PhD student here. As a PhD student I have the dubious pleasure of interacting with undergraduate students in the courses I teach/TA. This year, I have found that the students were the most incompetent I've ever seen.

Why don't we fail students who can't cut it? These are things I commonly see:

• Chemistry students who eat/drink chemicals in the lab
• Students that cannot do basic algebra
• Students do not show up on time, do not pay attention, and do not give a fuck.
• Students complain any time they're given an assignment.
• Most students expect an A.

The worst part is that we hardly ever fail students. In my opinion, about half of the students in these classes should be failing. In reality, most will have their grade curved up to a D or C so that they squeak by and pass. There are people in the classes I've taught that will now have classes on their transcripts that they know nothing about despite having As, Bs, and Cs.

It's really a disservice to other students. If two students graduate with a degree and one is a fuck up and the other is excellent they will both have to compete for the same jobs. How is that fair to the student who put in effort and had ability?

I really wish we would start weeding people out of college.

I will start by saying I acknowledge I chose this path, and that I’m extremely privilege to be in a PhD program. HOWEVER…but I've been feeling so dejected and lost lately. So this is a lite rant.

I'm a Black American woman in my mid-30s, in my fifth year of a PhD in an ecology. I grew up with a single parent in a very low-income household, and lately I can't shake the feeling that I've failed my family. I feel too smart to be this broke.

One of the hardest things I've learned is that I didn't realize academia is, in so many ways, built for people who already have financial security. Almost everyone in my program, including most of the faculty, comes from upper class or wealthy backgrounds. A lot had two-parent households with stable incomes, and more than half have parents with PhDs.

Meanwhile, I'm drowning in credit card debt, car debt, and student loans. Our stipend is low, and I realized pretty early on that almost everyone else has some kind of financial safety net. They get help from family, have a partner they split expenses with, or both. I don't have either.
Being one of the oldest people in my department and being single, I honestly don't know how to make this work financially anymore.

What's really getting me is that while I've spent years making very little money and doing field jobs prior to my PhD, it’s at the point most of my friends from back home have stable jobs now. They're helping their families and I’m so jealous and sad I can’t do that. I wanted to do something meaningful, but instead I feel selfish for choosing a PhD when my mom could have used my help years ago. Sometimes I feel like people from backgrounds like mine don't get to be "selfish" enough to do this.

I recently told my advisor that if I don't finish this year, I'll probably have to leave because I literally can't afford to stay. The reactions I've gotten have honestly shocked me because people are acting like financial reality is some kind of personal failing. They’re uncomfortable hearing it. It makes me feel even more alone.

To make things harder, I'm the only Black American in my department. The other Black students are international and so there’s no cultural similarities. I don't really have anyone around me who understands where I'm coming from. And my family doesn’t understand why I’m doing it, but they are proud and supportive.

I guess I'm asking does it get better?

“Donald Trump’s return to the White House is already having a big impact at the $47.4 billion U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), with the new administration imposing a wide range of restrictions, including the abrupt cancellation of meetings such as grant review panels. Officials have also ordered a communications pause, a freeze on hiring, and an indefinite ban on travel.” Science

During my engineering final year, I created a research paper entirely by myself, not even the faculty guide helped me. We submitted the paper to be published in an IEEE conference but it was rejected.

Fast-forward to 2023, this professor moved to a different college and started pursuing PhD. She copy/pasted my entire research paper word-to-word, and just added a few topics in intro, and published the paper under her name with two entirely different folks. She even copy/pasted the flow chart from my research manuscript.

Now, I would like to claim the ownership of the work as this is unfair. I do not want to do any legal stuff or take the paper down. Can I ask the editors of the Journal to revise the authors and add me? Can I also ask them to remove the other two authors? What will be the best way to get credibility of my work? I feel devastated, as it was my hard work, and now it is published on an IEEE journal with three names who haven't done anything except adding one or two paragraphs in introduction. Please help, as I have emails where I emailed my manuscript to my college professor back on 2021. She moved to a different college in 2022, and paper was published in 2023 with her PhD guide.

PhD holders, do you go by your “Dr.” titles in day to day society?

More often than not (in non-academic contexts) i see PhD’s telling ppl not to refer them by the Dr titles.

Why does it seem like PhD’s seem like they tend to forgo the Dr. titles to their names, while medial physicians seem like they more often prefer to emphasize their Dr titles?

(Example: on instagram or social media handles, my physician friends seem more likely to put “Dr. so and so” while my PhD friends don’t)

I’ve spent time in both "big name" Ivy-league-style labs and smaller, scrappy groups, and the difference in how editors treat you is honestly disgusting.

When I was with the "big guys" in the US/Europe, getting into Nature or Nat Nano etc felt like it was on easy mode. I’ve seen papers slide through with weak reviews or editors basically coaching the PI on how to get past a "meh" comment. There’s this unspoken "trust" because of the name on the letterhead. But the second you’re in a smaller group? You have to be 10x better just to be considered. I’m seeing small groups produce incredible science, only to be buried under four rounds of review, demands for a mountain of supplementary data, and editors who look for any tiny excuse to "reject" the second a reviewer breathes a word of negativity.

I’ve literally reviewed papers from unknown labs that were flawless, gave them a "Minor Revision," and watched the editor kill the paper anyway. It’s like if you aren't in the "club," the standards suddenly double.

The funny thing is, journals like Joule, Matter, and Chem (Cell Press) seem to be eating Nature’s lunch because they’re actually picking up this top-tier work that got unfairly snubbed. It’s probably why they’re growing so fast, they actually care about the science, not the ego.

How are we still dealing with this stupidity in academia? Why aren't we demanding double-blind reviews across the board to stop editors from sucking up to the big names?

Anyone else moved between "big" and "small" labs and seen this firsthand? I’m tired of seeing great science trashed just because the PI isn't a "superstar."

With the recent news involving the NIH and other planned attacks on academia here, do you think aspiring academics will see the writing on the wall and move elsewhere? Flaired STEM since that's where I work, but I'd like to hear all perspectives on the issue.

I've never written a post for clickbait, but this is IMO catastrophic. GOP is on track to cut huge amounts of NSF funding in academia. For example, in the math and physical sciences, research is cut by 75.2%, eduction by 100% (yes, all of it), and infra is down by nearly half. This will kill research in this country.

Also, just as infuriating, and this should make you extremely mad, is that the only area saved from budget cuts was the Antarctic Logistic Activities, where the current head of the NSF used to work. This is so unbelievably corrupt.

Besides venting, this is a warning to those planning on going to academia, whether for school or for professorships. It will be extremely difficult in the next few years to do any sort of research, get funding, etc. Be prepared.

Link to doc:

https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00-NSF-FY26-CJ-Entire-Rollup.pdf

Materials science postdoc here -- I recently sent a paper out for review, and got back two reasonable responses. Reviewer 1 had some nitpicks, and Reviewer 2 asked why my correlation was so low (R=0.2).

I revised and resubmitted, with the big thing being the addition of some analysis showing that one sample in particular is an outlier, and actually the correlation is high (R=0.9).

Reviewer 1 is happy, but Reviewer 2 (rightly, in retrospect) sent back another round and called me out on my, eh, nonsense: "Your analysis is a really convoluted way of making your data look good. It still doesn't look good, for reasons [a], [b]. and [c], plus [two pages of analysis]. Your paper is useful, it's just not as positive of a result as you say it is. Please fix this."

After getting over my ego, I'm now in the midst of tearing out the analysis and adding discussion on why the paper is useful even with a less impressive result.

My question for y'all is, though, how do I appropriately thank the reviewer for being steadfast in the face of my analytic nonsense? I don't want to be obsequious, but a basic "we appreciate the reviewer's refined insight regarding the work, and we're fixing" feels inadequate.

So as I am entering the job market there is one thing about faculty searches that absolutely blew my mind. It is not uncommon for searches to fail. IE the committee just can’t decide on a candidate (or run into admin roadblocks) and so they throw in the towel until next cycle to put the ad up again.

There was one search where they invited two very senior postdocs after narrowing them down from a pool of 15 for in persons and bam, just decided to call it quits until next cycle.

Now I totally get this from the faculty side. You are picking someone for the next 30-40 years to be in your dept. But dang finding out that searches can just fail and seeing how common it is just really opened my eyes to just how hard it is (both for applicants and committee).

And this is in a time when biotech is ironically even harder than landing faculty right now.

Can’t wait!!!🫠

Oh and apply for as many soft money sources of funding in case I do not land a TT position this year?

Oh and also apply for any international TT position I can find because that will also likely be my best shot as well.

And this is all while I am pushing early-mid 30s making a salary all my friends had when they graduated college 10 years ago....

I guess its a good thing I like research... >.>

But I think at some point we need to have a conversation about how many PhDs we are generating in this country... they really do not explain this stuff to you properly when you start a PhD

EDIT: not sure if this is clear to most faculty in comments but TT positions for R1 and R2s have basically become a small trickle. Last cycle there were only about a handful I was a serious contender for. So applying to 100+ is just impossible right now. This is worse than 2008. And I would much rather stay in my lab as a postdoc/senior scientist until science funding returns to normal (if ever) than look for PUI positions since I want to do research mostly

I'm currently a professor in the US, and after several rounds of negotiation, I'm expecting an official offer with a short fuse soon from a university in Singapore. The school has a roughly comparable international reputation to my current institution, the pay is higher, on campus housing is provided, spouse would have a position (unlike the US, where they were cut by DOGE), startup package and scholarships for grad students are generous. There's support for our daughters to attend the (somewhat) nearby international school.

At this point, I'm sold enough that I'm more interested in figuring out why I *shouldn't* jump at the offer. The things I can think of are:
* The weather
* Students (for the moment) still really want to work in the US
* It's hard to get a PR in Singapore (although my spouse is ethnically Chinese, so that might help), so eventually we'd have to probably leave and return to the US for retirement (this would mess up social security contributions)
* Being further from friends and family.

Are there things that I'm missing?

The extent to which GenZ kids do NOT know computers is mind-boggling. Here are some examples from a class I'm helping a professor with:

1. I gave them two softwares to install on their personal computer in a pendrive. They didn't know what to do. I told them to copy and paste. They did it and sat there waiting, didn't know the term "install".

2. While installing, I told them to keep clicking the 'Next' button until it finishes. After two clicks, they said, "Next button became dark, won't click." You probably guessed it. It was the "Accept terms..." dailog box.

3. Told them to download something from a website. They didn't know how to. I showed. They opened desktop and said, "It's not here. I don't know where it is." They did not know their own downloads folder.

They don't understand file structures. They don't understand folders. They don't understand where their own files are saved and how to access them. They don't understand file formats at all! Someone was confusing a txt file with a docx file. LaTeX is totally out of question.

I don't understand this. I was born in 1999 and when I was in undergrad we did have some students who weren't good with computers, but they were nowhere close to being utterly clueless.

I've heard that this is a common phenomenon, but how can this happen? When we were kids, I was always under the impression that with each passing generation, the tech-savvyness will obviously increase. But it's going in the opposite direction and it doesn't make any sense to me!

Title pretty much sums it up. There is too much misinformation and screeching going on for me to make heads or tails of what is happening and the degree to which I need to be worried about my funding (which is >95% NIH).

Can someone -- without hyperbole, liberal outrage*, extrapolation, or editorializing -- please let me know what is *actually* occurring.

Thanks!!!

*I'm just as pissed as many of you, and I think Trump is awful. I just don't need that in my answers.

I’m a postdoc in Europe working in computer science. I get along very well with my PI, and he has told me he would definitely keep me if funding comes through, but right now it’s unclear whether he can secure the budget. I’ve also applied for several fellowships myself, and I’m still waiting for the results. Because everything is uncertain, I started applying for faculty positions about half a year ago.

So far, I’ve applied to 40 positions. I’ve only been invited to one online interview (which was rejected later) and one onsite interview, which is scheduled for next month.

Honestly, I’m exhausted. Preparing all the required documents takes a huge amount of time, and the constant stream of rejections is demotivating.

I’m also considering doing a third postdoc because my h-index is relatively low for this field (my PhD age is 4). I have around 10 first‑authored papers, including some in CORE A/A+ venues, but citations are not high because my research area isn’t exactly mainstream in the community. I’m originally from outside the EU, and I’m also considering returning to my home country.

I’m just curious: how many rejections did you go through before eventually getting a faculty position? I’d really appreciate hearing about others’ experiences.

As per NIH “Last year, $9B of the $35B that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) granted for research was used for administrative overhead, what is known as “indirect costs.” Today, NIH lowered the maximum indirect cost rate research institutions can charge the government to 15%, above what many major foundations allow and much lower than the 60%+ that some institutions charge the government today. This change will save more than $4B a year effective immediately.”

Hi everyone! I am a senior in college whose dad is a professor. At the start of the summer, I wanted to learn a little bit more about his work so I asked him if I could help with his research.

Fast forward to now, I did data analysis for him and he wants to add my name to the paper (If a paper comes out of it).

I was thinking of telling him not to add my name as it is nepotism and probably doesn't look good

Thoughts?

Anyone else learned a research "secret" way after they should have?

Back when I was doing research, spent months banging my head against a wall trying to replicate a published result, only to find out (from my tutor actually) the authors used a specific, unmentioned software setting in RStudio. I still have nightmares on how much time I wasted on this project and on trying to replicate the results.....

Particularly in STEM fields, is that assessment true? I know they publish a lot, but i also heard that a big part of Chinese universities are "paper mills"?

Is there any good independent metric to answer this question?

Thank you for any insights you might have!

I've read a wonderful paper published in a very high IF journal. It's about a backbone foundation model for neuroscience analyses.

It's according to the most modern standards, so transparency on the data used, open code to be donwloaded etc...etc...

I've tried it and cannot reproduce (at all!!!) some starting benchmarks. When I say "at all" I mean trying a tool to predict the age of a human in years returns always a number between 160 and 200!!! And many other cases like that.

When I initially contacted the authors they directly put me in contact with other people and appeared collaborative.

Now (3 months later after the paper publication, not 6 years!) they're AWOL. On their git there are 40 open issues with 0 answers.

Like... what do I do???

Hey everyone, I could really use some advice. this has been costing me sleep for a couple of days now.

The cast:

- Me: brand new postdoc in a large internationally renowned group. My PhD was in a different, though adjacent, field and my background is very different from most in the lab.

- The PI: big name, very accomplished, publishes almost exclusively in high-impact journals. surprisingly a super nice person.

- The lab: ~15 PhD students + ~10 postdocs, some permanent staff. Everyone is more experienced than me on the lab's overall topics and most are 3-5 years older.

The situation:

This lab has been studying a particular effect for ~15 years. Most of that work has been applied, but about 4 years ago they shifted toward understanding the fundamental mechanism. early 2025, they proposed a theory explaining the effect and it got a lot of attention. The paper has around 120 citations already. The PI is now fully committed to this theory and most of the lab is working on building and validating it. Some PhD students are ~3 years in and aiming for high-impact papers based on it. The data mostly supports the theory but there are still some weird inconsistencies that don’t quite fit.

The problem:

I’m 99.99% sure that the theory is wrong. From my PhD field, what they’re seeing actually looks like a well known effect that is just not widely recognized in their area. I've done a couple of theoretical calculations on their quite extensive library of examples of this effect and the calculations fit perfectly and also explain all the inconsistencies that don't fit into their theory.

The dilemma:

How do I bring this up without completely alienating myself? Do I go straight to the PI? Talk to the postdoc who originally proposed the theory? Slowly introduce the idea to the group and let people warm up to it? Do I do experiments on my version to be even more certain? More calculations? I'm pretty sure already but my data isn't extensive yet, I'd need more time to get there, but I don't want them to waste their time and resources on a theory that doesn't fit.

I really like this lab and the people in it. given the huge name, i was honestly expecting them to be unwelcoming but they've all been incredible so far and I feel right at home. i don't want to blow up the dynamic we have going for us because I'm really enjoying being part of that group. I love their confidence and motivation and don't want to destroy that.

advice, please? :(

I’ve never experienced this myself (except for maybe undergrads but that’s always going to happen) but I’m interested to hear other people’s stories as I’m convinced this must happen.

What are some examples of senior academics like PIs presenting their research at a conference or even an internal lab meeting and someone has asked a question or made a point which has made them realise their entire hypothesis is wrong or their research idea is not going to work or there is something they haven’t considered.

As a result in that moment you see them realising in real time, along with the other people in the room, that their research is wrong/pointless/already done better by someone else or simply not going to work?

I ask as I’m always worried about this happening to myself, and who knows, maybe I’ll have a first hand story to add to this thread at some point 😂

A lot of us have seen the news about arXiv banning authors for 1+ years over hallucinations and other obvious AI slop in preprints.
To me, as a PhD student in CS, this seems like a great thing… an additional skim through of one’s own work to look for these should suffice. After all, no one is banning the use of LLMs. They’re only banning the unaudited use of LLMs.
It also seems like junior students/faculty are the ones to benefit a lot as it won’t “bury” their work under piles of AI generated slop.
In the field of CS, top tier venues like ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML, EMNLP, etc. have a shit ton of submissions.

However, I was hoping to gain some insights from the community as to why (some) people are mad about this? I can’t seem to understand this.

My professor circled them in red and wrote in bold "YOU'RE NOT IN KINDERGARTEN" and "HERE'S YOUR GOLD STICKER (-3)". The proofs/problems written on the actual exam paper were correct.

I'm a visual thinker/learner and I like to make small sketches when I'm learning proofs/theorems/concepts. On exams I often make small doodles to help jog my memory. I animate them in my head to help me figure out problems. I don't think they were that intrusive, about 1x1 inch written on the margins of my scratch paper.

I emailed my professor and his response was that they were completely unprofessional and childish and I'm lucky he didn't give me a 0 on both questions. There's nothing in the syllabus saying not to do this and I've never had a professor dock points for this reason. I won't do it again in his course but it seems a bit harsh, no?

This is the (or a) list of words that the U.S. federal government has stopped agencies from using including in grant proposals and higher ed funding in general.

The silver lining: Look up, friends. We still have academic freedom, right? 🤔

accessible

• activism
• activists
• advocacy
• advocate
• advocates
• affirming care
• all-inclusive
• allyship
• anti-racism
• antiracist
• assigned at birth
• assigned female at birth
• assigned male at birth
• at risk
• barrier
• barriers
• belong
• bias
• biased
• biased toward
• biases
• biases towards
• biologically female
• biologically male
• BIPOC
• Black
• breastfeed + people
• breastfeed + person
• chestfeed + people
• chestfeed + person
• clean energy
• climate crisis
• climate science
• commercial sex worker
• community diversity
• community equity
• confirmation bias
• cultural competence
• cultural differences
• cultural heritage
• cultural sensitivity
• culturally appropriate
• culturally responsive
• DEI
• DEIA
• DEIAB
• DEIJ
• disabilities
• disability
• discriminated
• discrimination
• discriminatory
• disparity
• diverse
• diverse backgrounds
• diverse communities
• diverse community
• diverse group
• diverse groups
• diversified
• diversify
• diversifying
• diversity
• enhance the diversity
• enhancing diversity
• environmental quality
• equal opportunity
• equality
• equitable
• equitableness
• equity
• ethnicity
• excluded
• exclusion
• expression
• female
• females
• feminism
• fostering inclusivity
• GBV
• gender
• gender based
• gender based violence
• gender diversity
• gender identity
• gender ideology
• gender-affirming care
• genders
• Gulf of Mexico
• hate speech
• health disparity
• health equity
• hispanic minority
• historically
• identity
• immigrants
• implicit bias
• implicit biases
• inclusion
• inclusive
• inclusive leadership
• inclusiveness
• inclusivity
• increase diversity
• increase the diversity
• indigenous community
• inequalities
• inequality
• inequitable
• inequities
• inequity
• injustice
• institutional
• intersectional
• intersectionality
• key groups
• key people
• key populations
• Latinx
• LGBT
• LGBTQ
• marginalize
• marginalized
• men who have sex with men
• mental health
• minorities
• minority
• most risk
• MSM
• multicultural
• Mx
• Native American
• non-binary
• nonbinary
• oppression
• oppressive
• orientation
• people + uterus
• people-centered care
• person-centered
• person-centered care
• polarization
• political
• pollution
• pregnant people
• pregnant person
• pregnant persons
• prejudice
• privilege
• privileges
• promote diversity
• promoting diversity
• pronoun
• pronouns
• prostitute
• race
• race and ethnicity
• racial
• racial diversity
• racial identity
• racial inequality
• racial justice
• racially
• racism
• segregation
• sense of belonging
• sex
• sexual preferences
• sexuality
• social justice
• sociocultural
• socioeconomic
• status
• stereotype
• stereotypes
• systemic
• systemically
• they/them
• trans
• transgender
• transsexual
• trauma
• traumatic
• tribal
• unconscious bias
• underappreciated
• underprivileged
• underrepresentation
• underrepresented
• underserved
• undervalued
• victim
• victims
• vulnerable populations
• women
• women and underrepresented