Ask an unemployed biology PhD anything

Ask an unemployed biology PhD anything.

>bioLOGy

Someone else?

>biology
why not something more employable and contributive to society like computer science or physics?

I fart and burp all the time. I seem to have gas constantly and I release it in some form approximately every 5 minutes. Apparently I do it in my sleep too.

If I'm on my own, surrounded by family or friends, I fart loudly without any attempt to conceal it. If I'm in public I still fart and burp but quieter. Even in work and in meetings I fart but I just do it quieter. They almost never smell, and even if they do its pretty mild and passes quickly.

There are only very rare circumstances in which I'll hold it in, the conditions have to meet all of the following criteria:

• I have eaten spicy food or drank lots of beer the night before

• I have farted a few times already and they stink

• I'm in a social environment with people I'm not totally comfortable with

Because I was young, loved molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics in school and was a complete idiot.

And your question?

What is your question

>Question
What was the centre of focus for your PhD?

>Question
What did you intend to do after grad, any plans, or winging it? I'm in 4th year studies and I haven't lined up anything yet.

>Question
How many vaginas has your penis been in (neither our mothers counts)?

>Question
What year were you born?

I fart and burp all the time. I seem to have gas constantly and I release it in some form approximately every 5 minutes. Apparently I do it in my sleep too.

If I'm on my own, surrounded by family or friends, I fart loudly without any attempt to conceal it. If I'm in public I still fart and burp but quieter. Even in work and in meetings I fart but I just do it quieter. They almost never smell, and even if they do its pretty mild and passes quickly.

There are only very rare circumstances in which I'll hold it in, the conditions have to meet all of the following criteria:

• I have eaten spicy food or drank lots of beer the night before

• I have farted a few times already and they stink

• I'm in a social environment with people I'm not totally comfortable with

>What was the centre of focus for your PhD?

(Single cell) genomics/transcriptomics of the gut.

>What did you intend to do after grad, any plans, or winging it? I'm in 4th year studies and I haven't lined up anything yet.

Had two years of unsuccessful postdoc.

>How many vaginas has your penis been in (neither our mothers counts)?

0.

>What year were you born?

1985.

>(Single cell) genomics/transcriptomics of the gut.
do you eat much yoghurt
do you smoke cannabis
do you exercise reguarly/gym?

In a similar situation, how much debt you in friendo?

>do you eat much yoghurt

No. Quark is superior.

>do you smoke cannabis

Nope.

>do you exercise reguarly/gym?

Yes. That's basically all I do at the moment apart from writing job applications.

European. So no debt.

>Nope.
>European.
endocannabinoid system google it, will make you better, gl with the job hunting man, try australia we'll gladly take ya

Where do you live?

Germany.

i read that the extra pyramidal motor system is used for involuntarily innervations
then by the same source im told that it innervates
the skeleton muscles for clumsy movements like moving your whole arm
as far as im concerned this does not fit together so pls help bio user

I have a master's degree in Medical Science (immunology) which I acquired in Japan and right now I'm applying for PhD programs in Europe.

Any general advice? For the Skype interviews? This week I may be being flown over to Germany for an in-person interview. Any recommendation there?

What are your specific field?

Why are you unemployed?

Did you do a post-doc? If so, are you glad you did?

would you biologically suck a log from Andy's asshole?

Not your fault. In our youth, people aren't really told to get marketable skills. The u.s. is run by idiots.

Why are you unemployed Mr. Fancy pants

When's the cuttlefish uprising?

Why don't you fuckers study to be a real doctor, an M.D.? At least then you could get work.

Do you still have debt? How much were you making and/or how much do you plan to make?

How did I not see this coming

Why do you feel a phd is worth it? Personally, being old and in debt would depress me too much let alone the hardcore studying.

Are you retarded? Who do you think develops the therapies that physicians use?

My master's was developing a monoclonal antibody and utilizing it for therapeutic research. On full scholarship.

Get your head out of your ass, fuckwit.

What's the average speed of a poop leaving a human body?

Neurobiology is not my speciality so I would need to read up on this.

>Any general advice? For the Skype interviews? This week I may be being flown over to Germany for an in-person interview. Any recommendation there?

If it comes to in-person interviews, they are more to get a feel whether or not your are compatible with the lab. So don't be a dick. Furthermore, you should now broadly what the lab is doing, but don't try to brag about having read all their papers or shit like that. Generally, it's good if you could try to bring your own vision and skills into the project though that is more applicable to postdoc interviews.

>What are your specific field?

Biologically: intestinal stem cells
Methodologically: genomics/transcriptomics

>Why are you unemployed?

Nobody wants to give me job. Duh. My publication record is mediocre and the field is oversaturated.

>Did you do a post-doc? If so, are you glad you did?

It was interesting but I didn't get much out of paper wise and funding-ran out.

Bin gerade in meinem 3. Semester Biologie und eigentlich dachte ich, dass nur Idioten keinen Job kriegen. Aber wenn man schon als "hard Science" Biologe (Biochemie, OC, usw.) keinen Job kriegt... Soll ich weiter machen oder aufhören?

I have mucus on my lungs, how can I eliminate it

forgot to tag you in

This

European. No debt.

Lucky. The u.s. likes busting people's balls. Schools are businesses here. Greedy fucks.

Where do you live? Dorm in school, with parents, etc.?

LOL, I'm not the cunt looking for work, am I? Get a job, cockgobbler.

Ich würde nicht sagen, dass ich kein Idiot bin. Grundsätzlich ist ein PhD overkill für viele Industriejobs. Wenn man sich im Master gut positioniert (d.h. sich auf Dinge spezialisiert, die gefragt sind) sollte man gut einen Job bekommen.

Which grad school did you go to? Do you think it affects your chances of getting work after the PhD?

I rent a cheap place in a shitty part of town.

Topkek. I'm a university adjunct professor with 2 interviews lined up for a fully-funded PhD position.

Why don't you keep your cock holster shut and get me some fries?

Easier said then done to not be underemployed. I think it would personally suck ass to work a meaningless job that isn't career oriented. Especially after all of OPs investment.
I think the more you invest, the more it sucks to be underemployed.

...

>Which grad school did you go to?

Graduate schools or structural doctoral education is something more common in the US than in Germany. Even though more and more grad schools get established in Germany as well.

>Do you think it affects your chances of getting work after the PhD?

I think the group / PI is more important.

Thank you for the information.

I'm sorry to hear about your situation, man. It sounds like a very fascinating field though. I always had a broad interest in gut flora.

It's a ways away, but the US had a major recruiting drive in October or November where they pull lots of new candidates into the NIH, CDC, DARPA, etc.

Might be something to check out. I don't know how much they want non-American citizens, but it doesn't hurt much.

One of my German interviews is at a lab I'm not sure if I'll enjoy. Using drosophila as a model for epidermal stimulation. It's a big difference from my master studies. Are you in southwest Germany?

>Are you in southwest Germany?

Not anymore. But I used to be.

bump

>adjunct professor
>broke 'ho
LOL, I'm sure you're the darling of whatever obscure branch of academia you belong to, but the fact remains you're going to be a broke adjunct all your life, desperately trying to scrape together a living from Devry University, or whatever shitty school you're at. Now if you were a REAL doctor, you'd have a nice house, car, and might even get laid once in awhile. Think about it. Now go grade papers until Midnight for free, pigfucker!

Jelly user, who has no idea how easy a prof job can be. Why be a medical doc full of stress when teaching is so much easier and you get to set your own hours

>contributive to society
>physics
Kek

fuck.

i want to get in to genetic engineering. i am 2 years into a chemical engineering degree, and i fucking hate it. i want to change my major.

i was thinking of changing to biochemistry, or something like that, so i can work with research on pharmaceuticals and genetic modification. i want to work with crispr, and be involved with what i believe to be the next steps in understanding the human condition.

i like drugs as well, and would be okay working with pharmaceutical development.

do you have any advice with what to do as a major? what career options would be available?

i originally chose chemical engineering because i figured you can do most chemistry jobs with a chemE degree, but not the other way around. also, med students tend to get chem or bio degrees and those who don't go to med school probably saturate that market.

as i get deeper into chem engineering, it just feels like my school is pushing me into getting a job working with petrochemicals, which fucking sucks. i don't want to build factories to make plastic.

I fart and burp all the time. I seem to have gas constantly and I release it in some form approximately every 5 minutes. Apparently I do it in my sleep too.

If I'm on my own, surrounded by family or friends, I fart loudly without any attempt to conceal it. If I'm in public I still fart and burp but quieter. Even in work and in meetings I fart but I just do it quieter. They almost never smell, and even if they do its pretty mild and passes quickly.

There are only very rare circumstances in which I'll hold it in, the conditions have to meet all of the following criteria:

• I have eaten spicy food or drank lots of beer the night before

• I have farted a few times already and they stink

• I'm in a social environment with people I'm not totally comfortable with

N-acetylcysteine. it breaks disulfide bonds in mucus. cystic fibrosis patients use it. also will save your liver if you overdose on APAP.

ChemE won't get you chem jobs. What year are you? Switch to biochemistry if you want to do genetic engineering, which is boring btw. I do genetic engineering as part of my research and the experiments are all cook booked and boring

can you tutor me for my nursing studies lol i suck at biol

This copy pasta works better in copy pasta threads. Like wwyd, traps, dick rate, etc

i've got around 80 hours of my 128 hour program. so a bit over halfway.

I feel like I don't really know what the fuck I want to do, but I like working in labs and enjoyed the biology courses i've had to take so far. understanding the workings of cells, and the interactions of say, the hormone system, is really interesting.

I've talked with some dudes who do a lot of lab work though, and it seems like a shitload of it is just paperwork.

we've got a biomedical engineering program, but I haven't talked to many people about what they focus on, but i can transfer without losing many credits.

I just feel like i'm going to be disappointed when I end up working for fucking shell at a natural gas refinery, or something like that.

the upside is that you only do that shit for so long, and you usually end up in a management position and more or less get paid to not do a whole lot.

>glitched prices!!!! nons

Keep the engineering side of things. The market is oversaturated with pure biochemists and molecular biologists.

Also, CRISPR is fucking overhyped in the popular science community. It's a nice and generally reliable tool to make gene engineering a tad more efficient. It's no magic weapon though.

>Adjunct
Stopped reading right there.

Wanna give you my 2 cents user. Hope it helps with perspective.

I finished a bachelors in Austria. Got an internship with a neuroscience lab and then got picked up as a technician in a synthetic biology/optogenetics lab. Original plan was to do finish up masters in parallel. Boy did that not work out.

The PIs pretty much treated me like a full blown PhD. Had a research project with project reports and everything. Comparing myself to the other PhD's I was pretty close, just a level below what they were doing.

During that time I was applying for a PhD spot with my bachelors degree. After about 4 years of PhD-esque lab experience, no papers and a bunch of rejections I just had enough.

Just your typical story of PIs exploiting their personnel. I will admit some fault and some obvious career mistakes myself.

In any case, I've had enough of academia for a while. I am currently just your run of the mill Sup Forums-tard trying to trade cryptos. Might try to return to science one day....

I originally was thinking of doing some sort of plant science, like working with GMO's. I like the concept of bioreactors, and using modified organisms to synthesize otherwise difficult biomolecules.

that's what i WANT to do, but I don't know if its feasible to pursue, or even worth doing.

Are you in your major specific courses yet? Half way through in America means you are wrapping up your general education classes and about to switch to major specific classes. Which means you could switch more easily than a senior.

Lastly life's not a race and extra year a uni to do something you actually like is worth the time...provided you stay in chemistry/biochemistry

>but I like working in labs and enjoyed the biology courses i've had to take so far. understanding the workings of cells, and the interactions of say, the hormone system, is really interesting.

That is how they lure us in brother. Once you are hooked it will be too late before you realise how miserable you are.

> it seems like a shitload of it is just paperwork.

Listen to those guys.

How's your GPA? Good enough for grad school? You could prob get into a PhD program with a professor that does that kinda research and wouldn't have to stay in chemE

Thanks for you perspective. I've had enough of academia as well after my postdoc. However, industry seems to be even more competitive than academia at my level.

Research isn't over loaded with paper work, yes you have to keep a lab notebook, read papers and write them but most of your time is spent at the lab bench doing experiments

I've taken like 4 "actual chemical engineering" courses.

a lot of process design. some thermodynamics. a lot of fluid specification, like calculating vapor pressure roults law shit, and calculating inputs and outputs to reactor designs.

its like, fuck me, i don't want to do this as a day job. its so fucking tedious. the most recent course i took was probably just converting units, looking up tabulated data, and plugging in to equations.

like fuck me that's such boring bullshit, and I expect that this stuff only continues in the same sort of way.

i mean it's not excellent but i'm not failing courses. i'm just disinterested in the work i'm doing, and i don't feel super motivated.

>most of your time

Eh... more like half...
At best :D

>(Single cell) genomics/transcriptomics of the gut

How hard is it to defend a dissertation?

Your project or PI was crap then or you didn't take it seriously enough. I have my MS and BS in chem, work in a bio lab doing biochemistry and tech work for almost 2yrs like you described. Got one pub just accepted last month and got into 1/7 phd programs I applied to. It's not an easy or a quick progress but not worthless

Not hard. You need to fuck up badly to fail the defense.

More like >3/4 of my time is doing experiments. Updating your notebook doesn't take long and you are not publishing every piece of data you produce

Over 3.0 GPA?

what do you do? what sort of things are you working on?

I'm at a 3.1. not excellent but fixable if I take my work more seriously. I've just been a bit depressed with what i've been doing.

Biochemistry
I do a mixture of genetic engineering, protein purifications and characterizations

In which university did you acquire your PhD?

Heidelberg.

That's good enough. Find a research lab to join, to get some experience and keep doing good in your classes. do decent on the GRE (most school don't care too much about this) and you could get into a PhD program

Hmm...... Does penile size matter? Do you think in the future people will eventually be able to
genetically modify their bodies to look different?

>genetic engineering, protein purifications

I have done my fair share of these. You have like 15 minutes active bench work every hour or so (generalizing, cause don't know what type of purification etc.)

Even if I sat down to do just experiments, the down time alone is >50% of my day.

Yes it's lots of "hurry up and wait" as I call it but down time doesn't equal paperwork.

I would certainly say my project was pretty crap. I feel like I got those long shots, that would be a pretty good paper if they worked, but the probability of success was quite low. I actually liked both my PIs, despite their faults.

Now of course I would blame the project before I blame myself, but objectively I feel that I did not perform worse than some of my peers who ended up publishing.

are you suggesting i continue slogging through this chem E degree? when i was taking the intro chem E courses, I figured "yeah this is a bit fucking lame but surely once I get into the meat of it it's going to be interesting"

but it isn't interesting, and I don't think it's going to get any more interesting.

if you could go back and do it all over, what changes would you have made?

Do you consider your IQ to be above average? Also, do you consider the people you worked with as such?

True. I can barely hide my animosity for academia nowadays and it gets in the way of expressing my thoughts.

"hurry up and wait" falls in its own special category that is neither paperwork nor bench work :D

>I would certainly say my project was pretty crap. I feel like I got those long shots, that would be a pretty good paper if they worked
Research is like 98% failure

>Do you consider your IQ to be above average?

Only slightly.

>Also, do you consider the people you worked with as such?

some people were brilliant, others just average.

Finishing strong could get you into a PhD program with a professor that does research/sector of science you like.

>if you could go back and do it all over, what changes would you have made?
Worked harder during my BS so getting to grad school wouldn't have been so tough

You are falling into the undergrad trap of "muh degree" like many before you.

I made a post about myself earlier. I go a bachelor of science of biology, specialized in molecular biology, ended up in a neuroscience lab where I perfused mice, injected DNA into brain holes of mouse embryos and took electron microscopy images. I had ZERO experience and qualifications for those tasks.

Degrees nowadays are just a stepping stone, a tick on a checklist. What you end up doing is entirely up to you!

... well and up to the person giving you the job, but a little charm and determination goes a long way.

OP here. He should really make up his mind if he really wants to pursue a PhD.

I have a molecular and cellular biology exam next Thursday, can you wish me good luck?

Add to this user

I got my BS and MS in Chem focused in biochem. Currently work as a research tech in a bio dept doing genetic engineering and biochemistry working with membrane proteins expressed in ecoli. Just got accepted to a chem PhD where I plan to focus on protein structure determination

You only need a PhD if you want to do research or become a prof.

Good luck.

You are right. You only need a PhD if you want to do research or become a prof.

Thanks man, you're the best.

Bruuuh...

Right in the feels. I really wanted to do structural biology on membrane proteins. Give em hell, user.

hm. I guess that makes sense.

maybe I will end up swapping to a similar program, but at the least I should take the work seriously.

say I do end up doing a biochemistry degree, instead of engineering, what job opportunities are available? I know i have a great outlook regarding employment with a chemical engineering bachelors, but is the same true for something like biochemistry?