what the fuck am i getting myself into with this grad school stuff

the referee's a wanker amirite

good grief. sample from our latest reply:

We would also like to take the opportunity to draw attention to -- and _strongly_ reject -- the anonymous referee's suggestion that we are disingenuously pretending not to understand their arguments and the premises of dynamical modelling in order to expedite the publication of our paper. This is an extremely serious accusation which they slip in to their report only parenthetically and with no support whatsoever. We ask that it be ignored by the editors.

seriously, i used work in publising and run the peer review process for a journal. i have read maybe 5000 referee reports in my life, made accept/reject decisions on over 2000 papers and taken part in probably 200 adjudications, appeals or complaints. with the exception of a plagiarism case, i have never seen a referee behave like this. and it's my ruddy paper.

:( that is horrible!!

find out who it is and IRL yellow-card them

seriously though, why is this person being so darn obnoxious? did you become sworn enemies with someone when you were a lot younger?

referee reports can be kind of like the internet. you feel protected by anonymity (ok, you don't lj, but other people do) and are aware of other people reading, and you become a sociopath.

so there's that. also in this case our working assumption is he has a problem with our field rather than our work within that field, and we're bearing the brunt.

you need to find this referee and casually explain to him over a cold beer that you are a real person with real needs, and that your area of astrophysics is goddamn exciting

that how i break it down to an extent

he could just be a douche on a power trip. Those definitely exist in academia.

so fucking ready to be done with this (just a little over three months to go)

me too! three months! we can do it!

wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

you can do it!!! said this before and will say it again: totally impressed by anyone who can get through, or even begin, grad school. it sounds like one of the worst things ever.

you can totally do it! sometimes i am amazed that i did! but i did! way to go, guys! you got this!

If everything goes to plan, this time next year I'll have an M.B.A. with a concentration in Information Systems. Then I'll get my D.B.A. and pretty soon y'all are gonna be callin' me Dr. Snrub.

first day of school 2day, no end in sight

me 2 :(

ugh my class starts thursday. but i'm part-time.

i keep thinking i should have gotten an mba instead but then i talk to ppl with mbas who are like 'nah'

year 2 of 2. BRING IT.

totally won the adjudication that paper by the way, big fat publication on my cv and the acceptance removes a bit of a logjam on couple of follow-up papers (which depend on its methods). boss.

mad congrats 2u!

mad congrats to my lovely co-authors too!

: )

I'm studying for the GMAT, and it's only going to get harder from here

woo got a quarter scholarship, bumping the price down from extortionate to merely grotesque :D

"basically it's now about as much as a cheap hatchback, so instead of buying me a car, you're getting me *employability*"

ah, i love how these things work

but yeah, uh, what the fuck am i getting myself into XD

what are you doing? starting this year?

starting in 2 weeks, doing (you're not gonna believe this) science journalism

it being a new course designed to get people writing about science in a way that is both engaging and relevant to the actual science, unlike the majority of science journalism

basically i may LOOK like one of the people you hate, but i'm ACTUALLY some sort of saviour ;)

Waffling about saving the world instead of actually saving it. (Actually it sounds cool and worthwhile; technical writers never go hungry even especially if they don't do journalism).

I am at the end of week three of my semester and just about managing to juggle school work and employment, I am now in a quandry as to whether I should continue working with this startup post graduation or go onto Phd. Its so hard as I find both options stimulating. I am wondering if it is possible to combine, high pressure employment with amateur academia.

ah, science as art, scientists as people, all that stuff?

where? QMW and Cardiff have courses, don't they?

not so much science as art, as science as dignified and engaging journalistic consideration

at City, which tbf is usually pretty good for journalism (if not science)

I am starting another round of Jew School on Monday!

re:
starting in 2 weeks, doing (you're not gonna believe this) science journalism

― a chick I wanted to pursue on OkCupid (country matters),

Congratulations, I just knew your were going to do a Masters sooner or later, have you seen this article in the Independent about your course back in July.

The science of journalism: Reporting on matters of life and death
http://bit.ly/2i7jQR

The latest Masters from one of the UK's premier journalism schools aims to prepare students for reporting on issues that are a matter of life and death. Caitlin Davies reports

Good luck, LJ. Am just barely recovering from finishing my MA - pretty sure I won't do any better than a pass, which is making me feel somewhat empty inside; what the hell am I going to do now?

LJ, just spotted this article, although American centric worth a read re: your new course

http://bit.ly/41vfg6

PR or science journalism? It's getting harder to tell

Faced with a shrinking audience of journalists for their press releases, a consortium of universities has launched Futurity, a site that will aggregate edited versions of the best materials produced by university press offices.

Moving to Munich for last year of PhD on Tuesday. Fresher's week during Oktoberfest. Yaow.

how can u be peer reviewed when ur peerless?

out

munich! that's awesome. have fun :)

i'm 2 weeks into an ma/phd program and so far, so good. lots of work but i'm better at time management than i used to be, and am hoping to become more efficient. did any of you manage to get your work done in time to have late evenings and weekends mostly or totally free? that's my goal but i am so far falling short, advice welcome.

Ooh, cheers DJ and emily! Didn't see your posts. I had seen that Indy article but not the second one. Cheers for linking it; I'll try to make good use of it! Good luck Caek obv

Maria,

The amount of time I spent on work during late evenings and weekends depended on my coursework each semester. Out of my 4 semesters, 2 seemed to be of average difficulty (at least one weekend day would almost always be taken up by school work, but generally not working past 9pm on stuff more than 3-4 weekdays a week), 1 was relatively easy (could get most of my work done working only 1-2 late evenings per week, and maybe half of a weekend day), and 1 was living hell (work hard every day, all day, all night, all weekend. Occasionally take a day off but then pay for it brutally later).

Of course, it depends on what you're studying, and how much getting the A actually matters to you.

Also, keep in mind that I was lurking on ILX pretty much 24/7 during my entire grad school experience because I'm a huge procrastinator. If you have a decent work ethic and you're more efficient with your time, you should have an easier go at it.

LJ,

just seen this:

The Times to launch monthly science magazine
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=44420&c=1

so glad my entire two-hour class this evening is being given over to repetitive, boring, useless five-minute student presentations (including my own)

it's awesome that i'm spending thousands of dollars to listen to people who don't know what they're doing for an entire class

The presentation class is really the Clips Show Episode of grad school.

it's awesome that i'm spending thousands of dollars to listen to people who don't know what they're doing for an entire class

but just think, after you graduate and get a job you'll get PAID thousands of dollars to listen to people who don't know what they're doing! :)

guys i am considering graduate school

but just think, after you graduate and don't get a job you won't get PAID thousands of dollars to listen to people who don't know what they're doing! :)