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96 votes
10 answers
28k views

What makes academic failure different from failure in another career?

It is my understanding that academia as a nebulous whole has its own culture and speaks its own language that makes it a very different environment to work in compared to other so-called "industry" ...
astronat supports the strike's user avatar
116 votes
9 answers
22k views

How to stop feeling guilty about unfinished work?

My biggest challenge as a PhD student is best summarized by the following from PHD Comics: "Piled Higher and Deeper" by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com A consequence of working in research is that the ...
ff524's user avatar
  • 109k
75 votes
9 answers
53k views

I wasted six years of my life getting a PhD degree. What should I do, and how will I survive?

I struggled with low self confidence throughout my bachelors, masters and PhD in chemical engineering. After spending two years in Masters and six years in getting a PhD degree, I am lost at what I ...
Abhik Tandon's user avatar
54 votes
14 answers
10k views

How should I deal with discouragement looking at others success?

I'm a master CS student. I had so many troubles in my life. I didn't have proper schooling and were in difficult situations which led to me being not so good compared to my peers now at the graduate ...
Jack Twain's user avatar
  • 4,022
83 votes
14 answers
19k views

How do really talented people in academia think about people who are less capable than them? [closed]

To be more specific, how do really top professors think about students who are much less smart than them, the students can be their Ph.D. students or just students who were taking his/her class. This ...
Robert's user avatar
  • 941
-2 votes
1 answer
482 views

Dealing with stereotypes and stigma while pursuing a career in academia [closed]

How do professors successfully cope with negative stereotypes and stigma while pursuing their research careers? Specifically, some issues that come to mind are: Women scientists who are perceived ...
user76011's user avatar