Eigen

So again, you don't want to respond. I'm suspect of people who redirect questions regarding credibility and personal experience, it makes it seem like their motives are suspect. This is particularly interesting in a case discussing professional ethics, especially when someone wants to (highly anonymously) call out another person specifically and individually in a targeted and seemingly malicious manner. There are 2 pages of discussion on the issue. CV falsehoods are not a good thing, but mistakes happen- and in this case the mistake was corrected when it was brought to the attention of the person in question. You may personally be perfect, but I've definitely had portions of my CV that I've updated in advance of something happening (i.e., put on a paper during submission) and forgotten to take it off of a successive version when something happens, like authorship getting changed. It's careless, sure, and most of those I've caught before it's gone public/been used in something. That said, in this case all of the claims were pretty minor, and not something likely to indicate a malicious claim. Lower tier journal publications from undergrad that didn't end up getting published? Not something that likely had any bearing on a hiring decision.It doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for an absence of mistakes, but it makes you continuing to push this issue as malicious suspect.

You still haven't answered my question before posing your own. At this point, my assumption is that you're the same person who started this thread, who clearly had some personal axe to grind, and you've given me nothing to doubt that opinion. Your writing style is nearly identical, and you're a new member with no interest other than pursuing the same exact argument as someone else who conveniently isn't posting anymore.

Your first post, with nothing to support your argument, was a broad condemnation of the ethics of those posting in this thread (and by extension, the board at large). You summed up disagreement with a particular issue as an alarming display of people not thinking ethics was important. You're making this about seniority, but it's about the credibility and impact of your opinion. You have nothing to back up your credentials or interest in this area, and (suspiciously) seem to have become a member only to post in this particular thread. So lets take this away from your seniority on the forums- how are you related to academics or the topic at hand that you feel qualified to judge the ethics of the rest of us?

Not all Canadian universities work the way Ottawa seems to, and even at Ottawa there are program based differences. The Chemistry department at Ottawa (and most of the rest of the sciences), for instance, has a comprehensive exam that marks advancement to candidacy- so a chemistry PhD student using "candidate" at Ottawa during the first few years before they pass the comprehensive exam would be using it improperly. McGill certainly has advancement to candidacy/candidacy exams in a number of departments. This also might make you re-think how you read "student" relative to "candidate", since you may well be mis-interpreting people at your own school outside of your department.

The problem with doing it as articles is that "thesis by publication" usually requires that you get all of the articles that are composing your thesis/dissertation published before you defend. Depending on how prolific you are, that can be a tough proposition- so that's definitely something I'd consider.

At my school, what you wrote in your acknowledgement was entirely up to you, as was any dedication. Personally, I had around 2 pages, and used the time to really think about the people that had gotten me to where I was in both large and small ways, including a deceased grandfather who was a professor and my deceased father. I also definitely mentioned pets.

Bumping this back up to share- just got a TT offer at one of my top choice schools. After 3 years on the market, I have this feeling of missing tension, like there's something I should be looking out for/worrying about, but I think it's just delay in the excitement setting in.

Wait, all of that got "handled" with an official reprimand in the 11 hours since you posted this? Or did you not mention any of the fact that this was currently under investigation by someone outside your department in any of your posts for some other reason? It's really hard to give people good advice when they leave important things out, like the fact that you'd already reported this issue to someone outside your department and they were investigating the issue.

I've heard the argument that justified text has accessibility problems, but I haven't seen any studies to back it up- do you have any links you'd recommend, Neist? Everything I can find just has "experts" saying it's harder to read, which I have a hard time swallowing without any evidence. Most of the argument against justified text from an accessibility standpoint seems to be when it's (a) coupled with font that's already too small, or (b) when it's poorly done so that you have huge white spaces in lines. One of the reasons I like it is I find it helps hugely with document organization. Poorly left justified text can make it hard to see paragraph breaks, and requires first-line indents. Justified text makes it easy to have breaks between paragraphs that are easy to identify.

That would be unusual unless you have something changed in the defaults settings, or you have words wrapped instead of line-specific. Shouldn't be just the justification.

How does it reduce your page count? All justify does is spread word spacing so you the lines stretch to the edge of the page- it shouldn't change anything about the number of words you can fit on a page, and so shouldn't effect the page count at all. That said, most journal articles in my field are justified because it looks neater, and I use it for most things I write.

While in general, what you accomplish in life always matters.... I would say with academics it's a rolling clock. What you do in high school matters for getting into college, but I generally look askance at people who still have too many things from high school on graduate school applications/CVs. Some things (national merit, service awards, etc.) might still be on there, but it should be truly exceptional things that stay. Similarly, as you progress through graduate school, a lot of stuff from undergrad goes away- and should be replaced with newer things. Some items (papers, talks) never leave your CV, but many awards, honors, and involvement- definitely do. Post grad school I only have 2-3 things from undergrad and nothing from high school left on my CV, outside of conference presentations and publications. That said, I do agree with what the grad student said- by and large, people in top programs have been exceptional for a while, and it's nothing special to have done well in high school by the time you're graduating college. I talk to my students early in undergrad about this, and remind them that while they may have gotten straight As in high school, the same is true for the vast majority of their peers and that college is a different game.

Or, they read the first 3/random 3, and the best one doesn't get read. Follow the instructions. There's no case where not following them benefits you.

I'm guessing this is a draft you wrote? There are some grammar issues, but it also really reads like an undergrad wrote it (to me). Too many superlatives that don't add anything, and not enough substance over what the reader can tell from a CV and transcript.

At the graduate level, you shouldn't need the material to focus in exactly on what you want to learn. You should be able to learn it one setting, and see how it applies to your research- that actually broadens you as a scientist, quite a bit. You shouldn't need a course to tell you the applications of physical chemistry to macromolecular systems, you should be able to learn the foundational material and apply it to what you need to. Graduate school courses aren't always about a specialization- they're about actually learning the stuff you skipped over in undergrad. And they're short parts of the start of your PhD. Your specialization is about what you do in lab, and how you further your expertise in an area by reading and teaching yourself. That said, when I say courses on NMR, I don't mean small molecule vs macromolecular determination. I mean courses on NMR- how to write pulse sequences, how to design experiments, and the fundamentals of how an NMR works. That's what takes you from a user (someone who can follow procedures) to a scientist- someone who can branch knowledge out into new areas, which is what a PhD is all about. The base problem, to me, seems to be that you see Biochemistry as a different discipline from Chemistry, when it's part of chemistry. It's the same reason why organic chemists have to take inorganic and physical chemistry, and many of them have to take biochemistry. That said, you say you want to focus on the more biological side. Do you have a background in molecular biology that will prepare you to take graduate classes in the area? FWIW, I teach both synthetic organic chemistry and biochemistry, and teach cell and molecular biology oriented biochemistry as well, including courses on tissue culture techniques, so I feel like I have a relatively balanced appraisal of the different approaches. If you want to talk about value for your PhD, I think you gain a lot of flexibility and perceived value on the job market from being on the chemistry side of biochemistry rather than the biology side. The biology/biomedical sciences field is hugely oversupplied relative to the chemistry side, and every lab in the world will value someone who has the background in traditional instrumentation (mass spec, spectroscopy) and some skill in synthesis/separations, especially when added to a strong foundation of biochemistry and molecular research techniques. If you're interested in structural biology and biophysics, then IMO you shouldn't be applying to Chemistry and biochemistry programs- or a lot of biochemistry programs. You should be applying to biology programs that are strong in structural biology, including some biochemistry and molecular biology programs. But structural biology isn't exactly biochemistry- and you need to be specific about where you fall along that spectrum.

There's already the support thread- I'd encourage you to post there as well.

You know my feeling on this, but I'll say it again: Biochemistry is part of chemistry, and you come across far too disinterested/dismissive of the rest of your field. I would expect any reasonable biochemistry PhD to be able to teach general chemistry and organic chemistry, and many of them are also expected to teach at the inorganic/physical interface. I know you're not interested in academia as a career (iirc), but I think the same applies to some degree outside academia- biochemistry is considered a subset of chemistry, and while you may not be as versed in physical or synthetic chemistry as others, you're expected to know some of it. I honestly can't imagine a good graduate level biochemistry education that didn't require grad level physical chemistry- either QM for the modeling/spectroscopy side of things, or thermo to mesh with biophysical chemistry. Similarly, I think physical organic is a fundamental class to understand how we probe enzyme activity and predict mechanisms. Things like kinetic isotope theory are frequently not covered well elsewhere. Sure, in some very specific biochemistry programs at a medical school these topics would be wrapped up in "biochemistry" sounding names- you might take an actual biophysical course, or an enzyme mechanism course. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be taking these courses at the graduate level to have a full education, imo. The other end of biochemistry would be in a biology program- and similarly, you'd be expected to be grounded in that discipline as well, and able to teach molecular and cellular biology courses, with a concomitant knowledge of cell culture and molecular techniques. Especially for you, since your main interest is NMR... I can't mesh this in my mind with *not* taking graduate level pchem classes or organic classes. That's where you learn, in depth, the techniques you want to use.

We've talked about it, and it's a good thing to keep in mind for future growth. Part of it is a chicken-and-egg problem: With no people here to discuss, we're creating extra forums that are pretty much empty. But on the other hand, people don't talk unless there's a place. Historically, the Jobs forum (if you read the description) is supposed to be about jobs post-grad school, so that's pretty much an exclusively "post-grad" forum, but it sees next to no traffic, because there aren't enough of us to keep it populated. That said, I'm all for a more robust inclusion of post-graduate school life- lets try to revitalize the current forums, and see where that takes us.

The CHE forums are.... Not as friendly as things are here. That said, I do find them an excellent source of blunt advice, which has in its own way been helpful. People on the CHE forums honestly post all of the things they wouldn't tell applicants, but do actually play a role, despite how much you do or don't like it. There are a lot of people there who are deans, provosts, higher administrators and senior faculty who can really give insight into what they consider and how. It's not always comforting to hear, and I don''t always agree with it- but knowing there are people out there who think like that and getting a chance to understand it is immensely helpful. The other thing to remember about the CHE forums is that they honestly do have places for venting/whining/complaining and looking for support. But outside of those threads, people expect that you want to hear, bluntly, what you need to do to change- and there's very little tolerance for coming back in 6 mos or a year and having not taken past advice into consideration, complaining about the same things.

For venting/discussion.... Here! Honestly, the more people in this situation that stay around, the more of a place this will become for those of us post-PhD. There's the job section of the boards, as well as the research/teaching sections, depending where you end up. CHE forums are good for support, as mentioned- there are several specific threads for job market support/advice, a sub-forum devoted to it, and year-specific cohort threads for TT hires. There's also the academic reddits- r/professor and r/academia. For finding when interviews go out, there are the academic wiki's, there are subfield specific blogs and posts- ChemJobber does in chemistry what academic wiki's do in other fields. By and large, I recommend avoiding them- nothing good comes from finding out when other people are getting interviews. It can be nice to know where the searches are, but I think leads to more anxiety than helpful.

I want to second this. Rules for students are not always the same as rules for faculty. And for most faculty searches, it's not breaking confidentiality to talk about people who applied. It's relatively rare to have "closed searches" in academia, and they're usually limited to administrative positions or poaching senior hires. That said, it's usually common to give students on search committees a lot stricter rules (don't talk about anything) because they're less likely to have been through HR training about exactly what parts are and aren't confidential- and are a lot less likely to be able to deal with the consequences if something goes wrong (i.e., lawsuit).

Going to be honest, it sounds like you're being really unfair to your advisor based off of your unrealistic view of them as a "superhero". You seem to be giving no allowances for humanity, and lashing out at them for perceived flaws that are perfectly normal.

No, it's really not in any way "disrespectful" to an instructor for students to turn in bad papers. It's a choice on the part of the students, and has nothing to do with "respect". Not everyone takes class work with the same degree of seriousness. It also has to do with preparation and abilities, and the learning goals of the course. Similarly, with extensions and grading... Why would the professor for the course, who's responsibility it is to handle policies, need to consult the person grading to grant extensions? It's nice to give a heads up that you'll have some things coming in late, but it's not a "grading" policy- it's a course policy. As a grader, you're paid to do a job, and while you may have opinions on how the professor runs the course, you don't have a right to a say in it, except in times that it causes you to work more hours than contracted or puts you on ethically shaky ground. At the end of the day, the professor is responsible for the course. They are the ones that are responsible for the grades given out, and the ones responsible for justifying decisions made in the process of assigning grades.

There's no way for any of us to know that, and it depends. Your advisor may be crazy, or they may have some very specific reason that they didn't communicate well as to what the problem was. Reviewers may not remember you, particularly... But they'll likely know who your advisor is. Research communities aren't that large. It sounds more like he's worried about having his name associated with the proposal. Those other faculty reviewing your proposal may not be as familiar with your subfield, or your professor might be crazy. That said, it doesn't bode well having the PI not support your project- if you get awarded, they have to write something every year for you to keep it, as well. But there's no way for us to know what of those is true. I'm not sure what you would discuss with a higher-up? A PI telling you that they can't support your research proposal isn't great, but it's not doing something "wrong" either, especially since they still wrote you a letter.

Cross posting this here, in case anyone is running into eligibility issues. Short version- the program solicitation this year has different eligibility requirements stated than FastLane, and it's causing people to be ineligible. I personally think there's an issue with FastLane, and the solicitation should be adhered to- the more people that call in and keep with the same story the better.