Overview of pm133 on PostgraduateForum.com

Overview of pm133

Signup date: 08 Jan 2016 at 12:02am

Last login: 30 Mar 2021 at 8:40pm

Post count: 1246

Recent Posts

Totally fed up

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Why on earth is your supervisor getting so heavily involved in a simple poster design?
Providing comments is one thing. Actively editing a poster is not on.
This is YOUR PhD. No wonder you are feeling a lack of ownership.
You need to talk to your supervisor as soon as possible and tell them you are considering quitting and the exact reason why.

Author names on poster/paper

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From TreeofLife:
Thanks Tudor. Yes I see what you mean. It's kind of like a technician wouldn't be an author isn't it.

Hmmm.

Anyone else?

If is student is contributing meaningfully in any way to your project then you are a team and they should have a mention in everything you do including papers that you publish. You have an ethical duty to do this in my opinion. You should certainly retain first authorship and corresponding author. Your first instinct on this is the ethically correct one.

Experienced or inexperienced supervisor

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From TreeofLife:

Quote From pm133:
To be fair, if you are seeing your supervisor more than once a month, this really is not giving you the independence you need.

This depends on the project. You would really struggle in molecular biology, especially in the early stages, if you only saw your supervisor every month. Mine popped into the lab every few days. He would ask me how I was doing; if I needed to check something, I would ask, if I didn't I would just say I was fine and carry on. This is a good approach in my experience.

My supervision was just like starryeyed described, and I liked it.

I was talking about the PhD in general. Of course in the early few months you will use your supervisor more often but that should certainly change over time. I would not have tolerated my supervisor entering my workspace every few days beyond the first month or two. Mind you, by asking that question up front during the interview I would have known to expect that sort of supervision ;-)

Experienced or inexperienced supervisor

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

To be fair, if you are seeing your supervisor more than once a month, this really is not giving you the independence you need.

MSCA PhD funding competitivness

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From AnaGram:

Quote From pm133:

Quote From AnaGram:

Quote From pm133:

Quote From AnaGram:

I really don't feel like wasting time

This is not a great attitude for a prospective PhD student to have.

Yes, I understand that might not be the best choice of words. What I meant was that I would hate to spend time pursuing impossible (like Ivy League) as I do not have the right CV for that, while I could be applying to PhDs I could actually get.

OK fair enough.
Your problem however is your 2:2.
With such a weak degree classification you may well find it difficult to get in anywhere and if you do get in you might well find it even harder to cope with the intellectual challenge which results from starting a PhD from a very low academic baseline.
You should consider perhaps a postgrad Masters degree in my opinion. That might allow you to develop a stronger baseline. This forum is full of people with excellent undergrad degrees who struggle with PhDs. Dont feel bad about this. It is pretty much the exact route I had to take for the same reason so I am speaking from personal experience. You need to make your own choices though.

Thank you for this honest opinion. I will try this route as well. However I have to disagree with you that better grades necessarily mean that you will struggle less with PhD. There are too many other factors grades can not measure, but I can also understand why would you say this.

You are certainly welcome to disagree but given that a PhD is supposed to be first and foremost an intensely intellectual pursuit I would be interested to know what other skills you think could adequately compensate for a lack of a good academic starting position.

Want to quit Phd! Please advice!

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

The oroblem here is that your expectation levels are way too high.
You should expect to take around a year to learn enough to be competent.
Learning a programming language competently and sustainably alone will take about a month or two.
You have only been going a couple of months.
Listen to your supervisor.

Broad knowledge for a professional doctorate?

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Even though you will specialise during your PhD, you certainly will be expected to develop a broader knowledge of relevant material as well. Speak to your supervisor about this and they will advise. Oh and expect to go through your entire PhD feeling you are not up to date. I think the majority of us felt that.

Can I defer my PhD entry for three months?

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Only your proposed supervisor can answer this I'm afraid. You will need to ask them.

Submitted manuscript awaiting recommendation - what does this mean?

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From Tudor_Queen:

Quote From pm133:
The quality of the feedback won't necessarily be dependent on the journal's impact factor. What bothered me about higher impact journals was the length of time needed to publish and the attitude of the reviewers. I found feedback to be unnecessarily snobbish with higher impact journals. Altogether it was a hassle I could do without.

I think it can play a role. The particular journal I submitted too was one of very good quality - based on what I get from reading the papers more than an impact factor alone. Basically, I wanted to get feedback from the likes of those who publish in it (and reviewers often tend to be those who publish similar work in a particular journal) and its editor, as I figured their feedback would be helpful in bringing my work to a higher level. In terms of hassle and snobbery - thankfully, there wasn't any of that on this occasion.

Are you planning to resubmit to the same journal or are you looking to publish elsewhere now?
Good luck either way. Is this your first publication?

Postgrad checklist: what to ask when picking a PhD

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Yes the approach you adopt is key. You would need to be careful not to come across as aggressive or overly assertive. I cant see any way of asking about either decolonisation or policies about aggressive sexual assaults without coming across appallingly though :-D Honestly, I do wonder what on earth those Edinburgh students were thinking when they advised asking about that.

Just submitted my thesis,can i publish part of it? any advise on how to do it

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From Tudor_Queen:
Pm133, I think you have found your new calling! Sniffing out bots! Reminds me of Del Spooner from I, Robot! Carry on valiantly serving humanity and sniffing out bots! Just be careful (if you've seen the movie)!

I've seen the movie but I can't remember much about it now.
Once you start seeing the bots you see them everywhere. Another 3 or 4 year old thread has just been hijacked by someone talking about Zenith essays or something.

I think the ideas of the bots is to get them actively engaging on forums in the hope that by interacting with humans they learn how to be better communicators. If that is true, the best course is to ignore them and deny them the learning process. I wont be responding to any more of them.

Experience in organizational psychology

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From Barnaria:
Hello, I’m currently doing my MSc in organizational psychology in UK but since I live on another country in EU where organizational psychology is not so popular I’m looking to gain some experience by doing remotely work\volunteering. Does anyone know any company where I could do that?

I would imagine any large company with a Human Resources department would be a good place to start but this really is not my area I'm afraid.

Is writing for research grants and managing projects mandatory for scientists?

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From theSystemsBiologist:
Does the present definition of a scientist involve writing research grants and managing projects? Are there alternatives to such an approach? Doesn't exploratory science lose because of such an approach, as grants are most available only for hot research topics?

I spoke to a colleague about this a year ago. He sits on panels which make decisions on funding.
His strong advice was to avoid trying to be cautious with proposals in a misguided attempt to make it easier to secure funding.
Get a really exciting idea, build a collabarative team to deliver it and apply. Excite the funders he said. I am inclined to go with that advice.

The important thing for me is not being a scientist but instead being a research scientist. The latter is reserved for those who actively perform research activities. The former are really administrators and managers.
The term "technician" should be reserved for those doing largely routine or manual work with little or no analysis or interpretation of results.
Most academic research staff fall into the category of administrators or managers and do little or no active research work themselves. They seem quite happy to claim much of the credit though.

Of course most academic funding still goes to hot topics but there should be plenty of money for those with exciting proposals.

Is writing for research grants and managing projects mandatory for scientists?

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From TreeofLife:
That's basically it if you want to be a PI or work in industry.

If you don't want to do that you can be a technician and just execute a project under varying levels of instructor.

Yes to your last question.

It is true for academia but this is not always true for industry.
Industry research doesn't just fund "hot topics". Companies fund what they think might result in profitable products or services or cast greater insight into how current products or services work with a view to reducing costs, increasing patents and increasing profits etc. Those are not necessarily the same thing.

Of course industry does also fund university research directly but you have a mixed bag really.

Postgrad checklist: what to ask when picking a PhD

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From Psych1:
I feel if you asked a lot of questions and pointed ones you would come off as difficult and unlikable. I would ask mainly about project then a few practicals and only ask more if it felt right. Tricky.

I understand that but the problem with your approach is that in your desire not to be rejected for the post you have a very high risk of landing yourself with the wrong supervisor for you. This is an interview for both supervisor and student. This forum is absolutely crammed full of posts from people who either forgot that or didnt realise it.

You absolutely must find out about stuff like this. Nobody else will do it for you. All of those questions I have listed are absolutely fundamental and it will affect you if you get them wrong. There are good ways of asking those questions of course but there is no point in me messing about during an interview trying not to be rejected, getting the job and then having to spend the next 4 years walking on eggshells. It is vital to the future working arrangements that I see the supervisor as they would be on a day to day basis and that they get to see me in mine. If they cannot handle an assertive and intense student then the PhD will be a disaster if I cover that up. I have terminated several job interviews in the past when it was clear there would be a problem and I have had a couple terminated on me. Only once did I accept a job offer after I had a heated argued with the lead engineer (she made a technical mistake through inexperience and wouldnt admit it claiming I was at fault) during the interview and it was a disaster. It is just not worth it. There are always plenty of other jobs for me to to go for.