Student Resources

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.

In general, remember that college is hard and standards are set high. It is ultimately your responsibility to get help to deal with any issues you have outside of class that may prevent you from getting the work done. Many professors may empathize with your struggles, but your conditions are not a “get out of jail free card.” Some things you can do preemptively, include going to your university’s disabilities resource office and getting any individual conditions you may have on file with the university, and being on top of sending out emails when you do end up with an unexpected event or illness occurring (email your professors or student services office ASAP!).

Procrastination, Executive Dysfunction, and Neurodiversity

I struggle with procrastination A LOT (I’m currently procrastinating grading labs AND working on my dissertation by doing this instead – Lena from 2021). In science and engineering, I’ve found my own procrastination and executive dysfunction to be incredibly relatable to that of my peers, we all suffer at times through our inabilities to “just do the thing” – some more frequently than others. Additionally, it is important to better understand and help support neurodiverse colleagues – neurodiversity helps enable innovation through unique perspectives and, really, its just generally a good thing to be a supportive and empathetic person. This is just a short list of my own bookmarked resources I’ve found over the years that tend to help me (aka some of my coping mechanisms), they may or may not work for you. Remember, professional help also exists and please do not use this as a substitute for real medical advice. Welcome to the dark playground!

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 in Maryland. I burned-out very, very badly halfway through the summer experimental campaign and almost lost all of my data due to a disk drive failure. Burn-out is now considered a diagnosable syndrome by the World Health Organization. I did eventually seek out the help of a therapist to get through my burnout – I think of therapists as being like Counselor Commander Deanna Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation. When the ship’s crew goes through these often traumatic adventures (e.g., Jean Luc Picard being assimilated by the Borg then de-assimilated later) they are required to undergo sessions with the ship’s counselor. Modern day life obviously may not include being attacked by Klingons, but it does often come, for many people, with psychological hardships, so its ok to go see our version of a ship’s counselor – a licensed therapist. The sooner you can recognize your mental health struggles and deal with them in a healthy way, the sooner you can get back on track. Happy to say I’ve recovered from my 2019 burn-out!

That COVID feeling

This New York Times article may be helpful for giving a name to what many people are feeling during the pandemic. The term languishing is defined as “failing to make progress or be successful.” In the mental health world, it is characterized by (1) moods that are not too high or too low (you’re not happy but you wouldn’t say you’re sad either); (2) feeling unmotivated more often than usual; (3) feeling unsettled but not highly anxious; (4) difficulty focusing on certain tasks, especially some days more than others. Languishing is also related to malaise: a general feeling of discomfort, illness, or uneasiness whose exact cause is difficult to identify. More than 30 years ago former President, Jimmy Carter, gave his Crisis of Confidence speech in an attempt to rally US citizens to the future problems they would be facing (in particular, environmental destruction and climate change). This speech was coined by the media as Carter’s Malaise speech.

Misc. Helpful Advice Blogs (lots PhD focused)

Weird and/or Random Resources

Job Resources

I 100% specifically do not endorse Cheeky Scientist, though their free resources may be helpful. A lot of career counseling services prey on the insecurity that PhDs have as they are in the process of finishing their degrees and trying to find a job. I promise I will never do that. Also, this article talks about that…

Research Resources

I’ve started on some new pages specific to helping undergrads and grad students conduct research and write proposals to get research funding. Please let me know any feedback you may have!

Resources for Recently Employed Graduates

Congrats on making more money and being able to potentially afford more than Ramen noodles (or fancy Ramen, like when you add an egg, some sriracha, some chopped green onions, and a tsp of five spice)! Hey, you might have money now!

We recently closed a universal life insurance policy that we thankfully only had for about 5 months. It was a stressful time as we were in the middle of wedding planning and we got talked into it as pretty recently employed PhD grads. Recent grads and early-career hires to new areas are often targets of LinkedIn “financial advisors” reaching out to “help you” with your new-found higher income. I’m not a financial advisor or anything like that, but I wanted to point recent grads in the direction of how to find decent financial advice so they can avoid bad/poor/exploitative financial advice.

I highly recommend reading the first blog post I’ve listed here about what a financial advisor “title” tends to span (101 link – spoiler, anyone can call themselves a financial advisor). I’ve included several links to the White Coat Investor website, he’s a former MD who kept seeing his MD/PhD colleagues get swindled out of their hard-earned money and decided to do something about it. I also suggest (grain of salt, as usual, also I’m not liable for any of this advice) some of the resources on /r/personalfinance. I personally like they’re approach to the 50/30/20 rule, 50% of income on Needs, 30% on Wants, and 20% on Investments. Pretty basic way to start on your budget.

I’ll admit I made a good chunk of change in the whole $GME$ $AMC$ $DOGE$ blow-up too on /r/wallstreetbets – that was 100% gambling, and we ended up paying taxes on it then spending the remaining money on nice towels and color-changing smart bulbs. Dumb money spent on dumb things. Anyway, don’t be dumb, educate yourself for your own financial well-being! Yes, people out there absolutely want to parasite themselves onto your income.