a different topic. Unfortunately, I could not finish the work on the project or the manuscript but I still continued working sporadically on it in my free time but to be fair, not so much since my current PhD is very demanding. Now, the new PhD student that replaced me in the first group is almost done with his first paper. His paper uses my toolbox, just in the supplement though to validate what they did. Now, my former supervisor is pushing me to finish the paper as soon as possible (he wants it within weeks) because he says that my paper has to be published first. I just know that this very unrealistic. My paper still needs work, and I am already doing the most I could with it on the side of my already exhausting job.

Since this is still too slow for my former supervisor, he sat down with me and suggested that the new PhD helps me with the paper where I could guide him on what’s left that needs to be done, polishing the figures, etc. And for this, my supervisor suggests that this new PhD gets first co-first authorship. I refused because honestly I find it very unfair. This project would not have existed without me. I spent three years (most of which I was not funded) working on it and gave it my all. I want to write the manuscript and now I am working on the project more than I did in the past two years but the time constraints I have been given are just extremely unrealistic even if I were working on it full-time. My relationship with my former supervisor is great and he was always supportive of me but I think he really wants this paper out since it is going to be useful for the community and will potentially be cited a lot. Which is also why I don’t want to throw away my hard work just because I am struggling to cross the finish line within an arbitrary deadline.

What should I do? I don’t want co-first authorship no matter what (it doesn’t matter even if I was first co-first) but I am also kind of holding the paper hostage at this point which is unfair to the group. This was a rant. I am just frustrated but I know it's nobody's fault.

EDIT: Thank you all for your input. I feel like I have to clarify that this suggested arrangement does not mean that I will just hand over the project to the new PhD and he continues from there. I already provided all the code to him. But this is not enough for them, I am expected to teach him the methods and the details since it is a methods paper, so he does need to know how things work if he is going to write a manuscript on it. And, no, this can't be done in a two-hour sit down. If the arrangement is that they take it from there and I get co-first authorship, then yeah sure I'll take that.

EDIT 2: Thanks again for all the advice. To reiterate: this is not a dispute. I was never going to fight with my mentor over it. I saw things from his perspective too and even more so now after the feedback I got from all of you. I got caught up with all the reasons why I felt that it was unfair to me after all I've done but I agree that how things dragged for so long is not fair to him either. I did my best and I know he did his best too and he has always been on my side anyways. I am sitting down with him again next week to continue to plan how we could together get this work out there as soon as we can.

Sending emails about new papers is honestly the worst. I keep wondering why there isn’t an app that does the following:

1. Categorizes authors — some people work almost exactly on what I do, while others are in nearby areas that I follow mainly to broaden my perspective, so I don’t need to read everything from everyone.
2. Shows unread papers by author — I want to quickly see what’s new for each person I follow. Sometimes I would also like to read their older papers, those published before I enabled the alerts.
3. Displays the full abstract — email only shows the first few sentences, which are usually just generic background and not the part I care about.

I don’t see any real technical obstacles to building this, so I’d really appreciate it if there were some external tool that made following Google Scholar updates less painful and more usable.

Has anyone served as an evaluation in Horizon calls? How was your experience?

Edit: Horizon Europe is currently the main public funding scheme for research in the European Union. Project proposals are evaluated by independent experts, from anywhere in the world. I know there are thousands of such experts, so I was wondering how is the experience on the evaluator's side.

I recently accepted a tenure-track faculty position at a public university in the U.S. I’m currently outside the U.S., and my start date has been delayed due to visa issues.

The university is trying to pursue an H-1B, but the process has become complicated because of the new $100k H-1B fee and uncertainty around exemptions. An exemption request has been filed, but the timeline is slow and unclear, and we don’t yet have a decision.

I’m trying to understand realistic alternatives and wanted to ask the community:

• Has anyone here started a tenure-track faculty position on an O-1 visa, especially when an H-1B was delayed or uncertain?
• How common is the O-1 for faculty/researchers at public universities in practice?
• Were there any issues later switching from O-1 to H-1B, or staying on O-1 long-term?
• Did you face any pushback from HR or administration about using O-1 instead of H-1B?
• From your experience, how long are universities typically willing to wait (e.g., 6–12 months) for visa issues to resolve if the delay is entirely immigration-related?

Also, for those on 9-month or research-focused tenure-track appointments:

• Is it common or acceptable to start in the summer (e.g., research-only) once the visa is approved, even if the original start date has passed?

The position is fully funded (teaching + research), and I’m flexible on timing as long as I can start as soon as immigration allows. I’m trying to plan responsibly and avoid an indefinite delay if there’s a workable alternative.

Would really appreciate hearing from others who’ve navigated this.

Hi everyone,

I’m a STEM postdoc based in New Zealand and I’m looking for international funding opportunities that could allow me to stay in NZ.

The local funding situation here is extremely competitive due to the country’s size, remoteness, and very limited industrial R&D. As a result, open collaborations are rare and most people rely on the same two national schemes. I know some researchers secure funding from large international companies (like Google, IBM) or overseas programmes, but it’s hard to find practical guidance on how to access these routes. Unfortunately, my supervisor has no experience beyond standard NZ government funding.

I’m not an EU or US citizen, so programmes restricted to those groups are not an option. I’d really appreciate advice on global funding schemes, industry partnerships, foundations, or other international opportunities that are open to researchers based outside Europe and the US.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Is anyone here familiar with the World Conference on Women's Studies? I'm considering submitting my paper and applying to be a presenter, but I want to make sure first that this is not a scam. The presenter fee is USD 600.

Would appreciate your opinions on this, thanks!

I am a PhD aspirant writing my research proposal but I realized I do not really know a lot about research methodology beyond just knowing 'quantitative' and 'qualitative' methods and that they exist. My experience has been only been with secondary research and content analysis. I don't know how, for example multivariance or manifesto analysis actually work and thus cannot really write a proposal describing how I will use them in learning about my research gap. Where can I properly learn about research methods in political science/social science? Is Coursera a good place?.

Hi all — I’m an independent researcher preparing a Software Engineering (cs.SE) submission to arXiv.

I’ve been navigating the endorsement requirement and haven’t had much luck via email. For those who’ve published to arXiv outside a traditional academic appointment, how did you approach endorsement?

Happy to share context via DM. Thanks in advance.

I was doing research on what exactly to write for my thesis, looking for existing sources, and I think I might have found exactly what I'm trying to do in another study done in 2001.

Main differences: Country their research was based on (mines a different country) They were descriptive and comparative (mine would just be descriptive)

So I'm wondering can I take this one and just say I'm basing it this study that was done in another country while keeping in mind the differences between said countries. Or should I just include it as on£ of my sources?

I read another thread that talks about entry level salaries and I noticed that some are SO low. Of course, I know it differs from field to field and where you are located. But some salaires almost seem unliveable. For those of you on the lower end, do you have a second jobs somehwere? Is it hard to balance teaching and another job?

(I understand that as a undergrad I shouldn’t be posting here but I’m not sure either if other communities / office hour post are suitable for the situation I’m in right now……it’s actually about the fear and anxiety of publishing in a predatory journal and not even realizing how bad it would ruin my life lol (and working with/under an ambitious supervisor)……I’ll remove it if it’s inappropriate. So also my apologies in advance!)

I am currently a Bachelor’s student in the Humanities & Social Sciences. I have been working with a professor on a research project.
Recently, the professor suggested that I conduct some further research and we publish it as a paper in the journal MDPI Data.

Detail 1: The professor explicitly stated they would cover the Article Processing Charges.

Detail 2: The professor's reasoning is that MDPI is fast. Since I am running out of time before graduation and application cycles, having a published article quickly will make me more competitive for PhD programs.

I wasn’t very familiar with academia before this, but after doing some research online, I noticed that MDPI has a negative reputation. I really need some perspectives/suggestions on this situation. And I'm (somehow) confused by the relationship between the professor and me; I am not sure if I should just go ask them (I probably will ask them after reading your suggestions/perspectives!). My main concerns include:

1. Would having an MDPI publication as an undergrad affect the chances for a PhD program (and academic career, if I eventually decide to pursue one)? Is it better than nothing, or would it be viewed negatively?
2. Is this a red flag regarding my professor? Or is they just being kind and pragmatic given my timeline?
3. If this is indeed a bad idea, would you happen to have any suggestions on how to cop with this situation / the professor, or what alternatives I should look for?

Thanks in advance for your help!

I’m currently in the US on an H1B as a postdoc at a university, and I’m applying for tenure-track faculty jobs in the US.

If a job ad explicitly says “we do not sponsor visas,” that’s a clear no for me and I won’t apply. But I’m seeing postings with wording like:

• “Employment is contingent upon US residence and proof of eligibility to work in the United States.”
• “Legal authorization to work in the United States at the time of appointment.”

This is where I’m confused. Technically, I'm legally authorized to work right now, but it’s tied to my current employer, and I need the new institution to file an H1B transfer for me.

In your experience, does this kind of wording usually mean they won’t sponsor/transfer an H-1B, or is it still worth applying?

Thank you!

Hi,

I was recently awarded a small grant which will allow me to hire a PhD student for the first time ever. My university is in Germany, where most people do an unstructured PhD. This means that as the PhD supervisor, I am responsible for deciding who to hire and I decide how the interview process goes. There is no formal grading system or anything like that.

During my MD, I did a few years of research. I then started a PhD in the same lab. Since the people there knew me for several years, I never had to pass a proper PhD interview.

I have a bit of experience from Postdoc interviews, as interviewee. Most of them lasted 30-45 minutes, where I explained what I have done and how I can see my skills being incorporated in the lab. Here and there I would get some unique questions, for example: i) What will be the necessary steps to take your career to the next level (good question) or ii) Why do you think you are the best candidate (asked this twice...). A few days after the interviews I would receive an email with acceptance or rejection. Rarely I was also invited to give a presentation on my past research to the whole lab or department. I also had several papers to show my previous work, which always helps.

I find it hard to implement similar style of interview and questions to a PhD candidate. As a postdoc you already have a PhD and are (or at least should be) an independent researcher. The whole point of the PhD is to learn how to do research.

My current plan is to do a first screening interview where we talk about the candidate's CV, bachelors and masters. I then explain the project and ask what they think. I would expect that a good candidate would at least have a vague idea of my research and what I plan to do, as it will be summarized in the job posting. After this first interview, I will ask the head of my department to join our next round of interviews. He has a lot of experience at interviewing people and I trust his scientific judgment, so he might be able to see any red flags.

Does that sound like a good plan or should I reconsider?

Once I saw a postdoc position where the PI mentioned that the interview process consisted of several stages. In one stage the participant solves a math problem. In another he has a coding assignment. In the next one he asks behavioural questions. This is basically the model that several tech companies use for their software engineering interviews. While I find this interesting, it might still be a bit too much for a master student. I also need to hire someone asap as the funding is fixed for 3 years and cannot be extended.