3 ms·

You are right to be afraid. Get your PhD. first, then do what you want and try to do honest research if you still feel like it. It's like that in every field, a

by rscho 6y ago

You are right to be afraid. Get your PhD. first, then do what you want and try to do honest research if you still feel like it. It's like that in every field, apparently. I've been doing medical research for 10 years and I have yet to meet a honest professor. But with time, I got more independent and while I still have to put up with professoral bullshit I now also can conduct honest and independent projects from time to time.

jjjjjj__ 6y ago
Thank you for those kind words. I really needed it. A honest person to talk too. You can imagine how much of a shock it is to my believe system to come from literally other side of the world, in hope of doing genuine research, and turns out, it is based on lies.
- codezero 6y ago
  I ended up dropping out of graduate school, but the advice I was given before entering was this: Choose your advisor, not your area of focus. Your advisor single-handedly decides how smoothly your PhD will go, and once you have your PhD, you can decide where your career goes. Obviously, area of focus does determine a bit of your future, but within that area, optimize for a helpful advisor. Also, I am sure your university has resources, and ways you could report this behavior, but it's often very difficult to unseat/challenge university faculty, so I totally understand an unwillingness to act. I agree with the other commenter: finish what you started, get out, and focus on doing good work.
  - dijksterhuis 6y ago
    > Choose your advisor, not your area of focus. Absolutely this. Worked on my master's dissertation with my initial supervisor. He went off to try and find funding for a year or two to get me to come back for PhD. Turned up, he passed me an ACM magazine article and asked me to have a look and see if anything stuck. Got hooked. He knows I like weird and trippy stuff ;) I'm in a bit of rubbish situation as he left his position here for greener pastures. Totally fair decision on his part from what I've gathered of the back story Now supervised by someone else and it's just not the same. Have to go over old ground quite often. So yeah, choose your supervisor wisely. If they "get you" then they'll get what you're interested in. Then they'll be able to work with you find an interesting area to study.
cycomanic 6y ago
I have to comment on this. I strongly disagree with the assertion that all professors are dishonest. In my experience the vast majority of academics are honest to a fault (much more so than in many other industries). I acknowledge that there is a problem, there is a percentage of professors which are abusive, dishonest... The problem is like in many other areas those guys (and it is mostly main) often raise to the top. The other issue is that the way academia is set up (and there are some good reasons for it, e.g. academic freedom) , it's very difficult to detect. You almost always only hear rumors and its very difficult to act on the rumors, especially if nobody wants to come forward (which is a problem) and the rumors are from different institutions. Another aspect to this is, that there will often be some conflict/disagreement between PhD student and supervisor. This can be for when to finish, when, where and what to publish... That does not always mean there is abuse of power, it's mostly professional disagreements similar to disagreements between an engineer and their manager.
- rscho 6y ago
  We must navigate very different fields then , because what I'm seeing cannot be "professional disagreement" mistaken for something else. But even so, this is a sterile debate. What is important is that our academic system selects for bad actors in all fields through the "publish or perish" motto. In my field at least, dedication only will rarely propell you to full professorship, because you are competing with those who are dedicated to both research and academic misconduct. Noone becomes important by being nice. A second and important downside specific to medicine is that most academics also do clinical work. Now what do you think happens when the guys running the clinics are hiding in their office most of the time to write papers? Lack of supervision of juniors, in addition to the fact that hiding in your office often does not make you the best clinician. What's truly sad is that people will often push for being cared for by the big fish professors when it's actually often the worst choice they have.

by rscho 6y ago

jjjjjj__ 6y ago

Thank you for those kind words. I really needed it. A honest person to talk too. You can imagine how much of a shock it is to my believe system to come from literally other side of the world, in hope of doing genuine research, and turns out, it is based on lies.

codezero 6y ago
I ended up dropping out of graduate school, but the advice I was given before entering was this: Choose your advisor, not your area of focus. Your advisor single-handedly decides how smoothly your PhD will go, and once you have your PhD, you can decide where your career goes. Obviously, area of focus does determine a bit of your future, but within that area, optimize for a helpful advisor. Also, I am sure your university has resources, and ways you could report this behavior, but it's often very difficult to unseat/challenge university faculty, so I totally understand an unwillingness to act. I agree with the other commenter: finish what you started, get out, and focus on doing good work.
- dijksterhuis 6y ago
  > Choose your advisor, not your area of focus. Absolutely this. Worked on my master's dissertation with my initial supervisor. He went off to try and find funding for a year or two to get me to come back for PhD. Turned up, he passed me an ACM magazine article and asked me to have a look and see if anything stuck. Got hooked. He knows I like weird and trippy stuff ;) I'm in a bit of rubbish situation as he left his position here for greener pastures. Totally fair decision on his part from what I've gathered of the back story Now supervised by someone else and it's just not the same. Have to go over old ground quite often. So yeah, choose your supervisor wisely. If they "get you" then they'll get what you're interested in. Then they'll be able to work with you find an interesting area to study.

cycomanic 6y ago

I have to comment on this. I strongly disagree with the assertion that all professors are dishonest. In my experience the vast majority of academics are honest to a fault (much more so than in many other industries). I acknowledge that there is a problem, there is a percentage of professors which are abusive, dishonest... The problem is like in many other areas those guys (and it is mostly main) often raise to the top. The other issue is that the way academia is set up (and there are some good reasons for it, e.g. academic freedom) , it's very difficult to detect. You almost always only hear rumors and its very difficult to act on the rumors, especially if nobody wants to come forward (which is a problem) and the rumors are from different institutions. Another aspect to this is, that there will often be some conflict/disagreement between PhD student and supervisor. This can be for when to finish, when, where and what to publish... That does not always mean there is abuse of power, it's mostly professional disagreements similar to disagreements between an engineer and their manager.

rscho 6y ago
We must navigate very different fields then , because what I'm seeing cannot be "professional disagreement" mistaken for something else. But even so, this is a sterile debate. What is important is that our academic system selects for bad actors in all fields through the "publish or perish" motto. In my field at least, dedication only will rarely propell you to full professorship, because you are competing with those who are dedicated to both research and academic misconduct. Noone becomes important by being nice. A second and important downside specific to medicine is that most academics also do clinical work. Now what do you think happens when the guys running the clinics are hiding in their office most of the time to write papers? Lack of supervision of juniors, in addition to the fact that hiding in your office often does not make you the best clinician. What's truly sad is that people will often push for being cared for by the big fish professors when it's actually often the worst choice they have.