As:  As a Ph.D. appears to be your ultimate goal, we advise getting on with it within the strongest program to which you are admitted. Compare program rankings and reputations, professorial standing and supportiveness, and cost if any.

As:  It’s a better idea to acquire breadth of training and a larger collegial network by going elsewhere.

As:  Is the advisor a teacher and mentor worth following? Will s/he still be accessible after the transfer despite additional demands on her/his time?  Is the group being allocated equal or better resources?  If so, prepare to enjoy and learn from foreign experience.  If not, switching your advisor under these circumstances will give rise to fewer questions and repercussions than usual.

As: As a graduate student you’re a PI in training, onstage the moment you walk onto campus.  Assume your best professional self.  Show unfailing courtesy to younger and fellow students, secretaries, lab managers, safety officer, mail handlers, and custodians.   In emergencies, help with others’ problems or donate snacks.  Consider matching your PI’s hours at work.  Your own professionalism and collegiality will benefit the relationship.

As:  Always greet these men courteously, and don’t be afraid to show your competence in a dispassionate way.  Another route to men’s seeing you as an ally is their respect for sustained physical prowess e.g., sports, grit, long hours, hard work.  If you want to meet on their playing field, offer the department a tough lunchtime running or exercise class. Take part in group activities however skilled you are.  If you play a sport yourself, invite a male counterpart to scrimmage or to watch a game in a public place.  (See too AP1.)  

As: Yes, social media and an up to date website encourage colleagues to stay abreast of your work and events you endorse or in which you participate.

As Summary: Don’t, except with your closest trusted colleagues. If asked by others, give an anodyne reply such as “we don’t always see eye to eye.”  If bad relations threaten to become obstructive, set the record straight as possible in a conversation with the department chair. We hope you will receive a fair hearing.

As:  Obviously the first step is to discuss this with your PI.  Propose, in writing, 2-3 side projects, along with timelines, you’re knowledgeable enough to execute semi-independently.   If one or two of these don’t persuade the PI, and autonomy is very important to you, revise the listing according to her/his input and that of a second knowledgeable person, such as a senior technician or the lab manager.  Return the revised listing to the PI within a month.  If unsuccessful at that point, consult your university ombudsperson.

As:  No, you’re likely unaware of pre-existing history and issues among your group and others.  Your PI must pre-approve project-related contact, especially information trading.

As: A great deal. Prestigious universities typically offer successful students more rigorous, comprehensive, topical training than is possible elsewhere. For this reason, positions, grants, and fellowships often go to their graduates, all other things being equal, i.e., all applicants are highly recommended and submit similarly stellar proposals.

As: Meet with the course TA and instructor to pinpoint where you went wrong.  Compare their explanations.  Take these explanations to your university’s learning center, whose experts can restore confidence by ensuring you’re preparing properly for exams.  Retake the test.

As: Hey, too strong.  He was hired for that expertise, and unfashionable thinkers have, over time, proven themselves visionaries.   Make certain you can’t learn further from him.  Politely and deferentially, ask him and one or two of his professorial colleagues about the work’s importance and impact.  Only then, if not persuaded, vote with your feet.

As: Your advisor probably realized long ago that comments are often disregarded or cause for combat. Ask her/him, and a friendly senior postdoc, for more constructive feedback and for recommendations of excellent examples of research reports. Consider rotating into the group of junior faculty, who are often energetic and still filled with zeal for teaching as well as research. Consult Anatomy of a Research Report, and convene or join writing practice sessions.

As:  It was wise to pay a visit to both labs.  Unless your budget can’t be boosted, and/or payments delayed or discharged in small installments, choose the lab where you will be happy to go to work in the morning. 

As: Most PIs will nix an external internship unless skills to be acquired directly benefit your project or another in the group, and then only if it is brief, e.g., one-two weeks.

As: Lengthy or multiple postdoc positions are usually taken as signaling slow starters.  If short and productive, the second can probably be explained, but you have a good alternative.  When institute positions offer at least some independence and resources for success, they can lead to academic professorships, should you wish one.

As: Naturally you’re comparing these positions on factors such as proximity to family and friends, departmental supportiveness, professional autonomy, resource availability, and so on.  Bottom line, the career clock is ticking.  If an academic career is your goal, we advise you to start it.

As: This choice depends on your personal and career goals.  Which do you value more: teaching and encouraging often-first generation students; or conducting state of the art research?  If you choose the former only to rethink your decision later, you will find it difficult, if not impossible, as time passes, to rejoin a university research track.  In contrast, the opposite directionality is almost always attainable.

As Summary: We’re sure you gained familiarity, as a doctoral student, with the premier peer-reviewed and open-source journals in your field.  If you haven’t heard of a journal and its journal impact factor (JIF), or have any other reason to doubt its bona fides, check with your advisor or university resource librarian.

As: Interviewers will winnow out applications that are misspelled, sloppy, unintelligible, unrelated to the job call, and uninformed about the host university, e.g., its location or key characteristics.   If invited to interview, you will chiefly be asked various forms of the question, “How is your research influenced by your training?”  This probes to what degree your proposals, as well as current and past work, are attributable to you as versus your advisor.

As:  Yes, of course.  It takes time to become accustomed to the differences, but your training has imparted innumerable transferable attributes and skills to you.  These include curiosity, preparedness, thoroughness, quickness to learn, care, competence, neat-handedness, organization, planning and multi-tasking, literacy, numeracy, computer skills, collaboration, and excellent communication both verbal and written. 

As: Hey, harsh.  Your advisor was presumably hired and awarded tenure to do that work that way. A committee of internal and external evaluators agreed on its worth.  Yes, your own scientific interests and directions may differ from his, as will your successors’ in their turn depart from yours.  If you can’t take interest in, or be convinced by, his, seek another group.

As:  Though campus cultures vary, we suggest accepting every invitation to coffee, fundraisers, barbecues, bowling, and baby showers.  Attend as many university events as you can, especially those organized by students.  In this context, we mention a recent study reported in Fortune (De Wei, 17 February 2023) to the effect that upper leadership tiers tend to feature not necessarily the highest intellects but rather acumen, charisma, and likability.  Put another way, don't skip social hours to get more done. 

As: Your department will provide directions and guidance.  However, it never hurts to be prepared for as many eventualities as possible.  We recommend compiling, and keeping up to date, indexed copies of publications, funded grant proposals, conference presentations, annual reports, a listing of upper and lower level courses taught by year, student evaluation summaries by year, names of graduate students and postdocs in your group by year, names of alumni and their current positions, service activities, outreach activities, and fan mail.  

As: Many adjuncts consciously choose part-time work for a multitude of personal and professional reasons.  Others do continuously seek other opportunities, but are stymied because research skills quickly lose their currency, because they cannot undertake full time employment, or both.

As: Unknown to you, there are likely colleagues elsewhere on campus who make use of the same data sets, instrumentation, methods, and funding sources you do, and who can perhaps comment on your program outcomes. To identify these persons, scan colloquium schedules and identify their hosts. Read university annual reports and press releases; and ask chancellors, deans, and vice presidents of research for introductions. When you yourself publish, briefly inform your department chair, dean, women's studies programs, campus newspapers, university news bureau, town newspaper, and alumni bulletins.

Enlarge your network by following up on related campus colloquia, entering into collaborations internal and external to the university, and making contacts at external conferences leading up to organizing your own.

As: Our most sincere sympathies are with you. A tiring but, we hope, ultimately more successful road lies ahead.

Perhaps you wish to challenge this ruling internally or externally to the university. Taking the latter first, few outside attorneys specialize in academic promotion procedures. Fortunately, many litigators, and virtually all universities and cities, do participate in job discrimination task forces. You can also call on guidance and support from national organizations for women, associations of university women, national unions, and many books.

Within the university, faculty senates and faculty unions can help determine how “higher quality” was assessed. Your record appears stellar, but these achievements sometimes count less than they should if your colleagues consider you a misfit or dislike you. We have known an entire institute to disband and reform in new guise minus a colleague considered untenable, rather than retain said colleague.

Naturally you may also investigate academic and think tank positions elsewhere, or make further use of your skills by retraining as an attorney, fundraiser, journalist, and/or activist. We wish you every success

As: It’s not expected that you will stay forever. Especially if you are successful, you will likely be recruited elsewhere. Or perhaps you mean that you’re contemplating leaving academic life period, for opportunities that will eventually result in leaving active research. In the latter case, consider backup options early on, and keep them open.

As: If you seek an active academic research career, the answer is evident. Institutions dedicated to teaching attract brilliant educators who enrich the entire campus. Some conduct hands-on research alongside their group, taking teaching even further, such that powerhouse students hungry to learn receive the education of their lives. Chances are, however, that you will meet more research-trained young coworkers, and have access to better resources, at a research-oriented university.