Hi Satchi,
You are not alone there... I am also heading towards end of my term in few months and I know there will be no renewal.

Surely something good will come along pretty soon! :)

Kim

In few weeks, I am heading for a conference in one of the most European countries in Europe and will do a reality check again ;).. things might have changed since my last visit.... :)

My experience tells me that as long as you look like someone coming from a different culture, you get treated differently no matter where,in Europe, America, Africa or Asia because people do not know you. People put on masks that they know works for'em until they know you. People are just people and similar to anywhere in the world, we have true friendship, bad friendship etc in the US as well... once people get to know you and you know them, you will see that we are not much different...

Having said that I cannot wait for my next "cultural difference" experience in Europe such as smashing door to my face because no one holds doors for the next person, constantly encountering friendly binge drinkers on weekends nights and hear about their lives (*even though it is okay to ignore you when they pass you in a corridor when they are not drunk) , staying for green light before crossing, suspicious looks when you (wearing casual cloth) get into a first class train by mistake and getting fined for it, being taught table manners by the hotel employees, being called "Yank" and being treated as the US foreign Secretary even if I am Canadian... it is all part of the fun and genuinely I like it :)

I have found different cultures have different ways of saying things and that is how cultures are different. Due to the fact that North America has built by immigrants and the fact that our people are coming from many nations and races, being polite and indirect (or as you described it "disingenuous and superficial") makes more sense since you do not know them and for not offending them if they are new to the culture. As time goes on, they will melt into the pot and become Americans not "this race" or "that race" with derogatory terms sometimes you hear when you watch soccer matches coming from Europe... social mobility is much easier for immigrants in the US than Europe.

The language heard via communications with someone from from the UK (or generally Europe) does usually sound arrogant, rude and snobbish to the North American ears but again due to our political correctness we smile and thank them for their time (which again may sound superficial to some European ears :)...

I personally have found the English social class system dysfunctional and confusing for most people coming from the US and Canada. Perhaps it was suitable for colonial times but certainly it is outdated for a 21st century social model.

Dear lil,

Before you start your second PhD's in the UK whilst you are doing your current PhD in your home country (which I assumed it is not the UK), you should answer this question:

How can a physical object be at two different locations at the time?*

If you can answer this questions correctly, you not only deserve the second PhD, you also will receive a fast-track Noble prize in physics even before you finish your second PhD!

Best wishes,

Kim

*) Note that based on the quantum theory, this is hypothesized and somehow shown by some spooky experiments that it is possible for some subatomic particles to be at different locations at the same time but that has not been tried on macroscales!

Couple of years ago they introduced the "by prior publication" (which we call it sandwich thesis in Canada) to my university but it did not get popular... I think the idea was something like if you have published 3 papers in journals as first author from the research you'd done through your PhD, then you could bundle them together and present it as a PhD. There are some limits to that... most importantly how do you judge the journal... can the students just publish in any journal or it should be specific journals with certain impact factor? and what if they are published? just because they are published, does it mean that they can award the student with PhD and so on... In addition for good journals in my field, the waiting time for a paper to be published can be a year or more so how would that waiting time would be better than the 6 months writing period?

I thought the British 3-4 years PhD model was short but do they want to make it shorter than this??!!

Frankly speaking I do not understand the rush for sending students out in a market that cannot absorb them. If this is a kind of "cost/benefit" analysis that university are doing to maximize profit of the student flow in-put and shorten the time they stay in, they should not admit too many students in the first place. The universities shall not be run like business.

See this post too...

Thanks for sending this TheEngineer. I recently post something similar. Most of the responses to my post was like; well you have no other choice so put her name on the paper anyhow... but I disagree. I think overall, adding some name on your paper is dishonest as the author of this article rightly said is form of "stealing authorship". We do not live in an ideal world but if we do not identify freaks, we may end up being one of them and that's something to worry about.

I am glad this issue is making it into mainstream media as well. Kim.

In my university, for masters you need to take 8~10 graduate courses above bachelor degree + 1 seminar course + a thesis. Therefore you at least spend 2 years to complete all courses. Most people finish masters between 2.5 to 3 years. I have seen some people finishing in 2 years but not many.
For PhD: if you have masters with accredited 10 graduate courses, then you only need 2 additional courses (total of 10~12 graduate courses) + another seminar course + a thesis. If you do not have masters, then you must take all needed graduate courses (10 to 12). PhD usually takes between 3 to 4 years if you already have a masters and 4 to 5 years if you do not have a masters. Most people get masters and then go for PhD so on average a masters and a PhD is between 6 to 7 years total. There are exceptions to this rule but there are very rare.

@Dunham and catalinbond
Reading your last post seems that none of us can find an answer to the dilemma. But no worries :) Your train of thoughts passes through the same stations as mine.
One day I think of I should just quit the postdoc thing and find myself a "real" job , next day I am excited about my research being cited and say to myself, I will make it to the top of the ivory tower if I hang out few more years and if I can publish more. Sometimes I think I should have left the university with a bachelor degree many years ago! and at the most I could have got a professional masters like an MBA (1 to 2 years) but the next day, I see MBA type people fooling themselves of "the masterty thing" where in fact they are more of admins and they constantly complain about stress of their career, then I am glad I did my PhD... It is a confusing world living in an ivory tower :)

Thanks holyshield... a very good idea! I never thought of it this way! :)

@TreeofLife: Though most of the things you are mentioning are your personal observations so it is hard to argue but there are few things I can add based on my personal experience.
1) Most of the Europeans and uk'ers when they cross the big pond they see only big cities, NYC, Chicago, NJ, Toronto, Montreal, LA, SF and Vancouver. Although generally speaking life in the US (and Canada) looks more or less the same to many Europeans but people in bigger cities tend to spend their money differently (more trendy stuff, more fashion etc). In the mainland things are a bit different and we spend our money differently (i.e. less fashion clothing and less brand drinks). 2) In the Canadian mainland winters lasts 7~8 months and temperature can go down to -40°C and we have 230 days/nights below zero temperature. A $500 dollars car would not even start for most of the year so you would need a reliable car. 3) For the same reason you only can be exposed to extreme cold for 10~15 minutes before frost bites appear on your skin, then you say to hell with public transportation, that's why you only see poor and kids in buses.

Although I have to say that in order to have an economized life style like you have in the UK, you have to grow up in one, the environment must be more pleasant and the distances must be more manageable than what you see as inter-state or city distances for most of the US and Canada area.

You are not alone. I am also towards the end of my second postdoc and I am not sure which direction I should take next. Getting a tenure track position is ideal but rarely comes true. My university has recently hired a new assistant professor and he also has 3-4 years of postdocs after his PhD. When I asked how he got the job, he said he'd applied over 100 positions and finally this came along. That's insane to me. On the other hand, I am not sure if going back to "real world" is always a good solution as now we have tasted the forbidden fruit, it is just much more difficult to be happy with a daily dose of goddamn oatmeal for breakfast everyday. I know some of my former PhD friends who ended up working for industry and they are extremely bored with the work. One of the lucky ones who is currently doing an industrial R&D for a big Pharma company did some excellent postdocs at big name university on top research topics. He jokingly sums up his new industrial R&D job as improving adsorption of a bum rash cream on babies dippers (apparently he is not lying and that's what he really does for the research). The rest of my former PhD student friends that gone to industry are simply developing MS excel spreadsheets!

The thing is unlike European countries that people can get a range of lifestyles, there is only two types of life styles that you can get in North America, you either are super-rich (1%ers which are not the topic of this conversation) or the rest... 99%ers. The high standard of living you are indicating is the way of life here and you cannot downgrade it because there is no alternative. It is actually much more expensive to live European style here as compare to super-sized culture we have. In my city the average house area is 2300~2500 sq.ft and smaller houses that are closer to European taste are usually older but much more expensive because they are located in older inner city rings. Cars are "must to have" because the public transportation is not anything near what you have in Europe. So people do not have any other options but to follow the current life-style which may seem shocking to European eyes.

I cannot comment on the construction issue but I can tell you that the condition you described is pretty much universal during PhD studies. If you do not like your office try to use your home or library for your study and writing and go to the university when is needed.