St Andrews Lynx

A lot of folk have academic crushes on their advisors. 
 
Maybe it is something you can make a joke of if ever anybody comments on how well you get along. ("Of course - he's so intelligent, who wouldn't want to hang out with him?!") That way you can laugh it off, admit it instead of feeling guilty and desperately trying to conceal your feelings, and people will be a lot less suspicious because it is clearly just a run-of-the-mill academic crush.

Again, as others on this thread have communicated, on TheGradCafe, no one "owns" the thread so no user can choose what the posters discuss or talk about. At this point, the conversation has steered quite a ways away from your original post/question and that is fine. If you do not want to participate in this thread anymore, whether because you have got what you came for, or if you feel that it is no longer helpful to you, or if you simply don't like the responses**, then the best thing to do is to stop responding to this thread and let it go in whatever other direction it is going. If you don't like TheGradCafe, then the best thing to do is to stop using your account. I'm not suggesting that you leave our forums, you're certainly welcome to stay, but I am making this suggestion since you mentioned account deletion.
 
** Note: When anyone posts an issue here and asks for thoughts/advice, people are going to provide information and thoughts from their perspective and they do this because they are trying to be helpful. Sometimes, their advice may not be the best for you / may not apply to you, especially if you (for understandable privacy reasons) only provided limited information, but it's your responsibility to sort through all of the perspectives given and decide what is best for you. Sometimes people will provide thoughts and advice that you don't want to hear. This is normal because we are a diverse group of people with a diverse set of experiences and worldviews. If you don't like their advice, you are free to ignore it, but in general, I think it's worth considering all points of views, even the ones you don't like.
 
Finally, threads on TheGradCafe are here for the benefit of the community, not just the original poster. So, if you don't like the way the thread has gone or if you don't like the advice here because it doesn't apply to you, then feel free to ignore it and use your other resources to seek help. But the thread and content will stay as others might find the discussion useful to them.
 
 
I reread all of the posts to make sure and I don't think anyone is accusing you, personally, of abusing the Title IX office. Also, no one accused you, personally, of any wrongdoing. Instead, people have written opinions of your current and past actions based on your original post. People have also written their opinions of your assessment of the situation. People have given you advice on what they think is the best path forward. Then, as a side conversation in this same thread, people discussed Title IX issues that have nothing to do with you (e.g. what happened at Northwestern). As I wrote above, the author of a thread does not own the content in it, and you cannot choose which opinions of you remain in the thread and which get deleted. You also cannot choose what gets discussed in this thread and what doesn't.

You have two choices: you can move out and try to find another affordable place, or you can stay. If you stay, you can change some things probably, but you will still have to put up with him.
 
If you do stay, there are ways to deal with the roommate issue, but how effective they are really depends on your deployment of them and how annoying they are:
 
1. When he tries to plan/control/dictate what you are going to do the next day, tell him clearly and directly that you don't want to talk about the next day, you just want to enjoy what's going on right now.
2. Minimize the number of times you go out with him. Beg off or say that you have other plans or studying to do.
3. If he closes down and gets rigid because you won't hang out with him constantly, ignore him. Continue about your life as if you don't notice. He gets that way because he wants you to notice and feel awkward so that you break down and hang out with him again. Don't give him the satisfaction.
 
You also sound like you have a little bit of "bitch eating crackers." By that, I mean that this guy is already on your bad side, so every thing he does is going to irritate you, even the way he eats his crackers. I think you're going to have to step back and try to take a more neutral approach if you don't want to move - remind yourself that he's irritating and that colors the way that you see him, and then try to view him from a more objective standpoint.

The last few times I've passed through JFK airport I've been impressed with the speed at which I got through Border Control - it was under 30 minutes on my most recent trip.
 
I learned the hard way that you should leave at least 60 minutes between connecting flights. Plane 1 was delayed by ~30 mins landing at Heathrow, and it would have taken ~10 mins to get through the terminal to my second flight...so I missed it. If you need to get through any kind of Border Control/Security then you will obviously need more time.
 
My personal preference is for the most direct route. Airports are dreary, expensive places to hang about it. If there's any wifi it almost certainly ain't free (or you only get 15 min free internet). At least on a plane you can watch inflight movies to amuse yourself, or fall asleep without the risk of missing a connection. 
 
Another thing to think about is what time you'll arrive in the USA and how far you have to travel to get to your accommodation. If you arrive at midnight there may not be any public transport to get you to where you need to be. You'll be really tired and jet lagged after the long trip, which can make even a short subway ride seem like an eternity. 

There are some American phrasings that I first thought was just "bad English"! In American English you can write "the students protested tuition fee increases", but in British English it would be correct to say "the students protested against tuition fee increases". Likewise, "I'll write you tomorrow" would more typically be "I'll write to you tomorrow" in British English. 
 
For all personal correspondence and informal group presentations/documents I just use British English. When TAing I try to keep everything in American English (students get confused when I tell them to dispose of their waste in "the bin"...but that's another story). The same goes for more formal presentations that I'm putting on for people outwith my research group. 

This might be true for a lot of labs and groups, but it's clear that in this particular case, this will not work because the PI has already said that their expectations are different than this.
 
 
I think it is weird that some people are reading "The PI is complaining about tardiness" and think "there must be some other reason that she is upset at the student!". I think the PI is being very clear that she is expecting her students to physically be in the lab more. There does not appear to be any reason to try to guess that the PI really means something else when she is saying what she wants plainly. 

Find a new place to live and move as soon as you can.

From the perspective of your boss. You had the conversation with her on Friday where she delivered the ultimatum '3 months to get your act together before I fire you'. You left the meeting apologising and promised to change your ways. As far as she is concerned, you've taken the message on board, understand what is expected of you and are "getting your act together". Why would she need to raise the matter in casual discussion with you again? 
 
I very much doubt that she has forgotten what she said, or has decided that you're "no longer the bad guy". She's waiting for the 3 months to pass before she reassesses your behaviour (...um, as she said she would).  
 
Proceed with caution.

You can also annotate the PDFs in Mendeley, or highlight portions of the PDF text in a fetching neon yellow. In addition to the tags that TakeruK mentioned, you can write a short Note on the 'coversheet' page (e.g. "This paper has totally cool methods I want to use for Subproject X."). 
 
Maybe instead of printing out the whole document, you could create several folders with just the first pages of your journal articles? Then you could write some notes on the back of the page to remind yourself about what was important in this paper. Now you have the 'prompts' for the articles all together, and if you need to read the article in detail you can go back to Mendeley to look at the PDF?

Sometimes if your results aren't published or near publication state then it could be too early to present them (because other people might steal your ideas and publish them before you).
 
But age wise? No such thing as too early! 
 
At my first big mega Chemistry conference I had yet to start my PhD program and was overwhelmed by the experience. Second time around I was a lot more confident and got so much more out of the conference (better organised to attend stuff, more networking, more fun). I'd encourage you to start conferencing early - even if you aren't presenting anything - since it is great practice for when you really need to network, get new ideas and find jobs. 

From the perspective of your boss. You had the conversation with her on Friday where she delivered the ultimatum '3 months to get your act together before I fire you'. You left the meeting apologising and promised to change your ways. As far as she is concerned, you've taken the message on board, understand what is expected of you and are "getting your act together". Why would she need to raise the matter in casual discussion with you again? 
 
I very much doubt that she has forgotten what she said, or has decided that you're "no longer the bad guy". She's waiting for the 3 months to pass before she reassesses your behaviour (...um, as she said she would).  
 
Proceed with caution.

There's also the option of taking a medical leave of absence, which would allow you to return to the program and finish it off at a later date. It also gives you some leeway: if you decide in a few months that you really want to go back and finish the Masters...then you have the freedom to do so. But likewise, if you decide that you don't need this degree, then you have the same amount of freedom to withdraw completely. 
 
At the end of the day: (i) You are not your illness (ii) There is so much more to "success" than the lines on your CV. I hope things work out for you.

OK, I'll say it. All your posts in this thread read weirdly sexist and completely oblivious to your situation. If I didn't know any better, I might think you were describing a fight with your girlfriend.
 
Just from this latest post: She yelled at you on Friday, you were fearing a repeat. This morning she was in a better mood than usual, but she ignored you except for frowning at you once. (This setup, mind you, is all happening in your head.) You had a normal professional meeting in the afternoon, discussing a paper you are working on together, and making plans for the next couple of weeks. (Back to stuff in your head:) She apparently wasn't in a bad mood. Therefore, you are now less convinced that she is out to get you, but you still think she is volatile and might react poorly if you have to take time off for a medical problem later. And the kicker -- you think you can now put this fight behind you, so to speak: "She at least appears to be willing to move on from the idea of me being the bad guy, just as much as I'm willing to be more astute with my organisation." I think you are misreading the situation on many levels. They have been pointed out ad nauseam so I won't repeat them again, but you really don't seem to be getting it, despite saying over and over that you accept responsibility and are willing to change. You need to realize that this is a professional job situation, and she is your boss, not your friend and not your equal.

Regardless of whether or not you tend to over-analyze and read more into things than there is, here is the deal. If you are 7 months into a job, have received 2 warnings about your performance, and then had a third conversation where your boss says they are so unhappy with you they are thinking of firing you, would you try and guess what your boss wants from you and act just on that, or would you have a conversation with them to explicitly ask what their expectations are, and come up with a plan to meet them, possibly with some built-in measures to hold you accountable? Which plan do you think has a higher likelihood of making your boss happy, and which one has a higher likelihood of failing? Now factor in your tendency to over-interpret things. Does that make you more or less inclined to coordinate expectations as opposed to guess what they are? 

I'd only blame the 8 year PhDs students up to a point for their situation. At some point the advisor should be insisting that the students finish up, especially after such a long time. There are stipulations in NIH funding I think that institutions shouldn't be keeping PhDs for more than 7 years, and I think that my university/Dept doesn't financially-support students after 7 years. My concern would be that your potential advisor (i) doesn't really care if their students do good research, defend or not (ii) isn't effectual at mentoring, or is too confrontation-averse to have hard conversations.
 
To the OP, postdoc assurances don't mean much. The PI might decide to assign you to a completely different project, or the postdoc is over-estimating the future successfulness of their work. It's best to search online to find out the track record of publications in this group. If they've been publishing regularly for the past ~5 years (with a spread of names on the publications) then you can assume that the PI is good at getting papers out of their students. 

No. I don't think it would. If your boss never hears a word back from you after she says "I'm strongly considering firing you." she is more likely to conclude that you don't care whether she fires you or not. Or that you aren't taking her ultimatum seriously (which would piss me off). If lateness is only part of your problem then it is going to be blind guesswork on your part what you need to do to clean up your act. And the odds are you'll get it wrong. 
 
Part of being a professional employee is learning how to say to your boss's face: "I screwed up. It's entirely my fault. I'm really sorry about what happened and I would really appreciate your advice to help me avoid making the same mistake again." 
 
To stay on the subject of lateness. It isn't enough to quietly fix the lateness issue. Your boss is looking for some kind of acknowledgement from you that your lateness is a problem to her and that you understand why she considers it a problem. She will be looking for a declared plan of action from you to remedy the problem: if you tell her or write in an email "I will arrive at 9.30am every day." then she can measure your commitment to improvement based off that plan. Plus, it shows initiative and responsibility for your own actions. 
 
Yes, these conversations are scary. But you're a professional scientist now. You need to learn how to deal with them. 

TLDR (from thread): She has money. She wants to pay someone to do something a certain way. You are not doing it that way. If you do not do it that way, you will get fired. Figure out what that way is or you will be fired.  
 
You have the chance to learn a life lesson without having many negative consequences, I suggest you take it. 

There are some PI out there who will only like an idea if they themselves thought of it. Even though they might solicit ideas from you and insist you should think up your own proposals. I'd say that your PI has less of a "bad" memory, more of a "selective" one.
 
You can't really change an advisor like that.
 
Your best approach (if you plan to stay in the group) is to (i) shake off the random criticism, which isn't a reflection of you or your capacity as a scientist (ii) minimise your contact with this PI and try to find other ways to get help for your research problems (perhaps from other group members) (iii) accept that you will have to "plant" ideas in your PI's head, rather than suggest something and get immediate approval/acknowledgement. I'm not pretending that is easy.

While I sympathize with the frustration that you must be feeling thinking that you are doing well and then suddenly finding out that you are close to being fired, I agree with everyone else above that you need to make a few big changes and have some important and direct conversations with your supervisor.
 
I agree with the others that you need to change your perspective on these conflicts. While I usually argue that students and supervisors should be more collegial, I usually mean it in terms of scientific opinions (i.e. a professor should not simply dismiss a student's scientific argument because they are a student instead of on the academic merits). In this case, when it comes to work expectations, your supervisor should set the standard and you should strive to meet it. They are the boss and you are the employee. As others said, you don't get to judge their own schedule and you don't get to question their motivations or decisions because you likely don't know all of the details.
 
Just to provide a few examples. It's just as easy for us to rationalize your supervisor's actions as for you to rationalize your own.
 
1. The professor's schedule: As others said, they might be working late. One professor I worked for usually comes in around 11am, leaves at 4pm, cooks dinner, spends time with his kids at home, puts them to bed, and then works again from 9pm to 2am (I can tell from the timing of his emails). In any case, it's not up to you to judge them, and they are perfectly right to insist that you work from X am to Y pm while they follow a different schedule.
 
2. Not including you on that email: She could have forgotten, or she might not have known you did not submit the form when she first wrote that email. Or, perhaps all of your colleagues, when they realised they had forgotten the form, they informed the professor. It sounds like you only realised you forgot this form when she confronted you about it in her office. I think it is very irresponsible of you to forget it so much that your supervisor had to remind you. I also think it is irresponsible for you to call it a problem "which she could have solved". No. It is a problem that is your responsibility to solve, not hers (she might have solved it for others because they asked her for help, and how do you know that she didn't get upset at them too). You failed to do this task, and these are the consequences.
 
3. Being upset at you for not showing up on that Monday: This is 100% your fault and it is a serious infraction, in my opinion. During all those delays, it would have taken you 10 minutes to send an email to your professor letting her know that your flight had been delayed, including the time it would have taken to figure out whatever crappy WiFi the airport you were stuck in were using. As someone else mentioned, in most jobs, you will lose your job for failing to show up without notice.
 
4. Lack of communication: This is also on you. Communication is definitely a two-way street and I do think that perhaps you are both at fault here. But, it is certainly your responsibility to ensure you meet with your supervisor at timely intervals. You should not always be waiting for her to schedule a meeting. You should take the initiative sometimes too! 
 
5. The "surprise" ultimatum: I don't think she is doing this to get back at you or because she hates you. It is really hard to fire someone or even have the tough conversation to tell them to get their act together! It might help to read this: https://tenureshewrote.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/can-we-measure-a-lab-members-productivity/. The reason it might have taken so long to have this conversation with you was because it is a hard thing to do and because she might have had to get the right documentation together so that she can protect herself in case she does need to fire you and the split doesn't go well.
 
--> There is no reason to purposely plan a meeting just to upset you. Even if she just wanted to make your life miserable, she would have upset you and then fired you right there. Why would she give you 3 months to get your act together if she didn't actually want you to do so? This is why in most jobs, when you are fired with two weeks notice, you actually are asked to leave right away and they'll just pay you 2 weeks after your termination date. No point having you stick around if they want to get rid of you. 
 
Okay, I am sorry to sound like I am piling on and blaming a lot of things on you. I just wanted to show that just as you have tried to rationalize your actions, you can easily rationalize hers as well. I also want to echo St Andrews Lynx's final statement about the "most recent/tangible symptom".
 
Here's what I think the main problems are (from the point of view of a neutral third party) and how you can address them:
 
There are misunderstanding of expectations. Specifically, the whole lateness thing. You need to come back to her office, tell her you have thought about what she said over the weekend and let her know that you are ready to fix this issue. Come up with a solution and a way to keep yourself accountable. For example, you might suggest that you will now be in the lab from 9:30am to 6pm (or whatever is appropriate) and suggest that you keep a logsheet. Maybe even buy a notebook and start on Monday June 15. You don't have to show it to her every week, but just keep it in the lab so that 1) you keep yourself on track and 2) you show that you are taking responsibility for this. I think it is very important that you come up with the solution and you keep yourself accountable. Sincerely show that you are taking this advice to heart and are taking efforts to fix it. 
 
There is a lack of communication. I think you need to take the initiative and talk to your supervisor more often. I am surprised to hear that once you did not show up for work that Monday and that the admin assistant had to personally call/email you to ask what was wrong, you did not immediately check in with the professor first thing Tuesday morning. When you meet with her this week to discuss your tardiness, perhaps you can ask to have a regular meeting time scheduled as well? Maybe once every 2 weeks if weekly does not work out for your busy lab. If this is not possible, then take the initiative and knock on her door or send her more than one email to schedule a meeting when you need to see her.
 
(Sorry to be blunt but) Your actions have been irresponsible and unreliable. Not just the actions that you told us about, but the way you portray them here seems like you aren't really taking responsibility for your actions. You say that you accept you've made the series of mistakes, but you aren't accepting the consequence. I do not think it is unreasonable to fire you for the mistakes you've mentioned here. I think giving you a warning and a deadline to get things together is a fair result. I strongly encourage you to stop making excuses, stop rationalizing, accept that this warning to be fired is the correct consequence for your actions and move on from there.
 
As to your medical condition, I agree that you are not obligated to say details. But you do have to say that such a condition exist if you want it to be factored into their evaluation of you. Again, as you and others said, check with the laws that govern you. At my school, we have sick leave. We do need to disclose that we have to take leave for a medical reason but we do not have to prove it or disclose any of the details (i.e. the type of illness etc.) It is not unreasonable to expect you to say that you need medical leave though.
 
Good luck!

compscian, stop worrying about what everyone else thinks you should have done. They are not you. They don't have to live with your decision or move to School A where you already believe you'll be unhappy. Go to School B and give it a chance. Stop second guessing yourself. It's easy to do, especially in the summer when you don't have anything else to do, but you really need to just stop worrying about it. Get excited about moving to School B, figure out where you'll live, what nearby activities you can get involved in, etc. 

I'm glad your perspective has changed a little bit for the better, but I'd like to share another idea that came to mind.
 
First of all, it sounds like your classmates are definitely envious that you're harder working and more engaged than others. I do think envy in this regard is pretty normal. That's not an excuse for being mean, however. Normally with bullies, I would say don't let them see how much they affect you, as it gives them some sick pleasure. However - and I could be wrong - from what you've described, it sounds like because your classmates have started collectively expressing their envy, it's grown into almost a group dynamic that's now normal (giggling during your presentations, making little in-jokes with each other at your expense). If they've never had evidence that they're causing any harm, they might think it's all innocent, that you don't mind, and then it all gets reinforced when it helps them bond with each other (horrible, I know). Again, this doesn't make it okay. But if I'm right (and this is a big if), and if they're not really bad people, then they may feel mortified to learn how their actions make you feel. In this case, I would somehow let them know. I've seen this happen, where a friend of the person being talked about mentioned to the rest of the cohort that everyone's actions had quite a negative impact on the person, which initiated a lot of self-reflection on the parts of the "bullies" to the point that they finally questioned their motivations for making snide comments about the other person and also developed some empathy. So, I guess my long-winded advice is to consider addressing it directly, however that may be, IF you think it's appropriate. Any decent human being should feel regretful about making someone else feel bad, but they have to be aware of the impact of their actions in order to get to that stage and to address their own behaviours. Fo this reason, I fear that it will just continue if they don't know concretely what impact it has on you. And I don't think it makes you weak, vulnerable or moany to be vocal about it, if done tactfully - it means you're strong, assertive and invested in the idea of group harmony. 

Update for anyone who cares: Meeting with a grad student was actually nice because she understood certain stress was inherent to school. I didn't score on depression at all. She suspects that it's a sleep issue possibly tied to grad school stress. I feel a lot better.

You did well, GradHooting. Not only did you successfully get through a very challenging Masters program, but you made a brave & honest decision to leave academia behind. Which was the right thing to do.
 
Even though you are entering the job market at a lower rung than you anticipated, after 3-5 years of working you will make up a lot of the difference through promotions, changing/upgrading jobs. It may not take your career in the direction you planned to take...but you will discover all sorts of career opportunities and positives you'd never considered before.
 
With time, this passage in your life is going to be nothing more than a distant memory: something you can talk/think about without feeling bad emotions. In the meantime, take care of yourself. Getting a Masters degree is still an achievement (it's a higher degree than most people have).

My opinion is that whenever anyone makes you a "promise" that they are not actually responsible for (in this case, your advisor is not going to be on the admissions committee at these schools), that you don't take their promise very seriously. It's one thing when a professor promises you something they actually have control over (e.g. they'll write you a strong LOR, or they'll ensure you are a coauthor on their paper etc.) but another thing completely when they are making promises on behalf of other people.
 
Sure, your advisor, through their connections and your demonstrated research ability, can do a lot to help you get into a top program. But some academics (actually, some people in general, academics or not) like to make themselves feel or sound more important by making these strong claims. Usually, they are exaggerating. Some people do this to exploit students by making false promises to get more work from them. But sometimes they don't even realise that they are making promises they can't really keep.
 
Either way, it is true that working hard and doing a good job will help you get a position at a top school. Don't do it because your advisor is making some claims. In the end, you are the only one responsible for your future and do the work because you want to, not because of what your advisor said. 

There are some PI out there who will only like an idea if they themselves thought of it. Even though they might solicit ideas from you and insist you should think up your own proposals. I'd say that your PI has less of a "bad" memory, more of a "selective" one.
 
You can't really change an advisor like that.
 
Your best approach (if you plan to stay in the group) is to (i) shake off the random criticism, which isn't a reflection of you or your capacity as a scientist (ii) minimise your contact with this PI and try to find other ways to get help for your research problems (perhaps from other group members) (iii) accept that you will have to "plant" ideas in your PI's head, rather than suggest something and get immediate approval/acknowledgement. I'm not pretending that is easy.