Hello PhD

Sometimes, your humble HelloPhD hosts forget how narrow our experience has been in graduate education. We’re both biomedical PhDs, and while we trained in different departments, there was a significant amount of overlap.

For us, a PhD meant classes, comprehensive exams, rotations, lab meetings, experiments, seminars, and so on.

While those experiences were common across biomedical programs, the similarity starts to fade when discussing other bench-sciences like chemistry, or even patient-focused fields like epidemiology.

If those adjacent fields reveal unique and instructive differences, how much more exciting to explore the distant reaches of the PhD universe – the Humanities PhD!

Alexandra Macdonald, Historian and PhD Candidate

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This week, Josh sits down with Alexandra Macdonald, a Historian and PhD candidate at The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Alexandra’s dissertation, provisionally titled “The Social Life of Time in the Anglo-Atlantic World, 1660-1830,” takes her to museums and university collections around the world to study art and materials and what they can tell us about the people who made them.

We hear more about Alexandra’s fascinating research, but also about how she’s working to improve the training experience for other PhDs.

Humanities PhDs can sometimes be isolating – the candidate may travel for months at a time, and be the only person in their department working on a particular question. That often means that they don’t receive guidance in the skills they’ll need to progress. Project management, professional networking, writing a book chapter, and myriad other skills are left untaught, and the student either sinks or swims.

Alexandra is working to change that. She recently launched a ‘monthly check-in’ group where students can gather to share their experiences and provide support to keep their projects on track. If you’d like to participate, you can find her on Twitter, Instagram, or on her website: alexandrammacdonald.com!

Sarah had achieved her dream. With a PhD in Physics, she had accepted a new position as a Theoretical Physicist.

But as the months wore on, she started to feel overwhelmed and depressed. She’d done well in school and enjoyed her classes – why couldn’t she focus on her work?

Sean graduated with honors from his engineering program. But after six months on the job as a field representative for a machine company, he was fired.

He had been an excellent student, and excelled in class with top grades and praise from his professors. In the field, he had none of that feedback, and his motivation plummeted. He blamed himself for the failure, but he couldn’t understand how all his success had collapsed so quickly.

Passion and Purpose

Sarah and Sean are just two examples of what happens every day in academia. Bright, well trained students graduate to find all of that training led to a career that didn’t live up to their expectations.

Or even more commonly, they may like aspects of the job, but other factors weigh them down. The research is interesting, but they clash with the PI, or lose motivation when the experiments don’t work.

This week, we talk with psychologist and career expert Marlys Hanson. Her book PASSION AND PURPOSE: How to identify and leverage the powerful patterns that shape your work/life describes an evidence-based approach for discovering your unique “Motivated Abilities.”

With that data in hand, you’ll have the confidence to choose your next opportunity and maximize your happiness and productivity.

System for Identifying Motivated Abilities (SIMA)

You may have taken a Meyers-Briggs test, or some other psychometric analysis aimed at describing your personality traits or interests that could improve your career.

But, Ms. Hanson points out, those are preference-based tests, and our biases can creep into our choices and we actually select answers that don’t describe us well.

“Our preferences are not clean evidence,” she says. “They’re so impacted by our biases. Their reliability and validity are not very high, and they’re not very effective in making informed career decisions.”

The System for Identifying Motivated Abilities, on the other hand, is an “Evidence Based Assessment.” The process starts when you list achievements from your childhood onward.

You choose eight such examples – things that you enjoyed doing and thought you did well – and describe each event in as much detail as possible.

How did you get involved? What did you actually do step-by-step? What were you proud of after you accomplished this task?

Then, you or your SIMA analyst can go through those stories looking for patterns – evidence of your past successes and how you achieved your goals.

Building a Profile

Those bits of evidence get sorted into five categories that make up your Motivational Profile.

* Motivated Abilities – which of your skills do you frequently use when you’re happily working?* Subject Matter – What topics inspire you? Do you work with numbers or animals or abstract concepts?* Circumstances – How do you get involved in a project? Do you like to be asked or come up with the idea yourself? Do you prefer a deadline or an open ended engagement?

If you’re a grad student who hasn’t thought about leaving your PhD program at least once, you might not have a pulse. When experiments fail, grants are rejected, or you get reprimanded by the PI, it’s often comforting to remember that all of this suffering is self-imposed and you could simply leave the University and start a book shop somewhere.

For most students, that moment passes and they move on with their training and career. But sometimes, the moment doesn’t pass, and students begin to ask more fundamental questions.

Asking the Hard Questions

Some students begin to examine their initial motivations for enrolling. Maybe they did well in college and a PhD seemed like a logical next-step. Or they really wanted to improve human health by making incredible discoveries in the lab. Only years later do they realize that the incremental improvements of biomedical research can’t satisfy their grander visions.

Whatever the reason, when a student seriously stares down the prospect of leaving the PhD behind, it can shake them to the core.

“Who am I?” they might wonder when the self-concepts of ‘scientist’ or ‘Doctor’ begin to fade.

“If I don’t get this degree, will I ever find a job?” “What will people think of me?” Sometimes these practical considerations are just as painful.

In Their Own Words

This week on the show, we hear from two listeners who are considering these very questions. Both are graduate students, at different points in their training, that are seriously considering stepping off of the academic track and into something new.

Ben just started grad school, but is having second thoughts. He writes:

Listening to your show has helped me realize that uncertainty and anxiety is very normal among graduate students, but I wanted to get your advice regarding my situation and PhD career pathways in general. I am concerned that I jumped into this lab prematurely, and that I would enjoy an engineering position doing more day-to-day problem-solving work a lot more.Do you think it makes sense to stay put in my lab/position if I don’t enjoy the lab work much and find it hard to stay motivated, just because I am hopeful that an R&D-type position will be a good fit for me long-term?

And “Bee”, a fourth year who has had many prior academic successes, writes:

The past two-pandemic years made me reassess whether I was living urgently for the right path or simply living the path that was logical. In my fourth year as a PhD candidate, I decided that following my mission in science did not necessarily mean putting my name on a publication, having a stellar h-index or countless citations. Living for those metrics did not translate my passion for science or my capacity and desire to impact people’s lives. It is not easy to come to this decision and I’ve been trying to not be overwhelmed by what others may think as a failure. I’m trying to focus on everything this difficult learning time of the past four years have taught me and what could be the best future direction outside of academia. However, it is really tough to envision anything, or even start a job research. What kind of positions to look for with my job skills?

We have plenty of advice, but more importantly, a lot of questions that will help these students make their difficult decisions.

Even as a child, Alexandra wanted to study space. She had a Bachelor’s degree in physics from Cambridge University, so she seemed like the perfect candidate to for a PhD program.

But after graduation, she didn’t feel ready. She’d need a Master’s degree first, but money was tight and her student visa had run out.

She found a job prospect at a particle accelerator lab, but was turned down because they wanted more programming experience. So she packed her bags and headed home.

Her goal remained the same – to study astrophysics and earn a PhD. But due to circumstances, her plans had to change.

This week, we hear Alexandra’s journey in her own words. It’s a powerful story because so many of us will find our own experience in the obstacles she had to overcome: impostor syndrome, tight finances, moving and finding a job with a spouse, PIs that ignore your emails, balancing work with family, and so much more.

What’s unique about her story is not that she faced so many obstacles, but that each and every time she picked up and continued on. She always made a backup plan, and sometimes her backup plans had their own backup plans.

She offers some helpful advice to other PhD students and those who aspire to that path. Her experience with networking, skill-building jobs, and getting the inside scoop from current graduate students will be helpful to anyone applying this year or in the future.

Here are a few of the HelloPhD episodes she mentions in the interview:

064: A PhD Internship Will Help You Get a Job

125. Demystifying the Research Institute

135. The Science Training Toolbox with Dr. Andres De Los Reyes.

137. Tools for Finding a Research Mentor

And if you want to support her research, consider downloading the Einstein@Home app to share your compute power in the search for pulsars! If your computer helps uncover a new pulsar, you’ll receive a signed certificate of your discovery!

If YOU have a great graduate-school story, or advice for your fellow travelers, why not email us and join the conversation?

It’s no secret that a lot of scientific conversation happens on Twitter. It’s a great place to share your research, keep up with trends, and connect with collaborators.

But many grad students and postdocs have questions.

Is it okay to promote my own work?

Can I just retweet other scientists, or do I have to write my own material?

Which topics can I write about, and what should I avoid?

Well, we’re here to help. Twitter can have wonderful benefits for your career and your research, but there are certainly pitfalls. Here’s a step-by-step guide to getting started on Academic Twitter.

Twitter can do wonders for your research career. In fact, we shared five ways scientists SHOULD be using Twitter to share their research, connect with colleagues, and keep up on the latest literature.

But even if you know the benefits of Science Twitter, some researchers may feel hesitant to get started.

Most researchers have experience with social media, but it’s sometimes hard to know how to separate the ‘personal’ from the ‘professional.’

That’s where Sarah Mojarad’s Medium post picks up. It’s called “A Beginner’s Guide to Joining Academic Twitter”, and it tells you everything you need to know to set up an account and send your first tweet.

We walk through Sarah’s advice for setting up an account, step-by-step. She covers everything from choosing a user name, to taking a professional-looking photo, to writing a useful bio.

But her advice goes beyond the basics. She encourages scientists to create some ‘personal rules’ that will guide how they tweet and retweet. Simple rules like “Only retweet high quality posts” and “Limit politics” can help new users check themselves before they hit ‘submit’.

And it’s rules like these that keep your Academic Twitter account separate from your other social media expressions. This is a place to discuss your work and advance your career, not to post photos of your dog or share your love of Taylor Swift.

If you follow the article step-by-step, you’ll be up and running with a Science Twitter account in no time. And we hope you’ll follow us and send a note to @hellophd! See you in the Twittersphere!

Turning over the last page of the calendar seems to naturally invite some reflection on the previous 365 days. When you look back at 2021, what went well? And what do you wish you could change in the coming year?

This week, we take the opportunity to reflect back much farther – to our days in graduate and postdoctoral training!  With years of hindsight, we offer advice and perspective to the scientists we were, and devise some resolutions you can adopt in your scientific training.

Grad School Resolutions

 1.  Remember that training is temporary

When you’re ‘on the inside,’ graduate training can seem like an endless tunnel – the light at the end just a distant pin-prick.  For many, the daily stress of lab life closes in and we begin to feel trapped and hopeless.  This year, pause to consider that your training is just a brief step in your scientific career, and that people do finish! We promise!

2. Be mindful of your unique skills and motivations

Many students wait to think about a suitable career until they have a degree in their hands and a PI’s foot on their backside.  We recommend taking stock of your natural motivation and skill patterns early AND often.

It can be as simple as reflecting at the end of the day or on a Friday afternoon.  What did you accomplish this week? Which activities left you feeling energized?  Which left you drained? When did you lose track of time because you were engrossed in the task? Jot each item in a notebook or on a post-it and save them.

After a few months, you’ll have a detailed list of skills and activities you like to use and those you’d like to avoid.  These patterns can persist over a lifetime, so spend some time examining the notes and identifying the common themes.  That way, when you’re reading job postings, you’ll know exactly which positions fit your personality.

3. Push beyond your comfort zone

Starting a graduate program often means moving to a new town, meeting hundreds of new people, and dropping the support networks you enjoyed in college. That makes many introverted science-types turn further inward as we try to avoid the stress of new situations.

But remember that many of the people you meet feel exactly the same way.  Push yourself to engage, and you’ll be rewarded with new friends and colleagues that will last a lifetime.  Graduate training is full of never-to-be-repeated opportunities if you’re willing to step up and take them.

4. Make science fun again #MSFA

Don’t forget that you chose a career in science because science is amazing.  Maybe it fascinated you as a child, but we quickly lose that child-like curiosity the moment Figure 4 of our paper is due.

Every once in awhile, it’s okay to let loose and try an experiment because you think it’s fun, or you just can’t predict how it will turn out. This will not only stoke your love of science, it may lead to your next line of inquiry.

5. Find emotional support before you think you need it

Graduate training may be one of the most stressful periods of your life.  That’s not unusual. But too many of us try to ‘power through’ on our own.  Anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and worse are the rewards.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.  Your mental health is as vitally important as your physical health.  If eating right and going to the gym are admirable,

This week, we dive head-first into the mailbag to answer listener questions about grad school readiness, teaching experience, and more!

Just Finished!

Our first missive comes from Kaylee, who recently graduated!

I just wanted to send an email to thank you for all of the hard work you have put into creating Hello PhD over the years. I can’t express in words how much this podcast has meant to me. It has helped me through supervisor problems, lab isolation, career path questions, and so many other graduate school struggles. I think the biggest impact has been on helping me feel less alone and showing me that the difficulties I have experienced are common for many graduate students. One of the biggest ways that Hello PhD has helped me has been in making me reevaluate the default of staying in academia. In fact, I just received job offers to move to a position as an R&D scientist in the biotechnology industry, which I will be starting in the new year! Since I may not listen to Hello PhD as religiously in the future, I just wanted to let you both know now how much this podcast has helped me survive graduate school.

As you can imagine, we are over-the-moon excited for Kaylee, and so proud of what she’s accomplished. She went the extra mile to share her experience with other listeners, and we wish her the best in her new career!

Just Beginning!

Our next email comes from Judith, who is in her senior year of a bachelor’s degree, and wonders whether she’s ready to apply to grad school this year.

Her fall research experience was cut short by a busy PI, and one of her previous lab rotations was virtual due to COVID. She has some high-school research experience, but she’s wondering whether those activities, and a challenge with letters of recommendation, will be enough to get into a graduate program.

At this point I am not even sure if I should apply to grad school this year. I had three options after graduation: grad school, postbacs that the NIH funds (PREP), and lastly finding a job as a lab technician for one or two years until I apply to grad school again.I desperately decided to reach out because anything that could go wrong with my applications, has gone wrong… I would appreciate your advice on what my next steps should be.

We emphasize the importance of those in-depth research experiences – not just because the admissions committee expects to see them – but also because it gives the student a better sense that research will be a fulfilling career. It’s a mistake to dive into the icy waters of graduate school before you’ve dipped your toe in. We’ve been there and done that!

Those Who Can, Teach

Last up, Will poses a unique question about teaching at the college level, and what kind of experience is necessary to pass the torch to an upcoming generation of students.

In the past year, I recently graduated with a Bachelor’s in Nursing, and decided to jump straight back into the fire and am currently a year 1 graduate student pursuing a PhD in Nursing Science. I have a job as a GA [graduate assistant], however I also decided to work part time as a nurse in the hospital. I would be much happier only working as a GA and being able to dedicate more time to my science, but my problem is this:Would it make me a fraud to never have practiced directly in an area that I am going to train others to be in someday? My goal is to be faculty at a research university, with a large focus on research, but I imagine part of that will still include teaching undergrads planning to work in the field.

It’s inevitable.  At some point in your research career, you’re going to get that sinking feeling.

Your experiments will all fail, your PI will get on your case about finishing that paper, and your graduation date will drift maddeningly out of reach.

So what can you do when your research starts to drag you down?

Coming Up for Air

This week on the show, we share some practical advice from the Academic Mental Health Collective on ways graduate students can get going when the going gets tough.

Stress, anxiety, and depression are inevitable in your graduate training. At least they were for us!

At the same time, these painful emotions can be a valuable signal that it’s time to step back, take stock of your situation, and ask for help.  There are resources on, and off, campus to help you through the hard times.

By thinking ahead, you’ll meet your training challenges with a tactical plan and a team of supporters to help you through. It does get better, we promise!

The Check is in the Mail

Science in the News brings us the story of a New York court’s $15 million judgement against Sci Hub, the online research paper pirate ship.  We explore the legal and moral implications of the action, and make bold predictions about the future of scientific publishing.

If you’re interested in the history of academic publishing and how we got into this quagmire in the first place, we highly recommend Stephen Buranyi’s Guardian piece titled: Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?

We also celebrate the beginning of summer by breaking our IPA fast. We’re drinking the Nectar IPA from Humboldt Brewing Company. This golden beauty has a sweet start and a bitter finish, sort of like my first marriage!*

(*Yes, this is a total lie, but the setup was perfect and impossible to resist.  Sort of like my first marriage!**)

(**Okay, I’m done.)

The CACTUS Global Mental Health Survey asked valuable questions about stress, performance, and career goals for scientists.

The data revealed plenty of room for improvement, as researchers struggle with harassment, work-life balance, and limited pay.

But the study’s authors also asked more open-ended questions:

Do you have any suggestions for organizations within academia or other related stakeholders on what they can do to ensure a great work environment for researchers?

The received 5,434 ideas from the 13,000 survey respondents.

This week, we’re joined once again by Andrea Hayward, Senior Associate for Global Community Engagement at Cactus Communications.

We unpack the themes she uncovered from those responses, and identify the many ways in which Academia can foster a more supportive research environment.

Address Bullying and Harassment

Andrea Hayward, Sr. Associate for Global Community Engagement at Cactus Communications

The most prominent theme from survey responses was to implement measures to promote equality and prevent harassment, discrimination, and bullying.

For example, one respondent wrote:

Take people seriously. I experienced harassment and bullying and I was brushed off and not listened to until it got severe. Then the department said “Why didn’t you say anything?” when I had been the entire time. What seems inconsequential to some may be harmful to others. Reputation is too important to some programs.PhD student, Europe

Some researchers talked about sexual harassment that is normalized or explained away. Others described differential treatment or favoritism based on race.

Whatever their experiences, we know that departmental policies regarding bullying and harassment are rare, and consequences for this type of behavior are practically non-existant.

To improve the work environment, Universities should establish written guidelines around inappropriate behavior, and enforce them even when it’s inconvenient.

Improve Job Security and Pay

Wanting a bigger paycheck is not unusual in the working world, but scientists experience unique challenges. Aside from lower pay in academia, they also face contract terms that make their lives unpredictable.

“Fixed-Term Contracts” are just what they sound like – a scientist is hired to work for a certain number of months or years, and then they’re done. Contrast that with most other careers where you are hired to work until you decide to move on.

And what’s truly unusual about fixed term contracts is that they might cover only 8-12 months. After that short period, the funding dries up.

Setting aside the fact that it may be impossible to complete a publishable body of research in 8 months, these short contracts add considerable stress to postdocs and technicians who are supporting themselves and their families. They may have a 12-month lease, but an 8-month job!

Foster a Work-Life Balance

Another common theme was a call for better work-life balance. Students, postdocs, and staff wanted their departments to recognize that 80-hour work weeks take a toll on mental and physical health.

Most academics are overwhelmed, even the ones who are successful in terms of being productive researchers, busy teachers and efficient administrators. But, they seem like the norm and everyone who struggles is not, and this needs to be disrupted and changed.Research fellow/post-doctoral researcher, Africa.

I’m worried about sexism in academia in general and this might make me want to leave after finishing my PhD, even though my current work environment is good.PhD scholar, Europe

It’s not about free time, it’s a lack of free energy. Who can do hobbies when you’re physically, mentally, and emotionally drained?Lecturer, North America

Would it surprise you to hear that researchers and scientists around the globe are stressed out? Long hours, competitive labs, and unpredictable funding are just a few of the factors that contribute poor mental health among academics.

Graduate students tend to suffer the most, as they don’t receive the same support as those more advanced in their careers.

This week on the show, we delve into data collected by the Cactus Foundation from their 2020 Mental Health Survey Report.

Andrea Hayward, Sr. Associate for Global Community Engagement at Cactus Communications

We’re joined by Andrea Hayward, Senior Associate for Global Community Engagement at Cactus Communications. She’s a member of the Cactus team who surveyed 13,000 researchers from all career stages around the globe.

The survey report is rich with nuanced data on how scientists are feeling at work, and how that breaks down by career stage and region of the world.

For example, when asked “In the last month, how often have you felt overwhelmed by your situation at work?”, 38% of respondents said they felt overwhelmed ‘fairly often’ or ‘very often’

Thirty-one percent say they’re working more than 50 hours a week, and 13% report working more than 60 hours a week.

A third didn’t believe their organization had strict policies around discrimination, bullying and harassment, and reports of discrimination and harassment were common. This was particularly true among women, people of color, and those identifying as LGBTQ.

But the news was not all bad – 77% agreed or strongly agreed that their work gives them a sense of fulfillment. Sixty percent look forward to their work and the creative challenges each day.

We discuss these topics, and so much more. How do academics view their job prospects? When they feel overwhelmed, are they comfortable asking for help? How many suffer feelings of impostor syndrome?

To learn more, check out the CACTUS Mental Health Survey page, or follow them on Twitter.

They also have a powerful 4-part video series following researchers as they deal with mental health issues called “Some Days Are Better Than Others”.