PI seeks postdoc
Every PI wants only the most brilliant, creative and motivated trainees that will put in insane levels of effort to advance the lab agenda. We know this because it is how they write their postdoc...
View ArticleDon't get too big for your britches, jr faculty: trainee edition
As you know I am not a super big fan of NIH grant review sentiments which boil down to "tut, tut, Dr. Junior Faculty, let's not get too big for your britches. Try this small starter award and see how...
View ArticleAnother day, another report on the postdocalypse
As mentioned in Science, a new report from the US Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have deduced we have a problem with too many PhDs and not enough of the jobs that they want. The...
View ArticleDon’t be a jerk when asking for a meeting
A recent twitt cued a thought. whenever people ask me to meet them and don’t tell me why, I spend the next hours until the meeting stressing that I’m somehow in trouble despite being an adult — itati...
View ArticleLab Size, take 3
I was struck by a couple of tweets. The first seems to find it worthy of remark that staff on a grant are expensive. Including a full-time postdoc on this grant. OMG, fringe rates are so high!! I've...
View ArticleFirst Generation
It can be difficult to be the first person in your family to do something when it comes to careers and training for them. There are always going to be aspects of that career, or training, that are...
View ArticleIncoherent rambling about the “need” for supposed trainees and the alternative
A certain someone has taken it upon himself to lampoon certain types of solicitations issued by a lab head for postdocs and occasionally for graduate students, when they appear on Twitter. The...
View ArticleRaging at the descriptive as if it is prescriptive
A quick google search turns up this definition of prescriptive: “relating to the imposition or enforcement of a rule or method.” Another one brings up this definition, and refinement, for descriptive:...
View ArticleAsked and Answered
A tweet in response to a question I asked I never thought about it when I was a starting postdoc.But eventually I came to think thata grad student's job was to learn how to answer questions, and a...
View ArticleGood Mentoring
One of the recurring discussions / rants in academic circles is the crediting of good mentoring to the Professor. I’m not going to tag the stimulus of the day because it generalizes and because I have...
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