Life

[syntheticgerbil]

You have a Phd? Were you or are you a doctor?

[dibs]

I am a doctor forevermore. I usually don't enforce my title on forums though, so you are off the hook.

[osmosisch]

There's a whole bunch of goldurn aca-deemicals round these here parts.

[dibs]

Mine is in engineering, so i still get to be an inarticulate boob!

[osmosisch]

Mine is in engineering, so i still get to be an inarticulate boob!

I like boobs.

Mine's (theoretical) biology so I know what boobies and tits are (birds (puffin'))

It's weird though because I work at a hospital at the moment so 'doctor' actually means something and it's confusing.

[dibs]

Ya, i work(ed) in medical devices, and on all the applications and stuff I'm down as Dr., and our medical advisers are down as Dr. and it makes me uncomfortable that we are being conflated.

[eot]

Lately I've been leaning more and more towards the PhD direction myself. I'm most of the way through my master's thesis project which I'm doing at the physics department here and it's been more fun than I expected. Getting to actually work with some PhD students makes it seem like a doable, enjoyable task rather than the nightmare hell I've been told about many times. Of course it depends on where you end up too. The people here are amazing and that matters a lot. Also, I have no idea what I'd do otherwise because I didn't exactly pick my courses with a career in mind (or my master's project for that matter). I know all the career focused people study things with applicability, get internships every summer, go to job fairs to network with companies and all that crap. Then they all end up as programmers or consultants anyway.

[dibs]

My default is to advise caution on doing a phd, but if you are working well through a master and you have a good group then it could be a really great opportunity for you. Just be warned, they are a step up again from masters level - i've seen one or two burnouts and a lot of almost burnouts (including myslef). Of course, then there is the people who get in, get it done, and graduate three years later like it was all a walk in the park....

 

Is your masters research based? If i were you, i would go right now to the people in the department whose work interests you the most and have a chat with them about upcoming phd projects they have. You might get some funding lined up (the earlier the better) or get first dibs on the hottest topics.

[SuperBiasedMan]

dibs

[dibs]

you can call it all you want, i already registered it.

[osmosisch]

Lately I've been leaning more and more towards the PhD direction myself. I'm most of the way through my master's thesis project which I'm doing at the physics department here and it's been more fun than I expected. Getting to actually work with some PhD students makes it seem like a doable, enjoyable task rather than the nightmare hell I've been told about many times. Of course it depends on where you end up too. The people here are amazing and that matters a lot.

I'm sure it differs quite a bit per country and field, but I'd say you need to

- be self-motivated/directed. Nobody's going to burn your ass to get to work until it's too late. I suck at this and ended up taking more than a year too long (also lost some time to traffic accident but still).

- build a fallback plan into any experimental idea

- realise that the first chapter of the thesis you plan in your first year will end up becoming the entire thesis.

- be able to separate work/life. Too many people I saw doing a passion project PhD and burned themselves out. You'll do better science with a relaxed brain, I promise.

[ratamero]

I'm halfway through mine, in a weird hybrid of Theoretical Physics and Molecular Biology. I'm leaning more and more towards going back to industry when I finish this. The prospect of further 10 years on temporary contracts and only having a "proper" job when I'm 40 doesn't sound very inviting right now.

[dibs]

My colleague has been less than a year in industry after several in academia and says he will not be going back to academia if he can help it! I worked in a uni for 6 months as a layabout, after that they said i should come and join them as a post doc so i could start writing proposals and papers (oh what fun). I fled! Industry for me!

[osmosisch]

I'm halfway through mine, in a weird hybrid of Theoretical Physics and Molecular Biology. I'm leaning more and more towards going back to industry when I finish this. The prospect of further 10 years on temporary contracts and only having a "proper" job when I'm 40 doesn't sound very inviting right now.

Oh yeah, the final caveat should be to get the crap out of the academic postdoc treadmill ASAP. The PhD itself is a heck of a good time though.

[pabosher]

Doctor Dibs. What a name.

[Gormongous]

This summer's looking to be an odd one. On the one hand, I have a serious girlfriend for the first time in almost three years! I met her at jury duty where she recognized me off of Tinder, so I can't say that app never did anything good for me. We started out moving really fast, which was lots of fun but caused a few problems after a month or two, and now we've settled down into a comfortable rhythm. I feel very happy about her, if somewhat haunted by my obvious good luck.

 

On the other hand, the person for whom I've always worked at the library over the summer, to make ends meet, just returned from a month-long trip vacation to tell me that she can't hire me this summer (or ever again). Apparently, my contract work for her was so good that it convinced the library's board that a full-time assistant for her work would be warranted. I guess I'm happy for her, even if I lost myself a job to get her there, but now the two thousand-dollar nest egg that I'd saved up to ease my transition in the fall from an assistantship that paid well to an adjunctship that doesn't is now going to be used up supporting me while I find a place that'll be okay with me working part-time for three months and then quitting when school starts again.

 

Oh, and I still haven't heard back from my department about whether there even are any adjunct positions open for the fall. There probably will be some, but there is also a not-insignificant chance that I could be totally unemployed with no savings, no prospects, and a quarter-finished dissertation come September. I'm trying not to panic.

[mikemariano]

I met her at jury duty where she recognized me off of Tinder ...

 

"Your honor, in the case before us, we the jury, swipe right."

[tegan]

I still haven't found a job and I'm getting terrified.

[Mangela Lansbury]

A friend of mine was followed home from a bar and beaten and robbed as he got out of his car last night.

 

Hooray for gay life in a small town. Guess I won't be going out anywhere for a while.

[elmuerte]

It's weird though because I work at a hospital at the moment so 'doctor' actually means something and it's confusing.

 

I'm pretty sure the proper Dutch name for a medical doctor is "arts" not "dokter".

[osmosisch]

I'm pretty sure the proper Dutch name for a medical doctor is "arts" not "dokter".

Both get dr. in front of the name. And, possibly due to english language pollution, I hear a lot more people talking about the dokter than the arts. 'Proper' isn't the only useful metric in language (un)fortunately.

[Twig]

I want to learn/master a new language (preferably Japanese, since I have some minor experience in that, and I liked being in Japan so much, and... more nerdy reasons), but man I dunno where to even start. Ideally I'd find a native speaker who'd be willing to help me, but.

 

Speaking of Japan that headhunter hasn't said anything for five days, hmm... Maybe it was a scam and I was asking too many questions. O:

[eot]

I appreciate the advice.

My default is to advise caution on doing a phd, but if you are working well through a master and you have a good group then it could be a really great opportunity for you. Just be warned, they are a step up again from masters level - i've seen one or two burnouts and a lot of almost burnouts (including myslef). Of course, then there is the people who get in, get it done, and graduate three years later like it was all a walk in the park....

 

Is your masters research based? If i were you, i would go right now to the people in the department whose work interests you the most and have a chat with them about upcoming phd projects they have. You might get some funding lined up (the earlier the better) or get first dibs on the hottest topics.

My thesis is research I suppose, but other than that no. It's mostly been higher level math / physics courses. I doubt I could do a PhD in the group I'm in now though simply because those spots don't open up very often. I'm also studying in my hometown and I'm somewhat keen on moving somewhere else and that's more of a gamble.

 

I want to learn/master a new language (preferably Japanese, since I have some minor experience in that, and I liked being in Japan so much, and... more nerdy reasons), but man I dunno where to even start. Ideally I'd find a native speaker who'd be willing to help me, but.

 

Speaking of Japan that headhunter hasn't said anything for five days, hmm... Maybe it was a scam and I was asking too many questions. O:

I think starting at all and not stopping is more important than where you start. The Genki textbooks are good, Kim Tae's site is good, lang-8 is helpful for getting some practice actually expressing yourself. The speaking part is the hardest since you can't self study it the same way.

[miffy495]

Doctor Dibs. What a name.

 

We call him Mr. Dibs.

 

I'm so sorry.

 

No, I'm not.

 

 

 

well, that's 15 minutes I'm not getting back.

[Badfinger]

Help how do I simultaneously attempt to search for a rental and roommates at the same time. :[