Almost exactly one year ago, in July of 2022, I defended my Ph.D. thesis in physics. After the grueling pace of the first four years, the last two years of my Ph.D. flew by, and before I knew it I was in a precarious situation: I had to find a job soon in order to avoid violating U.S. student visa requirements.

2022 had been a very hectic year, and despite my best efforts I had not made sufficient progress on figuring out what I wanted to do next: industry or academia? What about national labs? How much longer can I make do with meager academic wages? Do I really want to put myself through the hellscape that the academic job market often seems to be? Are my skills marketable to the industry? What about life outside of work? What do I want to do with my life, anyway?

Post-COVID economic realities, hiring freezes, personal life uncertainties and impostor syndrome did not help. At some point along the way, I decided to only look for academic postdoc positions. While that clarity helped simplify the search, it didn’t make finding a suitable position any easier. I still had to grapple with the fact that the postdoc job market is very disorganized, that most cold emails to PIs do not get a response (despite what their website says), that start dates aren’t always flexible enough to fit my visa requirements, that postdoc pay at top universities is often (counter-intuitively) quite poor, etc.

By the time August rolled around, I was fortunate enough to have an offer or two at hand, and I eventually ended up at a position that checked most boxes just in time to avoid visa compliance issues. I hope to not look for another postdoc position after my current one, but I thought it would be useful for me to write down some thoughts and advice while this whole experience is still fresh in memory. So here goes.

What to look for in postdoc positions

First, a non-exhaustive in-no-particular-order list of things to look for and be mindful of as you look for and interview for positions.

Pay & benefits, organizational and union support

A postdoc working group at the NIH recently conducted a study that concluded that the most pressing issue for academic postdocs in the U.S. today is pay & benefits. This is an especially urgent issue for postdocs that live in areas with high (and rising) cost of living and for those that have dependents.

Universities with postdoc support organizations and labor unions may be more likely to offer better pay, benefits and support systems for postdocs. This has certainly been true where I’ve ended up for my postdoc — in 2020, Columbia became the first private university in the U.S. with a unionized postdoctoral workforce. While the pay is still far from what is fair, progress is being made even as I write this.

That aside, if you have multiple postdoc offers at hand, it may be possible to bargain your top choice for better pay. PIs are not always able to pay their postdocs more even if they wanted to, but in my view it is worth being upfront about your financial considerations and not underselling yourself.

Research interests, opportunities to learn

If you are looking to stay in the same research topic as your Ph.D., then you already know which groups to apply to. But if you are looking to branch out a little, like I was, it is a good idea to look for a group where their expertise is just far enough from your Ph.D. research that you learn a lot of new things but also just close enough that you can ramp up relatively quickly.

Whichever way you go though, it’s always good to be in a group that also allows you the room to learn new skills that make you more marketable to future positions. Postdoc positions are temporary by design, after all.

A good advisor

A while back I wrote a whole another article on what to look for in a good Ph.D. advisor. I think all of it also applies to the postdoc context. The TLDR version is that while research expertise and university affiliation of your potential advisor are important, how they are on an interpersonal level can be much more important in determining whether you succeed at their group.

How to go about applying for postdoc positions

Again, in no particular order:

Cast a wide net

This sounds obvious, but it definitely was not obvious to me when I was applying. I found myself applying only to positions where I felt like I had a good chance of being made an offer – this was a mistake. In doing so, as a research scientist in my Ph.D. lab pointed out, I was rejecting myself an opportunity be made an offer.

The correct approach, instead, is to cast a wide net and apply to a variety of different positions (maybe including ones outside of academia and national labs). It is always better to have multiple offers and turn some down instead of having to choose from too few options.

Reach out to collaborators, professional contacts, “competitors”, etc.

I learnt very quickly that many (academic) postdoc positions that get filled are never formally listed on job postings sites. Much more common is that they are announced on email chains or on group websites – and sometimes not even that.

Fellowships are an exception in that they tend to have a well-defined application cycle like graduate school admissions. They are often competitive, but may be worth applying to if your graduation timeline aligns with the application cycle.

For positions that aren’t formally listed, the best way to find them is to reach out to collaborators, “competitor” groups, professional contacts at other universities and national labs, etc. Even if they themselves have no positions available, they may still have a lot of insights on the current state of the postdoc job market that you can gain from.

If you are cold-emailing, do not take the lack of response from a potential PI personally. It may be worth sending a polite reminder 2–3 weeks after your initial email. It is always a good idea to send a link to your website or CV in your email. This brings me to my next two points.

Get your Ph.D. advisor to email people (if they are willing)

It is amazing how much faster a potential postdoc PI will respond if they see an email from a fellow PI compared to when prospective postdocs email them. So if your Ph.D. advisor is willing to send some emails for you, do take them up on it. My Ph.D. advisor was happy to do that for me and put in a good word, which turned out to be very helpful in my current postdoc PI making me an offer.

Website, CV, visuals, 20–30 min job talk etc.

No matter how you reach out to a potential postdoc PI – but especially if you are cold emailing – a well-prepared CV is a must. It can also be very useful to have a good webpage that summarizes and highlights your work with interesting visuals. That makes it easier for your potential PI to decide if you may be a good fit for their research.

And if you do get offered an interview, it’s useful to have a short ~20–30 min job talk slide deck prepared and ready to go.

Job posting sites

Some good places to look for postdoc job listings (at least for the ones that do get listed) are:

• AcademicJobsOnline, HigherEdJobs, LinkedIn, etc.
• Research group websites, national labs job portals
• Fellowship webpages
• Professional society websites (for example, Optica runs the WorkInOptics portal)

Give yourself time! And remember that this is frustrating for most

Given how disorganized the postdoc job market is (not that I necessarily know of a better way to do it), the best thing that you can do is to give yourself a sufficient amount of time to find the right match. What amount of time is “sufficient” can vary, but a good rule of thumb for STEM postdoc positions is to give yourself at least six months.

For international students that may get into visa trouble if they don’t find a job soon after graduation, it may be worth discussing with your Ph.D. advisor in advance if you can delay your defense if it comes down to it.

And finally, it is worth remembering that finding a good postdoc position is frustrating for most people. If you are lucky enough (as I was eventually even if not initially) to end up with multiple offers to choose from, that’s great! But if you are not, it is worth being mindful of the fact that availability of postdoc positions is somewhat random and unpredictable, and that it is not necessarily an indicator of your competence as a researcher. (This is one of plenty of reasons to not do a postdoc and go the industry route instead, but that’s a topic for another time.)

Either way, congratulations on your Ph.D., and I hope you see as much fortune as I did in your postdoc job hunt!

This story was originally published by the author on Medium.

As it turns out, the ‘possibility’ question is the easier one to answer in most cases. The ‘feasibility’ one is not so simple. (At least, it hasn’t been a walk in the park, in my experience.) If you’re not careful, you might either end up unwittingly violating terms of your research/teaching assistantship (RA/TA) employment or end up having to pay tuition fee out of pocket while also losing health insurance coverage. During the summer of 2021, I interned at a company in the U.S., and the procedure for applying for CPT as well as staying in compliance with other requirements and restrictions was relatively straightforward. When the same company offered for me to come back during the Fall semester, though, I quickly realized that even if CPT rules allowed for me to accept the offer, there were several other things to factor in before making a decision.

Sadly, most relevant resources and guides that I found online — usually on the websites of international students offices of universities — only seem to consider the CPT part of the puzzle but not much else. Figuring out the other parts of the puzzle took me nearly a whole month of emailing/calling different people working in different administrative branches of the university and poring over rule books. I didn’t even know what all I had to consider, and so just when I thought I had accounted for everything, something new popped up and I had to re-evaluate everything. Not to mention COVID-related rules that seemed to change by the week. The entire process left me frustrated, and although I did manage to sign on to the internship eventually, I also lost a whole month’s worth of internship time. Hence my motivation to put together this rough, informal guide with a list of things to consider before you sign that offer letter.

The rules, restrictions and constraints might differ from one person to another and from time to time, and so this is mostly a loose list of things that you may not have already thought about, and not an exhaustive checklist. With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s jump straight in.

Things to consider before signing on to a Fall/Spring internship via the F1-CPT:

1. CPT Eligibility

The question of whether you are eligible to apply for an F-1 CPT during a semester for an internship position that you have been offered is usually easily answered by your university’s international students office. In most cases, though, you should be eligible.

2. Part-time vs full-time CPT

During the summer term, international students on F-1 visas are allowed to be employed outside the university via “full-time” CPT for up to 40 hrs/wk. During the semester, however, students are typically only allowed to be employed for a maximum of 20 hrs/wk including on-campus RA/TA employment.

As a result, if your internship/co-op employer makes you an offer to work for 20 or fewer hrs/wk, you typically qualify for a “part-time” CPT and you’re in compliance with the 20 hrs/wk cap on employment. Full-time CPT for internship employment in the 20-40 hrs/wk range during the semester seems to be allowed only in certain special circumstances (see this handbook by the University of Michigan). I’m not familiar with the pros and cons of doing a full-time CPT during the semester, but in my case, I stuck with the part-time CPT, and for good reasons.

If you are someone that has already done multiple full-time CPT internships, you might want to consider going with the part-time CPT option for your internship during the semester. This is because of the 12 month cap on full-time CPT for eligibility for Optional Practical Training (OPT). (Again, see this handbook.) Part-time CPT currently doesn’t seem to count towards this cap.

3. Tuition remission

Most Ph.D. programs in U.S. universities offer tuition remission to students. What is lesser known, though, is the fact that this tuition remission is usually paid by your TA/RA employer. In other words, if you forego a TA/RA employment for whatever reason, you lose tuition remission!

This means that if you decide to intern during the semester while you’re also registered for credits at the university (irrespective of whether those credits correspond to classes that you registered for or just research credits), you might have to pay for those credits out of pocket. Knowing how expensive tuition credits are in the U.S., it is best to avoid this possibility.

One way to do this is what I did in my case: I signed up for only 10 hrs/wk of internship employment, and the other 10 hrs/wk went towards my RA employment at the university. Do note that the credits for which tuition remission is provided is typically dependent upon the number of hours in your RA/TA employment. If 5 hrs/wk of RA/TA employment might be sufficient to cover the tuition remission you might need, then you might be able to do 15 hrs/wk of internship.

Note that this only applies when you are employed on a part-time CPT. If you instead go the full-time CPT route, you might have to pay full tuition fee out of pocket. Another reason you might want to stick to a part-time CPT.

4. Health insurance coverage

Most internship employers seem to not provide health benefits with their internship offers. I don’t know if this is universally the case, but in my experience, they don’t. If you completely let go of your university RA/TA employment, you will lose access to university-provided health benefits as well.

In my case, because I had other reasons anyway to hold onto my RA appointment, I was able to keep my university-provided health benefits as well. This meant, among other things, that I didn’t have to worry about more paperwork. If you’re looking to take up a part-time CPT internship during a semester for the full 20 hrs/wk (i.e. not retain any hours on your RA/TA employment), you might still have options and resources (like this one) for you to buy health insurance.

5. Full-time student status

F-1 visa rules require international students to meet “full-time student status” requirements at all times during the semesters. I suspect that what constitutes as “full-time student status” might differ from one university to another, but generally speaking, you are required to be registered for a certain minimum number of credits and/or maintain your RA/TA employment.

If you have to forego your RA/TA employment in favor of your internship employment, it is a good idea to double and triple check that you are still meeting the requirements for full-time student status. If you fail to meet these requirements, you might get into a whole lot of trouble related to whether you meet the basic requirements for a valid F-1 status. (Note that this is only a problem during the semesters; during the summer, you do not need to meet the same constraints to be considered a full-time student.)

6. COVID-related restrictions

As if this isn’t complicated enough already, additional temporary rules brought about by the pandemic mean that international students must be extra-careful before accepting any internship offers, be it during the summer or during the semesters. Some questions to ask upfront are:

• Do current CPT rules (including any COVID-related temporary restrictions) allow me to be employed for in-person work with a non-university employer?
• If so, does that mean that in-person work with employers located anywhere in the U.S. is allowed? Or is the allowance only made if the location of work is in the same state or area as the university?
• If you set up an arrangement for interning during the semester that is, say, 10 hrs/wk in-person internship work and 10 hrs/wk RA/TA work, then you likely will be doing your RA/TA work remotely. Does the grant/funding source of your RA/TA employment allow for you to work remotely?

A final note

In most cases, internships are best done during the summer months when you don’t have to worry about classes or other constraints. During the semester, there’s so many more things to consider before signing on to that offer letter, and that is especially so for international students on an F-1 visa. While the complexity of this entire process and the lack of official guidebooks that cover all aspects of it frustrate me, I am nonetheless grateful that interning during the semester is even allowed for international students.

Following a very memorable and fun summer interning at Bell Labs in 2021, when they made me an offer to extend to the Fall semester, I didn’t hesitate at first. But when I gave them an informal “yes”, I realized that I had stepped onto a minefield, and one wrong step could have me in trouble. I was lucky in that my Ph.D. advisor was supportive all along and helped me through this complicated mess of a process. Figuring out the details still took me a month or so, but in the end, it was worth it, and I got to go back to a place that I’ve loved working at for 10 more weeks. I wouldn’t blame you if you’re discouraged by how complicated the process of getting all approvals and checking all the boxes can be, but I hope that this super informal guide can help you alleviate some of that frustration by giving you a non-exhaustive list of things to watch out for. And I hope that your interning-during-the-semester adventure will be as fun and worthwhile as mine was!

This story was originally published by the author on Medium.

In pursuit of deepening our understanding of the world around us, scientific research has, over time, grown increasingly specialized. It is easy to get lost in the complex web that today’s scientific research enterprise is, and it is easy to lose sight of what it is that every thread of the web has in common. At the very core of every research endeavor and every scientific discipline is one and the same: the scientific method. The tools may be different, but the guiding principles remain the same.

Although I love my research in photonics and although there isn’t anything else I would rather do any time soon, this pandemic has made me ponder upon my immediate utility in times of urgent crises. It has made me wonder if I am capable of leveraging what different scientific disciplines have in common and seeing if the lessons that my research has taught me are transferrable to more complex scenarios. It has created in me an interest in seeking out problem solving that involves not one or two narrow disciplines but many.

This past week, I took part in the prestigious Emory Morningside Global Health Case Competition, and it proved to be a good way for me to get a glimpse of serious interdisciplinary problem solving. The case prompt was on hesitancy to the COVID-19 vaccine stemming from misinformation and pseudoscience. As misinformation and pseudoscience are topics that concern physicists and public health experts alike, finding that common ground and working on this case prompt with a diverse group of individuals was a particularly satisfying learning experience.

I will likely never be a public health expert (not unless I’m willing to go through grad school again). But I walk away from this experience with a greater respect for scientists in other disciplines, and a greater understanding of the challenges that they face. I walk away from it with a better sense of how the different threads of the web can work together to trap the bug.

A shout out to my amazing teammates: Anindita, Linette, Shifali and Ellen. Watch our team’s case submission here:

On a gloomy afternoon last week, some friends of mine and I drove from Lafayette, IN to the Indiana Dunes State Park. It was a bit too cold and dry to be outdoors for my taste. But I was visiting Indiana only for a few days, and I really wanted to visit Lake Michigan, so I decided that it would be worth it.

As we hiked up along the sandy dunes of the State Park’s Trail 8, we began to get a good view of Lake Michigan. This was my second time visiting the lake, and I was hoping to see the sparkling blue waters of the lake under a clear sky. Instead, the water reflected the dull gray color of the overcast sky.

As I realized a little later, the cold and dry weather was not all bad, as thanks to it, we got to witness a very interesting phenomenon. As we reached the highest point along Trail 8, roughly 150 ft above the water of Lake Michigan, we got to see the Chicago skyline in the distance. Coupled with my shortness of breath from all the dune climbing, it gave me the feels of being an ancient nomad, wandering the forests and accidentally stumbling upon the sight of a great civilization in the distance. (cue inspiring music in the background)

It was a terrific sight to behold, and I instantly regretted not bringing my DSLR along. The wide field of view of my smartphone camera meant that the skyline — far in the distance — would look smaller in the picture than it appeared in real life, but here’s something to give you an idea (and trust me, it looked much better in real life):

Why does it appear smaller?

We decided to venture down to the waters of the lake, and on our way down, I noticed that the skyline had started to appear smaller. It had started to look as though part of the skyline had submerged…it was a strange sight to see at first. After all, when there’s a city across the lake and you can see it, why would its skyline appear partially submerged in the lake’s water when you’re at the same altitude as the lake?

Take a look at the pictures below — both pictures were taken with my Pixel 3, with no zoom in either case (although I cropped the pictures later to roughly equal proportions). Forgive me for not carrying my DSLR on that day, and for subjecting you to cropped and contrast-enhanced pictures taken on a smartphone, but they show the effect clearly enough.

I figured that it’s safe to assume that there’s no catastrophic tsunami-type flooding of Chicago happening — at least, the weather forecast hadn’t predicted any such thing! (Although in my experience you can never trust weather forecasts in North America.) Jokes apart, I quickly realized that the skyline had appeared smaller at ground level because of — wait for it — the earth’s curvature.

The earth ain’t flat

As strange as it sounds to be able to observe the effect of our planet’s non-flatness while on the ground (as opposed to floating around inside the International Space Station), it turns out that you can — with some help. Note that it is the effect of the earth’s curvature that one can observe from ground level, and not the curvature itself; for that, you’d need to be at a much higher altitude!

Take a look at the sketch below: it’s rough, and it’s not to scale, but it paints a picture of the geometry of the problem. Imagine that you’re at ground level, standing in front of your favorite tower (preferably a tall one). If you were to walk backwards away from the tower on perfectly flat ground while still facing it, for the first miles or two, the tower would appear smaller, but you would be able to see it in its entirety: from bottom to top. As you walk farther away (say, a few to 10s of miles), however, the earth’s curvature begins to play a role in how much of it you can see.

At far enough distances, the earth curves enough for you to not be able to see the bottom of the tower anymore! This would happen even if the land everywhere were perfectly (locally) flat, i.e. in the absence of any hills and valleys. I won’t go through the gory details of the trigonometry here, but [here’s a fun calculator](http://dizzib.github.io/earth/curve-calc/index.html?d0=30&h0=10&unit=imperial) made by Github user ‘dizzib’ that you can play with. Here’s another one if you’d like to cross verify the results that you see.

Crunching the numbers

If you measure the point-to-point distance between Chicago downtown to Indiana Dunes State Park on Google Maps, it comes out to be about 33 mi. The height of the Willis Tower — the tallest tower in Chicago — is about 1450 ft. For a 6 ft tall person standing at the ground level, you can use this calculator to estimate that the minimum height of a tower/structure for you to be able to see it is 600 ft. In other words, anything shorter than 600 ft would not be visible in the skyline view.

For the same distance, if the same person were to stand on top of a hill that’s about 150 ft tall (approximately the elevation above Lake Michigan of the highest point of Trail 8), the calculator will show you that the minimum structure height for visibility 33 mi away is now only 216 ft.

The difference in heights for visibility is about 380 ft, which is approximately 25% of the height of the Willis Tower! That difference in apparent height can also be resolved by the human eye: with an angular resolution of 1 arcminute, the human eye is capable of resolving features larger than approximately 50 ft for objects and features that are 33 mi away. Given that the difference in visible skyline levels is over 200 ft, it makes sense that one is able to observe the effect of earth’s curvature!

A caveat

All of the geometrical calculations above make sense under the assumption that light travels in straight lines. This is true on most days, but on warmer days when the air temperature is higher close to ground level, light can bend because of atmospheric temperature-gradient-induced refraction. Although I wasn’t a fan of the sub-zero weather that afternoon last week, it did mean that the effects of atmospheric refraction were minimal. (Side note: temperature-gradient-induced atmospheric refraction is also why you see mirages of oases in deserts!)

On warmer days, therefore, the math above is no longer accurate, as light no longer travel in the straight lines that we drew for simple calculation. In fact, it turns out that you would be able to see the Chicago skyline even farther away than the calculators above would predict! A simplified illustration of how this could be, in the presence of bending due to refraction, is shown in the sketch below.

See this article published by ABC News, where they discuss the spotting of a mirage of the Chicago skyline **above Lake Michigan — not in nearby Indiana but rather all the way in Michigan over **50 miles away from Chicago! If you were to use any of the calculators I linked above, you would see that from a 50 mi distance, you wouldn’t be able to see even the Willis Tower, standing at ground level. The presence of warmer air, however, makes it possible for one to “see beyond the horizon”, in a sense.

‘Great’ Lakes indeed

To me, observing this phenomenon live was not only a cool demonstration of the non-flatness of earth, but also a humbling display of the scale of the Great Lakes. A straight line drawn from Indiana Dunes State Park to Chicago barely covers a small fraction of Lake Michigan, but that line would still be long enough for us to be able to see the effects of the earth’s curvature.

I typically associate going to a nearby lake or water body with serenity, a sense of calm, and fresh air. The Great Lakes do all of that, but they also leave you humbled. They leave you with a fascination for not just the lakes, but also for the size, scale and diverse topography of our planet.

Unlike the oceans of our world, the Great Lakes demonstrate to us our puny size, and perhaps our eventual irrelevance, in a way that is intimidating yet not overwhelming, and in a way that is relatable yet too ‘great’.

This story was originally published by the author on Medium.

The tattooing has taken only seconds, but Lale’s shock makes time stand still. He grasps his arm, staring at the number. How can someone do this to another human being? He wonders if for the rest of his life, be it short or long, he will be defined by this moment, this irregular number: 32407.

When he was 24 years old, in April 1942, Lale Sokolov was transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was only one of the thousands like him that were forcibly brought to these camps. Shortly after his arrival, he was put to work as the Tätowierer (tattooist) given his remarkable ability with languages: he could speak six languages. Lale was responsible for tattooing incoming Jews at his camp. During the years he spent at the concentration camp, he witnessed subjugation, torture, suffering, and death, but also incredible acts of bravery, courage, and compassion. In July 1942, he met a young woman named Gita who was trembling as she was waiting in line to get tattooed by Lale. On their first encounter, Lale sensed a connection with Gita. On that very day, he vowed to somehow survive the camp and go on to marry her.

In her bestselling book The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Heather Morris narrates the story of Lale and Gita in the concentration camp. It is a story of the horrors of the camps, but also of the bravery of the prisoners. It is a story of suffering, but also of optimism. It is a story of love, courage, and hope in the face of unfathomable circumstances. Lale and Gita not only survived the camp, but they also went on to live the rest of their lives together.

Needless to say, Ph.D. and graduate school struggles are not on the same scale as life in concentration camps; in fact for many of us, most of our life’s struggles aren’t. What is also true, however, is that the lessons learnt from survivors of camps are relevant to each and every one of us, no matter the magnitude of our individual and collective challenges. In his renowned book Man’s Search for Meaning, Austrian psychiatrist and camp survivor Viktor E. Frankl shares his groundbreaking insight into the mind of a camp prisoner. Drawing from his experience in the camp, he introduces to the reader concepts from the psychotherapy theory that he developed and pioneered: Logotherapy.

The lessons that I learnt from both of the books that I’ve mentioned here have been profoundly helpful for me during the incredibly challenging journey that my Ph.D. has been so far. In this article, I attempt to share some of these lessons, in hopes that a fellow Ph.D. student reading this might find it useful.

It really is hard

Last year, Nature conducted a survey of over 6000 Ph.D. students from diverse disciplines. The findings of the survey, though far from different from the findings of any such survey, were alarming: 36% of respondents have sought help for anxiety or depression caused by their Ph.D. study. This number, in fact, only seems to be growing. Many that suffer from anxiety and depression never seek help. The actual percentage is one that I do not even want to think about.

The underlying causes are many. It’s hard enough to get into graduate school: the application processes are too expensive for too many of us, and the average acceptance rates of 5–10% are not very encouraging. Systemic problems within academia of racial and gender discrimination, to this date, makes many feel alienated and out of place. Even if you were careful in choosing your advisor, you are likely to still have advisor issues. You might be putting in 70 hours per week of work, but you’re only paid for 20; and not even at an appropriate hourly rate. In an increasingly expensive world, this leads to financial stress among Ph.D. students. Isolation, anxiety, depression, and poor work-life balance are the lived experiences of far too many Ph.D. students today. Let’s not forget that the real job of these same students is one of the most challenging: doing novel scientific work and making a dent in the scientific knowledge base. The near 50% dropout rate in the US perhaps makes some sense. Whichever way you slice it, there’s no getting around the fact that PhDs these days come at a cost.

The potential solutions to these varied issues are equally varied. On a systemic level, work needs to be done not only in making women and racial minorities feel more welcome but also in bringing about more accountability in advising practices. Students shouldn’t be pressured into working for longer than a reasonable, mutually agreeable number of hours and hourly rates for a stipend must improve. On a more individual level, advisors must invest in their students’ learning and not force them to churn out publications for h-indices and citations. Universities must provide better-personalized care for the mental health of their graduate students, and awareness of these issues and potential measures must improve.

These ideas do not address all of the problems. Many of these ideas might, in fact, take years if not decades to come to fruition. And even if/when some of these problems are solved, challenges will still remain. At any given moment, an individual Ph.D. student can only do so much to help solve the larger issues and is usually left with having to deal with issues that are both in and out of their control.

This is not an article about solving the multitude of problems that graduate students face today. Rather, this is an article on how graduate students can rationalize some of the struggles that they face, find meaning in them, and hopefully better cope with the obstacle-filled marathon that the Ph.D. is.

Logotherapy

Logos is a Greek word that means ‘meaning’. Logotherapy focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as the search for one [wo]man’s search for such a meaning. Frankl states in his book that according to logotherapy, one can discover meaning in life three different ways:

1. By creating a work or doing a deed: In other words, by way of achievement or accomplishment.

2. By experiencing something or encountering someone: For instance, by experiencing goodness, beauty, nature, culture, etc., or by experiencing love.

3. By the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering: That is to say that even though one may suffer, it is still possible to find meaning in it.

While all of these ways are relevant in the context of a PhD, it is the last one that is least obvious. It is easy to see meaning in happiness. However, many of our cultures teach us to actively seek happiness and to avoid suffering, despite the fact that suffering at one point or another in life is inevitable. When we are faced with difficult times, therefore, we find ourselves wildly unprepared and overwhelmed.

It is one of the basic tenets of logotherapy that man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain, but rather to see a meaning in his life. That is why man is even ready to suffer, on the condition, to be sure, that his suffering has a meaning. But let me make it perfectly clear that in no way is suffering necessary to find meaning. I only insist that meaning is possible even in spite of suffering — provided, certainly, that suffering is unavoidable. If it were avoidable, however, the meaningful thing to do would be to remove its cause. To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.

The insight of logotherapy is fundamentally different from what we are taught in today’s world. Frankl says that finding meaning is what can lead to true bliss, and not chasing momentary happiness. In the context of Ph.D. struggles, understanding which parts are avoidable and which are unavoidable is the first step to finding meaning in them. Frankl says that it is possible to find meaning only in the unavoidable. Indeed, to suffer unnecessarily is not heroic.

Avoidable and unavoidable struggles

Frankl’s insistence on avoiding the avoidable makes intuitive sense: if you can save yourself from sources of anxiety, why would you not want to do that? In some life situations, it is easy to identify what is avoidable and what isn’t. For instance, in the case of toxic friends and relationships, the best way to deal with them is to avoid them. In the case of graduate school struggles, this distinction is not always easy to make, but possible nonetheless.

Financial stress, for instance, could be both avoidable as well as unavoidable. You could, in principle, cut down on eating and drinking out, live and eat cheap (although hopefully still eating healthy), avoid unnecessary expenditures, etc. At the same time, however, you alone might not be able to bring about a better hourly wage, control the cost of living expenses such as rent, utilities, and commute. In my case, while adopting a frugal lifestyle has helped some, I have realized that my university doesn’t pay me enough for me to have a safety net. One miscalculation and I find myself having to choose between paying rent and putting food on the table. Depending on your specific situation, you can assess to what degree financial stress is avoidable, and to what degree it is unavoidable.

Similarly, if you are facing workplace issues such as micro-aggressions, discriminatory treatment, etc., this can be addressed and “avoided” by reporting it to your advisor. On the other hand, whether or not the overall environment in your department or university is welcoming and inclusive enough is harder if not impossible for you to control.

If your work is anything like mine, you probably have to put in 60–70 hour work weeks more often than you would like. I have been able to “avoid” part of this by planning better and forcing myself to stop working beyond a certain number of hours even on busy days. The difficulty of the work itself and its often slow-moving pace, however, has been much harder to control. After all, if you are trying to push the limits of scientific knowledge, it should hardly be a surprise if it requires you to spend many back-breaking hours in the lab — even if things are breaking down half the time!

If your advisor seems to be prioritizing publishing and shooting for new grants over your learning, you could consider sitting down and talking with them. Ideally, that’s supposed to help — in which case you have avoided some suffering — but as most Ph.D. students would know, it does not always change much. Unless you are willing to switch advisors (which isn’t always practical) or drop out, this becomes an unavoidable struggle. If your advisor isn’t always able to give you the time that you’d like, having an honest conversation and making your expectations clear to them could sometimes help, but a lot of times it doesn’t, and you are left to having to deal with it.

I could go on, but you get the point: although it can be difficult to identify which parts of your struggles are avoidable and which aren’t, it is possible nevertheless. Being able to make this distinction is, in my view, the first step to being able to either avoid or find meaning in your suffering.

Finding meaning

Chances are that some (hopefully not many) of your struggles are unavoidable. Maybe you have a bad advisor situation and it’s not practical to switch advisors or do much else about it. If you’re like me, maybe despite your best efforts, financial stress is something that you’ve learnt to live with. Perhaps you already tried to socialize and find a company, but your work makes it impossible for you to make time for meaningful connections in your social life, leading to isolation; I have faced this too. Maybe you try your best to avoid stressors, but you can’t seem to fully control your worries or anxiety.

My advisor has fairly high standards for publishing papers. While competitor groups publish a new paper for every slightly new finding they make in the lab, my advisor insists on publishing only when we have something substantial to publish. To some degree, this is of course healthy. However, given the importance of publications in getting jobs these days, it’s hard for me to not be constantly worried about it. But soon enough, I came to realize that the mental battle that I somtimes have between worries about (not) publishing and scientific integrity was unavoidable.

For a good fraction of the challenges that I face, I have been able to find meaning. I often struggle to make timely progress with my research because of its complex nature and because I do it all alone, and it gives me anxiety almost every single day. However, I have been able to rationalize it to myself by recognizing that learning to handle complex projects by myself will only benefit me in the long run. Similarly, maybe my advisor has high standards for letting me publish a paper, but learning to adopt his level of scientific integrity will only make me a better researcher. His hectic schedule has some times meant that I figure things out by myself, but I have learnt to see things from his perspective and acknowledge that he always does his best to make time for me and that I must make do with what time of his that I have. After all, beyond a thing or two that I some times complain about, I am quite fortunate that I don’t have to deal with advisor issues that far too many of my peers deal with. Put simply, I have learnt to question whether my unavoidable struggles seem to either offer some value in the long run or serve a larger purpose.

It has taken me some time to internalize this way of thought toward my Ph.D. struggles, but I believe that I am better off for it. This is not to say that the struggles that I did and didn’t list here don’t bother me anymore; but rather, I am able to find purpose in them and accept them the way they are. In doing so, instead of running away from suffering, I have learnt to proactively embrace it. In doing so, I accept ownership of my situation — both the good and bad of it.

In some cases, I have found that there is perhaps no meaning to be found and that things on a larger scale must change. My university must pay better, they must have better mental health services in place, and they must work to make the graduate school experience easier for us Ph.D. students, not harder. As Frankl says in the excerpt above from his book, there is not necessarily meaning to be found in all suffering, but rather that it is possible — provided that it is unavoidable.

Suffering proudly

“[S]he who has a why can bear almost any how.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

Growing up, I saw my parents struggle through our financial difficulties. They put aside their comforts — sometimes even their basic needs — so that they could instead feed us or buy our school books. They sacrificed their dreams and they lived through all of the sufferings. How? They saw the meaning in their suffering: a chance for me and my sister to have a better life than they did. They found their ‘why’, and they lived through almost anyhow. They suffered proudly. Look around at the people in your life, and you will find many such examples too.

Although I have attempted to touch upon some of the common struggles that Ph.D. students face, the list here is far from exhaustive. Whatever your personal list may be, are you able to rationalize your unavoidable struggles and see meaning in them? It could be helpful to write down your struggles and complaints on a piece of paper and give yourself plenty of time to think about whether you are able to ascribe some meaning to your unavoidable suffering. You could even think about not just the individual struggles but the overall Ph.D. experience, and ask yourself if you have a ‘why’.

In my view, not everyone has a ‘why’, at the end of this process. For example, some fellow Ph.D. students that I know have it so bad with their advisors that it’s really hard for them to see meaning in their struggles and weigh it against what they might eventually gain from their Ph.D. In such cases, I believe that it is perhaps time to either have the department or the university step in or consider other alternatives such as switching advisors. For many, this can even end up being the reason for dropping out altogether, which is a shame, but also the unfortunate truth about PhDs these days.

Finding meaning, to me, is not only about being able to rationalize your unavoidable suffering and seeing past it but also about embracing it rather than running away from it. By changing my attitude toward my suffering, I have been able to take control and ownership of my situation, and I have been able to suffer proudly.

Final thoughts

The intent of this article is not to serve as “expert advice”. I am certainly not a psychotherapist. If you think you might need help, seeking help from an expert is always better than reading an article online, let alone one written by someone that’s not a therapist! This is especially true if you are about to take a major decision regarding your Ph.D. Seek advice from professional counselors and/or people in your life before making those decisions. If you are like me, however, and you don’t feel like you need help but you still have had trouble rationalizing your struggles and coping with them, I hope that you found this line of thinking useful.

There are certainly many systemic problems at various levels that need to be addressed in order to make graduate school a little easier on students’ mental health, perhaps especially in 2020. Even as we push to solve these issues, in my experience, I still have had to develop a perspective on my own Ph.D. life in order to be able to better deal with the challenges that it brought, regardless of whether these challenges were in or out of my control.

Reading Frankl’s book was highly instructive for me, and I recommend it to everyone. As I read Heather Morris’ book on the story of Lale and Gita, I could not help but notice that Lale is the very kind of man that Frankl says was likely to survive the concentration camp. Despite the enormity of the situation that he found himself in, his resolve and his hope never broke. Lale found meaning in his suffering. He discovered his ‘why’, and he lived through nearly 2.5 years of an awful ‘how’. Most of us are fortunate that our struggles are not as bad. But my hope is that whatever our struggles may be, we all find meaning in them and suffer proudly.

Suggested reading: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

This story was originally published by the author on Medium.

Curiosity may have come about as an evolutionary trait for life forms on earth to survive, but it has had immense consequences on the planet itself, perhaps most notably through one of the millions of species that this planet has birthed: homo sapiens. Humans are said to be the “smartest” species to have ever existed. Whatever one’s definition of smart might be, there is no question that the curiosity, intelligence and social nature of the human brain has made humans the most powerful beings on earth. (How we managed to do that while still freaking out at the sight of an approaching cockroach is beyond me.)

Our evolutionary colleagues in the wild (tigers, monkeys, deer, etc.) are content with gathering information about the nearest available prey or grass to feed on, while we seem to have developed an insatiable need for information of all kinds. In 2009, a study estimated that the average American consumes about 34 gigabytes of information in a single day. If our brains operated similar to wild animals, we would probably be content with information on where the nearest McDonald’s is. But our curiosity has led us to seek out more information and to ask more complex questions. Why does the earth revolve around the sun the way it does? How does the Universe work? What is our place in it? How did we come to exist? Is there a Creator? Philosophers and saints all across the globe have pondered upon these questions for many millennia. It is only now, however, that we are making some headway in answering at least some questions, largely thanks to the advent of science.

Admitting Ignorance

In late 1400s, Christopher Columbus set out to find a new route from Europe to China, India and the islands in Southeast Asia. At the time, Europeans were unaware of the existence of the Americas. Many medieval civilizations were convinced that they knew everything and that their maps of the world were complete. It was no wonder, then, that when Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and landed on the Caribbean islands in 1492, he had mistakenly assumed that he had found the East Indies islands. (Hence the misnomer ‘Indians’ for native Americans.)

7 years later, a little-known Italian sailor named Amerigo Vespucci had also set out on an expedition across the Atlantic. He too had found North America. Vespucci, unlike Columbus, was not set in blind belief of the old maps. He was convinced that the new lands that he and Columbus had found were not part of east Asia, but rather they were part of a continent that was unknown up until then. What followed is perhaps best quoted in the words of historian Yuval Noah Harari, from his book Sapiens:

In 1507, convinced by these arguments, a respected mapmaker named Martin Waldseemüller published an updated world map, the first to show the place where Europe’s westward-sailing fleets had landed as a separate continent. Having drawn it, Waldseemüller had to give it a name. Erroneously believing that Amerigo Vespucci had been the person who discovered it, Waldseemüller named the continent in his honour — America. The Waldseemüller map became very popular and was copied by many other cartographers, spreading the name he had given the new land. There is poetic justice in the fact that a quarter of the world, and two of its seven continents, are named after a little-known Italian whose sole claim to fame is that he had the courage to say, ‘We don’t know.’

The discovery of America was the foundational event of the Scientific Revolution. It not only taught Europeans to favour present observations over past traditions, but the desire to conquer America also obliged Europeans to search for new knowledge at breakneck speed. If they really wanted to control the vast new territories, they had to gather enormous amounts of new data about the geography, climate, flora, fauna, languages, cultures and history of the new continent. Christian Scriptures, old geography books and ancient oral traditions were of little help.

Henceforth not only European geographers, but European scholars in almost all other fields of knowledge began to draw maps with spaces left to fill in. They began to admit that their theories were not perfect and that there were important things that they did not know.

The idea of having incomplete knowledge was perhaps radical at the time, but as the subsequent centuries witnessed, Western civilizations embraced the idea that there is much more to be known about this world than was already known. This, of course, did not mean that it was all of a sudden acceptable to differ with the established knowledge base. In the 1600s, roughly a century-and-a-half after the “discovery” of America, when Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei proposed his heliocentric theory, the Catholic church was not happy. He was imprisoned, and eventually died while serving his sentence.

The Gift of Science

The arc of change and progress is said to be slow and cumbersome. Slowly but surely, contradicting with existing knowledge became allowed; even commonplace. A lack of hesitation in admitting ignorance, a penchant to seek out new information, and most of all a willingness to self-correct when presented with new evidence went on to form the fundamental tenets of the modern scientific method.

Needless to say, the success of the West in the scientific and technological advancements of the last few centuries cannot be explained with a simplistic view that admitting ignorance was sufficient. Scientific research at minimum requires resources, skilled individuals, and creativity enabled by free speech. One could make the argument that colonialism gave the West access to virtually unlimited resources, usually at the cost of other peoples. Furthermore, free speech, as we know today, is essential for unleashing individual creativity; the eventual democratization of Western countries, therefore, played a role too. All of these factors — and many more — are necessary, but no single one is sufficient by itself. Experience has taught us that in order to make true scientific (and I would add sociological and economic) progress, we must unlearn our made-up notions of knowing it all, and embrace the curiosity that evolution has equipped us with.

Over the last few centuries, science and technology have transformed our planet in enormous ways. Just in the last 100 years, the global average life expectancy has doubled. Numerous deadly diseases have been cured and vaccines have been developed. As healthcare improved and mortality fell, the population of the planet rose up faster over the last 100 years than it did at any time in history. Global poverty has dropped by over 30% in the last 30 years alone. (Some of this growth, of course, has come at a great cost to the environment. But that is a discussion for a different time.)

Rationality and Pseudoscience

If Galileo’s story shows anything about 17th century Italy, it is that the Catholic church of the time was capable of up-ending people’s lives for the simple act of observing nature and reporting findings. Our societies have certainly progressed since then, but this change has taken conscious and often painstaking effort. Just as the Catholic church saw Galileo’s findings as a threat to their power and influence, there are elements in our society today that see fact and reason as a threat to theirs. Today, while arresting someone — like Galileo was — for doing science is unheard of, there is a different — a more subtle yet potent—threat to science: pseudoscience.

Across the world today, we see countless instances of powerful forces pushing a pseudoscientific agenda for their own benefits. A prime example of this phenomenon is what some have called the “climate denial machine”. For decades, the fossil fuel industry has put in money and resources to deny science and shape public opinion on the state of the planet’s atmosphere to favor their profits. As the general public went about their daily lives unaware of the adverse impact that their modern lifestyles were having on the environment, greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere skyrocketed and the planet today is warming at an alarming rate. A similar story took place in the case of the cigarette industry: despite the adverse effects that research had pointed to, misinformation campaigns led by cigarette companies led to a growing number of lung cancer cases. In the US today, pseudoscience takes the form of anti-vaxxers and those that refuse to wear masks in the middle of a pandemic, the latter even being encouraged by politicians for political points.

In India, there is seemingly no dearth of ‘babas’ and ‘gurus’ promoting all sorts of pseudoscientific nonsense in the name of religion and spirituality. Jaggi Vasudev may have made use of the Indian obsession with speaking fluent English and to quickly become popular, but his quackery and irrationality are there for everyone to see. From ridiculing scientists after the discovery of the Higg’s Boson to dispensing “wisdom” on menstruation, there are countless examples of this man seemingly using “scientific” terms, but in fact spreading irrationality, all for profiting himself. (He is also known for his hypocrisy on various issues; my favorite instance is him calling protesting students out for not reading a bill that the government was trying to pass, while he himself had not read it and yet strongly supported it anyway.)

Temples, too, are known to use false science to reaffirm their legitimacy. Science may have doubled life expectancy in the last 100 years, but pseudoscientific treatments and cures to diseases and ailments continue to be troublingly popular. Homeopathy is a timeless example, but it looks tame when you consider the recent claim of a miracle cure to the coronavirus. Lately, there has also been a disturbingly strong push to promote the “healing properties” of cow urine, much to the chagrin of the country’s scientists who do the thankless work of doing real science.

Make no mistake, pseudoscience is not the same thing as ignorance. Christopher Columbus may have been ignorant, but his ignorance in itself was not a problem. The ignorance of the Catholic church about how the earth moves in outer space in itself was not a problem. Ignorance in itself is not always dangerous. What is dangerous, however, is a refusal to self-correct when presented with facts and evidence. What is even more dangerous is an insistence on an alternate reality that serves no real purpose but to benefit some: that is the very essence of the pseudoscience we are faced with today. Rationality threatens the power of some — and rightly so — while the pseudoscience that they propagate in return threatens the lives of us all.

How to Spot Pseudoscience

Galileo was alone in his battle for science, and not only himself but the entire world was worse off for it. Environmental protection agencies and conservation groups were alone in their fight against the fossil fuel industry until recently, and we have damning evidence today that we are all worse off for it. Collective activism is the only way to make long-lasting change in a democracy. Those of us that live in democracies, therefore, must make it a habit to use the free speech that our constitutions grant to us for this cause.

The scientific community will continue lead the fight against pseudoscience and propaganda, but we as a people will only succeed when all of us come together and do our part — scientists and non-scientists alike. We must work to establish a baseline of scientific temperament among the general public. An ability on the part of an average citizen to spot pseudoscience would be greatly helpful. To that end, here are some (not necessarily all-encompassing) tips on what to look for the next time you are presented with miracle “science” of temples or “logical” arguments for how vaccines cause autism.

1) Is it referenced?

This is perhaps the easiest thing to check. Does a written article on the magical powers of cow urine contain references to peer-reviewed research? When Jaggi Vasudev or Nithyananda uploads yet another video on social media and make claims of all sorts, do they seem to be referencing any sort of peer-reviewed research carried out at all? Does the politician reference a scientific journal article when he claims that climate change is a hoax? If the answer is no, you should be thinking “strike one”.

2) Is it peer-reviewed?

Even if someone claims to have come up with something so radically new that existing literature is not at all relevant, there are plenty of questions that need to be asked still. Before claiming of a miracle cure to a deadly disease, did they seem show any peer-reviewed evidence at all? Before making you pay your month’s earnings for a gem-stone that solves all of your life’s problem, did the astrologer seem to have performed peer-reviewed research? Or was he just trying to make money?

3) Straight to mainstream/social media

Another typical sign of pseudoscience is that they avoid the peer-reviewed journals (for obvious reasons) and instead go straight to mainstream and/or social media with their claim. A popular example of this is celebrities promoting unhealthy weight-loss products that have not been approved by doctors.

4) Citing anecdotal or ancient evidence

“Homeopathy works because it cured my aunt of high blood pressure.”

“Vaccines are harmful because that one guy (out of millions) had some side effects.”

“Indian traditions say that one shouldn’t eat food during an eclipse. Why, you ask? I don’t know why, but it’s a tradition that has been followed for thousands of years. All those people were not fools!”

They were probably not fools, but they were certainly ignorant of basic scientific facts. It is worth reiterating that the ignorance of ancient Indians in itself is neither surprising nor wrong. What is wrong, however, is blindly propagating what we now know for certain are unscientific. When you see someone doing this, it is worth taking a step back and asking some questions.

5) “They are suppressing us!”

If someone claims that they know the truth about something but the government or some advocacy group is suppressing their voice, that must be a red flag. (Galileo would perhaps have made this very claim, but that was in 17th century Italy when any disagreement whatsoever with the church would have meant trouble!) An example of this in physics is the free energy suppression conspiracy theory.

6) Nearly impossible to detect/verify

Despite how good smartphone cameras have gotten, is there ever a clear picture of the Loch Ness Monster or of a UFO? Conspiracy theorists often present “evidence” that is not convincing by any measure, but is branded as sufficient evidence nevertheless. When real scientists make measurements in the lab, there are very strict measures for what qualifies as evidence and what doesn’t. The “signal-to-noise ratio” of the claimed evidence is something worth paying attention to.

Final Thoughts

We live in strange times. Thanks to the internet and the ease of accessing it through smartphones and computers, it is easy to get information on just about anything. It is also equally, if not more, easy, to get misinformation on just about anything. Politicians, industries and godmen alike create their own alternative realities that they want you to subscribe to, and it has become impossible to establish a baseline of facts that all of us agree on despite all the access to information. To navigate these complex times, we must learn to trust our experts — scientists, doctors, economists — but we as individuals and as a people must also practice critical thinking. When the general public starts asking questions, most of the pseudoscientific claims quickly fizzle out. But when the public is successfully misled and confused, vested interests always win.

By construct, we are all born ignorant. We have, however, evolved to be curious. Nurturing that curiosity and being open to fact, reason and evidence can not only lead to healthier individual lives, but it can also benefit society at large. As a supporter of the idea of individualism, I am of the opinion that whatever you may choose to do for your own personal self — superstitions and irrational beliefs included — is only your business and no one else’s. But as a believer in our shared responsibility for looking out for one another — the idea of “citizenship” — I think that we must all make an effort to do the right thing for the sake of each other’s well being. In the context of science, that means that we support real science that has made the device you’re holding in your hand right now possible, as opposed to the forces that look to undermine it.

Life on earth has survived and evolved for long enough for us to be able to ask big questions. We are closer now than ever before to not only answering some of these questions but also in building a more rational and just society. In pursuit of such a reality, and in pursuit of saving a warming planet, it is not enough if some of us practice rationality while the rest of us continue to fuel charlatanry, misinformation and pseudoscience, for that only ever proves counterproductive. Promoting fact and reason is a collective responsibility of all of us. We can do better. And we must do better.

Suggested watching (also a reference for the tips listed here): “Thaumaturgy in the Age of Science” by Prof. V. Balakrishnan

“Is she mad at me? Did I say something wrong?”

“Am I good enough? Does s/he even recognize and appreciate what I’m doing?”

Although these sound like the thoughts of someone worried if their partner/spouse is mad at them, these are also the kinds of thoughts that PhD students riddled with Impostor Syndrome often have about their advisors/PIs.

This apparent similarity might seem strange at first sight, but there is often a deeper reality to it: a PhD advisor, and by extension the relationship that a student has with their advisor, has enormous influence over the graduate school experience of the student. Just as a romantic relationship requires effort, communication, honesty and integrity, so does the relationship with one’s PhD advisor.

The struggle is real

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but doing a PhD is quite challenging, especially these days. Grad school application processes are notoriously expensive. Acceptance rates tend to average around 5-10% for STEM fields in the US, and can be low as 2–5% for some programs. International students have the added complication of getting a visa: in 2018, rejection rate for non-immigrant F-1 visa was around 35%. Once they’re in, graduate students world over are often not compensated well enough. In the face of ever-increasing cost of living, this leads to financial stress. Anxiety, stress, impostor syndrome, loneliness, concerns about the future, funding issues are only some of the all-too-familiar challenges that PhD students have to face on a daily basis; all while trying to do something completely new and original that no one in the world has ever done before! It is perhaps no wonder that PhD dropout rates in the US are as high as 50%.

Program structures and academic supervision also have a big role to play. Specifically, the relationship that you have with your advisor can greatly influence your PhD experience. The stories that I’ve listened to from my friends and colleagues over the past few years have made me realize exactly how bad things can get. Together with my own advisor struggles, these stories have given me a better perspective now on what it is that one should look for in a potential PhD advisor. This article is an attempt to give words to my thoughts on this subject — while my grad school experiences are still fresh in memory — in hopes that it will be useful to a prospective PhD student that is looking to find a thesis advisor.

The “Obvious”

1.1) Research Areas, Type of Work:

Assuming acceptance into a PhD program, the first “obvious” thing to look for in a potential advisor is their research interests. Often times, incoming PhD students already have a few research groups in mind before they join the program. This is good practice, but is far from sufficient.

Perhaps the best advice that I’ve received on this topic is from my current advisor, when I first met him before joining his group: look for what it is that you would do on a day-to-day basis and see if you find that exciting, rather than make a choice purely based on research topics. Are you an experimentalist and enjoy hands-on work? If so, would you want to do system-level work or are you more interested in device fabrication? Or are you more inclined to do computational or theoretical work? Asking these questions in addition to what area you want to work in can greatly help in deciding which research group to join.

1.2) Funding:

Funding for universities and scientific research is awfully lacking in many countries, and this is often reflected in the number of active researchers per million population. My own home country India, for instance, has only about 150 researchers per million. Availability of grant funds can vary from one field to another, but generally speaking, there isn’t enough to go around. I have known far too many of my own peers who have had to either TA (in addition to doing research) for multiple years on end, or switch groups because funds ran out. As a result, it is usually helpful to check with a potential advisor if they are willing to fund you for the entire duration of your PhD.

The Less Obvious (And underrated)

2.1) The Human Being:

Professors, especially the more popular ones, are some times made out to be larger-than-life figures who can do no wrong. The fact of the matter is that they are human beings, and have personalities and flaws just like everybody else. This might not matter to most people that interact with them, but it does to their PhD students.

A professor that I once worked with drew pleasure from needlessly ridiculing some of his students in front of other people. Another professor I knew would yell at his students as though they were his servants. The advisor of one of my friends is infamous for making his students spend many days on a report or a proposal, only to organize an 8 hour meeting soon after to rephrase everything the way he likes it. Another friend of mine has an advisor that has consistently given preferential treatment to one specific student in the group that she seemingly liked better. I could go on, but you get the point. In all of these cases, the personality of the advisor only affected their student(s), and no one else.

This is not to say that all advisors are bad people; in fact, in my experience, many are good people. But the point is, whether an advisor is a decent human being or not is often overlooked by many before they decide to work for him/her. Does s/he seem like a reasonable individual? Will they let you stay home if you fall sick, or will they expect you to come in no matter what? Do they seem like someone that would care for your mental health and your progress? These questions are important ones that both current and new graduate students must start asking.

As with toxic personal relationships, toxic professional relationships with PhD advisors are bad for students’ mental health. Suicide rates are high enough among PhD students as it is, and the last thing that you’d want as a first-year PhD student is to end up in an advisor situation that could make you regret your choice of doing a PhD. It is therefore a good idea to do your due diligence.

Some of this is hard to assess before joining a group, of course. But talking to current group members and asking the right questions can give you a good sense of things. This, of course, is still not a sufficient enough or a clear-cut enough solution, but it’s a good start. And if you somehow do hear something about what kind of a person s/he is, you would know to not neglect that information.

2.2) The Researcher:

Some researchers prioritize publishing as many papers as possible over all else, and go after quantity over quality. In my field, I have seen competitor groups that try to publish a new paper for every slightly-different result that they get in the lab. More often than not, this has made me desperate to get my work out as quickly as possible (in other words, prematurely). About a year ago, I insisted to my advisor that we submit some experimental observations that I made in the lab to a popular conference in my field. He said no. I persisted, and he still said no. He was not convinced that the data that I had collected was good enough to be published anywhere, despite my confidence in it.

The publication-starved graduate student in me was disappointed and a little heart-broken, but I later realized that he had taught me an important lesson about scientific integrity. (The data that I was so confident about later turned out to be not so reliable after all!) In my view, the kind of researcher that your advisor is will greatly shape what kind of researcher you will go on to be.

2.3) Willingness to Invest in You:

Time: There is some times a misconception among the general public that professorship can be a laid-back job, but most professors that I’ve interacted with are incredibly busy people. In addition to managing multiple research projects, students and postdocs, they are often shooting for new grants, teaching courses, are on various committees and also taking care of their kids and family. While part of their unavailability is therefore more than understandable, some advisors don’t end up making enough time for their students at all. Whether or not you actually get advice from your advisor on a regular basis is key to your growth as a researcher.

Resources: Would a potential advisor invest in your learning and training, or would they rather have you do only what matters for churning out papers? The whole point of a PhD is for you to learn about a subject in as much depth and breadth (in that order) as possible. It is therefore crucial that your advisor gives you the space and opportunities to learn and grow. This could mean anything from providing access to learning material to letting you attend summer schools and academic conferences.

Both of these are important aspects for a good learning experience, and it is a good idea to discuss them with current students of the advisor before making a decision.

2.4) Expectations and Communication:

New professors are often under pressure to publish at a faster pace to be able to keep their jobs. This usually means greater pressure on his/her graduate students to work harder. Older/tenured professors are a bit more “relaxed” in this regard. Neither is necessarily better than the other for a graduate student, but the potential workload and pressure is something to consider. Make sure you know what is expected of you before making the commitment, especially if you have other responsibilities (other jobs, kid(s) to take care of etc.).

Part of doing so is to be able to communicate with your advisor freely. For a long time, a friend of mine has had issues communicating her concerns with her advisor about sexist micro-aggressions directed at her by certain members of the group. The advisor was a woman too, which would ideally have meant that my friend should have felt safe to voice her concerns. But she didn’t. The reason there was simple: the advisor was far too detached from the individuals that made up the group, and communication between her and her students (especially my friend) was non-existent.

The moral of the story is that being able to communicate with your advisor freely about anything and everything is important, to say the least. To those that aren’t going through the PhD experience themselves, this might seem like asking for too much, but as any grad student that has suffered from issues such as this would tell you, communication matters.

Also “Obvious” (But overrated)

3.1) “Connections”/”Popularity”/h-index:

It could be tempting to readily join any “popular”/highly-published/well-connected professor’s group if they will have you, but this could prove counterproductive if you have not paid close enough attention to the more fundamental aspects that I’ve mentioned above. The professor that I mentioned before — the one that likes to ridicule his students needlessly in front of others — is extremely well-known in a worldwide scientific collaboration. He is one of the most brilliant people that I have ever met. But I would not want to do my PhD with him.

3.2) University Affiliation:

This is a popular one too. Wouldn’t it be “cooler” to introduce yourself as a PhD student at Harvard or Cornell rather than one at Florida State? It probably would, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is better. It is true that Harvard or Cornell might offer you a better overall student experience than some lesser-known universities (not that Florida State isn’t well-known), but there are so many more important things for a PhD. In addition to what I’ve already mentioned above, research environment in the department, access to research facilities and potential collaborators are much more crucial for a well-rounded research experience — irrespective of whether that is at an Ivy League school or some other. These factors are not relevant for undergraduate studies, but for graduate research, they most certainly are.

It is easy (and tempting) to fall into the illusion that h-indices and rankings matter a lot, but more often than not, that illusion breaks as quickly as it comes once the PhD grind begins. Working with a well-connected advisor at an Ivy League school surely has its benefits, but only if you are able to get the support that you need from them to be able to get through grad school in one piece.

The Bottomline

If there is anything that you take away from this article, I hope it is that there is more than what meets the eye when it comes to choosing a PhD advisor. Beyond what the numbers will tell you, the human being that your future advisor is is something that matters. Deciding to do a PhD is a huge commitment. Perhaps today more than ever, graduate students all over the world are facing increasing difficulties with financial compensation, stress, work-life balance and mental health. Having a supportive advisor by your side can greatly help make these 5–6 (hopefully not more) years a better experience.

Checking all of these boxes might not be possible for many. An advisor situation without any issues whatsoever might be even more unlikely. I certainly have had my own challenges and struggles in this regard. I’ve realized that some level of friction and some compromise is almost inevitable, and that that is not necessarily a result of you or your advisor not doing enough, but rather a reflection of the difficulty and complexity of undertaking scientific research. But by asking the right questions before (or even after) making the commitment, and by demanding what is only fair, we not only help our individual selves, but we also help build an environment where the needs of graduate students are better heard. And that, in my view, ultimately only strengthens academia and the scientific community at large.

I am incredibly grateful for the extremely considerate human being and the brilliant researcher that my advisor is — in that order. My hope is that you will be too, for your future advisor.

Needless to say, this article is neither “expert advice” nor “peer-reviewed”. But it was written with the hope that at least some of it will be useful. All this is is the inner thoughts of a 4th year PhD student that has hit multiple roadblocks on his research and is waiting for his advisor to respond to some of his emails.

“Is he ghosting me?”

This story was originally published by the author on Medium.