u/cjfitguy

I posted in r/AskAcademia a week ago about being stuck on IRB funding for an independent public health study on caffeine product labeling. I got a lot of feedback telling me to slow down, get a faculty sponsor, and start with the systematic review before trying to collect primary data. I took that advice, but now I keep hitting new walls, and I am starting to feel like I am missing something obvious.

The "novel" contribution of the study is dose-tier stratification of caffeine adverse events. Caffeinated products vary enormously in caffeine content, a cup of coffee might have 80mg while a pre-workout might have 400mg, but no public database categorizes adverse event reports by how much caffeine was actually in the product involved. I hypothesize that if labeling failures are driving harm, adverse event increases should be concentrated in the highest dose products, the ones consumers are least able to accurately estimate.

The systematic review is registered on PROSPERO and moving forward. The survey arm is parked until I land a faculty sponsor. The database analysis is where I keep running into problems.

I pulled the publicly available HFCS data, the FDA food and dietary supplement adverse event database formerly known as CAERS. After filtering for caffeine-relevant products and ages 12-24 from 2014-2024, I have 238 records. The data has brand names so tier mapping is theoretically possible, but 238 records across 11 years and 4 tiers is too sparse for the regression I designed the analysis around. The trend also goes down rather than up, which may reflect reporting pattern changes rather than actual exposure trends.

NPDS has the volume I need. A 2025 paper found over 32,000 caffeine energy product exposures in NPDS from 2011-2023 among individuals under 20. I am submitting a formal non-member data request right now. The problem I just hit is that getting brand-level product identifiers requires written authorization letters from each brand owner. Without brand names I cannot map products to dose tiers and the whole point collapses.

I am requesting Poisindex product ID codes without brand names and planning to resolve the lookup problem when I have institutional access after transferring to a four-year university. But that could be a year away, and I am not sure the study holds together in the meantime.

I want to be clear that I am not complaining about the difficulty. I knew going in that this would be hard (as many of you also told me), and I have no illusions about my limitations as a first-year community college student doing this without institutional support. But I have put a significant amount of work into this, and I am afraid that the limitations I keep uncovering are compounding to the point where this whole arm of my project is not executable in its current form. I would rather hear that now from people who know more than I do than find out after another few months of work.

Is there a framing of this question that gets around the brand identification problem? Is there a database I have not found that captures caffeinated product adverse events with dose information already attached? Is the surveillance gap itself the publishable finding rather than the trend analysis I designed? Am I missing a perspective entirely?

Hi there. I'm an 18-year-old freshman at community college pursuing a psychology degree, and I've been volunteering at a cognitive neuroscience lab at an R1 university for about a year now. I'm stuck in a situation where I feel like I'm contributing almost nothing, and I'm not sure if the next move is to escalate or just accept it and move on. (For context, I'm planning to transfer to this institution in Fall 2027, and this lab is the main reason I'm interested in going there in the first place. If this doesn't work out and an opportunity opens up elsewhere, I'll probably pivot to a different R1 school, but this one is my primary interest right now because of this.)

I cold-emailed the PI about the lab last year, got referred to the lab manager, and joined as a volunteer. At the time, I thought this was going to be a straightforward way to get research experience (e.g., attend meetings, learn the protocols, and eventually start working with participants on studies). That didn't happen.

My schedule at the beginning of this year didn't allow me to attend lab meetings consistently. It's not an excuse, but my class times and work schedule just overlapped. I've been able to make it to maybe one or two meetings per quarter (more at the beginning of the year compared to now), which isn't enough to stay plugged into what's actually happening in the lab. So now I'm basically a member in name only. I'm not there enough to be useful or to stay informed.

The bigger problem is the email access. Because I don't have a university email (I'm not a student there yet; I'm at community college), I can't access the training systems required to work with research participants. This has been the biggest barrier. I can't take CITI training, I can't access the informed consent platforms, and I can't do anything that involves direct participant contact. So while I wait for someone to figure out a workaround or for me to transfer, I feel like a sitting duck.

I've reached out to the lab manager about the email situation multiple times. The conversations have been inconclusive. We both kind of acknowledged the barrier exists, but there wasn't a clear path forward. I've also tried to contribute in smaller ways. I filed some things, and they had me pilot an fMRI study across two days, where I was inside the scanner for about two hours, being tested. That was the most interesting thus far.

Now, I'm almost done with my first year, and I feel like I've effectively contributed nothing. I feel guilty about not attending meetings consistently, even though the real barrier is the email access. And I'm nervous about reaching out again, either to the lab manager about the email thing again, or escalating to the PI, because I feel like the response will just be "well, you don't even come to the meetings." Which is partly fair, but it also misses the point that I'm actively blocked from doing the work I want to do.

I know I should probably be going through the chain of command here. I've only ever emailed the PI once when I first applied, and he referred me to the lab manager. Everything since then has been with the lab manager. So logically, the next step is probably to reach out to the PI and explain the situation more clearly. But I'm hesitant because (1) I don't want to make the lab manager feel like I'm going around him, (2) I don't know if I have standing to complain when I'm not even attending meetings, and (3) I'm not even sure this is solvable, maybe the email barrier is just a hard constraint.

Is escalating to the PI reasonable here? Is there something I'm missing about how to handle this? Should I just accept that this year was a wash and try again once I transfer and have an email from the institution? Or is there another angle I'm not seeing?

I've got my eye on forensic neuropsychology for my PhD, so research experience matters to me long-term. But I also don't want to be that person who causes drama in a lab I'm trying to join. Any advice would be appreciated.

Hi there. I'm an 18-year-old freshman at community college pursuing a psychology degree, and I've been volunteering at a lab here at UCI for about a year now. I'm stuck in a situation where I feel like I'm contributing almost nothing, and I'm not sure if the next move is to escalate or just accept it and move on. (For context, I'm planning to transfer to UCI in Fall 2027, and this lab is the main reason I'm interested in going to UCI).

I cold-emailed the PI about the lab last year, got referred to the lab manager, and joined as a volunteer. At the time, I thought this was going to be a straightforward way to get research experience (e.g., attend meetings, learn the protocols, and eventually start working with participants on studies). That didn't happen.

My schedule at the beginning of this year didn't allow me to attend lab meetings consistently. It's not an excuse, but my class times and work schedule just overlapped. I've been able to make it to maybe one or two meetings per quarter (more at the beginning of the year compared to now), which isn't enough to stay plugged into what's actually happening in the lab. So now I'm basically an RA in name only. I'm not there enough to be useful or to stay informed.

The bigger problem is the email access. Because I don't have a UCI email (I'm not a UCI student yet; I'm at community college), I can't access the training systems required to work with research participants. This has been the biggest barrier. I can't take CITI training, I can't access the informed consent platforms, and I can't do anything that involves direct participant contact. So while I wait for someone to figure out a workaround or for me to transfer, I feel like a sitting duck.

I've reached out to the lab manager about the email situation multiple times. The conversations have been inconclusive. We both kind of acknowledged the barrier exists, but there wasn't a clear path forward. I've also tried to contribute in smaller ways. I filed some things, and they had me pilot a study across two days, where I was inside a scanner for about two hours, being tested. That was the most interesting thus far.

Now, I'm almost done with my first year, and I feel like I've effectively contributed nothing. I feel guilty about not attending meetings consistently, even though the real barrier is the email access. And I'm nervous about reaching out again, either to the lab manager about the email thing again, or escalating to the PI, because I feel like the response will just be "well, you don't even come to the meetings." Which is partly fair, but it also misses the point that I'm actively blocked from doing the work I want to do.

I know I should probably be going through the chain of command here. I've only ever emailed the PI once when I first applied, and he referred me to the lab manager. Everything since then has been with the lab manager. So logically, the next step is probably to reach out to the PI and explain the situation more clearly. But I'm hesitant because (1) I don't want to make the lab manager feel like I'm going around him, (2) I don't know if I have standing to complain when I'm not even attending meetings, and (3) I'm not even sure this is solvable, maybe the email barrier is just a hard constraint.

Is reaching out to the PI reasonable here? Is there something I'm missing about how to handle this? Should I just accept that this year was a wash and try again once I transfer and have a UCI email? Or is there another angle I'm not seeing?

I've got my eye on forensic neuropsychology for my PhD, so research experience matters to me long-term. But I also don't want to be that person who causes drama in a lab I'm trying to join. Any advice would be appreciated.

Hi there. I'm an 18-year-old freshman at community college pursuing a psychology degree, and I've been volunteering at a cognitive neuroscience lab at an R1 university for about a year now. I'm stuck in a situation where I feel like I'm contributing almost nothing, and I'm not sure if the next move is to escalate or just accept it and move on. (For context, I'm planning to transfer to this institution in Fall 2027, and this lab is the main reason I'm interested in going there in the first place. If this doesn't work out and an opportunity opens up elsewhere, I'll probably pivot to a different R1 school, but this one is my primary interest right now because of this.)

I cold-emailed the PI about the lab last year, got referred to the lab manager, and joined as a volunteer. At the time, I thought this was going to be a straightforward way to get research experience (e.g., attend meetings, learn the protocols, and eventually start working with participants on studies). That didn't happen.

My schedule at the beginning of this year didn't allow me to attend lab meetings consistently. It's not an excuse, but my class times and work schedule just overlapped. I've been able to make it to maybe one or two meetings per quarter (more at the beginning of the year compared to now), which isn't enough to stay plugged into what's actually happening in the lab. So now I'm basically a member in name only. I'm not there enough to be useful or to stay informed.

The bigger problem is the email access. Because I don't have a university email (I'm not a student there yet; I'm at community college), I can't access the training systems required to work with research participants. This has been the biggest barrier. I can't take CITI training, I can't access the informed consent platforms, and I can't do anything that involves direct participant contact. So while I wait for someone to figure out a workaround or for me to transfer, I feel like a sitting duck.

I've reached out to the lab manager about the email situation multiple times. The conversations have been inconclusive. We both kind of acknowledged the barrier exists, but there wasn't a clear path forward. I've also tried to contribute in smaller ways. I filed some things, and they had me pilot an fMRI study across two days, where I was inside the scanner for about two hours, being tested. That was the most interesting thus far.

Now, I'm almost done with my first year, and I feel like I've effectively contributed nothing. I feel guilty about not attending meetings consistently, even though the real barrier is the email access. And I'm nervous about reaching out again, either to the lab manager about the email thing again, or escalating to the PI, because I feel like the response will just be "well, you don't even come to the meetings." Which is partly fair, but it also misses the point that I'm actively blocked from doing the work I want to do.

I know I should probably be going through the chain of command here. I've only ever emailed the PI once when I first applied, and he referred me to the lab manager. Everything since then has been with the lab manager. So logically, the next step is probably to reach out to the PI and explain the situation more clearly. But I'm hesitant because (1) I don't want to make the lab manager feel like I'm going around him, (2) I don't know if I have standing to complain when I'm not even attending meetings, and (3) I'm not even sure this is solvable, maybe the email barrier is just a hard constraint.

Is escalating to the PI reasonable here? Is there something I'm missing about how to handle this? Should I just accept that this year was a wash and try again once I transfer and have an email from the institution? Or is there another angle I'm not seeing?

I've got my eye on forensic neuropsychology for my PhD, so research experience matters to me long-term. But I also don't want to be that person who causes drama in a lab I'm trying to join. Any advice would be appreciated.

Hi there, I'm currently a volunteer research assistant at a neuroscience lab here at UCI, and I have a question about research accessibility and participation barriers.

I'm a community college student considering transferring to UCI in Fall 2027 as a psychology major. I came in at CC not knowing I should've enrolled in honors courses from the start, but my schedule at the beginning didn't actually allow me to select the honors classes available to me. I'm aware UCI has an honors-to-honors program for transfer students, but I don't qualify since I don't have an honors degree at my CC.

Right now, I don't have a UCI email, so I can't go through the necessary training to work with participants in the lab. Basically, I'm sitting here doing nothing, which is frustrating because I'm genuinely interested in research and want to contribute meaningfully.

Beyond just contributing to faculty projects here, I have some personal research ideas I'm hoping to develop. I'm wondering if accessing UCI's IRB to run my own studies is limited to honors students, or if I can pursue independent research projects regardless of my honors status. That being said, I'm also curious about how the broader research accessibility looks for non-traditional students or those without full honors credentials. If I were to transfer here, would these barriers ease up, or are they structural?

My long-term goal is a PhD in clinical psychology with a specialization in forensic neuropsychology, so this is pretty central to where I'm heading. If anyone's dealt with similar barriers or knows how to navigate this, I'd really appreciate the insight.

Thanks in advance!

Hi there, I'm a community college student planning to transfer to UCLA in Fall 2027 as a psychology major, and I have a question about research accessibility for transfer students without honors degrees.

A little context: I came in at CC not knowing I should've enrolled in honors courses from the start, but my schedule at the beginning didn't actually allow me to select the honors classes available to me. By the time my schedule opened up, the prerequisite chain meant I couldn't complete a full honors degree. Now I'm worried that without that credential, doors might close for me at UCLA in terms of accessing research opportunities.

I already volunteer at a lab at UCI, but I'm pretty limited right now. I don't have a UCI email, so I can't go through the necessary CITI training to work with participants. Basically, I'm sitting here doing nothing at the moment, which is frustrating because I'm genuinely interested in research.

Beyond just contributing to faculty projects, I have some personal research ideas I'm hoping to develop. I'm wondering if accessing UCLA's IRB to run my own studies is limited to honors thesis students, or if I can pursue multiple projects regardless of my honors status. That being said, I'm not totally clear on how the research ecosystem works at UCLA more broadly, or what pathways exist for non-honors students who want to do independent research.

My long-term goal is a PhD in clinical psychology with a specialization in forensic neuropsychology, so this is pretty central to where I'm heading. If anyone's been in this situation or knows how UCLA structures research accessibility, I'd really appreciate the insight.

Thanks in advance!

I'm 18 and a first year student at a community college in California. A couple weeks ago I decided to independently design and run a public health research study on caffeine product labeling with the goal of publishing it in a peer reviewed journal. This isn't directly relevant to psychology, but I am a psych major with the hopes of getting a PhD in Clinical Psych... hence the desired research experience.

The study looks at whether young adults can accurately estimate how much caffeine is in the products they're buying, and whether the rise in caffeine related adverse events over the past decade is concentrated in higher dose products specifically rather than being a general caffeine trend. It has two arms. One is a survey of about 450 people on Prolific that tests estimation accuracy against a clinically meaningful threshold. The other is a trend analysis using FDA's CAERS adverse event database and NPDS poison center data going back to 2014.

Before any of that can happen, the survey arm needs IRB approval. Because I'm not affiliated with a university that has its own IRB, I have to either find a faculty member willing to sponsor the review through their institution, or pay a commercial IRB out of pocket. Commercial IRB costs for a study like mine run somewhere between $1,200 and $4,000 depending on review level. Solutions IRB, which is AAHRPP accredited, already responded to my inquiry and leaned toward Exempt Category 2 review, so the lower end of that range is realistic.

My main plan to cover the cost was Emergent Ventures, a grant program run by the Mercatus Center at George Mason that funds unconventional independent projects. I applied and got a standard form rejection with no explanation last week.

My backup plan was to find a UCLA faculty member willing to sponsor the IRB through their institution, which would eliminate the cost entirely. I cold emailed two people. One declined. I'm still waiting on the other. Also, if I didn't mention it already, my community college does not have its own IRB that I can go through.

While I've been working on the funding side, I've also been building the study itself. I developed the full methodology including hypotheses, a primary outcome with a justified clinical threshold, and a complete statistical analysis plan. I built a market audit spreadsheet with a 48 variable codebook and have been coding caffeinated products on the market. I set up OSF and ORCID for preregistration. I contacted PROSPERO and got written confirmation from their admin team that I can register my systematic review protocol using their current form. I completed the NIH PHRP human subjects training which is free and accepted by Solutions IRB. I started piloting Boolean search strings for the literature review in PubMed.

The database analysis and market audit don't require IRB approval and I'm actively working on both. But the survey is blocked until the funding problem is solved.

What I'm looking for is whether anyone has found a way to cover IRB costs as an independent undergraduate with no faculty sponsor and no institutional support. Specifically anything that doesn't require you to already have IRB approval or a faculty advisor to apply, since most of what I've found creates a circular dependency. If you've navigated something similar or work in research administration and know of options I haven't found, I'd really appreciate hearing about it.

I'm 18 and a first year student at a community college in California. A couple weeks ago I decided to independently design and run a public health research study on caffeine product labeling with the goal of publishing it in a peer reviewed journal.

I know this subreddit skews toward grad students and faculty but I think this is relevant here because the issue is specifically about navigating IRB funding and research infrastructure as someone without institutional support, which is something people here have direct experience with regardless of career stage.

The study looks at whether young adults can accurately estimate how much caffeine is in the products they're buying, and whether the rise in caffeine related adverse events over the past decade is concentrated in higher dose products specifically rather than being a general caffeine trend. It has two arms. One is a survey of about 450 people on Prolific that tests estimation accuracy against a clinically meaningful threshold. The other is a trend analysis using FDA's CAERS adverse event database and NPDS poison center data going back to 2014.

Before any of that can happen, the survey arm needs IRB approval. Because I'm not affiliated with a university that has its own IRB, I have to either find a faculty member willing to sponsor the review through their institution, or pay a commercial IRB out of pocket. Commercial IRB costs for a study like mine run somewhere between $1,200 and $4,000 depending on review level. Solutions IRB, which is AAHRPP accredited, already responded to my inquiry and leaned toward Exempt Category 2 review, so the lower end of that range is realistic.

My main plan to cover the cost was Emergent Ventures, a grant program run by the Mercatus Center at George Mason that funds unconventional independent projects. I applied and got a standard form rejection with no explanation last week.

My backup plan was to find a UCLA faculty member willing to sponsor the IRB through their institution, which would eliminate the cost entirely. I cold emailed two people. One declined. I'm still waiting on the other. Also, if I didn't mention it already, my community college does not have its own IRB that I can go through.

While I've been working on the funding side, I've also been building the study itself. I developed the full methodology including hypotheses, a primary outcome with a justified clinical threshold, and a complete statistical analysis plan. I built a market audit spreadsheet with a 48 variable codebook and have been coding caffeinated products on the market. I set up OSF and ORCID for preregistration. I contacted PROSPERO and got written confirmation from their admin team that I can register my systematic review protocol using their current form. I completed the NIH PHRP human subjects training which is free and accepted by Solutions IRB. I started piloting Boolean search strings for the literature review in PubMed.

The database analysis and market audit don't require IRB approval and I'm actively working on both. But the survey is blocked until the funding problem is solved.

What I'm looking for is whether anyone has found a way to cover IRB costs as an independent undergraduate with no faculty sponsor and no institutional support. Specifically anything that doesn't require you to already have IRB approval or a faculty advisor to apply, since most of what I've found creates a circular dependency. If you've navigated something similar or work in research administration and know of options I haven't found, I'd really appreciate hearing about it.

I'm 18 and a first year student at a community college in California. A couple weeks ago I decided to independently design and run a public health research study on caffeine product labeling with the goal of publishing it in a peer reviewed journal.

I know this subreddit skews toward grad students and faculty but I think this is relevant here because the issue is specifically about navigating IRB funding and research infrastructure as someone without institutional support, which is something people here have direct experience with regardless of career stage.

The study looks at whether young adults can accurately estimate how much caffeine is in the products they're buying, and whether the rise in caffeine related adverse events over the past decade is concentrated in higher dose products specifically rather than being a general caffeine trend. It has two arms. One is a survey of about 450 people on Prolific that tests estimation accuracy against a clinically meaningful threshold. The other is a trend analysis using FDA's CAERS adverse event database and NPDS poison center data going back to 2014.

Before any of that can happen, the survey arm needs IRB approval. Because I'm not affiliated with a university that has its own IRB, I have to either find a faculty member willing to sponsor the review through their institution, or pay a commercial IRB out of pocket. Commercial IRB costs for a study like mine run somewhere between $1,200 and $4,000 depending on review level. Solutions IRB, which is AAHRPP accredited, already responded to my inquiry and leaned toward Exempt Category 2 review, so the lower end of that range is realistic.

My main plan to cover the cost was Emergent Ventures, a grant program run by the Mercatus Center at George Mason that funds unconventional independent projects. I applied and got a standard form rejection with no explanation last week.

My backup plan was to find a UCLA faculty member willing to sponsor the IRB through their institution, which would eliminate the cost entirely. I cold emailed two people. One declined. I'm still waiting on the other. Also, if I didn't mention it already, my community college does not have its own IRB that I can go through.

While I've been working on the funding side, I've also been building the study itself. I developed the full methodology including hypotheses, a primary outcome with a justified clinical threshold, and a complete statistical analysis plan. I built a market audit spreadsheet with a 48 variable codebook and have been coding caffeinated products on the market. I set up OSF and ORCID for preregistration. I contacted PROSPERO and got written confirmation from their admin team that I can register my systematic review protocol using their current form. I completed the NIH PHRP human subjects training which is free and accepted by Solutions IRB. I started piloting Boolean search strings for the literature review in PubMed.

The database analysis and market audit don't require IRB approval and I'm actively working on both. But the survey is blocked until the funding problem is solved.

What I'm looking for is whether anyone has found a way to cover IRB costs as an independent undergraduate with no faculty sponsor and no institutional support. Specifically anything that doesn't require you to already have IRB approval or a faculty advisor to apply, since most of what I've found creates a circular dependency. If you've navigated something similar or work in research administration and know of options I haven't found, I'd really appreciate hearing about it.

Hey everyone, I need some realistic advice on my schedule for Fall 2026.

I’m currently looking at taking General Chemistry B (5 units, lecture + lab) and Intro to Bio for Bio Majors 1: Cellular and Molecular Biology (4 units, lecture + lab) at the same time.

Originally, I planned to take one of them asynchronously over the summer so I wouldn't be stacking two heavy STEM classes. Unfortunately, my schedule just won't allow for the summer class anymore. My current Chem professor also strongly advised against cramming Chem B into a fast-paced summer session because the material is so dense.

The huge upside to taking it in the Fall is that I get to stick with him. I know a lot of this is professor-dependent, and he is hands down the best professor I've ever had. I really like him and his teaching style, even though the class itself is notoriously difficult.

That being said, with my other commitments outside of school, I’m very worried I’m going to completely drown trying to balance 9 units of heavy STEM and two labs at once.

Has anyone done this combo? Is it actually doable, or am I setting myself up for absolute misery? Any tips on how to survive would be incredibly appreciated.

Hey everyone, I need some realistic advice on my schedule for Fall 2026.

I’m currently looking at taking General Chemistry B (5 units, lecture + lab) and Intro to Bio for Bio Majors 1: Cellular and Molecular Biology (4 units, lecture + lab) at the same time.

Originally, I planned to take one of them asynchronously over the summer so I wouldn't be stacking two heavy STEM classes. Unfortunately, my schedule just won't allow for the summer class anymore. My current Chem professor also strongly advised against cramming Chem B into a fast-paced summer session because the material is so dense.

The huge upside to taking it in the Fall is that I get to stick with him. I know a lot of this is professor-dependent, and he is hands down the best professor I've ever had. I really like him and his teaching style, even though the class itself is notoriously difficult.

That being said, with my other commitments outside of school, I’m very worried I’m going to completely drown trying to balance 9 units of heavy STEM and two labs at once.

Has anyone done this combo? Is it actually doable, or am I setting myself up for absolute misery? Any tips on how to survive would be incredibly appreciated.

Hey everyone, I'm a Psychology major, and I need some realistic advice on my schedule for Fall 2026.

I’m currently looking at taking General Chemistry B (5 units, lecture + lab) and Intro to Bio for Bio Majors 1: Cellular and Molecular Biology (4 units, lecture + lab) at the same time.

Originally, I planned to take one of them asynchronously over the summer so I wouldn't be stacking two heavy STEM classes. Unfortunately, my schedule just won't allow for the summer class anymore. My current Chem professor also strongly advised against cramming Chem B into a fast-paced summer session because the material is so dense.

The huge upside to taking it in the Fall is that I get to stick with him. I know a lot of this is professor-dependent, and he is hands down the best professor I've ever had. I really like him and his teaching style, even though the class itself is notoriously difficult.

That being said, with my other commitments outside of school, I’m very worried I’m going to completely drown trying to balance 9 units of heavy STEM and two labs at once.

Has anyone done this combo? Is it actually doable, or am I setting myself up for absolute misery? Any tips on how to survive would be incredibly appreciated.

I want to preface this by saying I don't have a problem with caffeine itself. I know it’s rigorously studied, safe in moderation, makes NSAIDs more effective, and can even be lipolytic in the right dosages. That is not my opinion, but rather, the consensus from the modern literature. The dose makes the poison.

My issue is the surrounding culture that actively encourages crossing the threshold from use to abuse, especially in fitness and academic circles. I spend a lot of time in the gym, and it is genuinely frightening to see peers casually downing pre-workouts or energy drinks with 300mg to 400mg of caffeine in a single serving. It’s become so mundane that people don't even pay attention to the acute physiological and neurological impacts they are subjecting themselves to.

I am putting together a framework for potential legislation to curb this, and I want to see what people think of these proposed regulations (they're off the top of my head, but I'm open to altering/adding):

1. Capping Maximum Dosages per Serving
   • Stimulant brands need to cut their dosages. While we would need to determine the exact threshold, no single prescribed serving should have 400mg of caffeine. That is the FDA's daily maximum limit in one scoop or can
2. Mandatory Menu Transparency
   • Companies like Starbucks should be required to display prominent warnings at the point-of-sale (both in-person and on mobile apps) for items exceeding a certain caffeine threshold. A Venti blonde roast has well over 400mg of caffeine, and most consumers have no idea.
3. Youth Purchasing Restrictions
   • Children under 13 should be completely barred from purchasing caffeine products. For teenagers between 13 and 18, sales should be permitted, but bulk purchases and promotional tactics (like BOGO deals) should be legally restricted to prevent predatory marketing toward developing brains.
4. Strict Advertising Warnings
   • Advertisements for high-stimulant products need to make the adverse effects of acute caffeine toxicity and unsafe dosages painfully clear, similar to the warnings required on other regulated substances.

I want to reiterate that I am not looking to ban coffee.

I drink energy drinks, I like my morning coffee, I've taken preworkout, etc.

I just think the current free-for-all approach to 400mg+ synthetic caffeine bombs is a looming public health issue. Does this sound like a reasonable regulatory framework?

Hey everyone,

I’m a prospective student looking into the History major at UCLA. I'm really trying to protect my GPA for grad school, so I'm trying to get a feel for the grading and exam formats right now.

I've been hearing rumors that history departments at other universities have gotten super strict because professors are paranoid about AI. People are saying classes have switched to heavy memorization-based, in-person blue book essays and fill-in-the-blank exams because they just don't trust take-home assignments anymore (which sounds like a nightmare)

I’m hoping to find out what the vibe is like at UCLA. Specifically:

• Are history professors at UCLA doing a ton of in-person essays because of AI?
• Are there still professors who assign take-home essays instead of strict in-class exams/quizzes?
• Who are the best history professors to take for a good experience (and a manageable grading curve)?
• Which professors should I absolutely avoid?

Any insight would be super appreciated. Thanks!