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Sounds perfectWahhhh, I don’t wanna
My biggest frustration is that I do not know how to do the time management anymore because I need to write research proposals, make new slides for the new lectures, write papers, and do extremely challenging experiments all by myself. Half a year...

My biggest frustration is that I do not know how to do the time management anymore because I need to write research proposals, make new slides for the new lectures, write papers, and do extremely challenging experiments all by myself. Half a year ago, I convinced myself that I can do it. What I need to do is just to extend my working hours from 11 h/day to 15 h/day. But later on I found it is simply an impossible task for a person to finish such workload…as a fresh faculty member in a new environment, what I got more often is NO and WHY. Everything I proposed will come up with a NO and WHY by other seniors - this is simply depressing and demotivating…as a person from outside, the new environment seems not to welcome me but give me more challenge or question. I try to evaluate myself if I have a problem with communication skills. anyway it might be the time I need to adjust myself. 

Why do we let survivorship bias dictate current research policy? If you start enough people on PhD theses some of them will eventually stay on in academia and we have what looks like a result…… I have started wondering if the whole western world is...

Why do we let survivorship bias dictate current research policy? If you start enough people on PhD theses some of them will eventually stay on in academia and we have what looks like a result…… I have started wondering if the whole western world is leading a “terror of the moment”-research policy to prepare ourselves for a technology revolution which we fear but don’t understand how to meet.

I have seen research that shows that a large propotion of the mental health problems of young people today, regardless of their choice of profession, are due to depression caused by thwarted career dreams. What better way to make a depression factory than to set a lot of people up for jobs that don’t exist?

I have a better idea to solve the technology revolution crisis: Why not create geek heaven workplaces, where talents can get permanent positions where they can freely experiment with the ideas of their own personal choice in order to come up with tomorrows inventions? Permanency of employment may even lead to the sort of atmosphere where it is possible to trust ones colleagues with half-baked ideas in order to aid their improvement?

The countries that are the most successful in cracking how to get more people to be involved in generating new technology will come out on top of the technology change, of that I am sure. So why not start catering to the tastes of your workforces geeks instead?

My biggest frustration as an early career scientist is just finding a job doing research that doesn’t require me to uproot my life, my spouse’s job, etc. and move across the country. My PhD institution won’t hire me as a faculty member (at least not...

My biggest frustration as an early career scientist is just finding a job doing research that doesn’t require me to uproot my life, my spouse’s job, etc. and move across the country. My PhD institution won’t hire me as a faculty member (at least not yet) because I’m “one of their own.” I was lucky enough to get a non-research position at my local university, and I’m trying to keep up my research on nights and weekends, but this is difficult since I don’t get institutional research support (e.g. licenses to software I need for research, funding support, etc.)

I think I’m in a great place with my research, and I’ve become one of the experts in my field of study. But I get frustrated with all of the academic “rules,” both unspoken and spoken (like how you have to stay on the “move” as a young career scientist, moving from institution to institution, to be considered to have fresh, new and innovative ideas) that end up being barriers for some young scientists who can’t meet all these “standards.” We need to ask ourselves whether we are pushing young bright people OUT of academic research, and whether this is worth sticking to old standards.

I left academia at the end of my PhD and took up a Scientist role in a Biotech company. My main reason for leaving was when it became clear that I was never going to get a published paper from my PhD work as my primary supervisor never published from...

I left academia at the end of my PhD and took up a Scientist role in a Biotech company. My main reason for leaving was when it became clear that I was never going to get a published paper from my PhD work as my primary supervisor never published from his own lab unless there was a secondary supervisor pushing for the publication, something that was difficult to work out looking at his extensive publication record if you didn’t know the lab beforehand or knew that most of the publications on that list came from external labs.

Couldn’t rely on my secondary supervisor to get a publication going either as he was AWOL as best and left the university ever to be heard of again during the period where I was writing up my thesis. I did draft a paper, but in the years it was sat on former supervisors desk it probably never got looked at once, and the fact that he insisted that my thesis should be embargoed from publication to the university library in order to generate publications is now nothing more than a joke.

Between the lack of publications and not fancying the prospect of not having a permanent contact for many years into an academic career, I bailed and went for industry instead. Not that it was an easy transition, between the companies that declared that ‘PhD experience doesn’t count, so please tell us why you have relevant experience leaving out the last 4 years of your life’ or those that viewed me with a lot of suspicion for leaving academia, with suggestions that I couldn’t cope with academia, therefore holding down a 9-5 job would prove impossible (another joke considering the ~70 hour weeks I used to put in for my PhD).

Luckily I found a job with a company that seemed excited by my PhD, but I do miss the research….until I catch up with friends who are still working in academic circles and hear the stories of dodgy practices with grant money or the competitive attitude of academic colleagues, then I remember that while I do miss it, I’m better of out of it.

I consider myself to be extremely lucky as a 2nd year postdoc in biochemistry at a big research university. My advisor gives me a lot of freedom, our lab has a lot of money, and I have a fabulous private fellowship. I love my job right now and...

I consider myself to be extremely lucky as a 2nd year postdoc in biochemistry at a big research university. My advisor gives me a lot of freedom, our lab has a lot of money, and I have a fabulous private fellowship. I love my job right now and wouldn’t trade it for anything. The problem is, it’s going to end. The freedom that I enjoy now is used to explore high risk, high reward projects without fear of them not working. Two very likely scenarios will follow: (1) I can’t publish this high risk research because it doesn’t pan out to something that is “publication quality” based on our ridiculous standards for what a “story” in science constitutes, and I can’t get a faculty position because of lack of publication. Or (2) I get a faculty position but have to stop doing high risk exploratory research that is most interesting to me, and instead have to structure my work around what is safe and guaranteed for the purposes of funding. And even then I might not get funding. #ResearchRealities

Here’s the good part: it’s going well for me. PhD was successfully defended, second postdoc now, making progress into grantspace. I look at *every single other story here*, and I’m better off.
Now, here’s the #researchreality: I STILL have no...

Here’s the good part: it’s going well for me. PhD was successfully defended, second postdoc now, making progress into grantspace. I look at *every single other story here*, and I’m better off.

Now, here’s the #researchreality: I STILL have no control. Every job after this one is an increasingly low odds crapshoot. Even doing well and not starving in the meantime feels temporary.

The worst part is, a lot of people who are in my situation assume their employment is because they were better than everyone else at some point. I don’t agree. Job stability is mainly luck and good exposure.

I wanted a career in academia but after doing my Ph.D I see it as a sinking ship, filled with selfish psychopaths, poor managers, no leaders, no career stability and no decent remuneration following the 10 years of training at top institutions around...

I wanted a career in academia but after doing my Ph.D I see it as a sinking ship, filled with selfish psychopaths, poor managers, no leaders, no career stability and no decent remuneration following the 10 years of training at top institutions around the world. The current peer review and publication system is broken, most supervisors only look out for themselves and not their students, universities are extremely unsupportive and there is a serious mental health crisis that is not being addressed properly. Staying in academia? It’s a no from me #ResearchRealities

Illustration by Megapont/Folio Art