Quantum Buckyball

True that, but I don't think there are any major advantages for graduating in 4 years though, unless the end goal is to go into a completely different field afterward, aka med school . The job market isn't looking too good for new chemists with a PhD, a lot of private sectors are only willing to hire people with a BS, MS or high school diploma.

It's up to your research progression, number of *published* publications, not manuscript in preparation, thesis committee, research advisor and luck.

No it would be very difficult. I thought about applying to PhD in ChemEng and the Adcom told me that I was not qualified to apply because I didn't have a BS in ChemEng (lack of critical classes). They said most of their applicants had a MS in ChemEng before they applied for PhD, so I take that the tradition and admission process is different... However, I know a guy from my department dropped out his PhD in Chem program and received a Masters and got accepted to a PhD in ChemEng program at the same school.

Have you calculated the opportunity cost for going after a PhD? It's best to talk to the people in the industry for some realistic feedback. My cousin has a Masters in Computer Science and he has a fairly stable job right now. He said that it would be harder for him to land a decent job if he had a PhD in CS because the field he's in grows so fast and most of the new innovations are done by someone without a PhD...

Thank you for the feedback. I think it would be very difficult for me to write out (derive) every step on a blackboard...Odio las matemáticas

short answer: good Duke's chem program isn't as good as UNC's Duke's chem eng program isn't as good as NCSU's Duke's biomed program is slightly better than UNC's, and Duke has a higher international students vs domestic students ratio... Duke's med and law schools are both very top ranked....and their men's basketball team....

I took the algebra based pchem when I was in undergrad, and now I have to teach the calculus based pchem, i was like oh hell no

quantum right now.....and thermo/kinetics in March

My professor wanted me to get undergrads to participate in Q&A more often during recitation by making PowerPoint slides interesting and interactive. I was like, "puhleaze..."

Yes, it depends on what kind of work you're trying to publish and how much the reviewers like it. It's really hard to predict what kind of reviewers you'll get if you do it the "right' way. However, you may request someone to be your reviewer when submitting a manuscript. I believe this is the part where some people might take advantage of (requesting someone whom they already know, instead of someone anonymous) to speed up the reviewing process. For instance, a colleague of mine submitted a paper to a very top ACS journal (IP >8) on Dec 30th, and the paper was accepted for publication on Jan 1st. The turnover time is typically longer during the holiday seasons if your reviewers are anonymously selected by the editor. Its no way that the turnover time is this short if all 3 reviewers and the editor reviewed the paper properly.

It took 7 months, the paper was submitted in September and was published online in April. I was told that's pretty normal in my field....

You have up to April 15th to decide if you want to go to that school or not. However, if you're getting some kind of financial support (TAship, RAship) offer, then you only have 3 weeks to make a decision and this offer can't be delayed.

The turnover time is also a big factor. My first manuscript was in an ACS journal and the turnover time was a solid 7 months. How about a technical note and short communication such as JACS, Chem Comm, Nature Comm?

There are a lot more European journals than the ACS journals, and most of them have a decent impact factor. How would you know which one to pick? I usually use the journal's aims and scope but I don't think that's enough....

Why is that there are so many research groups publish papers in European journals and not American-based journals such as ACS XXXX? There are a couple of research groups at my school only published about <10% of their work in American journals...

I know a couple of professors in my program that were looking to take in new students and changed their mind in the end. They didn't have any funding issues, it was because they weren't satisfied with the students who were interested in joining their group. The students were lack of necessary skills (i.e. programming, advanced level of math and physics) and background to take over an existing project(s), .

This happened to my cohort class and the cohort class from last year, somehow we ended up with too many students and not enough of professors and group spot. Some people decided to transfer or drop out after their first year, and some decided to switch to a different division. It is really hard to know how many students you'll get each year... Have you talked to your PI about the potential journal where you're submitting your manuscript to? Some professors are very stubborn and unwilling to submit papers to mid/low tier journals even the results are good because the finding aren't that new/exciting, or the techniques aren't that novel. This is a norm for most of well established professors...

I don't think aberrant is completely wrong about this. I know a couple of professors are very short on funding and yet they're always willing to take in very good students each year... "there is always a spot for good students"