fancyfeast

All I could think of was "bears, beets, battlestar galactica" from the office. Cool hobbies! They could overlap really well. Just create a garden that you have to backpack to and birdwatch along the way

I wouldn't think so! Maybe that's because biking culture is huge where I live. If you're a biker you're cool here haha. Too many hills for me and the drivers and pedestrians are insane.

Maybe you could start by seeing where the course structure leaves knowledge gaps for the students? Like with my pchem courses a lot of the times I just did not know how to study and what kind of questions would be asked and I never really felt that way with a course before or after. A lot of my classmates felt the same way, but we didn't know how to voice this without coming off like we wanted to know what exactly would be on the exam. Not saying that this will be the issue with pchem across the board, but maybe find a way to get your students to be comfortable enough to directly or indirectly reveal where the course is lacking for the majority of the students. Maybe it's the lack of visible applications, practice problems, or concepts. When I'm tutoring a student who doesn't even know where to begin to ask questions, I go through the concepts covered and make them answer questions about them. "What is entropy? What does the term in this equation mean?" (Doesn't have to be that basic). I think as long as you don't give them answers or maybe even call on them individually (had a high school teacher do this and even though the majority of the kids were air heads, it was a really great teaching style), a discussion culture should arise. Or if you figure out that lack of questions to test understanding is the issue, working on problems in small groups can be fun. You could also use clickers if your university has them Just throwing ideas out while taking a break from my lab report. I don't know if this was helpful or really obvious. I'm only an undergrad so my experience with teaching more than a few students at a time is non-existent haha.

I swim. Interested in hearing what people like to do in their spare time!

^^ Sounds like someone visited West Lafayette lol. - from an IU fan

I know this story. Something very similar happened to me and I've seen it happen to other friends. People are stupid and they will disappoint you. A little over year ago I would have never thought my best friend could just drop our friendship like it was nothing (we had been friends for about ten years) and yet she could and she did. I hope you're not too hurt by what she said/did. Angry, yes, you should be. But don't let her foolishness hurt you. If they breakup she's going to go back to what were her closest friends (i.e. you) and then you'll get your chance to decide if she's worth having in your life (no).

i got more. just remembered the postdoc was patronizing towards me again. she thinks it's "cute" whenever she catches me reading a paper. GURL DON'T REMIND ME I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOIN. It actually doesn't bother me thaaat much but she was a baby scientist too once upon a time.

my math homework is really hard today >

I think I could get a good letter of rec from the upper level biochem courses I've taken. I've taken pretty much the same sequence of courses as the biochem majors here, I just took the chem analytical classes rather than the biochem ones and I won't be taking biochem lab. But I really don't think I could get a publication in biochem unless I took a year or two off and worked as a research assistant at a university or hospital or maybe the NIH IRTA program. I asked a professor I had in class if she would recommend switching labs for a year, but she told me that she felt that I should stay where I am if I'm enjoying it, which I do. Basically just trying to ask if I should get more experience in a relevant field for a year after college.

Thank you! That's a great tip! I think I came off a bit pretentious and I'm sorry about that. I just read a few posts of people with amazing stats and got worried. My friends are also above and beyond and I think since I'm at the bottom of that group I tend to forget that doesn't mean I'm at the bottom everywhere. Gonna go print a map of the continental US

Hopefully someone on here can give me an idea if I should take a year off to improve my research background - my lab is very hands-off so I sometimes think I move more slowly than friends in other labs, but I feel like I've learned a lot more because of this! It just sucks that I don't have much to show for it in terms of publications. Major: Chemistry Large state school GPA: 3.95/4.00 Research: 2 years (including summers) in a materials/physical chemistry lab. 2 presentations (national conference and school conference) - got promising results but PI moved me to something he was more interested in that he felt had higher impact. No papers maybe, if I'm lucky, I can wrap up my current project this semester and at the very least get another presentation in. GRE: No GRE yet. EC's: I do a lot of tutoring for the chemistry and athletic departments, will be an AI for a general chemistry course next semester, I volunteer weekly at the Boy's and Girl's Club and do science outreach there once a month or so. Involved with the chem frat Alpha Chi Sigma, but I don't do much except go to events where there will be food. Awards: Dean's list, easy-to-get automatic scholarship, summer stipend scholarships, Phi Beta Kappa, best first-year student award from way back when I was a freshman. Letters: Don't actually know how much I need yet. Obviously my PI, who I think will write a really good letter. The other two will be from professors I had in class and they should be decent. I have more faith in one over the other, but I think if I sat down for a bit with the weak link to chat for 30 minutes about my goals she would write a great letter. Schools: I'm still narrowing down my interests by reading papers in the fields I like (my lab now is not what I want to do in the future really). I'm interested in studying biochemical pathways, particularly when they result in disease. Also interested in estrogen-receptor related biochemistry. On the other hand, bio-inspired nanomaterials are cool. I'd really like to go to a top school. I think right now that might be a bit of a reach for me, but who knows. I want to be a professor, so I think where I go and who I work with matters, right? Comments: I know people do summer REUs, and I think it makes your application/skills look more varied and I kinda wished I had done one. It's too late for me to apply for one for the summer now I think, but I haven't minded staying and working full-time on things I'm familiar with. I feel very unaccomplished. Compared to my peers who are above and beyond and super involved (albeit, premed), I feel pretty average. How can I make myself stand out? TLDR: good grades, maybe slightly above average research, decent EC's, decent LORs. Do I have a chance for anything more than above average?

I know I'm taking my cat with me wherever I go once I determine whether the stress of the move would be too much for her (she's getting quite old). After living without her for four years I'm really excited. We've been best friends since I was 7 and in a way it's nice that her age makes her not super playful anymore. She just likes to cuddle now. And eat. I would like to get a dog but I know how much work they are. And my cat would probably not be too pleased to have to share my attention. I think if I weren't for lab work though, I'd definitely get a dog. If I were studying at home all the time, then it wouldn't be too inconvenient to let it out and stuff. And they could snuggle with me while I worked

Nah I actually like yours better haha.

That's seriously so awesome. I love stories like that! I very often feel like my peers are way above and beyond me, but I guess I actually keep up in class quite well; it just doesn't always feel that way. It's hard to compare myself to them when it comes to research since we're all in different labs and over half of them want to go to med school :/ I feel loads better now that people are telling me what I'm feeling is rather common.

I'm intimidated by my PI and afraid of wasting his time, but if I were to approach this topic with him, how would I ask without coming off as insecure as I feel? Would "I'm having a hard time judging how prepared I am to apply to grad schools this fall, where would you say I stand relative to other students," work? I actually just got told to maybe consider a full-time research program for a year or two if I was feeling really uncertain and I think depending on what my PI says I will consider them. I'm itching to go to grad school but I like the idea of only focusing on doing research for two years and using them to maybe explore other areas that I might be interested in. Lastly, I was actually given that article before my first presentation when I was really nervous! It helped at the time, and maybe re-reading it will provide the same reassurance. Thanks for the reply

I couldn't imagine air drying in the winter. It feels like the north pole outside of the shower!

That's great you have that support I'm sure they wouldn't encourage you if they didn't mean it. My lab people can be kind of mute about my future plans, which is another reason I'm worried I'm not cut out for grad school life. It's difficult because I don't feel comfortable sharing these kinds of insecurities with them. They all have their own things to worry about and in the end I think my problem can only be solved by me finding confidence within myself (sooo much easier said than done for me haha). I really appreciate your help though! It's reassuring that other people have felt similarly.

Thanks obaka! How did you know you were ready for grad school? A lot of the grad students in my lab treat me like I'm a baby, which is okay and is appreciated sometimes, but sometimes it makes it hard for me to take myself seriously since they don't, if that makes sense.

I once got "Someone is watching you." Maybe it was meant like "watching over me" but that was not what I wanted to hear as a young female living alone. And yeah what do those lucky numbers mean?

Hi all, So this is a problem that's been bothering me since I started research, but I thought it would go away over time. I'm really worried I'm not smart enough to be successful in grad school. I make good grades and would consider myself to be really hardworking and not necessarily naturally gifted, but after working on 2 or 3 projects in the lab I still feel like I need a lot of help. I don't have other undergrads to compare myself with so I don't know if it's all in my head or not. I get really frustrated when I have to go find a grad student for troubleshooting ideas. I feel like I don't have the necessary background to make things work and I always second guess myself and get frustrated when trying to draw significance from my results. I feel like I should have more confidence after being there for 2+ years but I sometimes I feel really hopeless and I'm worried that this will continue once I'm in grad school and I'll be miserable. That's pretty much the surface of the problem. I always thought I'd do a PhD, but now (I'm a junior) I'm really second-guessing myself. I always thought I was "too good" for med school, but now I'm starting to wonder if the way I learn and think are just better suited to the rote memorization that I always took med school to be. Thanks y'all.

I'm really young so the 70s and 80s seem cool to me. The 1500s have always interested me, but realistically I think anything before modern medicine would have been too unsanitary for me to really appreciate haha.

My toothbrush is by my bathroom sink (shower and toilet are in their own separate room) and my towels are in my room because the people who built my apartment apparently didn't believe in towel racks.

Well, I had to be in the lab today to look at some samples and I ran into her on my way out. She asked me if I was still coming on Friday and I told her I wasn't sure. She pushed me, wanting to know why (I think she thought it was related to this guy I'm seeing) and I just bluntly told her I didn't know if it was a good idea to be friends and work in the same lab. She didn't understand what I was talking about, like I predicted, and so I elaborated, trying really hard to show that I understood where she was coming from and stressing that I was just confused. She's can be really sensitive and moody, so she started to cry and now I feel absolutely terrible. I do not think I said anything harsh, because I have nothing harsh to say about the situation other than I sometimes feel like I don't deserve the treatment I received (but I didn't say anything even akin to that). I think she felt really guilty... I told her that she had no reason to be upset, but it didn't help. Another grad came in and I didn't see the situation getting any better so I left to go catch a bus and now I'm questioning what possessed me to complain about this at all. I can only say I feel a little better letting her know how I felt, but I also feel selfish for causing her stress when, judging by the number of dismissive comments I received last week, she's already quite stressed herself. Honestly feeling like a shoddy human being

Yeah I agree with everything you said. We were supposed to get drinks for her birthday this Friday and maybe I can tell her then or let her know beforehand and use it as an excuse to not go so that we can start to keep things more professional. I don't think it will change anything, but I am certain she has no idea she's doing it. She once told me I couldn't sit next to her at a seminar because she was so distracted by our PI glaring at her haha. She meant to say yes and had no idea why I went somewhere else for the talk! It's just how she is and I can put up with it most of the time. I know this won't matter to me at all in the long run, I'm just so confused right now about what's appropriate and what isn't! Thanks for the help. If anyone else has an opinion on this let me know. I obviously like over-analyzing the situation.