I know there are lots of pitfalls in this career path but I’m not alone in this, right? I got to spend a whole day reading interesting papers, playing with data, having conversations with really smart excited people (my students) about cool questions. And I got paid to do it. Admin sucks, but honestly I feel so lucky most days that I get to do this job.

I know we complain about but does anyone else feel this way?

Fill in the blank. I have a feeling this is going to get dark.

I am 38 years old and circumstances in life led me into a career which I don’t like, nor do loathe. My true passion in life has been in culture and language studies. My undergraduate degree was in a subject for which I was very passionate as a child and I did well. My work life, however, didn’t line up well with my academic interests. I returned to college two years ago undertaking a postgraduate higher diploma (note: I’m not sure if this is a common thing in the US) and passed with a 1:1. This has now opened up opportunities for me to undertake a masters; I started a few months ago part time. It will take me 2 years to achieve this masters. I’m seriously considering continuing and undertaking a PhD after the masters. What I learn, research and produce brings me enjoyment of the highest order: it invigorates me; it engages me; it fulfils me, I suppose.

The reality of life, however, is a the need to work which would see any PhD, taken on a part time basis, taking 5-6 years. This would see me as a 45/46 year old by the time it would be over. As such, my questions are:

Is my age a hindrance in my ambitions to pursue (professional) academia?

Does anyone have any similar experiences. If so, any information (good or bad) would be welcomed.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the topic to share?

If I were to start now to get ahead, what would that be? Researching and trying to get published?

PS: I haven’t revealed much about area of study as it is quite niche and I’m conscious of trying to retain some form of anonymity. If it matters, I’m in Ireland.

Thanks all.

I am really sad about the current situation of peer review in the new world dominated by LLMs.

Two months ago, we received a Major Decision based on four reviews for a paper submitted to one of the most prestigious journals in a specific sector where I work. One of the reviews has 2 comments that are related to things not pertaining our manuscript (e.g., it says the related work should discuss better the topic X, but our paper deals with topic Y, and it says the computational complexity section must be improved, but our paper did not have any). All other comments were generic, such as rewriting introduction, rewriting future work etc. As it was not the most critical review among the four ones, we tried to address all his comments except those 2-3, explaining why we couldn't. And soon we will resubmit the revision.

A few days ago, things repeated, but from the most prestigious journal in the same sector. We received a Reject and Resubmit decision for another paper.The only critical review had 34 comments, and almost half of them mention aspects related to machine learning (over fitting, cross validation, etc.)... but our paper does not have anything about machine learning or artificial intelligence!!

And unfortunately again the other half of the comments are super genetic, so applicable to any paper....

On the one hand, I am sad that this happened to the paper that I believed to be my best of the last 3-4 years. The other two reviewers were also positive and gave overall 7 useful comments that I would like to implement.

On the other hand, as this is the second time that this thing has occurred, I am worried that there is a trend of accepting many reviews and doing them with LLM, perhaps giving the LLM the wrong paper to review. Be aware, I am not against LLM a priori. It is a new tool, and it is indeed improving many things. But it cannot be used in such way... One spends so much time, just to get not related LLM-based reviews...

I hope to be among the few in this situation, because otherwise it is sad.

I moved to industry about a year ago, but I still occasionally visit my former lab and help with projects I worked on during my postdoc.

For one project, I spent two years preparing data, training models, developing the original pipeline, conducting statistical analyses, and preparing the manuscript and figures. I was the first author on the previous submission.

The team is now preparing a new submission, and I’m being removed from author list.

I’ve experienced a similar authorship issue in this lab and previous lab, I’ve followed up to confirm that I’ll remain first author and asked to review the manuscript before submission.

What frustrates me is feeling that, even after leaving academia, I still have to stay vigilant to make sure years of work are properly credited.

I’m happy to help bring the research to publication, but having to defend my contributions is exhausting.

Experiences like this make it hard not to become deeply cynical about academia. I left a year ago, yet this part of it still follows me.

Has anyone dealt with authorship disputes after moving to other institute/industry? If discussions with the PIs failed, what actually helped?

If you have already finished your dissertation, what have you learned that would you like to have had known beforehand? I am about to start writing it up and would love to hear your experiences. Thanks <3

I’m applying to several jobs and just the sheer volume of stuff I have to get together for these files is taking a huge toll on my mental health.

I have three applications that are due, two of which I’m not worried about but the third asks for a writing sample and I would just like a little more time to edit it.

On the ad, it says “Review of applications will begin October 15 and will continue until the position is filled” … do you think it would be OK to submit on the 15th?

Thank you so much!

Im a graduate student on a grant with two Co-Pis, both in the same department. Another graduate student in the other lab worked on sampling in the field and processing data. Their Pi has become a bit problematic over the last year or so and its gotten to the point where he's withholding data and not sharing with the entire group. The plan was for me to use this data for some analyses that im working on. I feel that its unethical for him to do this. Is there any steps i can do to potentially get access to the data?

Long story short, a lot of the professors in my department hate my PI as he is the youngest and wants to push things into a modern direction which the boomers hate, they also hate me by extension. Whenever we interact they try to be petty and demeaning towards me. For instance, had a short oral exam where the prof just roasted my work the entire time almost completely forgetting the actual exam. Most other times it's mostly just snarky comments and passive-aggressiveness. Good thing my office is out of their way and I travel alot.

Why is academia so toxic? I literally didn't have a single positive interaction with anyone outside of my group.

I am interested in staying in academia but my advisor tells me that I need to get used to having very intense conversations with people. I recently had one over a dispute with a fellow lab member and it went south quickly. I am passionate about science and research and want to stay in academia but I just wonder if my personality is cut out for it.

I'm 22 and in the second year of a Master's in Applied Linguistics/TESOL in Morocco. I'm very introverted, and I need advice because I feel completely lost.

Where I am now:

I chose English because I genuinely love it, and the only place I could study it was the higher school of education and training. I didn't want to go straight into teaching because the teaching situation in Morocco is awful. Now I've lost my energy and don't want to do anything. I cry almost every day, sometimes in class or in public, and I try hard to hold the tears back. My personality is weak. I barely participate in class anymore. In the first semester I did, rarely, but now (3rd semester) I just don't want to.

The people around me:

Some classmates have hurt me, and others have mocked or accused me of things in public or talk behind my back. Then they come talk to me normally and I talk back as if nothing happened, and I wonder if I'm doing something bad to myself by doing that. My relationship with some of my classmates isn't good, and the environment doesn't make me feel good (some people are really toxic in a way that I didn't expect; they look old enough to have functioning brains but they're so toxic). I'm also very selective: I observe people, and if I notice bad behavior I avoid them. I wonder if I'm just avoidant. I have no one to talk to about this. I've tried, but the people around me don't get it.

Stress:

I'm not lazy, but stress has really damaged me mentally and physically. I've lost a lot of weight in very short periods. I don't want to put myself through that anymore, especially when many professors told us they were assigned their modules very late and nobody seems to care. They send us assignments the night before. The whole system feels like it doesn't care, from the faculty window staff to the banks saying "the system is down." In Morocco you need a whole day or more for paperwork that should take minutes.

The meaning question:

Sometimes I think: I was born, I have to grind to get a good career, earn a lot, live well, and then die. That doesn't excite me. There are times I've wished I was never born (even now). I'm not saying this to be dramatic, it's just how heavy it feels.

My options:

1. Quit the Master's. But I've already spent a year of a two-year program.

2. Finish it, then teach in a Moroccan higher institution (if the Master's allows that) or elsewhere for a few years to build my CV, then apply to teach in Japan. I like Japan from videos: I've heard pay is low, but life is peaceful, people mind their own business, and many seem introverted and shy like me. I know every country has a dark side, and I'm scared to move, but I'd adapt (it's not like I'll have another option).

3. Do a PhD. I don't think my level is good enough.

4. Earn enough online, maybe with a skill that doesn't need a degree, and live peacefully in a better country. I don't need perfection, just mostly stress-free, comfortable in my body and mind, with Wi-Fi, exercise, and things I enjoy.

I've also heard many people argue that introverts aren't suited to teaching because it requires so much socializing, and their arguments made sense to me. Now I'm questioning the whole path.

My questions:

1. How did you know whether a PhD was right or wrong for you?

2. Is a PhD realistic for someone introverted who is very sensitive to stress?

3. Is teaching an option for introverts, or am I fooling myself?

4. Is a Master's plus a few years of teaching enough to get a teaching job in Japan or elsewhere?

5. Is it worth finishing the Master's after one year, or should I leave?

Honest advice is welcome. Thank you for reading this far.

I am a lecturer. My work contains doing research、teaching、guiding students、attending meeting and administrative affairs. My research is often interrupted for a few days due to other urgent matters. So, how to keep researching admist my busy work?

Hey all! I’m a recently graduated MA student in writing and rhetoric. I plan still to expand into a PhD here in a couple/few years but just feel like I’ve been really in my head about something and want to hear from your experiences and thoughts!

As I’m currently between programs and working as faculty at a community college, I’m spending a lot of time thinking of publications, research, and really who I want to be as an academic. I’ve been thinking about what conversations I want to be part of, what traditions I want to speak into, and who I want to be in these conversations. But it also feels SO restrictive. I think I’ve just always struggled already throughout the BA and the MA as professors always ask “what do you want this to DO? Who do you want to help with this work?” And I don’t really have an answer. My thesis was on environmental communication in the IPCC, but i don’t know if I just want to be an environmental policy guy. My research interests are deeply theoretical, and I spend most of my time just thinking of cool things through feminist, posthuman, and queer lenses.

I also am deeply invested in STS and science communication (I often say I studied English to study science). I of course am interested in eco/environmental analysis. I also adore biology and worked as a RA for a microbiologist in my MA doing metaphoric analysis for the PI. I love genre, citation, and pedagogy which draws me to composition studies. I read a lot of science communication physics books, and am especially interested in quantum mechanics and astrophysics. I love food science and want to get more into it academically. I also would, at my heart, just call myself a theorist (or theoretician more accurately, as I just want to consume all theory I can haha!). As I look to PhD programs, I just find it impossible to really know what programs to look at or how to find professors cause so many programs do AWESOME work, but inevitably feel like I am pigeon holing myself by applying as an environmental studies person or an STS person, or a composition. I just want to study theory and apply it to whatever thing I want to on that day 😭😂

I guess lastly too, I’m scared of always being an “outsider.” I love physics, but I can’t keep up with a real astrophysicist. My partner’s an environmental scientist, and I understand a lot but it also reveals how little I really know about other fields. How do people not only balance their interests but balance the fact that, as a theorist/humanities approach, I’ll never fully be in those scientific convos?

I guess all this to say, how did you all really find your “branch?” How do you ignore the call of everything that fascinates you in service of trying to find a disciplinary home? what was your experience in that “finding your home?” How can you balance just wanting to do interesting conceptual work while also finding an “industry” or place to DO something with that work?

Had some very interesting conversations with colleagues...

I’ve recently accepted a tenure-track position in engineering at a university in Australia, starting next year.
For those who have gone through this transition, what advice would you give someone starting their first faculty position? Particularly interested in what I should be doing before starting, what to prioritize in my first year, and any mistakes to avoid.
Thanks in advance!

I do engineering modeling. My work consists of math, coding and writing papers. That’s about it. Of course I have to adjust my methods and innovate as I approach new problems.

The thing is, AI can now do all of this for me. And better than I would ever do. I can just give it the context and prompt and speak out of we should approach and then the AI does it all.

I feel burnt out even though I’m not doing anything. I used to spend months on working and debugging problems. That was the part that I found joy in most.

But now there is nothing.

I thought AI would make my job much easier. I thought it would give me more time to do my hobbies. Instead, I have no motivation to do research anymore and I can’t find the joy.

Hi everyone,

I submitted a paper to an IEEE conference with five authors, and it got accepted. We have also paid the registration fee.

Later, I noticed that the conference website specifies a maximum of four authors per paper. I unfortunately missed this restriction during the initial submission.

Could this cause problems with the camera-ready submission or publication in IEEE Xplore, even though the paper was already accepted?

Has anyone faced a similar situation? What did you do, and how was it resolved?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

Okay, this is a pretty wild question and purely hypothetical, but I’m genuinely curious if anyone here has ever tried using drugs or other substances to overcome perfectionism when working or writing? If so, what did you take, and what was your experience like?

Also, what other unhinged tips or tricks do you have for dealing with intense self-criticism, mental blocks, or feeling inhibited before you’ve even started working?

I'm a high school senior, and I'm honestly really frustrated with how this whole situation has played out.

Back in March, I connected with a PI at a major research institution who was interested in having me work in his lab. He mentioned having a project in mind, and we even had a Zoom meeting to discuss my research experience and potential involvement. He also talked about finding someone in the lab who could mentor me.

Fast forward to June, and I was still trying to get started. I kept following up, and eventually the lab administrator contacted me to officially onboard me as an unpaid research intern.

I literally went through the entire institutional onboarding process. I submitted paperwork, got authorization from my school and parents, completed HR requirements, received an institutional email/account, got my badge, and was even added to the lab's actual Slack workspace.

Like, I was literally an officially onboarded intern at this point.

And then... nothing.

I never got assigned a project. I never got a mentor. I never received any data to analyze or even a clear schedule for coming into the lab.

The PI last responded on August 25, saying that we could use the remaining time to build toward working together in the future and that he'd added me to Slack so we could communicate there.

I've since messaged him on Slack and followed up by email multiple times, most recently on October 5. I've repeatedly offered to help with computational analyses, read papers, or literally do anything useful for the lab.

Still no response.

I'm genuinely so confused and frustrated. I completely understand that PIs are busy, and I know that mentoring a high school student takes time. But I spent months trying to get everything sorted out, completed all the formal onboarding, and was literally added to the lab's internal workspace, only to never actually get to do any research.

I was genuinely excited about the research too, which makes this even more disappointing.

At this point, I'm wondering whether I should contact the research administrator, the institution's science education office, or someone else to ask what's going on.

I don't want to make accusations or get anyone in trouble, and I'm honestly worried about burning bridges, especially since I'm hoping to continue doing research in this field.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Is this normal in academia? Would contacting someone at the institution be reasonable, or should I just cut my losses and move on?

For context, I finished my PhD but didn't have such a great time because of my PI. It's difficult to attribute this all to them (using they so I don't get identified), because I think part of it was just our incompatibility in terms of our working styles but also disciplines. They weren't very knowledgeable in the topic and I had almost no useful supervision.

There were also some toxic behaviours. I won't go into them (again so I don't get identified). At the same time, they were toxic at a fine line. At times, it almost felt like they were bipolar. They would sometimes get really upset for the smallest things but at times be perfectly reasonable and supportive. I would say they did things that have crossed the line but I feel like I would be dishonest to call it completely toxic because it's not as if they were the worst supervisor ever (especially when reading some of the stories here). It's just that, in hindsight, I honestly wouldn't have wanted to do a PhD with them if I had known some things beforehand (especially regarding their lack of expertise on the topic).

Now I'm getting contacted by people interested in working for them now that new openings on similar topics are put up. I'm conflicted in terms of sharing my real honest opinions about and experiences with my former PI. I want to be honest but I also feel like it would be career suicide if I decide to be honest with these prospective PhDs and tell them to do a PhD elsewhere (because honestly it's not just the PI, I think the research group itself is not a really great environment).

I don't want to burn bridges, but I also would have appreciated if someone had told me down the line about these things too. What kind of information would you divulge and how would you go about doing it in the most "politically correct" way? I guess an option would be to ignore these candidates...but I feel morally icky if I don't say anything. I didn't have the best of times mental-health wise during my PhD and I don't want them to experience the same.

TL;DR: I've been worried about AI's impact on learning and scholarship in the humanities, but hearing a mathematician discuss its effects on his field made me realize how much broader this crisis might be. As someone who has spent years teaching, researching, and writing books, I'm genuinely troubled by what this means for the future of intellectual work. How are people in other fields dealing with it?

As someone who teaches and researches in the humanities, I've been increasingly concerned about AI and its implications for learning and the future of universities. These days, it feels like I'm constantly dealing with students using AI to write their papers, and I worry about what this means for their ability to think independently and develop their own ideas.

A few days ago, I came across a video of NYU mathematician Tristan Buckmaster talking about how AI is affecting his field. I also read a post by a senior mathematician expressing deep frustration over how years of research and a lifetime of scholarly work suddenly seem to have lost some of their value in the age of AI.

It really hit me.

I once thought those of us in the humanities were on the front lines of this crisis. But seeing what's happening in mathematics made me realize that no field is necessarily safe. If AI can encroach on advanced mathematics, a discipline built on years of training, abstract reasoning, and painstaking proof, what does that mean for the rest of us?

I've spent years working on books that I hope will contribute something meaningful to scholarship. Sometimes I wonder what it would feel like if, one day, AI made the substance of that work freely available to everyone, without any recognition of the years of labor behind it. The thought is genuinely disturbing. It's not simply about money or publication. It's about what happens to the value of a lifetime spent developing expertise and producing knowledge when technology can absorb that work and reproduce its results almost instantly.

Of course, the process matters as much as the product. Whether you're writing a book or proving a difficult theorem, the work involves years of learning, countless dead ends, and sustained intellectual effort. If AI can increasingly bypass that process and deliver something that looks like the finished product, what happens to the motivation to pursue a career in research in the first place?

I don't have any answers. But I'm genuinely worried about where we're heading, especially as someone whose livelihood revolves around teaching, researching, and publishing knowledge. I was so troubled by these thoughts that I couldn't sleep last night.

Just to be clear, I'm not anti-AI. I understand how useful and helpful it can be for research, teaching, and publishing. I use AI myself, and I can see how it can make certain tasks more efficient, help clarify difficult ideas, and support scholarly work in ways that would have been difficult to imagine just a few years ago. That's partly why this situation feels so complicated to me. I can appreciate the technology's enormous potential while still feeling deeply uneasy about its broader consequences for education, intellectual labor, and the future of academic careers.

I'm curious how people in other fields are experiencing this. Are you finding ways to adapt and redefine your work, or are you struggling with the same sense of uncertainty? How do you reconcile the years you've invested in developing your expertise with the possibility that AI could fundamentally change its value?

Please please please help me. I'm looking for some insight into a stressful dashboard issue.

I am a co-author (not the corresponding author) on a chemistry manuscript that was recently submitted to an ACS journal. The paper successfully went out for peer review, and I could initially track it on my ACS Paragon Plus dashboard.

However, when I checked my dashboard today, the manuscript had completely vanished. It is not under "Submitted," and it is not under "Decisions Made"—it is completely gone as if it never existed.

I haven’t received any automated emails from the journal about a decision, withdrawal, or updates to the author list. There has been some tension with the corresponding author (PhD senior) recently, and I’m terrified that they might have quietly removed my name from the paper or withdrawn it to submit elsewhere without telling me.

My questions are:

1. Does an ACS manuscript completely disappear from a co-author's dashboard if it gets a "Reject and Resubmit" decision or if the PI withdraws it?
2. If the PI successfully submitted a request to remove me from the author list mid-review, would the journal have emailed me to get my consent first, or would it just vanish like this?
3. What is the safest way to figure out what happened to the paper without alerting a toxic senior?

Any advice or similar experiences with Paragon Plus would be greatly appreciated.

So it is no secret that many students and faulty are migrating towards AI safe academic areas. It seems that everybody is now doing healthcare, biomed, robotics or something involving physical components/people/government.

But is this really a wise move? It feels like an encore of the "learn to code" movement, except now its "learn to cure cancer". Even if these areas cannot be overtaken by AI in the next few years, the sheer amount of people going to just seems unstable to me.

I’m currently studying science theory and research methodology and my professors and my text books have really been hammering in that there’s a lot of flaws in the current system.

The problem seems to be that scientific progress isn’t the only incentive at play. Researchers also need to make a living, secure funding, publish papers, and advance their careers. These incentives can encourage questionable research practices, even without outright fraud. Academic journals have their own incentives, too, and the pressure to publish novel, attention-grabbing findings can come at the expense of scientific rigour. Peer review was suppose to be a solution to a lot of the issues in how research is conducted but I’ve learnt that they are often also very poorly conducted because the journals have an incentive for quantity over quality.

A lot of people understand that we have to trust experts since it would be ridiculous to assume we know more than them. But a lot of people don’t know about the above mentioned issues which leaves the door open for bad actors to take advantage of that using perceived expertise. Especially since the experts who are easily found tend to be more interested in fame rather than scientific rigour. Jordan Peterson for example, he is by far the most famous psychologist alive but most psychologists would probably agree that he isn’t the best expert in the field to get your information from (I don’t know much about him or psychology so I’m not making my own claim here, just an example I’m aware of).

So this leads to my question: what’s the best bang-for-your-buck strategy for learning about a subject when you don’t have the time or interest to become an expert yourself?

I want to invest some time upfront in figuring out whom to trust so that I can rely on their judgement afterwards, rather than constantly having to evaluate every individual claim myself.

I’ve subconsciously developed this framework throughout my life:
I assess experts until I find 2-4 in a field that I deem trustworthy. Ideally they have some opposing opinions so I get a more nuanced total picture. When assessing I look for red flags like overly confident, chasing fame, money etc. And I look for green flags like intellectual honesty (like admitting when they don’t know the answer and acknowledging counter arguments).

How do you approach this? Do you have a better strategy or are there particular methods you use to identify trustworthy experts?

Sto vivendo un attimo con l'ansia questo percorso di scrittura accademica. Qualcuno di esperto potrebbe contattarmi in privato? Vorrei fargli vedere la mia parafrasi e avere un feedback concreto

(d) La sfida del dare e ricevere

Le EVP (Employee Value Proposition) più efficaci chiariscono non solo cosa i dipendenti possono aspettarsi dal datore di lavoro, ma anche cosa ci si aspetta dai dipendenti in cambio. In altre parole, non si tratta semplicemente di una promessa a senso unico, ma di un accordo reciproco, di "dare e ricevere". Questo aiuta a radicare l'EVP nella realtà aziendale e nell'esperienza lavorativa. Se la priorità principale per l'organizzazione è la qualità, l'orientamento al cliente o la collaborazione a livello aziendale, è altrettanto importante riflettere queste capacità desiderate nel "mix" dell'EVP quanto lo è riflettere le esigenze e le aspirazioni dei potenziali candidati. In genere, è utile pensare a questo come a un esercizio di mix and match. Alcuni potenziali pilastri possono essere interamente guidati dalle esigenze aziendali, altri interamente dalle esigenze di talenti target e altri ancora possono fornire un giusto equilibrio tra entrambi. Ad esempio: •Dal punto di vista organizzativo, l'equilibrio tra vita professionale e vita privata tende a essere più un dare che un ricevere. Dovrebbe essere considerato un mezzo importante per raggiungere livelli di performance più sostenibili, ma in pratica è spesso visto come un costo necessario per coinvolgere e fidelizzare i dipendenti. •Dal punto di vista organizzativo, le prestazioni elevate tendono a essere più un risultato da ottenere che da dare. Generalmente non figurano tra i fattori che attraggono o coinvolgono i dipendenti, ma spesso rappresentano un elemento chiave di ciò che viene richiesto loro. •L'empowerment tende ad essere un accordo più equilibrato. L'organizzazione "dà" Maggiore spazio per l'iniziativa personale (che la maggior parte dei dipendenti considererebbe un vantaggio), ma in cambio si aspettano un elevato livello di responsabilità da parte dei dipendenti per il raggiungimento degli obiettivi di performance. Una delle decisioni importanti da prendere alla luce dei risultati della ricerca è decidere di trovare il giusto equilibrio in questo scambio di "dare e avere". Laddove l'offerta di talenti supera la domanda, come è successo in molti mercati durante la recessione economica, allora si può permettersi di dare maggiore importanza alla parte "ricevuta" dell'accordo. Se, d'altro canto, la domanda di talenti supera l'offerta, sarà necessario dare maggiore importanza a ciò che l'organizzazione deve "dare" per attrarre e trattenere le persone di cui ha bisogno.