Quantum Buckyball

Because I got assigned to the same projects as him and now I have to carry most of the weight -.-. In addition, it wasn't just me. Some of my peers (upper-class) in my division also agreed that most of the people from the division he's in are very incompetent (i.e. lack of critical thinking skills, creativity) which could make the program, as a whole, and the school look real bad.

I was upset because he was telling people how easy it was for him to get accepted to my program (not division). He's in a different division, and the admission process is different. For my division, it was very competitive, I would say that everyone got accepted to my division all had some sort of scholarships/fellowships/publications/internships. In the end, when people look at your diploma they only see the name of the school you graduated from and not necessary which division you were in. Anyways, the admission committee realized some people were using this as a loop-hole to get acceptance letters, but I'm not sure how they would resolve the problem though.

To my knowledge, he only applied to my program because he couldn't find a decent job with a Masters so it was a last minute thing. Now, he's telling people (mainly undergrads) that how easy it was for him to get accepted to my program for PhD.

I'm not sure if I should feel insulted or not because I just found out someone from my cohort class got accepted to my program with UG 2.8 GPA, M 3.0 GPA, 1100 GRE (on the old scale), no publications/internships/fellowships/industrial experiences and failed all the ACS diagnostic exams. If the admission process was truly merit-based, then an applicant with that kind of porfolio should never gotten accepted in the first place .

oh lord sweet Jeebus! I don't think it's wrong to sleep with undergrads as long as you aren't his/her current TA, a former TA is okay.

My colleagues and I have decided to be frank about the job market for PhD in Chemistry to the prospective students during Visitation Weekend next semester.

Most postdocs are contract-based and with no benefits. Some schools might give you health insurance and that's about it. I supposed it depends where you go, the postdoc here are getting paid around 35~40k/yr and they have to mentor PhD students and teach general chemistry lecture/labs.

Personally, I would settle with a stable job that pays 50K/yr salary, I think it's enough to get by for a family of 4.

I actually know a few people from my program switched from Computational Chemistry to Computer Science this year..

Their base salary is the same as a postdoc pay. I think you meant pharmaceutical representatives and not the "lab supplies" sale representatives. I don't think they made the choice to "pursue" money instead of research. It's easier for you to say that right now because you're not in a program yet, nor have to comfort your colleagues because they couldn't get an interview after applying to 30+ different places.

Today, two women in their late 30s stopped by the lab trying to sell lab supplies to us. At first, I didn't want to talk to them, but then I quickly changed my mind. Long story short, I found out both women have a PhD in Molecular Biology and Genetics and have done postdoc. One of them worked as a postdoc for 5 years because she had enough, and the second one only did it for a year and a half. They graduated from UNC Chapel Hill and VA Tech. It broke my heart to see talented Scientists being forced to change their career just in order to survive. It is extremely hard to start a family or buy a house on a postdoc salary.

before you fill out your applications you should definitely watch this video clip first. This applies to postdoc position in both academia and industry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyd0yxpw8aI http://cen.acs.org/articles/91/i20/Postdoc-Pains-Gains.html

If you want to stay in the US then I think you should definitely wait a little bit longer, especially for a Masters degree. If it was a PhD program and they were offering you a reasonable amount of stipend then I should accept the offer immediately because some opportunities only come once in a lifetime.

my PI wants me to give the undergrad a "mini" project, a project contains something I want to do in the "future". ... or "backup" plans

Thank you for the feedback, I told my PI about creating an application process to make it more formal/serious and he agrees with me, and the current grad students should get involved in the admission process since we're gonna be the ones that spend the most of time with student (gotta make sure personalities match)

Long story short, my PI decided to get ANOTHER undergrad next semester and he has already committed to the student (another sophomore). Anyways, it sounded like this new incoming undergrad student is actually for another grad student and not for me (thank goodness). and that "another" grad student also made it very obvious that he doesn't want/need anymore undergrad assistant. So now we have 4 grad students, 2 volunteers (1 undergrad, 1 postgrad), and 3 undergrads, for a total of 9 people in the group. As for right now, I have 1 undergrad and 1 volunteer working with me, and both of them are gonna be gone by this Friday and won't be back for another 5 weeks

I use one of my drawers for food...like..plenty of food......crackers....soda....gum...energy shots...candies...chocolate cakes....dried fruit...energy bars...breakfast bars....nuts..... no potato chips though

It's really difficult to get stuff done with only 10 hrs/week, especially when dealing with biological materials. We actually have to obtain our samples from scratch and it can take up to a full week before you have something that is usable for some sort of measurements. I wanted my undergrad/volunteer to be at least able to "shadow" me but it was very hard if they only show up 1 or 2 hours at a time, or they would start an experiment and have to leave in the middle of the experiment and won't show up again for another 3 or 4 days. I'm sorry, but you just can't do that when dealing with biological samples. Cells and proteins don't care if you have exams coming up or have to take Winter Break, they'll DIE if you don't pay attention to them.