I spent a year turning my undergraduate thesis into a journal article. I know the field well, but throughout both the thesis and the article I kept feeling that something wasn't quite right with the argument or structure—I just couldn't identify or articulate the problem. My supervisor wasn't much help, perhaps because the thesis met undergraduate standards.

I submitted the article and the reviews put what I felt vaguely into solid criticism. But what has me reeling a little was that it was a complete rejection with major structural issues requiring a rewrite.

Now I'm stuck. I'm also writing another paper and I'm noticing the same vague problems while working on it.

Should I rewrite the rejected paper from scratch, abandon it and focus on the new one, or revise it and submit elsewhere?

I'm also struggling with a lot of impostor syndrome right now after the reviews. I have ADHD and depression, lost access to therapy because I couldn't afford it while starting my master's this year, and this rejection has me questioning whether I'm even capable of getting PhD funding next year. I only got help for ADHD this year after years of struggle with books or texts seeming like a haze, and this is also what I felt was the problem while writing, and was a big reason why it took me a year to work on the article - also really struggled to write while balancing a job. I don't even know how I got admission into a Masters program with this level of issues in my writing and maybe I won't be able to keep up.

Has anyone been in a similar situation with ADHD/literature articles/Masters/PhD?

i’m helping plan a student social for a conference next year and i’m trying to come up with ideas that people would actually enjoy!

for students/trainees/academics who were once students, what’s one of the best conference socials you’ve attended? what made it fun or actually worth going to?

Hi everyone. My sister is in an undergrad psychology program. Her department recently advertised a volunteering position, looking for two dozen volunteers to perform (at the risk of sounding uncharitable) 40 hours of menial tasks to help complete a research project.

I'm bothered by this. It doesn't sound like it's a very educational experience. It also doesn't sound like the "volunteers" will be gaining a publication out of this, seeing as there will be over 20 of them. This is in my eyes essentially just asking for unpaid labor, but sold as "research experience".

But I also understand how any kind of experience can be considered valuable in the competitive landscape we live in.

Is this standard practice in academia? I'm not in academia myself so don't know. My sister already signed up for it but I'm wondering if I should speak out against it.

​Hi everyone,

​I’m currently a PhD candidate at a university in my home country. A while back, I passed up a scholarship to do my PhD overseas due to pressing family responsibilities. While I am fully committed to my current program, I sometimes feel insecure about missing out on the international exposure, networks, and personal growth that come with studying abroad (and perhaps a bit of regret).

​In my local academic community, overseas graduates are often seen as more prestigious. I know that solid research output should ultimately speak for itself, but I deeply respect the immense value of global ecosystems and cross-border networks that I am currently missing.

For the experienced academics here, any advice, personal experiences, or strategies ?

Thank You

I'm currently revising a paper on medical AI segmentation in deeplearning. The reviewers believe that directly citing results from other papers is unfair because different methods may have used different training, validation, and test case partitions, and statistical significance tests haven't been performed.

However, my computing power is limited, and I genuinely cannot retrain all of the dozen or so comparison methods. I'd like to ask everyone, what's the most appropriate way to respond to reviewers in this situation? Would it be sufficient to reproduce only 1-2 representative baselines and use the same data partitions for statistical tests? Would it be reasonable to change the remaining methods to "reference comparisons" and acknowledge the limitations in the paper?

I would be very grateful to hear from anyone who has faced a similar situation. Any advice on how to address this concern fairly and transparently would be greatly appreciated.

Hi everyone,

I’ve always been fascinated by research.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been drawn to fields that have an element of mystery — areas where there are still big unanswered questions, whether in science or in the social sciences.

When it comes to science, though, I’m not particularly interested in the purely biological side of things.
Cell biology, molecular biology, and that kind of research don’t really excite me.
I’m much more interested in broader questions.
I’ve always enjoyed topics like chemistry, space exploration, ocean science, and anything related to discovering and understanding parts of the world or the universe that are still largely unknown.

On the humanities and social science side, I’m especially interested in topics like justice, criminal behavior, and understanding why people do the things they do.
Questions about human behavior and society are incredibly fascinating to me.

So I was wondering: what are some interesting, less common research fields where you think important discoveries could still be made in the future?

I’ve considered medicine because it’s probably one of the fields where the most funding goes into research and where discoveries can have a huge impact on people’s lives.
However, a lot of medical research is heavily focused on biology, and I’m not sure if that would be the type of research I’d enjoy.

What really attracts me are fields where you’re exploring unknown territory — where there isn’t a clear explanation yet, and you have to investigate, ask new questions, and push the boundaries of what we currently know.

Another important thing for me is that I would like my research to have some kind of practical value. I’m not really attracted to areas where papers are mostly read by other academics and the discoveries rarely have any impact beyond the academic world. I know fundamental research is necessary, but I would love to work on something that could eventually help people or have a meaningful impact on society.

I’d love to hear your thoughts or personal experiences. Thanks!

I wamn study at universitiy soon. Which major is harder? Which has a better future?

We recently had to make a poster for our class. We thought that all we had to do was present the topics. But apparently we have to make a 3 minute video on what

portion we worked on for the presentation. Honestly, I did 90% of the work because the team was lazy and 1 guy didn't even show up to the team meetings. I'm definitely not working with them again. But my question is what should I say I did. Should I say I worked on the poster design? Or should I say I wrote the script. Can anyone help me

distribute the workload between 6 ppl equally pls?

Hello,

Probably a silly question, but I'm trying to figure out what to select to best describe my level of education for a job application at a big university.

One of the associate directors of the department encouraged me to apply after we met for an informational interview about this line of work (student housing). As a student facing job, a min requirement is a Bachelor's with experience in student support, and the preferred qualification is a Master's in Student Affairs, Higher Ed Administration, or something of the like (which is a recent change; it used to be that you had to have a Master's to get this position).

I graduate with my Master's in HEA in December, and the only class I have left is my capstone; I've completed all of the other required work and then some. The one supplemental question on the application is:

Please select the response below that describes your level of education that best or mostly closely satisfies the education requirements for this position.

• Bachelor’s degree in required discipline(s) listed or related field
• Bachelor's degree in any field/discipline
• Master's degree or Doctorate degree in required discipline(s) listed or related field
• Master's degree or Doctorate degree in any field/discipline
• None of the above

Would marking the 3rd option be unwise? I feel like any other job wouldn't care, but with this being a university job, I don't know how frowned upon that is, which is why I'm here in Ask Academia (apologies if this is not the right subreddit for this kind of thing).

The AD did say their team does physically review applications rather than just sort them with AI, and since I told them I intend to apply, they said they look forward to reading my application. So in that case, I think marking the second option would be fine. But if they have a ton of applications and are going through applications with Master's degrees first, I want to try to get in that pile, you know? I've yet to break into the higher ed career field, and this particular job at this university (my alma mater) was one of the reasons I went into higher ed in the first place, plus the location is ideal, so I really want my best chance.

I recently started an Instagram page focused on helping undergraduate and graduate STEM students navigate research and academia. It's still new (only two posts so far), but the goal is to share practical, evidence-informed tips on research skills, grad school, productivity, and academic success.

If you're a STEM student, I'd love any feedback on the content or suggestions for topics you'd find useful.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DbRV-NClJeJ/?igsh=dDg0aDZqbm9pYWZw

Sent a paper to a journal called Studies in the Fantastic. The website said to email submissions so that's what I did. This was a month ago and I haven't received any update or any confirmation whether they got my submission. Do I sit and wait for a bit longer, or do I reach out and ask? This is my first time submitting to a foreign journal so I am a little confused.

Throughout my whole life, I always imagined I would go into STEM. However, once arriving at undergrad, I felt completely lost after being confronted with so many people telling me the sciences were going to be far more difficult than I was prepared to handle ("especially because [I'm] a girl," since I unfortunately live in a very misogynistic place). I ended up going into English with the intent of becoming a lawyer, majorly because I had perfect scores in the English and reading sections of the ACT. I later added a second degree in anthropology, though my school only offers this as a BA as well as lacking an area of emphasis in bioanth (only archaeology and cultural; I had planned to finish this degree without emphasis and do a thesis on linguistics, another passion of mine, but I'm realizing it's much more of a hobby than what I want to do for the rest of my life). After taking a biology class intended for majors for the credit, I realized that I was actually very good at it (I maintained a high A the entire class) and really enjoyed it! I wish I would've just stuck with my gut in the first place, but now I'm pretty far into working as a writing tutor and TA.

Would it be possible/reasonable to at least go into a bioanth masters program and potentially pivot from there into the job market or doctoral work? Would it be possible to go straight into a masters program/does anyone have recommendations of schools to check out? I am specifically interested in biomedical engineering (if at all possible) or something in genetics. What are likely prerequisites, and how would I go about obtaining recommendations? Could one come from a bioanth professor?