This page should be taken with a grain of salt. For university-specific resources, please see the class tab for whichever one of my classes you may be enrolled in. The rest of this page consists of just general student resources and academic or career advice that I’ve found works well for me. This page is not endorsed by ASU, GCU, SCC, SMCC, MCC, LLNL, LANL, GSFC, etc. etc. these opinions are my own.
Procrastination
I struggle with procrastination A LOT (I’m currently procrastinating grading labs AND working on my dissertation by doing this instead). The best description I’ve found is from Tim Urban and his blog. Welcome to the dark playground!
- Tim’s YouTube TED Talk is a MUST WATCH.
- Tim’s blog write-ups on Procrastination are incredibly helpful and layout a plan to figure out how to manage procrastinating! I suggest reading through a least the first 3 posts.
- https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/ – some good advice can be found here… sometimes.
Burnout
The 2018-2019 academic year was a struggle for me. My best friend since childhood passed away in an accident, I had to manage a space-flight hardware calibration campaign, I had to pass my PhD qualifying exams, and I spent the summer managing and implementing an experimental campaign. I burned-out very, very badly halfway through the summer experimental campaign and almost lost all of my data to boot. Burn-out is now considered a diagnosable syndrome by the World Health Organization. The sooner you recognize it and deal with it, the sooner you can get back on track. Happy to say I’ve fully recovered from burn-out!
- “Understanding Burnout,” YouTube lecture by Prof. Christina Maslach (U.C. Berkeley).
- Psychology Today’s Tips to Overcome Burn-out.
- https://www.reddit.com/r/aww – because sometimes we just need to see some positive content.
- https://www.headspace.com/ – free mindfulness sessions can help a lot (and there’s an app!).
- The book “Happy Brain,” by Dean Burnett covers the science behind what can also contribute to burn-out ($0 w/ Audible free-trial). A problem that’s defined is half-way solved.
Misc. Helpful Career and Academic Blogs
- https://www.elizabethafrank.com/blog
- http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/
- http://blogs.nature.com/naturejobs/
- https://www.insidehighered.com/advice
- https://sites.google.com/asu.edu/sesegc/resources
- https://pg.ucsd.edu/index.html#faq
- https://howtoleaveacademia.blogspot.com/
- http://jobsontoast.com/
- http://fromphdtolife.com/
- https://myidp.sciencecareers.org/
- https://www.cur.org/assets/1/7/Slocum_and_Scholl-Table_6.pdf
- https://www.nationalpostdoc.org/page/POSTDOCket_1812#S2dropdown1
How to do Research
Finding research
Coming soon!
- Best practices
- What is a primary source?
- Giving proper credit
- Keyword searching
Reading research
Coming soon!
- How to read an academic paper
- Figures are your friends
Digesting research
Coming soon!
- Summarizing research papers
- Bringing summaries together
Creating new research
Coming soon!
- Outlines? Try storyboards!
- Revisiting how figures are your friends
- Writing is hard
Helpful Resources for Research
- https://app.grammarly.com/ – for grammar and writing help
- https://www.easybib.com/ – for bibliography help
- https://www.mendeley.com/reference-management/reference-manager – for more professional-based reference help
- https://cvmkr.com/ – for generating nice CVs & resumes
- https://www.smartsheet.com/ – Project management
- https://monday.com/ – Project management