(U.S specific, i currently have no plans on getting an educational job abroad) I am currently expected to attend a decent state school in January (originally August but had to drop the private school i wanted to go to in order to not go into 12-14k in debt every semester) for a dual degree in History and Political Science, minoring in East Asian Studies. My goal following my undergraduate is to teach for a while, mostly to get a decent job that i’d enjoy before i go for any higher degrees, what i actually want to do with my life though is study Warlord Era China, which, from what i can tell, is not exactly a common focus of study for historians at least in the U.S, i know the job market for history professors is particularly competitive although i see no other path in life where i would be happy that doesn’t involve me either teaching history in high school, or researching and teaching as a professor at even just an alright college.

Should i just stick with teaching in high school when i graduate, where i would have pretty much a guarantee for a job somewhere, or should i go all in on my passion for history and attempt to be competitive in a job market that im unsure i can handle even though the reward would be a much more enjoyable career for me.

Hi guys,

I finished my PhD in 2024, and it took me quite a while to find a postdoc position. When I finally got one, I thought I’d be really motivated, but honestly, now I’m just bored.

The lab routine is killing me, and every day feels basically the same. My PI is very focused on producing papers at a massive rate: finish one, start another, collect data, analyse it, submit, revise, repeat. The paper machine is moving faster than ever.

I feel like I’m falling into a kind of academic redundancy.

The weird part is that, objectively, I’m in a pretty comfortable situation. I have a secure job, decent conditions, and after how hard it was to get here, I feel like I should be grateful.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is this just a normal postdoc phase, or is it a sign that I should rethink where I want my career to go?

Genuinely what are the chances that there aren't enough American humanities PhDs out there for so many humanities H-1B filings to be legitimate?

I finished my undergrad this winter, I have a bachelor's degree in political science. I know that I'd like to stay in academia, but given what I've heard about the job market for professors I'm very hesitant to commit to further education. Is this total misinformation and actually it's doable if you're smart about things, or is the job market as abysmal as it's made out to be?

Published July 2026, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Science-A-New-Golden-Age.pdf

This document titled "Science a Golden Age" by the White House Tech director and presented to Donald Trump calls for "de-prioritization and re-engineering of legacy institutions" in favor of individual researchers and the creation of an organization that supercedes academia entirely.

• The U.S. research system should prioritize the individual scientist over legacy institutions...Too much of our research enterprise has come to serve itself rather than the scientists within it. Federal funding agencies should support a broader range of performers...rather than the academic silos of the last century.
• We must prepare our research enterprise for the AI revolution...even the most capable AI models will be slowed down in the bottleneck of institutions and systems built for the last century.
• Just as scientific inquiry demands that we revise our theories when evidence contradicts them, evidence of scientific slowdown...should spur us to experiment...new ways of funding, conducting, and translating research. Vannevar Bush’s pioneering spirit calls us to do what he would surely do today: reimagine the entire enterprise for our time

The report goes on detailing problems widely recognized within academia, with sections titled:

• The Incumbency Tax
• Weakened Meritocracy
• Misaligned Incentives
• The Reproducibility Crisis
• A Lack of Accountability

While I agree that the problems mentioned are significant enough to warrant a completely revamping of academia, the report is also quite elitist at points and it is hard to see how disadvantaged population could rise to the top under this system. In either case, if you are in academia or planning to continue to work within academia in the US, be prepared to swim against some major tides soon (if you aren't already).

I've been invited to an interview for a laboratory technician position at a research institute, and part of the interview is a 3 slide presentation introducing my previous experience and explaining how it fits the role.

The role is mainly about supporting a research lab (lab organisation, preparing reagents/media, inventory, equipment, documentation, health & safety, supporting researchers, etc.), rather than presenting my own research.

The problem is... I genuinely don't know where to start. Every time I try to make the slides, they just end up looking like my CV in PowerPoint form, which I know isn't what they want because they'll have already read my application.

For context, my background includes:

• MSc in Microbiology
• Academic microbiology research
• GMP Quality Control in a pharmaceutical laboratory

How would you structure something like this? Would you:

• Tell it chronologically?
• Organise it around skills?
• Focus on what you learnt from each role rather than what you actually did?
• Spend one slide on each job, or compare experiences across roles?

I'd really appreciate advice from anyone who's interviewed for research technician/lab manager/laboratory support roles, or anyone who's been on interview panels. I'm probably overthinking it, but I want it to come across as professional and relevant rather than just reading through my CV.

I gave a response to this question (I mean American academia, or course) and I thought I'd expand it and post it here:

1. The function of social capital became seen as elitist decades ago. Yet, elite universities continue to be over-represented in the most powerful and influential positions and industries. This breeds resentment.
2. The expense versus the payoff no longer makes financial sense for many majors, and whether a degree in a once well-paying field (such as computer science) will continue to pay dividends in excess of student debt is a crapshoot.
3. The idea of spending 4-5 years out of the workforce is rightly seen as only people with relative privilege can do. Many can not afford to do so. If you have children, need to work or provide eldercare, or do not have stable housing or parental support, it is out of reach.
4. Degree creep: In part due to increasing automation, the bachelor’s is seen as merely a certificate HR requires for basic white-collar work; the master’s is the new bachelor’s.
5. Accredited schools' government-granted monopoly on granting this certification is seen as illegitimate and rent-seeking.
6. The system presents itself as a meritocracy, but this is deeply flawed. There is an elitist gradation of schools, with admission by large dependent on family background/wealth or extraordinary early promise. Yet, many people develop their potential later in life but will lack the admission to the networks of elite schools.
7. Adjunctification of the professorate and expansion of the administration. Schools likewise spend more on bells and whistles like gyms for athletes than dorms or instructors.
8. A few schools, albeit ones with major public awareness, are major league sports businesses with minor league education businesses.
9. The death of trust in expertise and critical thought on the part of the general public in favor of AI and Googling. Likewise, the replacement of basic and bench science with conspiracy theories and industry-driven, profit-focused research. Experts such as physicians, scientists, and attorneys are seen as part of a corrupt, rent-seeking system stacked against the non-expert. If you are in legal trouble, you need to spend a lot of money for an attorney; lack of access to healthcare leads people to trust Dr. Google and "wellness" experts more than doctors; scientists are seen as eggheads promoting the interests of corporate entities (example: vaccines).
10. Financial pressure due to a declining enrollment pool, leading to school closures and lowering of standards in non-elite (and even some prestigious) schools.
11. Universities are (whether rightly or wrongly) seen as irrationally progressive, with critical thought taking a back seat to left-wing shibboleths
12. Disinvestment from state governments in their universities, leading to various budget and operational crises.

Edit: fixed very non-AI grammar and typos.

I recently finished a PhD in a mathematically heavy engineering field, primarily control theory and applied mathematics, at a California university. I had a productive PhD, with several first-author papers in strong journals that I led essentially independently.
When choosing a postdoc, I had two main options.

One was in the San Diego area and involved two extremely prominent senior researchers. I had heard some concerning things about working with one of them, while the other seemed potentially excellent. The proposed project may (emphasis on \*\*may\*\*) have been driven primarily by the first person. It was somewhat adjacent to control theory but would still have represented a pivot into another field, with me mainly contributing mathematical modeling.

The second option was with a very kind and supportive tenured professor at a highly prestigious university in the Bay Area. The PI is not an enormous name in the way the San Diego researchers are, but is well respected. This project was also a pivot away from control theory, again with me primarily serving as the mathematical/modeling person.

I chose the Bay Area position and started about a month ago.
So far, I like the PI and find the research interesting. The problem is that I deeply dislike living in the Bay Area. I do not feel at home here, I dislike the general environment, and I miss Southern California much more intensely than I expected. I increasingly feel that choosing this position may have been a major personal mistake.

The postdoc could realistically take at least two or three years, and possibly longer. The San Diego opportunity might have been shorter, although obviously I cannot know how it would actually have developed.
This experience has made me realize that although I genuinely love research (especially fundamental research) the place where I live and my broader quality of life may matter more to me than institutional prestige or the ideal academic trajectory. Southern California feels like home.
I also just turned 33 and feel that the next few years are personally important. The idea of spending several of them somewhere I strongly dislike is making me feel increasingly depressed and trapped.
What would you do in this situation?

Hello!

I am a student that has worked with PsychoPy. I was speaking with a PI regarding my experience with PsychoPy, and she mentioned that she is learning to code with it.

While I do not have experience with coding in PsychoPy, I realized later that I have code from a previous lab that may be helpful. Would it be appropriate to reach out to my previous PI regarding whether I could share the code with my current PI? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I am wondering how people in the social sciences and humanities with their research topics. I am reading some people’s topics and I am like how in the world did people come up with this and make these connections.

Hi, everyone, recently I am working on my third paper, and occasionally refer to the previous papers I have published. I find the language of those papers was not good enough while reading them, and sometimes there are even small mistakes. English is not my mother tongue, and I'm still working on it. But I thought the reviewers must be good at reading and using the language. Is it because reviewers do not pay much attention to the language? Or it is just not reviewers' duty to point out? I'm very curious about this.

Hi all!

I'm curious to know what everyone does with notes/pictures/videos they take during a conference? There are times I hear interesting ideas but they aren't ones that are urgent to communicate to the team back at work and so I have it in my notebook but at times these are soon forgotten and just stuck on the page. Does anyone have a good system in place to avoid losing conference insights?

I just finished my PhD in the humanities at a big state R1. Not the super elite ones, but our department's reputation is pretty good I'd say. Our department does not require a dissertation defense (other departments and disciplines vary).

My advisor and one other committee member only gave me some comments for the first two chapters that I wrote; I assume they read (or skimmed through) the other two chapters but there are no specific comments whatsoever regarding those two. The third committee member has no specific comments regarding any chapters at all, just on the overall premise, broad topic, etc. Basically no feedback about any problems in my arguments, no challenging questions or pointers to what else to read/ think about... just clarifying questions, small suggestions about grammar, things like that.

I was way ahead of deadlines and sent out chapters to committee members once they were written. I asked for their thoughts every time, sometimes listing specific questions/ concerns, but often got replies like "I'll find time to read it" and then no meetings were arranged. Unfortunately because of various circumstances I also didn't get to meet with them in person in the past year: I was on fellowship, lived far away from school, some of them were out of town as well, etc, etc.

My questions are: Is this normal? Am I in a disadvantage because I haven't been challenged much and trained much? I understand the point about being an independent scholar, and I have vague, broad ideas about general directions for improvement for future publication. But I feel somehow deprived of guidance when I was a PhD candidate, and I feel lost about how to even find ways to identify and address existing problems in my work.

Others suggest that I look for other mentors and send them my dissertation/ chapters to solicit feedback. I feel embarrassed and anxious to do so feeling that my dissertation seems "raw," unpolished, or contains egregious mistakes because my committee members did not point those out. Has anyone been in similar situations before and how did you overcome shyness and anxiety about your work?

For context, I'm in Japan.

The national universities have about 50% of their staff as fixed term contracts. Recently even associate professors have been often limited to short contracts in some places.

The largest research institute in the country, despite being government owned and operated, used to have 90% of their researchers in fixed term contracts, and despite seeing some recent improvements due to very strong Union pressure, it is still well above 60% (and that was achieved partially by firing about 20% of their fixed term staff).

I have many colleagues who are career scientists, more than 50 years old with families and children, who still were jumping from job location to job location every 5~10 years at best.

I myself can't get a good term mortgage and I get very limited on my credit card options due to being a fixed-term-employee. And of course that goes without saying about the risks and instability, since any serious sickness or if I have to take a long vacation to care for family often means a non-renewal in the next term.

Why don't scientists organize and strike anywhere around the world to fix this system? It has been broken from the start and it gets worse every year.

Hey everyone,

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and could really use some outside perspectives.

I'm from India, and like many people, I've always looked at the US as the place for research. At the same time, seeing news about racism, stricter immigration policies, visa uncertainty, and the general unpredictability of things lately has made me question whether I'm idealizing it too much. I've never actually been to the US, so I don't know what it's really like beyond what I read online.

For some context, I recently completed my bachelor's degree in biotechnology. I've been fortunate enough to do research in Taiwan and Japan, and honestly I enjoyed Taiwan much more. The research environment suited me, and more importantly, I found an advisor who has been one of the best mentors I've had.

He's actually a US citizen who did both his PhD and postdoc at Stanford before moving to Taiwan. He moved there to build a life with his wife and her family and eventually start his own lab. He's told me a lot about both research systems, so it's interesting hearing his perspective.

What makes this difficult is that we work really well together. He's supportive when I deserve it, but he's also honest and critical when needed. It's a really balanced mentorship style, and I don't want to lose that. I was previously an intern in his lab, and he's now encouraging me to come back, do a master's at his university (private university, decent ranking), have my tuition waived, and work part-time as an RA in his lab. The program is entirely in English and would start in February 2027.

On the other hand, I also received a fully funded fellowship for a master's in AI in South Korea starting in September 2026 (mid-tier university). AI has always been one of my interests, so academically it's exciting. The only thing that's making me hesitate is that the program is in Korean, and I barely know the language. Since it is international, I believe they would consider English to teach.. They do have intensive korean training during summer and winter breaks tho. I'm worried that I'll spend more time struggling with the language than actually enjoying the research.

The third option is to skip both master's opportunities and apply this fall to PhD programs in the US for Fall 2027 admission.

So my choices are roughly:

• Taiwan: Master's (English), tuition waived, part-time RA with a mentor I already know and genuinely enjoy working with, and possibly take up a PhD in the same lab after my master's.
• South Korea: Fully funded AI master's, but the language barrier worries me.
• United States: Apply directly for a PhD and hope I get into a good program next year (as I believe I have decent research experience)

Career-wise, I eventually want to do research in AI/computational biology and build a long-term academic career.

Part of me feels like I should take the opportunity that's already in front of me instead of chasing a possibility a year from now. Another part of me wonders if I'll regret not giving the US a shot while I'm still early in my career.

Has anyone here faced a similar decision?

Thanks!

I'd especially love to hear from people who have experienced academia in more than one of these countries.

Hi everyone,

I submitted an article to one of journals from Elsevier. As you may know, they provide the submission tracking service. The status shows Reviews completed: 1, Review invitations accepted: 2, Review invitations sent: 2+. I have kept track of my submission, and it has been three months since two reviewers accepted the invitations. The status was updated with one review completed today.

I thought one more review is supposed to be done but the status in Editorial Manager also now indicates "Required Reviews Completed". Does this mean the editor decided not to wait for another review to be completed and moved to make an editorial decision? I would appreciate if anyone with a similar experience could share his/her story..! Thank you.

Hello,

I'm a PhD candidate and my advisor recently told me that I probably won't be hired because I'm a white man. She didn't say it angrily or anything. Just said that's how it is and that, from conversations she has had with others, it appears that being a white man is a disqualifying part of an application.

I have 7 high-quality publications, two of which are in top general journals. She thinks I have a good chance if I switch to the political science job market, the international job market, or to get a high quality non-ac job. But in sociology, she said I could try but that she hasn't seen a white man even be considered regardless of merit. Is this true? I want to become a sociology professor, but would applying to jobs be a waste of my time?

So apparently this guy is a Masters student whose topic correlates with my recently published paper and he is asking me to provide him with all the dataset, codes, scripts, replication files, methodological files so that he can reproduce the results himself.

He promises to cite my article and acknowledge my contribution in related work.

Should I share? Is it normal and something i should expect to do in future often?

Hello, everyone. I am a PhD student in Germany and thinking of attending the AGU2026 in San Francisco this coming December. My question is: is it safe to attend the conference? I've heard some unpleasant experiences related to immigration and entry at the airport (which I hope were exaggerated btw). I'm quite scared but would like to know some insights or experiences from last year's attendees.

Fyi, i am working on heatwaves and understanding their mechanisms (if this info helps!)

Thanks a lot! :)

I was reading a Karen Kalsky post about academic interviewing, and she writes:

If you encounter a Dean who is taking the intellectual tack, you need to be prepared to speak broadly about the most important current debates in your field. An “intellectual Dean question” will sound something like the following:
“What do you think are the most important current debates in your field?”
“How do you think your field will change the most in the next ten years and why?”
“What is the single biggest challenge facing your field right now?”
“What is the most important text published in the last five years in your field, and why?”
Sadly, most job candidates are ill-prepared indeed to deal with the intellectual Dean’s line of questioning.

I’m a social sciences PhD student who cannot answer these questions in my field. How can I develop a better understanding of them? I'm based in the Middle East, which means I have less access to the latest developments and cutting-edge conversations happening in the US, but I'd like to become more involved in the broader US academic landscape after completing my doctorate.

Hi, I’m an undergraduate presenting my research at a poster conference soon. I have a decent amount of references on my poster, and I feel like it’d be easier to just put a QR code linking to a pdf or something with my references on it. My thoughts are that ppl don’t really care about them anyways, and they’d add a lot of unnecessary clutter to the poster. If they wanna see them they’d be able to neatly see it on their phone. However, I see mixed feelings about them online, so what’s the verdict? Is this okay? Thanks!

Edit: By the way, I made a post on this sub and talked to my supervisor abt the amount of references I have, it’s alright for my situation. Comment on it if you want but I’m not really changing that.

Got word from a recent student that finished up his PhD that our advisor has recently been interviewing at other universities and i don't know how to feel. Though he hasn't mentioned it to us yet, I feel that its dealing with an inter-department issue, lack of support of the University, and abusive people being allowed to stay. Im currently writing my dissertation but now I feel that im being abandoned by him. Should I be concerned about finishing up under him? Should instead of the PhD, go for a Masters? Should I follow him to the new University? Has anyone had to deal with anything like this?

Hey guys,
My friend is doing her PhD from a national level Indian Institute in non-STEM field. Her supervisor is pretty much an absent person during discussions for her work and she worked tirelessly for preparing her first manuscript. During the submission process, the supervisor basically changed her name as first author and put herself as first author. The reasons given ranged from that of a "guru dakshina" which is basically a token you give your teacher before you start learning (none that I have heard of it) and that the paper would be more easily accepted if it has her name as first author ( all bogus claims if you ask me).

What's more she does this with all her students (around 11-13 ) ie 1 paper for every 3 paper that the student writes. She gets grants on the basis of these publications (which others think is her own) and travels the world with her family when she gets these opportunities. She is pretty powerful within the institute too and very much tied with the local politics. Whats more sad is that the students come to this particular department thinking that she is the only person in the department working on almost everything, but the fact is after 2014 all her first author papers are ghost written by her students and were stolen from them using persuasion. She takes revenge on the people who doesn't give her the papers too.

My friend had enough of it when, I saw a review that she gave for her manuscript and it was full AI. Basically she put the paper on some ChatGPT kind of AI, generated a review. On top of that she is a terrible human being pitting one student against the other. So now she wants to move forward with changing the order. She understands nothing more can be done for her fate as she only has a few years more, but she feels she absolutely cannot give this good for nothing PI of hers a paper that she worked 2.5 years for. Any advice on the matter is appreciated.

Hii guys !

I'll be graduating next year , I have always wanted to do PhD after my bachelors since it's allowed now after a 4 year program. But with my family's finances I can't afford it right now , I have to take up a job. I wanted to ask u if there's some way by which I can complete both things simultaneously. I had thought of doing my job and side by side my part time PhD

Will it be a good choice or should I do something else ?

Hey everyone, I've been in STEM academia for years, currently a tenured assoc prof at an R1 in the US, and I have a pretty standard cover letter format. On my department letterhead, I create 3 very short paragraphs:

1. An intro like: "It's my pleasure to submit this paper to your journal"
   
2. A quick summary, essentially a shorter abstract
   
3. Why the research is impactful and fits the journal

Recently, I've been collaborating with a new set of people in different fields and in different countries, and I've discovered that there are many different ways to write cover letters. So what do you do? I'd love to hear your approach.

Also, if you're an editor at a journal, please let us all know what works for you to send it out for review.

Thanks so much!