boblet

Sorry you're having such a tough time. Do you have a backup project? Is there a side question you might be able to investigate, or an offshoot of someone else's work that you could pick up as your backup? Maybe having something that's a less sexy, but also more reliable, project will give you some necessary security and confidence in being successful. Have you asked others to help you troubleshoot? Maybe a postdoc, your PI, or another student could give you a fresh set of eyes. Are there other professors in the department with whom you have a better relationship? Perhaps talking through your frustrations with them and getting ideas would help. How are your hobbies outside the lab? It's possible that spending an hour or two a day doing something you really love that truly helps take your mind off your stress, if only for a few minutes at a time, could help your mental state in a major way. Personally, the more stressed out I get and the less I feel like I have time for my hobbies, the more I really need to keep them in my life. Having a buddy (workout partner, rock climbing partner, and horse-riding partner, for me) helps get you out of the lab and into a little bit of fun. Take this for what it's worth, because I'm a just-graduated undergrad working in a very different field (paleontology), but...every project I've worked on has gone through a stage where I despair that it's never going to work out, I can't get the data to behave, nothing is going to turn up significant, and I won't be able to write a paper from it. So far (n = 3ish?) every one of those projects has worked out in SOME way in the end, even if the eventual writeup doesn't wind up being exactly what I envisioned when I first started the project. I hope that helps at least a little. Good luck!

I recently changed the way I approach reading an article, thanks to advice from a science communications class I'm taking. I now start with the conclusions, then intro, figures + captions, and abstract last to make sure I understand the flow of the paper. If it's something where I need to understand the methods in detail, I'll usually then go back and read the whole paper in order. Starting with the conclusion seemed odd to me at first but has been really helpful and time-saving. I highly recommend at least trying it. I am still working on my annotations system. Right now I've got a list of things it might be useful to know about a paper; depending on what I'm using any given paper for (background info in lit review section of my article, get ideas about experimental methods, get a sense of sexy new problems in my field) I'll take down notes on some or all of them. These all live in a single big Word file, so I can just search if I need something; as backup and for something more organized, I also paste the notes into the relevant Zotero entry. I came up with the "useful things" list using stuff other people have posted about their literature review strategies, then just tweaked it for the ways I usually think about papers. Title, Authors, Year, Journal: Purpose/Hypothesis/Research Question: Study organism: Sample (size, M/F ratio, age, how they were selected): Design: Confounding variables: Analysis: Results (with specific): Overall conclusion: Limitations: My objections: Links to my research: Directions I can take this: Other notes: As far as journal subscriptions, I have Google Scholar alerts saved for a few keyword searches and scientists whose work I like to follow. I also subscribe to an RSS feed of PNAS, and skim the biweekly titles for anything related to my interests. This is probably something I will expand a little more in the future, either through more keyword searches or TOC subscriptions.

I don't have much advice on the advisor front, but as far as boosting motivation... First, I take some time to myself. (Introvert, here - it's important for me to have quiet space to think.) Maybe a bath, or just some time curled up on a comfortable piece of furniture with a blanket and cup of tea and cat on my lap. Then I begin writing, in a journal or a research notebook depending on my mood, about the things I want to do and am going to do. Projects, accomplishments, things that excite my competitive drive and love of my work. Short term, long term, extra-long-term. Things that originally drew me in to research. By the time I finish my narrative about all the things I am going to do and sketch out some ideas of how I'm going to do them, my resolve is made of steel (source can be angry, e.g. all you haters suck and I'm going to prove you wrong, or aspirational, e.g. I am so freaking excited to do this awesome work!) and I've got so much energy that I need to get up and do something productive for fear of exploding. That said, I'm also a little weird. So you could try normal things like spending some reflective time in nature, talking to previous mentors who are more supportive, exercising, sitting down with your advisor to have a very goals-focused conversation where you two clarify your expectations of one another, etc.

I'd done a good job of mostly forgetting about this since I applied, but now that announcement time is near I'm starting to get twitchy. Spring break for me too - alternating between sleeping off an illness, working on a couple papers that need to get done, and having adventures. The adventures are good for distraction.

Does that mean one shouldn't, say, acquire desks or chairs at a thrift store in a city like Boston? There's always Ikea, I suppose...

I'm currently an undergrad, have been to three conferences, and have been asked if I had a card by at least one person at every conference (grad students, professors, once a science journalist). Usually it's at my poster after chatting with someone for awhile. So, while I didn't have my act together enough to have cards at any but the first conference, I don't think it says you're too full of yourself. Honestly, it's just an easy way for someone to get in touch with you afterwards. I received/asked for cards from a few people and used them to send emails the week after. My design is my name in medium dark font, my university in small dark font on the next line, and my phone number and email in smaller dark font on the next line, with a simple sketch of the skeleton of my main study organism in the background. Clean and simple. That said, I'm in a fairly friendly/laid-back science field, so YMMV.

I think we'll probably be living in Somerville or nearby, so anything within reasonable commuting distance is fine. Jumat, those are good ideas - thanks!

I'll be moving from the West Coast to the Boston/Cambridge area for grad school this fall. (Wheeeeeeeee!) I'm quite excited. My boyfriend will most likely be moving with me, and obviously is a bit leery of just following me across the country with nothing lined up. Does anyone have any suggestions for finding him a job, either before we leave or after we arrive? He's got a BS in math with a couple hard-science minors and is hoping for a research-related job. I was planning to look at the jobs site for my university and ask current grads in the lab for ideas, but am curious how you guys handled similar situations.