#phd candidate

[justgivemethephd]

11.09.2025

⏯️ Unhateable by Ashtin Larold

📚 A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas

Happy Friday everyone! I’m posting a little early for once because I have to catch a train in the evening and go meet my boyfriend in Brussels. He’s been working with a collaborator all week to try and put a project together and now we get to enjoy the city a little!

This week has been so, so busy and I have been so, so tired. We’re not quite back to 2 cans of monster a day kind of tired, but almost. I did end up giving my presentation on Wednesday and it went really well! One of the attendees ripped into me a little, but I thought her comments were basic and got brilliant feedback from other people, so overall I feel like it’s more of a step forward than a step back. I also had a really productive 1:1 meeting with my supervisor, so maybe that helped me feel more positive as well.

I’ve also had an interesting time in the lab. I’m currently helping out with a CTL clone isolation, so lots of blood processing and magnetic separation for me, and it gave me an opportunity to teach our new research assistant those techniques as well. As much as I know I would hate teaching in a classroom, there is something about showing someone a new protocol that I just love. Maybe I’m just a lab rat after all. Follow up on last week’s protein extraction: only 2 out of 6 proteins worked. I’m not sure what exactly went wrong, but I can repeat the extraction with the other 4 next week. I’m not too disappointed, I still got a good yield for the two that worked! Another thing that hasn’t worked so well has been my cell expansion tests. Thanks to my presentation feedback I have some ideas of what I can do to fix it, but we shall have to see if any of it works.

I haven’t been out of the lab much this week, which is lovely cause it makes me days go by so much faster. Still, while I wait for my supervisor to give feedback on my midterm report I started working on tearing apart the paper I’m going to present for journal club. It’s not for another month, but it’s always good to get started early…

I hope everyone has a really good weekend! Please make sure you rest and take care of your mental and physical health. You should always be your biggest priority!!!!

[phantomtomes]

I am officially abd (all but dissertation) 🥺

[zakuwatorka]

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HSK 5 enough to start a PhD fully in Chinese? Yes, but… only on paper. What I mean by that is, my university’s requirement when I was applying for a PhD in China was only HSK 5. But personally, I don’t think it was enough. HSK did not prepare me to learn all the important words I needed for my major (专业)—there are always plenty of new words in each article, book, and during lectures. There were many new concepts (or old concepts that I knew but in English/Polish). All the names of foreign scholars I was familiar with were translated into Chinese, so I needed to connect the dots myself (many professors did not mention names in English transliteration, so I ended up making flashcards with the names of people I knew, but in Chinese, lol). HSK 5 did not prepare me for how to use the academic phrases I needed to write my thesis or articles. HSK 5 did not prepare me for how to read Chinese academic books and textbooks. HSK 5 did not prepare me for all the dialects and accents (口音) my professors have. HSK 5 was not enough. HSK 6 is also not enough, but it’s already better than HSK 5—it includes many advanced, useful words that actually show up in academic writing, essays, and that I could hear during lectures. I jumped into really deep water, and the first two years were hard. I didn’t know where my vocabulary list would end. Every day I ended up tired of Chinese, since there was a lot of material to cover, and as a person who had passed ONLY HSK 5—it was tough. I felt behind. No social life. Only books and textbooks. Drowning in new materials and textbooks, trying to keep up with weekly readings. If you want to do a PhD in China, in Chinese, do yourself a favor and first pass at least HSK 6. That way you won’t feel like I did—constantly overwhelmed with back pain. In the near future I will share some ideas how to prepare yourself to study in China*, in Chinese. *full major, not language exchange (two different things) 

[bitchesgetriches]

I spent three years at a university working towards a PhD. My working relationship with my advisor there fell apart, and I left without a degree, and am now in the process of getting my PhD at a different institution. However, I'm not really sure how to put the three years I spent at the first university on my resume.

I think what I did last time I needed one was:

Second University, PhD Candidate. 2023-Present. University University, PhD Candidate. 2020-2023.

But I'm not sure if that is the best way to present myself. Obviously when I can say I finished my PhD at the second university that will make it look better, but even so.

I think that's just how you should write it. If there's any confusion, you can explain in the interview that the first university "wasn't a good fit." But this makes perfect sense to me!

This is our advice for resume writing, but it has a few things that are useful for CVs as well:

How to Write a Resume so You Actually Have a Prayer of Getting Hired 

Did we just help you out? Say thanks by joining our Patreon!

[telegraphavekiss]

Refreshed the green and now my lucky pal and I match! 🍀💚

[littyngeeky]

quick question to the lit majors/scholars:

what comes after postmodernism? is it metamodernism or something else? if so, what are the recurring narrative styles/genres that sets it apart from postmodernism?

welp.

pls share this with your well-read friends who might know the answer. i wanna know everyone’s opinions.

[abby-the-druid]

Okay, for real, real question.

How the fuck are you actually supposed to write a dissertation? Like... there is no guidance? Is that my advisor or is that me?

I feel like someone said "Hey, write me a 150 page document about something you did over the course of the last 5 years."

And I said, "Okay, but like, how do you want that to look?" and no one answered.

And so I said, "but like, you think x y z should go in it, right?" and no one answered.

and so I said, "but like... how should I go about that?" and no one fucking answered.

So now, like as of a day ago, I was asked to have a completed dissertation to turn into my advisor NEXT WEEK.

So I've been doing the spongebob, right? Like staring down at paper, writing furiously, reading furiously, I have had a headache every day for at least 2 straight weeks; I have bags under the bags on my eyes - my fiancé literally told me I have 3 consecutive bags under each eye where they just keep getting worse; I am not sleeping well unless I take my large dose medicine; I am not tired, I am only tired, I am not hungry, my body does not feel normal, I am not bathing regularly, I am behind on chores and

I

STILL

DON'T

KNOW

WHAT THE FUCK I'M SUPPOSED TO DO TO WRITE THIS.

What the fuck am I supposed to be doing? Like I'm going to give this a try but I cannot express how much I DO NOT KNOW what I'm doing.

And you say, but surely, Abby, in the last 5 years at this institution you've published right? Surely your advisor has kept up and made sure you're making good progress, right? Obviously, they have prepared you in some capacity, right?

I would say to you, unfortunately, no. No, I have not published a single first author pub in the last 5 years. My advisor has not kept up to the point over the summer we had not a single meeting -I need weekly meetings otherwise I fall into the void and am taken by the aether- and after waiting 3 months for him to give me feedback on my first paper - the first one I've written in any professional capacity - I am told to deliver a full thesis.

Somebody just fucking take me out brother. I am beyond lost at this point and feel like a failure.

Thanks for listening.

If you do have advice, it would be greatly appreciated because I'm losing my fucking mind.

[deliriousdisquisitions]

I have two degrees in English Literature and all I do in my spare time is read smut and fanfiction. Girl. Please. My tbr is bleeding tears from how long they've been waiting on me 😭😭😭