The Ness Foundation: PhD studentships

The Ness Foundation: PhD studentships

Great, someone is giving money to do research about ME or CFS!

The Ness Foundation is seeking candidates for a postdoctoral fellow (1) and for PhD studentships (4) working on the following areas:

• Genetic association between type 2 diabetes and schizophrenia
• Genetic basis of the abnormal niacin flush in schizophrenia
• Investigation of endophenotypes of schizophrenia
• Search for a gene for abnormalities of the phospholipid metabolism pathway in schizophrenia
• Genetic basis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME)

PHD student's etiquette

This should be posted on every PHD GRAD cubicle, and in front of my house, so that relatives/friends/whatever will not ask the those darned questions!

Will Cecilia make it into a T-Shirt, please?

The cure to procrastination?

Get a laugh..









Words can never describe how much I love and loathe www.phdcomics.com and how much it contributed to my long journey....

Technorati Tags:
PhD
academic
thesis

Applying for a job

There I go again... busy with job applications.

If I could, I would wait, but I can't.

May-July is the job application seasion for post-docs. And you have to catch this season, or you got to wait till next year before more posts are available.

It is quite depressive to see the number of jobs on offered, vs the number of people I KNOW are applying fora similar job. Just counting the number of people I know from the same field who are going for the same jobs as I do vs the number of jobs advertised is enough to depress you!!!

But I wouldnt want to let that happen. Instead, I use a Google diary just to organise that, application dates etc.

My strategy is to publish, publish and publish, and delay sending in applications until more stuff are accepted or published.

All these stress is no good for my RA, they are flaring up now. But would I have any other choice?

Technorati Tags:
PhD
academic
thesis

FREAKonomics...let me tell you the REAL incentive to buy and read it.....

I read the book in one sitting, and I am no Matilda or speed reader. That shows how "light" it is.

Many of the concepts are stuff which we might have pondered about or debated with our friends or family members over dinner, with little proof to support.

The swimming pool thing is a no-brainer.I know my mum knew it all along, and she does not even read books!

The abortion thing sheds new light, with facts to back up the arguments, and conspiracy theorists who are anti-abortion will have a field day finding loop holes in it.

The KKK thing is nothing new. It is all about information gaps.

The Crack thing? Well, just, watch some Hong Kong films, and you will understand the it better than you read the book. I think the often maligned HK film industry seems to be able to paint a clearer picture.

If there is something in this book that makes worth while to part with your money, it is the parenting section! Why?
a) You will feel enlightened enough to not buy a second book on parenting
b) You will stop spending sleepless nights conjuring a "unicque" name for your child.
c) Stop being obsessed about being a good parent, start being a good person!
d) No more rushing back/ stop watching that world cup game JUST to read bedtime stories!

And if someone were to disagree with you, just cite that HARVARD-MIT educated PROFESSOR!

With those incentives, what are you waiting for? Grab the book!

What Ph.D. students really have to fear!

What Ph.D. students really have to fear: By Joel Waldfogel

Graduate students tend to be paranoid about aspects of their careers that are largely under their control: Will I ever finish my studies? Will I sufficiently impress my adviser? But if new research for academic economists holds up, students should also be freaked out by a factor they can do nothing about: the strength of the job market at the precise time they enter it.

Yeah, stop worrying about when you are going to finish your thesis, and start researching on when is the next upturn of the job market, and then time your PHD completion to coincide with it. ... that is why I am blogging and not writting!

What happened to those PHD holders'? A grim story

Changing Career Paths of Young Scholars in the United States: Example of the Life Sciences :An interesting presentation by economist Paula Stephan showing a restructuring of careers for young life scientists.

Look at that Power Point presentation, yeah, go through it, if you are worth your salt as a PhD candidate....and then... see your future looking more and more grim. This is what I dont need to read when I am trying to finish a thesis!

When should you start looking for a post-doctorare or job?

When you you start looking for a job?
After you submit your first draft? Before it? Or after you have submitted your final draft?

Work does not come in a constant stream, with most posts opening with the new semesters.

So, that got to be factored in!

Using Microsoft Word template for thesis writing.

Has anyone told you about preparing a template for your thesis? Anyone told you about what software(s) to use to write your thesis at all?

Chances are you have asked, and you had one of the following answers:

Don’t use Microsoft Word, use Latex

The school has a template, go and download it at a certain website

Don’t worry about it! By the time you are ready to write, you will know what to use!

You have to start worrying about it, and not wait till you have done your drafts and at the stage of formatting it for submission. Getting the thesis submission ready is very time consuming, especially if you have many chapters, references, figures, tables appendixes.

I have even seen people writing each chapter in a separate document, after failing to “number” them correctly. But that won’t easily solve your problems, as then you will need to adjust all the pages at the footer when you edit something else on another document.

If you could start early, make a template and save it under document templates. This is something that you could use not only for the thesis, but also your submissions etc.

Technorati Tags:
fibromyalgia, PhD, research, Chronic illness , chronic pain