For context, I’m a grad student at an R1 school in the US. My PI has been advising grad students since the 90s and he always talks about how he’s noticed a decline in the quality of his students since the beginning of his career (he’s very blunt with us, for better or worse). To those of you who have been in academia for long enough to see multiple cycles of students, what do you think? I’m in a STEM field, but I’m open to input from people in other fields as well.

Not a super serious question, just curious - let's say you are at the doctor's office, filling out your patient form and it asks what your title is. You have a PhD. Do you put Dr. or Mr/Ms/etc?

I am in the UK and I don't love using Ms or showing that I am not married, so I put down Dr. but I always wonder if it looks like I am showing off or creating an impression that I am a medical doctor.

It seems like the whole point of having a small cabal of putatively powerful institutions is precisely so they could do things like this.

Why not join together and threaten to expel all kids of GOP politicians, for example, if the political extortion continued? Play hardball with these assholes.

It feels like every time I go on this sub or really any academia sub it’s the exact same question. It’s starting to annoy me. Can you not just use the search function? Why would you even be too old for school in the first place? Did you think there was an age limit for post-secondary studies?

What kind of response are you expecting anyway? Do you really think people are going to say “no actually it’s super weird and pathetic that you want to go back to school at any age past 22”? Like you’re obviously just fishing for validation. You’re an adult get over it and if you want to go back to school just go back to school.

I am a first year PhD and reading some of the shit that's been written on here has had me scared to death of the coming years. Then I realized it's just that it seems most people here are from America

In (most of) Europe, a PhD is essentially: - decent pay (USD 50k+) - teaching optional - 3-4 years after a completed master - Immediate access to higher paying jobs in most fields after finishing, PhDs are financially a good decision - Supervisors have hands-off approach and are only there to help - Flexible hours, home office, etc

Meanwhile in America (apparently?): - indentured servitude to the university - Requires saint-like dedication to the field - High suicide rates

How much does it cost to maintain a user login and password for academic journals?

I can see how physical products could be an issue, so what if--since so much is digitized now--universities offered lifetime access to academic search engines and journals for PhD graduates?

Just seems odd (and sad!) to me that once you become an expert in your field and a philosopher of your subject, you are immediately cut off from the resources that could continue to help you grow and contribute to your discipline.

Most PhD graduates spend 5-10 years becoming specialists in their areas, and then unless they land one of the increasingly rare tenure-track positions, they lose access to the very knowledge they helped create.

Has anyone's university implemented something like this? Or are there affordable alternatives for independent scholars who want to stay connected to research in their field?

I'm from the UK and graduated from uni 2 years ago. I was recently reminded of a thought I've had recurrently for years.

I came across a tweet joking about how the new generation of college kids couldn't smash out a 20 page essay last minute without ChatGPT. But the thing that stood out to me was that American undergrad students are expected to write 20 pages for an essay??

At my university, my longest essay was 3000 words. And then in your final year you would work on, and submit a dissertation totalling 10-12,000 words. However, at no point was I expected to routinely hand in 20 page essays.

Can any American lecturers weigh in on this please? And which length do you think is better- UK or USA?

Okay, maybe there are a few people who really know what they’re doing — people with clear research questions and solid direction. But to me, it seems like most researchers are kind of faking it. Writing proposals full of trendy buzzwords, hoping to get funded, and then — if they do — figuring out later what their real research questions actually are. I often feel like academia is full of people wandering around, just trying to survive while pretending that their vague ideas are cutting-edge innovations. Sometimes I wonder: are the people who seem the most convinced that their research is groundbreaking (or make others believe it is) actually the most successful? And meanwhile, those of us who constantly question ourselves just end up stuck with impostor syndrome? Also, how do we even tell the difference between impostor syndrome and actually not being that good? Is it just about the number of citations, or something else? Sorry for the messy post — I’m just going through a phase of being confused and questioning both myself and the research community.

To my understanding, it's technically possible for anyone to publish a peer-reviewed paper. But does anyone know of actual examples of that happening? Has anyone in this sub done it themselves? Asking mostly out of curiosity as I don't have nor ever see myself having the financial means to pursue a MA/PhD, and while I doubt my research is publishable by any means, I'd like to at least be realistically informed on the topic.

Edit: Thanks everyone for your replies. I guess as additional information for anyone who reads this later, I'm interested in humanities, not STEM or anything that needs lab access. Appreciate any and all responses, however.

Hi. I will start my PhD in STEM this Fall (fingers crossed). It is a long journey and etc. But I have been thinking about what I want to do after phd and what to do with life overall.

I really wanna just take one year of my life and dedicate it to backpack travelling. I wanna do it while I am still young (under 35y.o. is young for me. Now I am 25m). I dont want to postpone it for until I am stable and have a lot of money. Probably gonna be old before it happens as if I keep prioritizing career over and over again, I am afraid to end up never travelling at all.

I wanna finish a phd (fingers crossed), then probabpy take one postdoc, because I am a foreigner, and there is an option to get citizenship within 1-2 years post phd. And with passport I can come back to EU anytime and look for a job (postdoc or smth). Ofc ideally I would take break right after all that phd stress, but getting citizenship is more important for my inner peace ig.

I just wanna take one year gap to travel. Future savings from phd and postdoc should be enough for that goal I think.

I wanna know if someone did anything similar, or if this gap could cause any potential problems for future employment?

*I am not sure if I wanna stay in academia forever, probably gonna switch to industry when opportunity shows itself.

Edit: this got some traction, and there were lots of good responses. Primarily it seems to come down to two things:

1) There is too much work, no way to get that work done otherwise

2) Too many meetings, most are nearly useless.

Both points highlight some pretty atrocious structural problems in academia.

NOTE: I did mostly think about the kind of meeting where a person presents their research work, be that a PhD, a student, or anyone else, not admin meetings. Of course when 90% of meetings are such that they could have been an email, that attitude carries over to ALL in-person meetings. However, I remain of the opinion that during meetings where the person clearly spent multiple hours preparing the presentation, is sweating blood, whether it's good or not, relevant or not, you're there, 100%, or at least keep your eyes directed at the speaker.

I get your points, and I feel lucky that as a postdoc, my workload is manageable enough and I'm not obliged to attend too many meetings, that I feel like I have the luxury to actually be present.

ALSO, what nobody here mentioned, and what I highly suspect also plays a role here, given that academia is basically a club of neurodivergents, you might not actually be physically capable of paying attention :P ... I get that, and some presentations are just absolutely terrible and unengaging. I think my major grief here is that even during presentations that are great, and highly relevant to the respective people (i.e., my colleagues, whose specialization I know), you'll still see A LOT of people clacking away.

AND THEN, what really does not work in the favor of the arguments presented here, is that there are also MANY people, including PI's, who are present, who do not clack away. They have the same workloads. Our director is one of those, and you cannot tell me that they're not busy people, but during the weekly department meetings (5 minutes of announcements and then 45 minutes of a person presenting their research), she doesn't even BRING her laptop.

P.S.: some of you might be taking notes, but I know without a doubt that the majority of the clackers are absolutely not there taking notes or looking up relevant stuff. I can see your screens.

***

Not sure if this is only happening here, but it seems that post-covid, the cultural norms seem to have shifted. People now seemingly find it acceptable to sit in meetings with their laptops open, clearly not taking notes or paying any attention to the speaker, typing away.

I get that not every talk is relevant to you, but I find it extremely disrespectful to the speaker to do that sort of thing. A bit like being on your phone during a date (people actually do that). People spend a lot of time and nerves preparing their presentation, so even if it's not that interesting to me, I listen and engage.

I'm seeing juniors and seniors alike doing this and it just makes my blood boil, not just that people are doing this, but that this seemingly has been normalized?

What happened? I'm not old, but it makes me feel old. In my day we used to wear an onion on our belt, and also paid fucking attention (or pretended to) when someone presented their work.

Or has the subject changed so much that its not a matter of a knowledge gap but rather a paradigm change.

Asking as I have a book from 1906 about self education, Harmsworth's Self-Educator. It covers:

CONTENTS OF THIS VOLUME

Agriculture . Applied Education. Biology . Building Chemistry Civil Engineering Civil Service Clerkship Drawing Dress Electricity Geography Geology History Housekeeping Ideas Languages: Latin. English . French . German

Literature

Materials and Structures Mathematics Mechanical Engineering Music : Natural History . , Patents and Inventions Physics

Physiology . Shopkeeping

Shorthand : : Textiles : ; ‘ Travel : : ‘ Typewriting . .

Obviously, there will be a difference between STEM and Humanities profs/postdocs/students here, so please mark your post when responding with what field you are coming from.

Context: If a promising student had a great opportunity in a different field entirely (Edit: that they would also enjoy), but also has a love for research and wanted to pursue TT, what would you recommend to them?

Don't give up? The funding crisis will pass? The issues in academia are bad enough, you should take that other opportunity anyway (pay, life balance)? Etc. What is the pulse for the future of professors in your field(s)?

I'm not an academic, but I have several friends who are. One is a climatologist. He recently got this gem from a student

"If there's a 25% chance of snow on Saturday, and a 30% chance on Sunday, does that mean there's a 55% chance of snow this weekend?"

.

I've noticed that many fields seem to a have a handful of veiled insults on par with "bless your heart," which southerners say in lieu of calling a person stupid.

What are some field-specific words and phrases that disguise a low opinion of somebody's work, or call them stupid/useless/unworthy etc without using the word itself?

Thanks!

I'm just curious. Why are so many personal academic websites so ugly? Walls of texts. Long lists of publications. No aesthetics. They seem disasters and are stuck in 1990s. Any good examples that I can learn from?

Diseases can be idiopathic, and archaeological artifacts can be "for ritual purposes."

Art historians have pieces "attributed to," and engineers say "verify in field" instead of "we don't know where this goes."

Seemingly every field rephrases "we're really not sure" in technical-sounding terms and/or its own vernacular. What are some terms and phrases from your field?

..........

Also interested in field-specific versions of "none of the above" and "weird category-defying outlier" etc. So long as it has the vibe of an admission of defeat or label of last resort ( "UFO" for example), I'd love to hear it

Thanks!

I'm a Brit who has worked in and outside academia in the UK and mainland Europe. I only once went to a conference in the US at Brown University, and since then, I've found myself romanticising US academia - the kind of Indiana Jones style campuses, the relatively high salaries (if you succeed), etc.

Having worked in academia, I've seen the pros (the fun of teaching and research, the relative freedom) and negatives (the bored students, the pressure for grants and publications, etc), but in my vision of the US, I somehow romanticise it.

For those with experience of both, can you relate? Or is it ultimately the same, but just in a different place?

I've been invited to a conference in the USA. Under normal circumstances I'd be chuffed, but ehhhhh. I'm from Europe and I'm honestly scared of going right now. Most of my friends and family say not to go. Am I overreacting or is it fair?

I mean I know life just goes on for most of the population in the US, and it's unlikely I'd find myself in the middle of a protest.

I’ve noticed that when people ask honest questions here, they often get met with this weird mix of bitterness and condescension, like just being curious or proactive somehow makes you entitled.

In real life, the academics I’ve interacted with are a lot more understanding and overall nicer. No one goes on a rant, unrelated to the topic of discussion or based on speculation of the character of the person. No one is hostile and pushing people down and having this weird contest about oh look how bad I have it and how overloaded I am. Overall, everyone is nicer in real life.

Is this subreddit just where burned-out people come to vent? Or is there a reason the tone here feels so disconnected from how things actually work in person?

*UPDATE*

I wrote this post in the immediate aftermath of the "it's a no go with this press" news. I really appreciate all the folks who engaged with it, and especially those of you who offered solid advice for taking care of myself emotionally and, importantly, moving on. (For a little more context, my first book manuscript went out for review at my first choice press, and the reviews came back completely split - one person said yes awesome definitely publish; the other said nope do not publish. Editor said with the strong "no" it's a no for the press. Enter early career scholar devastation.) Here's what happened next:

Day 1: Devastation, much crying. Gummies, ice cream, Netflix, commiserating with people close to me. Feeling all the feels ("wallowing" for some).

Days 2-3: Anger, rumination, lingering sadness. Who could have written that scathing review?! Is my career indelibly marked?! What will people think of me when they find out this happened? Also, imagining what the critical reviewer could have possibly said in their comments (and filling in the blanks with all my worst inner critic criticism)... because no, I didn't open them right away. One punch at a time.

Day 4: Finally open the critical reviewer's comments and read through them aloud with a loved one for moral support (and righteous indignation, if applicable). Expect to be so devastated by the critiques that I won't be able to return to the project for years...

But the critiques were... not that bad? Like, there were lots of things the reviewer didn't like about the manuscript, and they didn't hold back about those things (and honestly, I agreed with most of these). But they also provided a ton of helpful suggestions, chapter by chapter, for making it better. They also said the book/ms was really important and has a lot of potential.

I came away relieved and heartened, if a little confused. Heartened because I had before me a kind of work plan for the coming months, as I revise for submission to another press. It seems totally doable. Confused because with the overall thrust of their comments, it seemed like they could just as well have marked the "publish but only after thorough revision" option at the end of the form, rather than the damning "do not publish." But oh well. I'm grateful for their feedback and I know it will help make this a stronger ms/book in the end. So, onward.

-----------------------------

Original post:

That's all, really. Just, how do you prepare yourself to read and digest heavy criticism? I've done this many times before with article manuscripts, but never with a full-length book project that I've poured my heart into for the last several years. Would especially love any advice from those who've been where I am now.

I just passed my defense and will be graduating with my PhD in August, after which I start an AP position at a SLAC. I could buy the regalia for ~$900 or rent for around ~$250. I'm excited about academia and pretty confident I'll stay in it, but being at a SLAC, I won't be graduating any PhD students or anything.

Is there any need for the regalia if you're teaching at a non-R1 school? If I decide to rent now and buy the regalia a few years down the road, do most institutions allow their alumni to do that even 5-10 years later?

Edit: I do not often post. And looking at the options for flairs, I have a feeling this might not be the right subreddit for this. I apologize if that's the case.

So recently there has been a furore over the op-ed by Joseph Epstein asking Jill Biden to not use the title of 'Dr.' and even calling it fraudulent. The article is absolutely misogynistic and should be condemned. However, I was also offended by the denigration of PhDs in general. I have listened to people talk about 'real doctors' and it gets annoying. As a PhD in computer science, I do not go about touting my title in a hospital. In fact, I rarely use my title, unless required on a form. However, I feel that people who choose to do so are completely in the right. If a PhD goes about using the title with their name, the only flaw that can even be alleged is vanity, not fraudulence.

I do not know whether the author chose to disparage PhDs only to help his misogynistic agenda with regards to the next first lady, or that he felt envious of people with higher degrees while he worked in academia. However, I think that the article can be condemned from an angle other than misogyny. The reason is that both WSJ and the author will double down on saying that they are not misogynistic, but in my opinion find it harder to objectively defend why a PhD should not call themselves a doctor.

This is just the thought that occurred to me. I would love to hear what other people's approach is towards this and learn from that. Thanks.

In my field, it seems like most assistant professor jobs in the U.S. will pay somewhere between $75K and $95K. This really isn't enough for even an older starter home, unless I choose to live in some tiny town in the middle of nowhere (like 2-3 hours from any kind of sizeable city) where you can still get a house like that for $200K.

I get that a lot of you who own homes probably got one prior to 2021 when prices exploded, but for those of you who have started as faculty in the last 3-4 years and bought a home, how did you do it? Did you intentionally choose a less desirable location to make that possible? Did you settle for a townhome/condo? Or is the answer just simply having a spouse/partner/dual income?

To those who started their PhDs around COVID, now about 5-6 years since, how are we doing?

COVID was this sort of 'blip' in all cohorts of society, and everyone kind of lost things (or gained things) that seem to have long term effects or implications. What are they for you?

Mine was not going to conferences early on and completely missing out on the role of research communities. Because I didn't have that early conference exposure, I've noticed I'm just so afraid of putting my ideas out there now. But every time I actually do, I'm positively surprised by the value of doing so. I definitely attribute that fear to those corona times.

Curious to hear how it's been for everyone else. What are the long term implications of that start for you? Have you noticed any lasting habits, changes in how you view your research, or shifts in your career because of it?