Dark Academia: Real Life Edition

[dorkacadreamia]

Congrats! You got into grad school(s). Now what?

So it's admission/recruitment season, which is super exciting and somewhat surreal, since one (fake, pandemic-riddled) year ago I was going through the same thing and now I'm one of the student hosts for prospective students. No one in my immediate family ever got a research degree that I know of, so I went into this whole process somewhat blindly. That said, one year later here's what I learned:

Vibe checks are KEY.

what does that mean? It means if you feel weird (even a little bit) about a lab's dynamics, one of the lab members, the PI, or the school in general, that is very important to note and consider when making your final choice. If you love the PI but the lab doesn't seem like a good fit in terms of the personalities of the current members... I personally would be really wary. You're going to be spending way more time with your lab mates than your PI, so if you don't like that environment it's going to be a long few years. If it seems like a lot of students across the department aren't happy, that's also a red flag because it suggests that student happiness isn't a priority to the faculty in charge, and it is likely that you will join the ranks of unhappy students. If the PI you're interested in has ridiculous work expectations that don't match up to what you're prepared for, that's also going to be a rough time. I personally asked at every lab I was interested in what the typical work hours were, if people worked weekends (and if yes, how often), and how much vacation time people were allowed to take. That helped me knock off several PIs and narrowed my school choice down.

Are you excited?

I think I often fall into the trap of thinking "hey, science is cool. I'm sure I could get excited about any science once I'm actively doing it". I would recommend not approaching grad school and grad school visits like this. You want to be actively excited about an area even at the get go- and I'm sure if you've applied to grad school that there is some topic that you have particular interest in. I would recommend finding out who does that work at the schools you're interested, and focussing on vibe-checking them as described above. If nobody is doing the kind of work you have particular interest in at a certain school, that's also a ding in my book.

How do people live?

This has some overlap with the vibe check in that you want the people who are in the department to seem fulfilled and happy with their situation. Specifically, it's worth asking how far the stipend stretches in the area. Is the cost of living high? If so, how much of the stipend goes to rent, parking, groceries etc? How much do people get to save? What opportunities do people have to have fun outside of school/lab? I would also lump in COVID policies in this section as the response will show how much the department prioritizes student/worker well-being vs productivity. It's also worth reflecting on your own preferences with regards to location - do you prefer living in a large city, adjacent to one, or farther away from one? I didn't take that into account in undergrad and I ended up moving out of campus housing because I didn't like being so far out in the suburbs.

Can you get involved?

This might be more of a personal thing but I also really wanted to find a school where I could get involved with things like science policy, science outreach, and diversity initiatives. If that sounds interesting to you, definitely look into what sort of extra-curricular opportunities the school supports for graduate students. Also, are students invited to departmental meetings? How do students make their concerns heard? I think those are all good things to know before committing to a school.

By the time decision date had rolled around, I'd narrowed my choices down to 3 schools. In the end it came down to 1. location, 2. which school had more people that did work I was interested in, and 3. which school had people who were most interested in me. I've been really happy so far so I think it worked out well. Hopefully this post helps some of you as well!

Grad school is an exciting new chapter! Congratulations on your well-deserved and hard-earned acceptances!!

*disclaimer: my experience is specifically in chemistry & chembio, but I do think this advice is fairly generalizable at least in STEM.

[dorkacadreamia]

Science Dark Academia Things

staying up late to read one cool paper

which turns into reading another cool paper that the first paper referenced

that turns into getting to lab mid afternoon because you woke up at noon 

staying in lab late into the evening because there’s just so much to do

wanting to be aesthetic, but knowing that wearing nice clothes into lab is a bad idea (:’()

blue light glasses to protect your eyes from strain as you analyze data

going back to lab late at night to rerun an experiment because the data sucked and you have group meeting tomorrow

the wonderful feeling of finally troubleshooting that one experiment correctly

having science idols that you gaze wonderingly at when you see them at conferences

struggling through a class even but you enjoy it because sometimes learning is just hard

students emailing you with questions about the class you’re TA-ing causing you to wonder when you became the Adult In Charge who Knows Things

talking with your PI/ older grad students and realizing that you definitely are NOT the Adult In Charge who Knows Things but that’s a good thing because it means that you’re in the right place to learn

when your NMR shows your expected product and the MS shows high purity (tears of joy)

being the nerd in all your conversations with non-Science people and pulling out fun facts about solubility rules, thermodynamics, or the ultimate crowd pleaser: molecular quantum mechanics

getting really excited meeting another person your age from your field even if your projects are totally different

remembering even that when science is kicking your butt… you’re doing something cool that will have an impact and that no-one else has done yet!

[dorkacadreamia]

Fits you cant wear in lab 😩🥵

Pardon the mess- I’m cleaning the house right now I swear

[dorkacadreamia]

Current Mental State

- specifically sought out an advanced NMR class to take

- it’s at 8 am... so I snooze through it

- we have a problem set

- I start working on it, and learn a lot from doing it

- looking it over one last time late at night before submitting it

- googling a concept really quickly

I think to myself “why are all these questions about NMR?”

- realize that this is an NMR CLASS

very nice. 

[deliriousacademia]

If you’re a stem-based studyblr, please reblog this and I’ll follow you!!!!

I need more stem-based studyblrs to follow!! literature is wonderful and all, but I can’t relate

where are all my mad scientists with anatomy posters hung across their walls and tangled hair and wild ideas at???

[dorkacadreamia]

“So how’s Grad School going?” (Semester 1 thoughts)

Is grad school what I thought it would be? 

Yes and no. I’ll admit I can’t tell how much of that is due to the current pandemic restrictions and how much of that is jus the institutional differences between the school I did my undergraduate research in and here, but graduate school so far... doesn't feel too different from the last year of undergrad. 

I had intended to graduate a year early before changing my mind and doing a thesis, so by the time senior year rolled around I didn’t have much on my plate except for a couple of grad classes, my thesis, and my graduate school applications. I worked closely with graduate students, and got to know the first years as well, so I thought I had a pretty good impression of what my first year would be like. 

It’s been way more tiring, and way less research than I expected. I really didn’t realize how much mental energy and time goes into teaching and hosting office hours and grading. 

The COVID restrictions my labs have implemented involve shift work. I have a 6 hour shift everyday, but half the time, those shifts clash with my teaching/class time commitments. Whenever I have a free scrap of time I try to go into lab, but as a result have very little time for anything else, like reading scientific literature. Most days I start classes at 8 am and end my day anywhere from 6-10pm. Usually the later days are days that I’ve been able to go into lab. 

Science is obviously something I’m passionate about and something that I’ve decided to dedicate six years of my life to. Right now it feels like I’m underwater and lab time and data are a pool float on the top of the water that I keep trying to grab, and keep slipping off of. I want to get to a place where I can sit inside the pool float, and also do some fun activities now that I’m not struggling on the bottom of the pool anymore. Hopefully that’s next semester! 

[quarantine-chemistry]

Lab Gothic

-Your PI holds a meeting. The lab is running low on funding, you will need to apply for research grants. Someone suggests selling cocaine and meth; hollow laughs fill the air.

-The lab playlist is set to shuffle, yet somehow it keeps rotating between “Hey Soul Sister” by Train and “Toxic” by Britney Spears. No one remembers who noticed this first. No one knows who added these songs. No one even likes these songs. You delete them from the playlist.

-The new student complains that their yields are always low. You ask if they’ve remembered to invoke the protection of Hermes Trismegistus. They laugh and say they don’t believe in superstition. You lock eyes with an older student who gives an apathetic shrug. Everything the new student tries ends up failing. By midterms they’ve left and changed their major.

-You stay late one night to finish cleaning the glassware. It is an endless rhythm of acetone water acetone, acetone water acetone, acetone water acetone. The drying rack was full when you started, but somehow you manage to put all of your dishes up to dry. The sink was empty when you left that night, but it is full when you return in the morning. You stare blankly into the sink as “Toxic” echoes through the lab.

-You head into lab wearing a red shirt. You put on your lab coat and get to work. As you leave 4 hours later, you remove your lab coat and see that you are wearing a blue shirt. This is not the first time this has happened.

-The argon tank is empty. You replace it. The new one is empty as well.

-You carefully write down everything in your notebook. You label all of your printed NMR’s. You label and store all of your flasks and vials. You get back from lunch and can’t remember what you did that morning. “Hey Soul Sister” begins to play.

- It’s 9:30 am: you begin a flash chromatography column. You’re familiar with this compound, you’ve done it dozens of times. It never takes longer than an hour and a half. 10:00 am: 46 fractions; you tlc, but there is still product coming off the column. 11:53 am: 72 fractions; you tlc, but there is still product coming off the column. 12:04 pm: 68 fractions;  you tlc, but there is still product coming off the column. 1:46 pm: 106 fractions;  you tlc, but there is still product coming off the column. 2:15 pm: 124 fractions;  you tlc, but there is still product coming off the column. 3:23 pm: 159 fractions;  you tlc, but there is still product coming off the column. 4:06 pm: 178 fractions; you tlc, the product has finally come off the column.  It’s 4:37 pm: you’ve checked all your fractions and the product is in fractions 7, 33-56, 14, 112, 120-151, and 21. It’s 5:07 pm: you’ve finally finished concentrating the fractions containing your product. Your yield is 18.7%

-The IR spectrometer is broken, a work order has to be submitted. Someone suggests selling cocaine and meth to cover the cost of repairs; there is laughter in the hallway.

-It’s spring break. You’re on a hike with friends. You’d forgotten the smell of sunlight and the taste of fresh air. Someone scrapes their knee and pulls out an alcohol wipe to disinfect it. The smell hits you and you tense up; you know that smell all too well. You shudder and jerk your head up off the desk. You had fallen asleep in the library. You have a physics final in 2 hours. The student at the desk next to you is humming “Toxic.”

-The lab is on its last bottle of deuterated chloroform. It lasts for a week. The next time the labs reaches its last bottle of chloroform it lasts 2 hours.

-The UV VIS spectrophotometer will not work properly unless you dance the macarena as it calibrates. Everyone knows this. No one knows why. We are all pitiful worms who must dance in order to win the favor of the chemistry gods.

-It’s Saturday. You are headed into lab. One of your labmates is sitting in the hallway crying. This is normal. You hear “Toxic” playing over the lab speaker.

-You’re on a date. The coffee is getting cold and the conversation ended a while ago. The cafe is playing an acoustic cover of “Hey Soul Sister.” All you can think about are cross-coupling mechanisms and methylxanthine trivia, but you’re pretty sure you’ve already talked about that.

-You’re flying home for winter break. When you tell the person next to you that you work in a chemistry lab, they ask if you’ve ever made cocaine or meth. Some part of you wishes you had.

-Glass shatters against linoleum. The student at the station next to you is silent, staring. They look up at you with a smile on their lips. The fluorescent ceiling light casts a glare on their safety goggles. You cannot tell if the smile reaches their eyes.

-You are using SciFinder to research a reaction. Somehow, you find yourself looking up how to make cocaine and meth instead.

-Your PI comes over and asks how the research is going. You give them a response and they nod, satisfied. You don’t know what you said. You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know what day it is. You checked the clock 15 seconds ago but don’t remember what time it read. You can’t remember if you’ve payed homage to Hermes Trismegistus. “Hey Soul Sister” begins to play and you know that you have angered something.

-One of your labmates keeps a plant on the window sill. You have no idea how it’s still alive. You’ve seen them water it with DCM. You’ve never seen the soil changed. It is healthy. For a moment you wonder if your labmate is mortal. It doesn’t really matter.

-Someone suggests selling cocaine and meth to pay off student loans. They don’t laugh. You can’t tell if it’s a joke.

-It’s fall break. You’re visiting your hometown. Your old high school friends ask what sort of research you do. You were in lab 72 hours ago. You’ve written three detailed reports in the last month alone. You have been working on the same project for 3 years. The only thing you can think of is With a taste of your lips, I’m on a ride / You’re toxic, I’m slippin’ under / With a taste of a poison paradise / I’m addicted to you / Don’t you know that you’re toxic? / And I love what you do / Don’t you know that you’re toxic? / Don’t you know that you’re toxic?

[wallaceevolution]

Artificial selection, like its sister concept natural selection, is one of the driving forces behind evolution. 

Humans have selected new traits in various animals over the ages, through accidental but also deliberate action (like in domesticated animals). 

From small changes, like grey rats that are more adapted to cement-covered environment, to highly derivative traits, like whole new species such as domestic dogs, these changes show that the power of selective pressures on populations can act over large but also extremely fast timelines.

[dorkacadreamia]

This same concept applied on a much smaller scale is known as directed evolution, and won Prof. Frances Arnold the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018. Her lab showed that you could direct the evolution of enzymes to perform catalysis that is biologically unusually but commercially useful. 

[dorkacadreamia]

Applying to Grad School: A slightly more detailed memo

So you’ve decided you want to go to graduate school. What do you do next? 

*disclaimer: my experience is specifically in applying for chemistry and chem-bio PhD programs!

1. Take the required exams. For most schools this is just the GRE, and even that is starting to be optional. A lot of schools say “highly recommended” for chemistry subject GRE - I ignored that and didn’t submit a subject test score. People really don’t care unless you do really badly, or unless you’re an international applicant, in which case they use it to make sure that you have a similar level of education in the field. 

2. Make a spreadsheet of which schools you are planning to apply to, three professors you would want to work with there (and why), when their application deadline is, who you’re asking for recommendations, and what other application materials you will need to prepare (eg. SOP + Personal Statement + Diversity Statement etc). I would recommend also linking the application portals into this spreadsheet, once you’ve made an account on them.

          - how to pick schools: if you already have a specific professor in mind, this will be easy! If you don’t, but you know what specific subfield area you’re interested in, look up the people behind papers you’re interested and see where their labs are. You could also search by reputation of the school!

         - how to pick profs: if you’ve narrowed down school, this should be pretty easy. go through the department’s “research/faculty” page and look at what everyone’s lab is doing. when you see one that interests you, take a deeper dive into their recent work and if you like it, add it to the list.

 3. Write your SOP, and reach out to your recommenders early! Showing them a draft of your SOP helps them to align their recommendation more closely with the image you are trying to present, which will make your overall application stronger. 

             - My SOP was structured like this: -intro about why I’m interested in research and chemistry, - specific area in chemistry that I’m interested in, -specific people at the school who I want to work with, - my prior experience and how that would help me do what I said I was interested in 

4. If you want, you can reach out to your top professors at your top choice school(s). I didn’t do this, but some people do. It’s up to you. 

5. Submit your applications before the last minute. I submitted one application late and (no surprises) did not get accepted there.

6. Be patient. Generally, most programs in science (that I know of) don’t require an interview, with the exception of biology and certain chem-bio programs. This means that when you hear back, you’ll know fairly quickly what your grad school options are! 

[dorkacadreamia]

College admissions vs Grad school admissions for a phd, a brief memo

in college admissions:

- they care a lot more about your extracurriculars

- they want you to be in general a cool person

- grades kind of matter

- SAT definitely matters

- you don’t have to know exactly what you want to do 

in grad school admissions:

- they could not care less about your extracurriculars UNLESS they are related to your field of study, in which case they are SIGNIFICANTLY more important than basically anything else (i’m thinking of research experience here, especially for stem!)

- they also want you to be a cool person, but it’s more important that you’re someone who has the skillset and interests that they’re looking for

- GRE... doesn’t really matter unless you bomb it. many places are making it optional. subject test is slightly different depending on field - important for maths and physics but not chemistry

- you don’t have to know what project specifically you want to do but you should have a pretty solid idea of what you want to work on and more importantly WHO you want to work with 

happy to elaborate if this is something that people find interesting or useful! Both undergrad and grad admissions can be a really hard process to navigate and I want to make it easier, less scary, and more accessible to people!

[dorkacadreamia]

Cryo–electron microscopy breaks the atomic resolution barrier at last

Improvements help the technique rival x-ray crystallography

[dorkacadreamia]

chemistea

Adding sugar to tea impacts the intermolecular forces within the mixture. The hydrophobic moieties on sugar stack against the face of the caffeine ring, and this clumping results in less free caffeine. The reduction in surface area results in reduced interaction with your taste receptors, which is why tea tastes different, and not just sweeter, when you add sugar.  

[dorkacadreamia]

Why is writing about myself so hard

I am applying for a fellowship right now and really cannot find the energy to write any of the essays required. Not only am I incredibly sleepy, but I also violently loathe the introspection that is necessary to craft a story that is personal, persuasive, and that makes sense. 

[dorkacadreamia]

my advisor just won the nobel prize!!!

[dorkacadreamia]

Grimalkin

[dorkacadreamia]

Some thoughts on how Tumblr views Dark Academia

Dark Academia shouldn’t be about affecting pretentiousness for an aesthetic. Actively trying to propagate a perception of yourself that is rooted in classism and elitism isn’t something that this community should be promoting.

In my opinion dark academia isn’t about how familiar you are with arbitrary Western classical texts or how comfortable you are speaking a Greco-Roman language, but rather how much you love the process of learning. The passion for and commitment to learning makes the academic, not the put-upon airs. 

If you just appreciate the dark academia aesthetic, that’s also totally valid! But the aesthetic does not and should not encompass a particular attitude. Just because some characters in your favourite book were snobs doesn’t mean that behaviour deserves to be emulated.

[vonnegutcoded]

from a seminar today, some advice for first year phds from a senior faculty member: “grad school is the time you make the transition from consumer of knowledge to producer of knowledge. first years are consumers and fifth years are producers. first years you should know: second and third years are rapidly approaching their moment of reckoning when they have to become producers of knowledge and not just consumers. in discussions they will tear apart every article and argument. don’t be intimidated by this - they are terrified, do not take it personally.”