I’ve found that listening to café-style jazz or piano music helps me focus while working. However, as I progress through my PhD and face extended hours, my motivation has waned, and I am also way behind submission dates. Browsing through Reddit’s PhD communities amplifies negative feelings, as many posts focus on struggles rather than solutions. Let's face it: a lot of sad posts out there.

I’m reaching out to see if anyone can recommend podcasts or resources that foster a positive mindset for PhD students. Something that can get your spirit up. I am not sure what, precisely, I’m interested in, but I am thinking along the lines of:

• Interviews with postdocs and PhD candidates sharing their breakthrough moments or strategies for overcoming challenges.

• Discussions on breaking down tasks into manageable steps to boost productivity.

• Holistic approaches, such as affirmation-based content that feels genuine and applicable to academic life.

The goal is to find content that uplifts and motivates, helping us navigate the PhD journey with resilience and optimism.

Please share links to the content that helped you overcome the slump, and explain why it was effective for you. I would prefer free content (seems like there are a lot of PhDs trying to make an income by "helping" others fighting the fatigue https://podcast.feedspot.com/phd_podcasts/ )

Thank you in advance for your suggestions!

I'm an undergrad student studying CS currently. I really want to do summer research programs but my heart is also telling me to just not bother with research and instead to focus on internships since I also love money and want a get rich quick job. I'm trying my best to convince myself that research would be better but I can't think of ways on how to make myself get attached to research. Need some help :(

Hi!

I was in contact with a PI to do a bioinformatics/ML cancer internship this summer and had a meeting scheduled with him last Friday to discuss.

Unfortunately, I ate Thanksgiving dinner (am Irish but have American family) since my mother was hosting (held on Friday not Thursday). It had crayfish seasoning in it and I had to be sent to A&E. I obviously missed the meeting and emailed him profusely apologising and asked to reschedule and explained to him what had happened.

I've essentially been ghosted (he responds within minutes to his emails) and it's doubly saddening as he also has a PhD position posted that I also wanted to apply for. I thought doing an internship with him would help me segue into his PhD position. So I feel like I've probably been blacklisted from him now.

What's triply saddening, is the world of bioinformatics/ML cancer research in Ireland is tiny and his uni alone has 5 out of the probably 15 bioinformatics/ML PIs that I can reach within my location, so I've probably been blacklisted from them too cos people talk.

What's quadruply saddening is that I was recommended this PI from my lecturer that knew him personally so it probably leaves a bad reflection on my lecturer too which I feel guilty for even though there was nothing I could do.

Any advice? My little sister said just move on and try find someone new, but yeah, it's a really sad situation and I don't blame my mother, just sad all around really.

Notes:
- I was obviously unaware that the food had crayfish seasoning as my mother assured me it was safe to eat and followed all necessary precautions as I also have Coeliac disease. My mother really wanted to try and make me feel included in family dinners since my diagnosis (two years ago), I've been in my room during Easter, Christmas and Thanksgiving while everyone parties downstairs since I can't really have anything. So I wanted to give it a go and join in but obviously things went very south as I went into anaphylactic shock.

Thank you

sort of an impossible question to answer if you're not part of a admissions committee. But i was recently awarded a fellowship that practically funds my entire PhD and gives me a stipend/year.

if you look at my stats/pubs + everything else im your below avg. joe. no pubs, mediocre gpa, and with hopes of getting into schools like stanford, MIT, CMU for CS (my research interests really align with prof's here).

not trying to get my hopes up, but maybe i have a higher chance? or none at all idk.

Hey!

I’m a new PhD student in ECE. It’s been two months since I started, and honestly, I feel completely out of my depth. I can’t shake this overwhelming sense of inadequacy, like I don’t deserve to be here. It’s exhausting and makes me feel stupid, like I’m bound to fail, quit halfway, and let everyone down, including myself.

These feelings didn’t come out of nowhere. They’ve been haunting me since my undergrad days. I was a C student, rarely ever got A’s. My academic advisor even suggested I quit my major because I “wasn’t cut out for it.” I seriously considered it but somehow managed to scrape through to graduation. My CGPA was the lowest in my batch, and when I graduated, I still had no idea what I had learned. My degree feels like a source of shame, something I’d bury and forget about if I could.

When I go to my department and see the students and lecturers, I feel like a stranger, like I don’t belong there. It feels like a place for geniuses, not for someone dumb like me.

When I got into my Master’s program, I swore I’d turn things around. It was coursework based, no research involved (just a project paper in the final semester), and there wasn’t even a viva voce to stress over. To my surprise, it went really well. I aced my courses, earning 99% A’s, and my supervisor was incredibly kind. She encouraged me to turn my project paper into a thesis, helped me present at conferences, and even co-authored two papers with me. I finished with no corrections on my paper, which felt surreal.

But even with all that, I couldn’t shake the imposter syndrome. It all felt like a fluke, like sheer dumb luck, not my effort or abilities. Deep down, I still see myself as the same pathetic, clueless C student I was in undergrad.

Now I’m here in a PhD program, where the stakes are higher, the journey tougher, and there’s no smooth path or lucky breaks to rely on. Part of me is excited by the challenge, but the doubt weighs so heavily. I’m terrified I’ll give up when it gets too hard, and I don’t want to disappoint myself again. I don’t want to choose comfort over a long-term challenge that could change my life.

I fear the comprehensive examination next year. I’m terrified I won’t pass it. But even before that, I’m struggling with the literature review. Reading papers feels like an impossible task. I procrastinate because I’m scared I won’t understand them. And when I do read, I often get stuck on certain information, unable to make sense of it, which leaves me frustrated and feeling even more inadequate. Literature review feels like hell.

I want to break out of this mindset and become someone I can be proud of, someone who can look back in a few years and say, “I can’t believe I did it.” I want to feel like I belong in this journey.

Will I succeed? Will I ever truly feel like I’m fit to be a PhD student?

I'm currently on leave from my PhD program (T10 in the US) and I want to master out due to my health and the fact that I haven't been able to perform well. But it's December and I have no internships lined up for the summer and no job offers to exit academia. I'm not sure what I want to do career-wise other than research, even after taking career tests, and I'm really running out of time and money since my leave is unpaid. If anyone has advice please feel free to comment.

Good morning,

So I’ve posted before about online Ph.Ds. I understand that many will say they’re “trash” and a lot of other opinions on a Ph.D being obtained online. I am simply just doing it because I want to be able to have a Ph.D due to competitiveness within my career and maybe teach adjunct teaching on the side but not as a professor as of right now. There’s also a career I’m looking to transition to that requires a minimum of a bachelors degree. I’m just trying to find a good reputable University for an online Ph.D in Criminal Justice and Criminology. I’ve seen places like Walden, Liberty, Nova, etc but I’m trying to make sure the University is fully accredited. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

In my Master programme, I felt so and he directly told me so. I dont think it is right because it is their job and they get paid by it. He was young and busy and I took a proposal I wanted not the project they wanted to be done. He took me because his boss wanted hime to do so. And choosing my phd supervisor, the plan a supervisor had no vacancy of student and the plan b prospective phd supervisor is in similar situation and I might go with the supervisor. The supervisor fit with my interest but it was terrible experience and I dont want to repeat it. Do you think I should avoid this new potential supervisor?

Greetings and humble salutations. I am in High School right now but my dream is to pursue a Doctorate in either Philosophy, radiology or Physics. How do I do that? Can I be certain that good grades in high school get me into a decent University? What is the experience of weiting a Dissertation and other Doctorate stuff?

The academic job market is dire and for much of the humanities is rapidly shrinking.

And many of us in the humanities find that when we graduate from our PhD we have few skills or experiences that employers are interested in. Many of us end up working retail.

Yet I hear from lots of people that having a doctorate is really helpful for promotion to the highest levels in various businesses. I was wondering does this apply to humanities as well or is that only a perk for STEM fields?

Give me some hope for the future lmao

I'm applying to an advertised project in the UK and this was mentioned. It's the first time I'm coming across this. So I'm looking for help on how to contact the supervisor and what to talk with them. If you've previously had success with this process, I'd love to hear this.

But this also sounds like it would be very difficult to get a supervisor nominate me as an international student.

I submitted my dissertation last week, defended a few weeks before that. I've completed my PhD. Everyone I know keeps asking me how it feels to finally be a Doctor. Honestly, I don't really feel any different. Sure, it was tough, i appreciate not having to go through any of this again, but the stress isn't much lower, I am still working on getting a couple of journal papers published but have at least landed a good job. Now none of these things are things I didn't expect to do. I feel like I barely met expectations, did not win any awards except for a best paper "nomination" and struggled for the majority of my time as a candidate. This is the minimum of what I expected would happen, and would have been devastated had I not completed my degree. Reading some previous posts, this lack of elation seems to be a common sentiment in this sub.

When people congratulate me and ask how it feels, I don't want to be a Debbie downer and say that nothing feels different. But I don't want to lie and say it feels like the weight of the world has been lifted off my soulders. How do you guys respond to the question?

Context: I'm a second year PhD doing humanities in the UK. I took 2.5 years out in the *real world* between my MA and starting my PhD.

Hey everyone. I'm looking for any advice anyone could offer around getting over my nerves around my PhD supervisor. We've been working together for over a year now (almost 2 if you count the application process) and I still get all shy and nervous around her! There's been nothing that she's done or said to make my feel particularly on edge and her feedback for me is fair and always results in my work improving. My main issue with her is her lack of availability which leads to fewer meetings than I'd like and a feeling that I have to work out a lot of things on my own (sometimes people will respond to my questions with "ask your supervisor!" and I have to say "I did and she sent me to you" ;_;). But I feel like while irritation may be warranted, this feeling of anxiety doesn't seem to have any real justification, making it difficult to address. I get nervous even sending her emails which probably makes the lack of support worse - my silence is maybe being taken for satisfaction, which it isn't.

I wouldn't go so far as to call her a super warm person, but she's perfectly polite and affable. I feel if I got to know her more on a personal level it would help hugely, but I'm not owed a friendship. Despite her faults (of which there really aren't that many compared to some horror stories I see) I know that this is my problem to sort out.

I worry that this is limiting me - I'm not pushing for opportunities and I'm not asking for as much help as I maybe need. Overall my PhD is going quite well but I have to wonder if my experience could go from good to great if only I would pull myself together.

Reading this back I do feel like a bit of a weenie who just needs to get over it but if anyone else here can relate then please let me know, even better if you were in this situation but got out of it. Thanks for any advice :)

Hi! I'm a medical doctor from South America and I'm thinking about pursuing a PhD in pharmacoeconomics , however I wanted to know if being a woman has been an issue for waiting to do the PhD later in life, as I imagine with kids and married could be more difficult. I feel the pressure to do it in my late twenties because I've gotten comments it gets more difficult as you age (and even more thinking the PhD is in the US)

Thank you for your responses

My supervisor is super strict about writing of the paper, to the point that he check each word one by one. I feel super stress about this, as each time my writing doesn't match his ideal (which isn't always consistent), i get scolded. I don't hate him for this, because I know he is trying to help me, but I feel my hate for this kind of super strict academic writing is growing, although I still love research. Can anyone give me some advice, if research in industry is less writing-intensive compared to academia?

I’m starting the work on my dissertation. I want to study the impact of macroeconomic factors on socioeconomic and political outcomes in society. I have to submit plan for my research which while studying in Russia I cannot change throughout unfortunately. I would like to study things like impact of inflation on popularity of far right parties and their policies etc. Any suggestions on possible connections I can also study?

Hi all, I've been dealing with anxieties all my life and have been getting better lately. But this final event of the public viva (already passed the private one) stresses me out so much. Imagining a big venue, with lots of people and experts, as well as friends and family all there to listen to me... this terrifies me. What if I choke? Can't speak anymore? I'm looking for kind words of encouragement :)

Career benefit aside. I recently grdaduate with a CS MSc from a very good University. I have multiple internships short and long and multiple part time is related jobs.

I currently I'm struggling between choosing to work at a couple of good offers I have to go back to FAANG as an SDE or a PhD on a topic that fascinates me enough (kind of extension of my MSc thesis). PhD is in China (Shenzhen) and I'm European.

First of all I find the idea of living in China fascinating I'm currently travelling around SEA and this area of the world is very different and very interesting, so location is on both the pros (and the cons) of the PhD since as fascinating as it is is also scary.

Now I'm not sure about how financially good of a decision the PhD is like down the line will it be the best maximize of wealth? Nor do I fully care tbh since every offer I got was always good enough.

To me the PhD sounds like a good way to experience another part of the world, continue enjoying the academic freedom that I loved during my MSc, avoid the corporate environment that more often than not I hated, grow as a person( as in be more confident in myself/decision making etc) and avoid the unnecessary seriousness(?) of the corporate world for 4-6 more years.

I fully understand that is a lot of work and this is not something I am trying to avoid.

Writing this I see my reasoning being naive/childlike but I'll still go for it, are these reasons good enough or shall I "suck it up" and go corporate?

Edit: in corporate even in FAANG I was always bored, I do see the PhD as a way to avoid that boredom since that was the case with my MSc

Edit to clarify: My area of research is not physics. Some users might think that by looking at my user name (this is a randomly generated username). My research is in STEM though.

My god, I've got one of the worst reviewers. Caution: big rant incoming.

I've submitted a paper to a conference, got 3 reviews. Two of them gave good scores and the other one was equivalent to rejection.

Let me be clear that reviewer is not bad because they rated my work for rejection, but they are bad because they rated my work for rejection for a reason of not even trying to understand it or read carefully. The amount of arrogance combined with the dumbest questions about fundamental principles and assumptions common in the area of my research as well as grammatical errors in this review drive me nuts.

At first after reading this review I was tempted to complain to editors about how poorly it is written. Some sentences in this review are not even structured correctly (missing words and punctuation), most comments don't give clear idea where the confusion is coming from. The dude dissected sentence by sentence abstract and introduction and then gave up, leaving no comments on main results section (which I doubt they even read). They complained about not understanding referenced work of other researchers and wrote comments as if it is my fault I didn't explain past results in full detail to this reviewer personally. I did use those references to address the knowledge gap, but, clearly, that is not enough for this reviewer to take it as it is, they need to have full understanding of the previous work and that is my work to explain it to them in full detail (in their opinion of course). I do not have time, energy or page limit to explain half of century worth of accumulated knowledge in this particular subfield to a person who clearly has no idea about it.

Most questions could be easily answered if the reviewer read just a little bit carefully. The most stunning comments include logic like genially asking "why do you do this?" but then in the next sentence they answer themselves "ah, you do this because..."

To give you understanding how badly written this review is: not a single word in this review contains a capital letter. Yes, this review was written as if it is a text to your bestie while you are watching Netflix and too lazy to switch to capital letters in your message.

I understand they might be not from my area of research and not understand anything that was written in this work, but why then give such a high confidence score of your own ability to judge? Or why accept work from the area you understand nothing about to review? This is Dunning-Krueger effect at its finest.

They gave me low score on the technical quality and everything else. All of this... even though other reviewers gave good scores (especially on technical quality) while providing adequate criticism and suggestions for improvement. Some of those comments I naturally don't like/disagree with, but at least they are properly, clearly written and I can address them. The other reviewers were clearly more familiar with the research area of this work and did not have questions that would require single look into my paper to answer.

I get a feeling that this awful reviewer is some first-year student and was delegated to review my work by their PI. Dear PIs, if you read this, please, read reviews of your new students to make sure they learn how to write them properly.

I know all of this sounds like I'm angry simply because this reviewer rejected my work. Or as if I'm using logic "good review = good reviewer who understands this area", "bad review = bad reviewer who does not understand this area". Trust me, that is not the case. Even my co-authors, PI and some colleagues from sisterhood labs, with whom I shared this review, said it's one of the worst reviews they've read in terms of writing quality, politeness, illogical comments and number of really stupid questions. My PI is pretty sure the editors will disregard this one.

The rebuttal with this one is going to be a doozy. Please, wish me luck and patience.

P.S. I am printing this review, making art out of it and putting it on a wall in my office space regardless if my paper is accepted or not.

Helloooo - I want to get a copy of my thesis bound in pink but I can't find anywhere is Australia that does it?? Please tell me someone else has found somewhere??

Hi everyone, this is my first time posting so please let me know if there are any rules I am not abiding by.

The plan of working on my PhD is still a long ways away, but I had some questions that I thought this group would be able to shine some light on. I am looking to write my thesis in English about poetry from my homeland. Naturally, the topic is more specific than just poetry, but that is the base of the works I will use.

I speak my mother-tongue fluently and believe that writing about its poetry would be a topic close to home. I was wondering about how one would go about things like: (1) self-translating foreign works to English, (2) what field of study this would fall under, and (3) how likely is anyone without knowledge of my culture to take me on as a mentee.

I feel as though this specific topic can't be placed in English literature, since many of the works I want to use have not been officially translated and are from Asia. I am worried that this topic will not even possible since I'm not sure there are any professors who have studied or are knowledgeable about my culture where I live.

I would appreciate any kind of advice you have. Thank you.

Edit: I live in Canada.

I joined my uni's research program for undergrad. It's about 3d reconstruction and novel view synthesis with nerf/3dgs. Me and my team of 3 people have to collect numerous different videos of objects with different lighting condition etc and run nerf/3dgs on them. As you know, researchers don't maintain the codes after their papers are accepted and thus, I have to run dockers to make them run. Also there are so many bugs so I have to read the codes and fix the bugs myself. Two other team members don't contribute at all. Now my professor is asking us to read through the code and insert custom camera position to test the novel view synthesis near the ground truth image. This means I would have to understand the abysmal codes of the researchers wrote better than themselves... She is asking me to get the PSNR/LPIPS etc but that part won't be too hard. (Btw nerfstudio doesn't work at all)

I asked my prof if this is going to be published and she told me that this project lacks novelty so it probably won't be published. She told me this project is for her to better understand these models and that's it.

I was originally interested in 3d reconstruction and novel view synthesis but this project is making me hate it. This is just a grunt work with no real novel ideas to try and eating up so much of my time. I recently talked to the professor I really wanted to work with and he told me that he will let me into his lab if I do well in his class next semester and I am worried this project, that I have no passion anymore, will waste too much of my time which would be better spent on doing well on the class....

What do you think? Should I put in 20+ hours/week and the entirety of my winter break for the project that only serves to enhance the practical knowledge of my professor with absolutely no help from teammates?

I just needed to get on here to let out some of my feelings...

Applying to postdocs and grants here. I gave my advisor over a month's notice about deadlines. Consistently followed up up to the day recommendations are due. And my advisor was aware of the timeline... Here we are with the letters not submitted on time. I trusted him because he always got things submitted, even if it's at the 11th hour, and so I trusted him again this time. I just feel so disappointed and frustrated and don't know what to do with these feelings. Sigh.

So my current condition is a chemistry final year student from a SEA country. I am currently doing research in Australia (also in chemistry) and I am enticed by the prospect of doing phd here. My biggest consideration is actually money. Here is the option:

1. If I want to work with my current major in my home country, the wages are not as big (about 500-ish AUD) compared to even the scholarship stipend in Australia.

2. Even if i were to go to a non-chem path, the wages also do not compare (maybe 800-1500 AUD if you are rlly good, can reach 2000-3000 AUD/mo but very very rare cases).

3. (most likely) Doing PhD after undergrad (next year) so maybe I will graduate at 25-26 and I will have lots of career path, esp in Australia and the starting wages even as postdoc is very good. I figured this is the optimum option considering this is the best path and possibility for me to be able to make a living because I currently have quite high GPA and research experience (the one im doing currently). Also I dont mind the stress or working long hours or whatnot because I just think that is worth the future. I have calculated and simulated my living cost here and I found out that I can save lots of money (yes even my saving per month are bigger than average freshgrad salary back in my country)

4. I dont know about working visa since that means I will have to apply for work in Australia and the company have to sponsor and I figured that with my current major, it will be hard to compete.

What do you guys think? I am leaning toward the third option but I believe that yall will have many insight and experience that I dont have when making this decision. Pls help me

Hi everyone,

I recently received a postdoc offer from a U.S. institution after completing my PhD in the U.S. as well. My home country is India and I’m weighing two options for my visa situation: continuing on the EAD route or switching to a J1 visa. Here's my dilemma:

• My EAD is valid for only 30 more days, including the 15-day Christmas holidays. If I choose this route, it’ll be a tight squeeze to complete the necessary steps. Plus, I’ll need to find accommodation in California quickly, which adds to the stress.
• The J1 route allows me to stay home while the visa is being processed. I haven’t been home for over two years and would love to visit my family. However, I’m unsure how quickly I can secure a visa interview date. My prospective professor is fine with me joining as late as April, but I’m worried about potential delays in the visa process.

I’d really appreciate your insights on the following:

1. How quickly can I expect to get a visa interview date for the J1? Are there common obstacles that could delay the process?
2. Would it be safer (albeit rushed) to stick with the EAD route, given the tight timeline?
3. What are the pros and cons of each option? J1 vs EAD? in terms of benifits ?

I’d love to hear your suggestions or experiences. Thanks in advance! 😊

This thing was my demon for two years, and I finally passed it. Computer Science at an R1 working on some rather abstract stuff, and my comprehensive was a crazy beast. Just glad it's over, and my committee is all in on further pursuing my ideas! Small win post, but at least I've guaranteed my masters degree.

so i submitted one of my grad apps last night bc the deadline is dec 1st. my app required that i upload unofficial transcripts from every institution i've gone to and earned a grade or credit. i've done a few classes over the summer at two community colleges back in 2021-2023. even though i transferred those credits over to my undergrad, i'm guessing they still wanted my unofficial transcript from those institutions. i unfortunately already submitted it and just realized my mistake today. i already sent an email to my grad program explaining my mistake and hope that they'll let me upload those documents. which, is another problem in itself cause its the weekend and i'll have to wait till mon for people to get back to me.

should i be super worried that this mistake will f up my chances of getting in? i know i should've double checked my app before submitting and even worked on it earlier but this mistake is making me anxious. any advice anyone could give me on what to expect now?

The title said itself. I'm in the Bio field, and after 3 months of Masters I don't think my wet lab skill would be suffice for PhD or just complicated Masters topic, so I really wanted to know is there another way bc my job requires a PhD to reach a decent position.