3 ms·

This would be interesting to get some more context on - were you dishonorably discharged because you were critical of what was going on in your lab? I’m not su

This would be interesting to get some more context on - were you dishonorably discharged because you were critical of what was going on in your lab? I’m not sure what you’re saying about the masters, you had that already or your experience + discharge was turned into a masters diploma?

throwaway4220 4y ago
Basically I started a PhD, and told myself if I don't submit anything to publish anything in a year, I'm gonna quit. I found I just don't have the discipline and self-motivation for a PhD. I had already taken a year of classes so I qualified for the MS. I was only joking about the "dishonorably discharged" - that's just how I felt not being able to cut it.
- dotnet00 4y ago
  As someone doing a PhD right now, I think not having something to publish within a year isn't all too unreasonable. After transferring from masters to PhD, it has still taken a little over a year for my collaboration with my advisors and other PhDs to mature enough to result in several publications happening roughly around the same time. I did initially have someone scare me into thinking that if I didn't publish even something like a literature review within my first year, I wouldn't be taken seriously. But that turned out to not really apply.
  - throwaway4220 4y ago
    No absolutely, it really was a challenge I gave myself and I failed. Several of my classmates didn't publish until their fourth year or so. But I saw how much work they put in, how organized and passionate they were, and felt like i was just a moth in the lighting section of a hardware store just going towards the next brightest thing. I finally picked a lab and project under a postdoc (who took 6 years to finish his PhD, and was coming upon his tenth year of being a postdoc which should have been a huge red flag). I did about 6 months of reading, some microscope work (was a dev biology lab, another huge red flag given I was basically under the engineering dept). I would come in late night when the lab was free, and felt like I was working hard, but really I had no direction. When I realized 6 months out that I basically knew nothing, had no goals/interesting ideas, I panicked a bit. I went home for a week to ruminate. My dad actually told me something (I thought at the time) prophetic: I should be giving my school/academic institution a good name, not the other way around. I realized there's no way I could live up to that standard, but I could see people in my class definitely do that (Impostor syndrome? probably, but I'd add laziness to it). I basically then told myself: publish something in one year, or apply to medical school which I was slowly starting to get interested in. PhDs (esp in biology/chem/physics) are a different breed in my eyes, and get lots of respect. I wish you the very best!

throwaway4220 4y ago

Basically I started a PhD, and told myself if I don't submit anything to publish anything in a year, I'm gonna quit. I found I just don't have the discipline and self-motivation for a PhD. I had already taken a year of classes so I qualified for the MS. I was only joking about the "dishonorably discharged" - that's just how I felt not being able to cut it.

dotnet00 4y ago
As someone doing a PhD right now, I think not having something to publish within a year isn't all too unreasonable. After transferring from masters to PhD, it has still taken a little over a year for my collaboration with my advisors and other PhDs to mature enough to result in several publications happening roughly around the same time. I did initially have someone scare me into thinking that if I didn't publish even something like a literature review within my first year, I wouldn't be taken seriously. But that turned out to not really apply.
- throwaway4220 4y ago
  No absolutely, it really was a challenge I gave myself and I failed. Several of my classmates didn't publish until their fourth year or so. But I saw how much work they put in, how organized and passionate they were, and felt like i was just a moth in the lighting section of a hardware store just going towards the next brightest thing. I finally picked a lab and project under a postdoc (who took 6 years to finish his PhD, and was coming upon his tenth year of being a postdoc which should have been a huge red flag). I did about 6 months of reading, some microscope work (was a dev biology lab, another huge red flag given I was basically under the engineering dept). I would come in late night when the lab was free, and felt like I was working hard, but really I had no direction. When I realized 6 months out that I basically knew nothing, had no goals/interesting ideas, I panicked a bit. I went home for a week to ruminate. My dad actually told me something (I thought at the time) prophetic: I should be giving my school/academic institution a good name, not the other way around. I realized there's no way I could live up to that standard, but I could see people in my class definitely do that (Impostor syndrome? probably, but I'd add laziness to it). I basically then told myself: publish something in one year, or apply to medical school which I was slowly starting to get interested in. PhDs (esp in biology/chem/physics) are a different breed in my eyes, and get lots of respect. I wish you the very best!