Overview of pm133 on PostgraduateForum.com

Overview of pm133

Signup date: 08 Jan 2016 at 12:02am

Last login: 30 Mar 2021 at 8:40pm

Post count: 1246

Recent Posts

struggling with my PhD advisor

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Yes, I have to be honest, at this point I would be recording emails and recording all conversations to build up evidence and then going for a full scale complaint to the highest authority at the university.

This is not a situation which calls for rigorous candour. I would be looking for someone's head to roll for this and I would ruthlessly pursue it. I don't see what alternative you have.

Revise & Resubmit - feeling humiliated

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From Fled
But when your supervisors fail to identify what have now been revealed to be significant deficiencies in the research, they share in the blame. Or at the very least, their attention to detail must be scrutinised. But I am not British, and maybe its a cultural difference where I am not timid about frank and honest conversations. Trust me I have seen many supervisors who are very nonchalant about their candidates' work, and I do admit I won the supervisor lottery with the ones I got. A PhD is a team effort. Your supervisors are not just passive observers.

I think you are mistaking the British character. We are not timid and we are certainly not afraid of being either frank or honest. I have no idea where you are getting that from.
What many of us do feel is a very strong sense of taking personal responsibility. In other words, this was my PhD and mine alone. I stand or fall on my own merits. That is how it SHOULD be in my opinion. It certainly is not my supervisor's PhD. Why would anyone think that they should be OBLIGED to check our work? That is a rather odd assumption for you to make. A PhD is categorically NOT a team effort. Why would you possibly think that? It is supposed to be an individual pursuit for academic excellence. Only you should be writing your papers (or your contribution to the work), only you should be writing your thesis and only you defend it in a viva. You have 3-4 years to get it right, seek advice from a range of sources and learn to stand on your own feet so that when you come out the other end you are an independent researcher with a proven track record of independent thought and performance. Anything else and I am not really sure what you are describing but in my eyes it certainly isn't a credible PhD graduate.

I can't see anyway you can ever convince me that a PhD should be a team effort.

Incidentally, you advised the OP to "i'd ask my supervisor what they thought about the critiques, and how come he/she did not catch these errors." How do you suggest that question can be asked without being aggressive or confrontational?

struggling with my PhD advisor

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From classictea:
Hi All,
I'm new here but I read some previous posts and I wanted to share with you my concern.
I'm in my 4th year of PhD and I still have 1 year before defending my thesis (Jan 2019). I've been working with my advisor since 2013 when I started as a research assistant. I chose her over another Prof. as I really thought she was great, personally and professionally. She was indeed in the beginning. Ever since I chose her, she started asking me to help her on things outside the PhD, like make phonecalls and reservations on her behalf, babysit her child, book appointments at her hairdresser etc. I was happy to help her initially, as she doesn't speak the well language here, but then it turned out to be too much. At some point, she told me I was incapable to do things, because I failed to make an order as she wanted me to. At that point I said I was not going to be able to help her anymore. She threatened me to leave me as her PhD student and that she was going to talk to the PhD dean. She went around telling other Professors that I was a liar and not motivated to work. I could not do much as I left for my maternity leave some weeks later. She has continued asking me to work also during the maternity leave. Now that I'm back, she asks me to work on weekends (although it's sooo much struggle with a newborn), but she also seems to keep changing my thesis, telling me to change everything. She's thrown away more than 2 years of work telling me that "it's not convincing"...I really want to drop, but I've already invested 5 years into this. What do you suggest I do? I don't think the department will be able to change my supervisor, and if she learns that I complained, she will make my life a living hell. She has already threatened me that if I'm not nice to her, she won't write reference letters for my job market. Thanks in advance!!!!

Sounds like she has already made your life hell.
What country is this you are talking about?

PhD interview

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From TreeofLife:
What, they said they didn't need specifics! :P

Well thanks to you I needed to spend a few minutes cleaning down the screen as I sprayed my tea all over it.

Open University

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From Trilla:

What evidence have you got to support PhDs at the OU,

Our argument is that there is no difference between PhDs at the OU and elsewhere. You are asking us to prove a negative.
You have claimed there IS a difference and that it matters where you gain your qualification. I think the onus is on you to provide evidence of what this difference is: preferably evidence which doesn't not involve the sale either of cars or assorted citrus fruits :-D

In my long career, I have worked with literally thousands of people in more than 10 different companies across the UK (some of which were the amongst the biggest in the world and some with only a couple of employees) and I can assure you that I have found absolutely no correlation whatsoever between the technical ability of someone and the university they went to.

Open University

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

There is another reason for the effect Trilla has described in terms of reduced funding for PIs when they leave red bricks for the OU.

Snobbery.

What happens is that everyone and their dog tries to get into the "top" universities, looking down on those who go to "lesser" universities. Funding bodies then through snobbery assume that only the "top" universities get the funding because clearly those "lesser" institutions can't possible produce good research. The "lesser" universities then attract fewer academics and students and you end up with a cycle of self fulfilling prophesy.

The problem is that all the snobbish assumptions are based on horseshit. Lecturers at Bristol, Durham and Imperial College are no more likely to be good teachers than those found at the University of the West of Scotland. In fact the reverse can often be true because the latter don't have access to research funding and can deviote more time to teaching.

There is no shortage of evidence of this sort of nonsense. Have a look at graduate employment. Every graduate targets the same "top 100 companies" with those firms apparently receiving tens of thousands of CVs. Google receive about a million CVs a year as far as I know. Nobody can tell you WHY those 100 companies are the "top" in the country. At the same time as graduates are crying into their sleeves about there being "no jobs", millions of small and medium companies can't get a hold of a graduate for love or money because they can't afford to advertise or pay recruitment agencies fees and graduates don't seek them out because they have been brainwashed into thinking those companies are "beneath them".

This is humans all over Trilla. The perfect storm of stupidity and prejudice. I think that is the most likely reason for your scenario.

Open University

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From Trilla:
Hi there pm133 - I think that because the arts are a 'soft' areas, the parameters of scholarly rigour can be looser than in the science and sometimes there is an enormous difference in PhD standards. It is very sad but in some places PhDs are ticking the box exercises that produce work that gives a minuscule contribution to knowledge, if any. I do not want to name and shame, but if you have a look in any subject you will see that books published tend to be from a relatively small pool of universities. This is not to say that things can change, even one person in a department can then lift the whole place up but it is a true fact in the arts that there is a hierarchy in where you study, and in what is expected from you and in the piece of work that you will be asked to produce.

Do you know the essay by economics Akerlof on selling lemons (bad used cars)? When the parameters in a field are difficult to quantify some characteristics ( ie.in Akerlof's case provenance and price) will take a greater importance than others in establishing quality.

This is particularly evident in fine art courses. Why everyone wants to go to Royal College of Art and nobody to Trilla's School of Painting? Art is art, innit? Well.. no...

In my opinion, people want to go to the Royal College of Art, red brick universities etc because they have been brainwashed into thinking the education in those places will somehow be better. It must be rbecause the league tables tell them that right? My suggestion is, and I have seen no evidence to the contrary, that when you are taught Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Maths, Electronics, Mechanics, etc etc etc that you are taught pretty much the same things no matter where you go. How can it be any other way? It wouldn't make any sense.

In order to persuade me that the Royal College of Art is better than Trilla's School of Painting, you would need to provide me with the two course curricula. I would prefer to base my decision on that rather than relying on hearsay and league tables.
So, what is the Royal College teaching which the School of Painting is not?

False advertisment in a postdoc position post

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From TomJ:
I looked into the webpages of those funding agencies (who do publish the name of funded PIs and their Universities). The postdoc position (Cognitive Neuroscience at the UIUC Beckman institute, which is otherwise an excellent research center) was published more than a year ago, and to date, this lab is not funded by those funding agencies.
Looking at the lab website, it also seems as if several lab members (including four postdocs) have left the lab within the last year. It seems that something happened there and the PI was trying to recruit new people, apparently by misrepresenting the available funding in his lab (he is a young PI).
I was suspicious because I already heard several stories from friends being promised many things prior to joining a lab in the US, only to end up being underpaid (in a few occasions, illegally under payed) and then terminated after their first or second year postdoc, leaving their research undone. This included people who relocated from Europe with their families. This is why I feel that whenever bumping into such a PI, an action should take place. If you find it to be appropriate, I can post here a link for the position advertisement (which has been already removed from that lab website). This would enable anyone here to do their own research regarding the funding availability in that lab.

Leaving aside the discussion of whether you are correct or not about your instincts here, looking at a couple of websites does not constitute anything close to "evidence" of wrongdoing. It's very poor that someone at postdoc level would think it did. You are extrapolating from a bit of hearsay, making a conclusion and then presenting the bare minimum of effort to produce evidence to support your conclusion. Confirmation bias is something a postdoc should be well aware of.

Listen, you can do what you like with this but remember you are messing with somebody's career here. Personally, I think you are going at this completely half baked but you need to do what you feel is right. If you press the button on this and you turn out to be incorrect, you risk it backfiring on you. Take your time and do your background research properly. This PI may not respond well to a postdoc trying to ruin their career without having properly researched evidence to do so. That would be my advice.

Open University

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From Trilla:
Hm. I do not know. In my field where you get your doctorate from is certainly very important and the OU is not one of the best places. I guess depends on the field? I still have to see significant work produced from the OU which is not 'reader' for their own students.Not great on scholarship.

Recently colleagues who were running a master affiliated with another university had to break their relation and go with the OU and it wasn't a great day at the office for them and it was definitely felt it was being downgraded.

BUT there are fields in which the OU is good I guess - just not mine.

I am genuinely interested in understanding why anyone would possibly think it mattered where you got your qualifications from.
Is there something special or specific about your field which demands this?

PhD interview

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From TreeofLife:
They're gonna ask you some questions and you're gonna attempt to answer them.

Ouch! That is a brutal response. Absolutely hilarious. But brutal. :-D

Doing a part-time PhD at the Open University

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From Pjlu:

All goals achieved later in life, and if you asked me at 30 whether I thought this was all possible...I would have thought I was dreaming. Life is/can be good at all ages and stages.

In fairness at 30 years old, with the best will in the world, most of us were/are as dumb as bricks with next to no experience of the wider world. In my experience, the majority of young people are too self absorbed with their own perceived importance to take the time to look around them and recognise the value of older people.

Are you aged 20-25?! Please complete my survey

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From iwealle1:
I am currently looking for participants for my masters study into wellbeing in young people.

To participate, simply follow the link!

Thank you in advance.

https://chichpscyh.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e376Rh7Z3FMlXSt

That is an oddly specific age group which cuts off most young people on both sides. Who told you to look at that specific age bracket?

article request

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From mak17:
Hi all, is there anyone can have an access to this article ...

Majed M. AbuKhader and Shah Alam Khan (2017). Thymoquinone and
Nanoparticles: A Promising Approach for the Clinical Trials. Journal of
Bionanoscience, 11, pp. 258–265.

please help

Put the DOI number into sci-hub.

Starting a PhD or stay at current job

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From Chaddak:

Quote From pm133:
At 29 to 30 years old, you are VERY young.

The age doesn't bother me at all.
What can be "tough" is the feeling of "reentering" on the job market aftera PhD, with an age in which people are trying to settle and start building their own independent lives.
I intend to overcome that by doing as much graduations as possible in order to have enough relevant skills to jump into the market as fast as possible.

You don't need any qualifications beyond what you already have in order to get a job as a software engineer.
Train yourself to program in one language which is widely used and interests you and start applying for jobs. This is exactly what I did a few years back. You will need to persuade someone to take you on without direct experience but that shouldn't be a major problem.

Sci Hub - All academic papers freely available online. Thoughts?

pm133 1246 posts
7 years ago

Quote From Tudor_Queen:
An interesting read:
Not so underground as I thought!
Happens not to be working today though :/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub

It is working for me.