r/AskAcademia

I recently began a PhD and I’ve been working on a project for a couple years now with a couple professors (from before my PhD) and we’ll be submitting it to a journal soon. I don’t know which position my name will be in but I won’t be first (which is obvious as I didn’t create the project or lead it). I know that first authorships to good journals are a very big deal and that prestige wise there’s a drop off after that point, but I was wondering how valuable a non-first authorship on a paper would be, at least at this stage in my career and when I’m on the job market looking for post-docs and TT positions.

I know it’s probably field and journal dependant - I don’t want to get too specific but it’s in the social sciences and we’re submitting to a Q1 journal though not one that it specifically directed toward my field primarily.

I’m in a phase right now where I am productive, like every day has momentum and I should just keep going without slowing down. At the same time, a few people around me (some well-wishers and others I’ve been working with recently) have been warning me that burnout is real and that it tends to creep up quietly rather than hit all at once.

I’m trying to understand this before it becomes a problem. For those who have gone through burnout, what did the early stages actually feel like for you? Not just in obvious ways, but the subtle shifts,mentally/physically, that in hindsight were signs something was off. (I’m especially curious about the kind of things you don’t notice until later, and what you would watch out for if you were in a similar high-productivity phase again.)

Hi,

A very common slide at presentations of professors in Europe is the conflicts of interest, where they mention several companies where they work with. They usually do not mention the nature of their collaboration/affilitation. Do you know what is the norm? Is it just free equipment and travel money or does it usually extend to proper salaries/consulting fees. If it's the second, is that a substantial amount of money or just pocket money?

Hello, I’m currently a high school sophomore and I’m thinking of taking three virtual dual credit classes over the summer (COM 181 Public Speaking, ART 100, and HUM 120). My only concern is HUM 120 because I’m assuming it will be a heavy writing class, and also because these grades matter since they will appear on my college transcript

I want to hear from other peoples opinion on taking dual credit classes over the summer and how it was !

My PI submitted our manuscript as the corresponding author through Editorial Manager, but he didn’t enter all the co-authors in the author tab of the system. The full author list is correctly included in the manuscript file, though. He also misspelled my first name in the system (it’s quite wrong), although it is correct in the manuscript. Has anyone experienced this before? Can missing authors and name errors usually be corrected later (e.g., at revision), or does this cause problems with the journal? Proofs use the manuscript file data right?

For context, I work in a private university as staff, and I do many things that are not in my job description. My department mentioned that they would like to "promote" me to a position that actually describes the things that I do. However, they mentioned that they would have to post the job posting and then I have to apply and see if I get it.

The issue I have is that I saw this with a colleague already, and indeed they did a job posting and actually got to an "onsite interview" stage with both my colleague and another aplicant (who we flew over). However, from our conversations it seem obvious that this job posting was rigged and the external applicant never had a chance from the get go. This feels shitty for everyone because we were wasting the external applicant's time, my colleague had to apply do the interview as if he wasn't already doing everything the job posting asked for, and clearly the committee evaluating the hire was just in a massive conflict of interest (how can you be objective when evaluating a colleague and friend?).

Is this "normal"? This seems dishonest and sketchy, not ethical and I'm surprised it is legal to waste the external aplicants job like that ... couldn't he sue if he knew it was basically a fake job interview?

Submitted a qualitative paper. Got two reviews suggesting major revision. Did point-by-point response and addressed all issues throughly.

Reviewer 1 was very positive in second review and recommended publication. Reviewer 2 (R2) suddenly brought up all sorts of aspects which he/she had not mentioned at all in the first review and used this to argue against publication. For example, aspects that were framed as "suggestions for improvement and not major methodological concerns" in the first round were presented as major flaws which warrant rejection in the second round. Journal went with R2s line and rejected the manuscript.

I have reviewed several papers myself and find it a really unprofessional course of action. Major flaws should be brought up in the first round, and not at the last minute. I am appealing. Anyone with similar experiences?

Hey y’all

I am a currently 22y (M) postgrad from Biology as of last May. During this time, I have decided I need to further my education and pivot into green chemistry. I feel that I need this advanced degree to provide a pivot into the chemistry field. I truly am not sure whether to shoot for the PhD or go into a masters. I would want a masters because I feel that I could have more flexibility after my completion, but also understand I could be wasting years of my life. Ideally, I would stay on the east coast, but would also love to move out west, just as long as I can go outdoors we are good :D

During undergrad, I fell in love with organic chemistry, it became the complete essence of how I understood the biological world. I worked partially in a chemical ecology lab, and my favorite component of it was running phenolic chromatograms of my samples. seeing how I could unlock the hidden molecules with my understanding chemical structure.

Additionally, I consider myself an environmentalist, and wish to create solutions to waste streams that allow for circular economies and less waste being transmitted into the environment. I happen to love studying fungi, both macro and micro, and thought I could get into mycomaterials or mycoremediation or pharmaceutical discovery, but the economic viability of the field is sadly dismal. Recently, I became enamored with the idea of algal HTL biofuel processing as a way to utilize free material to create versatile biofuels. The point of all of this is to say, there are many hats in green chemistry I would want to wear, but I would want to choose something that has good prospects for the future in terms of economics and job stability, and is of course interesting, to provide a life of discovery.

To you reader, why did you choose your masters or PhD in green chemistry? Should I feel narrowed into a specific topic I want to study or is this non-just considering the rotations that labs expect (most places)? Are there other fields I should be considering? How should I be researching my choices for programs in this field? So many questions, I hope I can get some answers..

Hi all, about to submit my PhD in social sciences (at an Australian University).

The more time I spend in academia the less I enjoy it. I do love teaching and would like to continue working in my field so I’m toying with the idea of moving into the school system - most likely secondary school. The idea of a stable job is soooo appealing. But that would mean getting another masters degree :/

I just wonder if anyone else has done this and if you can share any reflections?

Thank you!

Has anyone experienced Laura Bassi? I'm considering their "thorough editing" service for my PhD dissertation, but I'm not sure if it's as helpful as I hope. If anyone can share their experience, that will be great! Especially with regard to the press' professionalism and turnaround speed. Many thanks!

[supprimé]

In my dissertation title, should I capitalize ''the'' in the Toronto Star? I'm unsure because The Globe and Mail clearly capitalizes ''The,'' but it's less clear whether this applies to the Toronto Star .

PS. these are the only newspapers discussed in my dissertation.

Thanks in advance!

As the title suggests, I'm *really* struggling to decide on a topic that's genuinely interesting to me since spending 4+ years of your lifetime working on something you don't like is quite scary. I'm an English Language Teaching MA graduate and I've read what I believe to be a shit-ton of literature so far. Trouble is, I can't seem to find something that sparks my curiosity. It would be great if you can help me out with this, thanks.

EDIT: If you're going to comment "You shouldn't do a PhD"/"A PhD is not for you", please read the following:
What I meant was that I've failed to find something interesting to *the people in academia" and not to "myself". For example: I love topics related to music and videogames and how they overlap with ELT and a lot of classroom-related stuff. However, the feedback I received from peers and former profs from my uni on such interests were NOT what I expected; hence, the culprit behind my "inability to find an interesting PhD topic". Thank you.

Hi! I just committed to a one-year master's program in political science, and I was wondering if anyone had any insight into what this will be like in terms of work-life balance. My professors have already said I will have no outside time for an internship/job during this time, but I was wondering, in general, how much time is taken up by writing/studying/etc. The majority of my classes are research methods adjacent with a few electives, and no thesis is required, so I am just curious what I should expect and would love any advice!

Hi everyone :)

Hope it's okay to post this here but l've been thinking about it. I recently met this research fellow because I needed to see him to prep for a presentation I was giving as a honours student. I went to go see him because my main supervisor said he was an expert in the field. He was really nice to always give up his time to explain the basics to me whenever I asked. And when I did meet up with him, he'd never have any time restrictions which I really appreciated - our meetings would last 1.30hrs on average. In total, I asked him questions over a span of 2 weeks before saying goodbye.

But I'm confused because even though I mentioned I'm most likely not going to do his topic anymore as I'll finish my presentation by then, he would always say I'm always welcome for any help and that I shouldn't hesitate to ask him. He always said that he would be happy to supervise me 3 different times but I don't even know if I want to do a PhD - I never really implied I was going to do a PhD

I'm really asking this because I'm curious to why he'd say im always welcome back even though l've finished doing the task. It's not like I ask him difficult questions to the point he'll probably think I'm a top student. I feel like I'm no special student but just someone who wants to make sure l understand the topic.

Thank you so much!! Any help is really appreciated:))

everyone,

I’ve received two PhD offers in Geography and need some advice:

•	CUHK (Hong Kong, QS \\\~32) well-known supervisor, strong global ranking

•	Tokyo (Japan) good program, but much lower QS ranking

My goal is to build a career in academia/research.

I’m unsure what matters more long-term:

•	University ranking vs supervisor reputation

•	Research output/network vs institution prestige

CUHK seems stronger on paper, but I’ve heard PhD success depends more on publications and supervision.

What would you choose and why?

Would going with a lower-ranked university hurt my chances in academia?

Both are fully funded positions

I'm a high school senior heading to a top 5/10 European university for Mathematics in the fall, with about 4 months of summer free. I don't want to do it just to make my CV look better, I'm genuinely just interested in doing research in maths/economics and I have 4 months of summer break to pursue that. Of course I understand that my role will be minimal, I'm not expecting anything major just anything to get hands-on research experience.

My background: 40/45 IB, I've done an independent essay applying the Vasicek interest rate model to predict US bond yield movements (unpublished), and I have basic Python skills (data structures, algorithms, some data analysis). I also completed a statistical methods course through LSE.

A few questions for anyone who's been on either side of this:

• Is cold emailing professors a realistic path, or is it mostly a dead end at my level?
• Should I focus on professors at my university specifically, or is it better to email elsewhere since they'll be my professors soon?
• Would it be more valuable to spend the summer doing independent research and look for formal roles once I'm actually at university?
• Is there a specific academic/research oriented CV template that would help me?

Any advice is appreciated, thanks!

I interviewed for a full-time staff role (AI-focused analyst position) at a university on March 20th and haven’t heard anything back yet. I’ve sent two follow-up emails (one a few days after, one about a week later) and haven’t received a response.

The job posting was taken down in the past few days, which made me unsure how to interpret things.

Is this normal for university hiring timelines, or is this typically a sign that I’m no longer being considered?

For context, this was after a final panel interview.

Hi guys, i'm answering the disciplinary history part of my application and in my junior year, i shared my homework with my roommate and when they uploaded it we were both caught for sharing the assignment with each other due to similarities. At my university, they're very generous with this and they only brought me down a letter grade in the class and 0 on the assignment (finished with a C). For Q4, i need to answer whether or not i was subject to a hearing ever, and I was but thankfully the process didn't give me an ADF on my transcript or anything, so I think I should still mention it. I know it's not a good look for my application, but I think mentioning it is better than brushing over it and they maybe reach out to my uni and find this. Just wondering what other people think about this, have you gone through anything similar to me? Thanks.

...Can I present oral and poster presentations at different conference. Oral was presented in a symposium. This time the poster is in a conference. Is it okay?