A STEM degree, not to mention a doctorate, provides you with many useful skills and knowledge.



This sounds like all or nothing thinking. You do actually have some computer skills as you managed to post this message under your user account. If you want to develop more skills, such as programming and data-analysis skills, you alluded to the way forwards yourself:



I wonder what it must have been like doing a Ph.D. (or even BS.c./MS.c) in early 90s before the internet. Or what about in the early 80s when word-processors when not so readily accessible.

Nowadays, so many people want to present themselves as teachers, you can find lots of FREE resources and tutorials on a variety of technical and advanced "computer skills" such as programming and bioinformatics. You don't even need to leave the comfort of your home!

You could learn Python and then some data-analysis skills. You are spoilt for choice on free resources for this.

Good luck!
Wizard

I've not personally heard of anyone disproving their own Ph.D. thesis. However, John Forbes Nash Jr -- the creator of the Nash equilibrium -- later recounted how he later believed his theory, whilst applicable to a variety of areas, such as nuclear strategy, actually performed very poorly when applied to social behaviour and humans in general. He put this down to his theory's over-reliance on the assumptions that humans predominantly act rationally.

Wizard

Well done on getting your paper published. I think it's perfectly OK to include your paper in your thesis as it's your contribution. Also, check whether the paper specifies the contribution of each author by their initials, as that is common with some journals, such as "DC conceived the study, RT performed the analysis etc.". As long as your first author/joint first author, it's alright for your Ph.D. supervisor to be the corresponding author.

Yes. Use Latex!

Thanks so much for posting this. I was also looking for "Open Societies and it's enemies by Karl Popper (single volume edition)", which I found. I just have to find time to read it at over 800 pages.

I know it's a bit of a longshot, but I'm after "Fly Fishing", it's by J. R. Hartley.

Sorry to hear about your ordeal. Rewt's advice is good, but more specifically you could ask them to explicitly say that you "received funding starting on date x, which ceased on date y", that way it is clearly stating you have no source of income or loan, which may have more effect in terms of convincing them you need the financial support. Good luck.

Hi rewt,

Yes, my previous Ph.D. supervisor also used to do that for papers we worked on.

I found, this, which essentially recommends the same, and a few other points:

https://imechanica.org/node/14942

Wizard

Happy New Year everyone!

I am to submit another manuscript shortly and felt it would be good to get ideas on what is a good strategy when picking reviewers to put forward for submission of a paper.

I have experienced that reviewers can expedite or hamper the submission process. More often than not, submission can be impeded by reviewers who haven't properly read the paper, don't have the relevant knowledge (though they should according to their profile), or are just difficult for the sake of it hence I think it would be a good thread for myself and others.

Would be good to hear your thoughts and experiences.

Cheers

Sorry to hear you feel that way. Another person might view the Clinical Research Assistant role a good position, whilst you potentially view it as a failure, so I think despite having challenges in the pursuit of a PhD, there is some faulty thinking at play here (we all have this to a degree).

I think the following book will help you. Particularly, the section on External vs Internal centred values.

https://web.csulb.edu/~tstevens/

or PDF version:
https://web.csulb.edu/~tstevens/ChooseToBeHappy.pdf

Wishing you all the best,
Jamie

Thanks Ian. This was probably the first document I got my hands on when I started my PhD :-p

Good luck! Fingers crossed.

haha yes. that sounds about right rewt.

Is there one for the post-doc game?

If you are really set on getting a PhD, you could first do an M.Res (Masters by research). That way you'll have 1 (sometimes 2) research projects to demonstrate your research abilities. Do these well and you shouldn't have trouble applying after you've completed it.