Archive for the ‘ PhD ’ Category

Mentoring for Postdocs

Ignoring words of wisdom from someone who has been in the same trenches you’re in now is idiotic at best. Anyone who either is currently, or who is hopeful of someday being, in a postdoc situation, should read the two posts Female Science Professor has up about postdocs and the mentoring they should receive (but [ READ MORE ]

“The Curse of the Class of 2009″

Reading this article in the Wall Street Journal—while being informed fully of the situation —will make you want to beat your head against a wall. The job market has pretty well reached mythical status for recent college graduates; the “job market” was a place other generations did some minimal step-following in order to slip their [ READ MORE ]

Smart Family

Sometimes it’s nice to read something happy about a family of smarties. The Chicago Tribune has this up about a mom and her six kids, all of whom attended Northern Illinois University. The kids all went on to graduate school, and have used their brainy powers for good. Their shared alma mater felt it was [ READ MORE ]

“End The University As We Know It”

I so wanted to have something intelligent to say about this Op-Ed piece in the New York Times that points out with blunt eloquence just how over the highest levels of higher education are, but all I could manage were utterances like, “Damn…that’s fu**ed up.” One is hard-pressed to add any worthwhile bits to a [ READ MORE ]

Academe in a Bad Economy

Scoring some funding or getting a smidgen of a paycheck in academe is hard enough in a stable economy, but it becomes a turnip-squeezing situation when the economy hits the skids. Female Science Professor has two posts up that explain some of the problems academics are facing, and which crises warrant the most panic. Budget [ READ MORE ]

Getting Past the Overwhelming Wall

I’m a pretty organized, focused little gal. People who know me use less kind terminology, like “intense,” “bordering on obsessive,” and “freaky list-maker and notebook-keeper.” Whatever. They are just jealous of my awesome organizational skills and my ability to get things done. Although I have a system, don’t lack focus, and I prefer my own [ READ MORE ]

Tip For Viewing Academic Papers

Google Operating System is an unofficial Google blog with some supremely useful tips, including this post about how to circumvent the subscription requirement in order to view academic papers. Although, these days, shouldn’t part of the graduation requirements for any degree be the student’s ability to obtain as much info, gadgetry and application paraphernalia online [ READ MORE ]

“Dance Your PhD”

If you can do an interpretive dance illustrating your PhD research on “Resolving Pathways of Functional Coupling in Human Hemoglobin Using Quantitative Low Temperature Isoelectric Focusing of Asymmetric Mutant Hybrids,” I’ll give you fifty bucks. I’m totally kidding, but Gonzo Scientist John Bohannon and the American Association for the Advancement of Science aren’t. They held [ READ MORE ]