u/Defiant_Cook1588

walking to campus this morning and passed a group of students. they were all together talking, probably heading to class. one of them looked up and said "good morning dr.., how are you?" a couple others waved or said hey.

then one kid goes "hey professor, nice jacket." another one said "yeah you got drip today" lol. i laughed and said thanks, you guys look sharp too. then we just did the normal small talk. "how's your morning going?" "cold out here huh?" "you got coffee?" "yeah gotta have it." "you ready for class?" "eh not really." "same."

It's a small thing, but it made my whole morning. They didn't have to acknowledge me. I'm just their professor walking by. They could have easily kept talking among themselves and ignored me. 

Had a student (sophomore) show up today who joined the roster late this semester. They missed a few classes right after registering, so honestly, I wasn't expecting much when they walked in.

Instead of being completely lost, they completely turned it around. They told me they self-taught everything from the lecture slides and posted materials, and they backed it up. They actively engaged in class discussions, answered questions, and crushed it.

It is just so refreshing when students put in that kind of genuine effort and initiative. Makes all the prep work worth it.

myquals: PhD applied physics

I am redacting most of the identifying information from the email with "..." This was like the first lab I had joined in the US after graduating from IIT. If you noticed I kept things extremely short, and precise. Did not at all mention my previous research experience, exam grades or even attach my CV... (not saying you should not send your CV but its more likely for a faculty to open your email if its short and does not really contain attahments)

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Dear Dr ....

I am [....], and am currently working as a professional for .... I had graduated a year back in Engineering [....] from IIT delhi, India and was still contemplating on possibly going for a PhD. Owing to such an interest, I happened to come across your profile, and your area of interest in nanomaterials is quite interesting to say the least. I was reading your [...] just yesterday and wanted to reach out.

So for starters, I noticed that the spheres in your study were hydrogenated a-Si at roughly 10 atom% H, from Korgel's synthesis, and the remaining two phase front was attributed to the Si-Si bond breaking being the rate limiting step. I feel that the two facts sit together in a way the paper never really picks up at all. Do correct me if I am wrong but from my understanding, hydrogen terminates the network and lowers the mean Si-Si coordination, so H content should technically be a direct knob on the rate of exactly the step that creates the specific front. You basically hypothesize whether slower lithiation would soften the front, but hydrogen is never in my opinion treated as a variable, and every sphere in the study had the same H content. To me, this matters a lot for the pomegranate architecture as shown by the previous study by [...]. To add further, the 80 nm primaries are sized against fracture, yet free a-Si spheres showed no fracture up to 870 nm, and the two phase front appears only on the first lithiation. If H content and formation rate together suppress that front, I would believe and assume that the much larger amorphous primaries would become viable, which cuts both the internal void fraction and the SEI-forming area per unit capacity.

I have written up a one-page test of this with possible experimental conditions that can be tested and would be glad to send it, and discuss it over. I was also hoping and praying that I would be able to work under you, especially since you can see that I am currently pursuing a masters in a totally unrelated field.

Best,

....

........

Ofc this email can def be improved.

Qualifications: BTech, M.S and PhD in applied physics

Got an email, from a student that was... which was really interesting. They wanted to apparently join my lab for a PhD. The only problem? I don't have a lab. well sure my research interests are listed on the faculty page, but that doesn't mean I have funding, space, or a wand to create a PhD position out of thin air. I usually mostly teach and sometimes collaborate with colleagues. I run an undergraduate teaching laboratory, and yes I do mentor undergrads. yes I do still conduct research with those undergrads. But that is not a PhD lab. I do not have my own research lab, or funding. How did they even come across me of all people... I seriously cannot conjure a PhD position out of a teaching lab.

I usually am very open to students from India in general especially from the IITs partly also because that's where I graduated from. I have a soft spot so to say for these students, but the moment I open these emails, I feel extremely frustrated. nowadays I feel embarrassed to even tell colleagues where I did my undergraduate degree because of the type of stuff I see from students studying at an IIT. What has happened to the quality of these students?? Most of the "worst" emails people get often tend to be from students at the IITs. Do they not bother to even do basic research on people they are emailing?

Then they also attach resumes that run three to four pages long, filled with the most utter nonsense publications in the most obscure "international" and "multidisciplinary" journals. When you visit these journal websites you do not even see a clear scope. Like these guys cannot genuinely tell a predatory journal from a real one. and its not like some borderline cases. https://www.ijcrt.org/, https://www.ijsrtjournal.com/, https://www.ijstjournal.com/ just check this out. Even a high school student would be able to tell this apart from "real" journals.

What makes it worse is that half the professors at these Indian colleges seem to be publishing there as well so yes I cannot blame these kids myself. but it makes me wonder how credible their skills and quality of work really are. Even if I were to accept graduate students, I would not want a guy who cheated his way through college... also these are not small colleges in remote areas. like geez. and for the icing on the cake, these guys would start the email announcing their grades in a freaking examination (JEE and what not) they took after high school. grow up, I do not care what you got. you should not be telling me the things you did right after high school

And they attach certificates to the email proudly showing where their paper was published. Do Indian students know the difference between a predatory journal and a real one. Why is it that every single encounter I have had so far with indian international students, inundated with these predatory journals.

Well my wife was recently asked to take on a work trip that will take her to Mumbai, Bhopal, and New Delhi, with later stops in the Philippines and Indonesia. She is still recovering from childbirth and the postpartum period, and she has only just returned to work. I was against her going back so soon, and even more against this trip. I eventually gave in, as she felt I was holding her back. I know that can come across as controlling, and I am trying not to be. I am just worried. Maybe this sounds cynical, but I have very little positive thought in the safety situation in India, and I am worried about the food and water too. I would have gone with her to help with logistics and support, but I teach at a college and our semester just started, so I cannot leave.

She is not Indian, and this will be her first time in India. She will be traveling with her team, so she will not be completely alone, but I want to do whatever I can from here. I am looking for practical advice on how to make her stay more comfortable in Mumbai, Bhopal, and New Delhi. That includes safe and reliable transport, areas to stay, food and water precautions, how to access health care if she feels unwell, and cultural or social norms she should know as a foreign woman. Its been a while since I last visited India too. I would also like to understand how women, especially foreign women, are generally treated in academic and research settings in India, so I can better prepare her and calm my own concerns. Any suggestions from women who have traveled or worked in these cities, or from women in Indian academia would mean a lot. 

I teach a section of about 35 students in freshman Engineering Physics (mostly freshmen and sophomores). I do not require attendance because I generally feel mandatory policy hurts more than it helps, but I work hard to keep class engaging and get to know my students.

A student who is repeating this course for the second time showed up on day one and completely disappeared. Wanting to help, I took extra time out of my schedule to send a polite email suggesting a quick check-in to help her catch up on what she missed.

Her response? She claimed my email was an overreach. To make matters worse, her parents apparently monitor her inbox, saw my message, and emailed me demanding details about her grades and attendance. I gave the standard FERPA-compliant refusal, but the whole situation left a sour taste in my mouth.

Since when is reaching out to a struggling student considered an overreach? Is this just the new norm, or should I stop offering proactive outreach altogether?

This is a song from Northeast India, Manipur. The song itself draw heavily on scripture (Colossians 2:7 and Galatians 5:22-23) to encourage believers to root themselves in faith, embody the "fruits of the spirit" like gentleness and self-control, and shine their light across the land of Zogam (which is basically the region that is indigenous to the people of the Zo ethnicity).

Light translation:

Aw Khang in, Khang in Khrist Batna nei in, Oh grow, grow to be more like Christ,

Thunuailut, Nunnem leh Kidektheihnate'n With submission, gentleness, and self-control,

Aw Lawm aw, hong in Khrist adin kizang ni, Oh friend, come, let us be used for Christ,

Nisim in a Itna, Thutak in Khang ni. Every day, let us grow in His love and truth.

Christians in this region are heavily persecuted and there has been a civil war going on since 2023. Please do pray for the children from here 🙏

You can learn more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_persecution_in_Manipur

https://www.christiantoday.com/news/manipur-christians-face-grave-and-escalating-humanitarian-crisis

hey so my wife and I had been thinking about adopting for a while now. our daughter is a few months old and we mostly had a preference for adopting either a kid victim of the manipur conflict or myanmar. I personally had preference for a specific ethnicity but it does not really matter as much. its also because my wife has family ties to myanmar and I am originally from the northeast so it might be easier for such a kid to adjust too.

but from whatever I was researching online, I see that in India we cannot pick the children and the government assigns them to us. how is the experience like and how long does it usually take. we are based in the US, so that might also be an issue. also if the child is somewhat older do they allow you to meet them.

to add to that, I have a few extremely specific questions that I cannot seem to find clear answers to on the official CARA website. since the system matches you, is there any way for an NRI couple to restrict their search solely to specific northeastern states without the algorithm pushing our profile to the absolute bottom of the waitlist? For me personally my preference was really just around the ethnic background, mostly a child from either Manipur or Mizoram (most preferably a Kuki) or a Chin refugee child

also, since our biological daughter is still a young infant, does CARA mandate a strict age gap between a biological child and an adopted child? I know couples with two kids are restricted to special needs categories, but I am not sure how having a new baby affects the matching process for a first adoption.

lastly, regarding meeting an older child. if we are matched with a child who is around 4 or 5 years old, does the agency facilitate virtual meetings or video calls for bonding before we formally accept the referral? you apparently only get a short window to reserve and accept a match, and flying from the US to India on just a few days notice to meet the child in person before signing the papers seems logistically impossible.

I was a bit unsure so thought of putting this out. will appreciate any honest experiences or advice from anyone who has gone through these specific hurdles!

Every single human life is inherently precious, and it breaks my heart to see how quickly our society has begun to dismiss this basic truth. We are living in a culture increasingly shaped by modern trends that treat human life as disposable when it becomes inconvenient. In a country like India, where we already battle the horrific reality of female infanticide, adopting a casual mindset toward taking innocent life is the last thing we need. We cannot claim to respect life while simultaneously ignoring the most vulnerable among us.

The argument that abortion is strictly a matter of personal choice completely ignores the reality of what a fetus actually is. A developing fetus is not just a collection of cells or an extension of someone else's body. It is a distinct, living human being with its own unique potential. You do not have the moral right to end the life of another living being simply because their existence is inconvenient. If a parent truly feels unprepared or unwilling to raise a child, the solution is not termination. Choose life and put the baby up for adoption so they at least get the chance to live.

Whenever this topic comes up, people immediately bring up extreme and tragic exceptions like rape to justify the entire practice. While those rare cases are deeply distressing and require serious societal support to protect victims, they do not represent the vast majority of cases.

Using extreme circumstances as a blanket justification for ending unborn lives across the board is fundamentally dishonest. We need to address those specific tragedies with compassion and targeted solutions without normalizing the end of human life as a routine option.

Part of the issue comes down to how we view intimacy today. Sexual acts were meant to be sacred and meaningful, reserved for a committed relationship as a biological and spiritual gift.

Gaining pleasure from intimacy is entirely natural, but it comes with the profound responsibility of potential new life. So you should always be open to the possibility of life.

In an ideal world, society would treat intimacy with the respect it deserves, and we would not even need to have this debate. But since we live in an imperfect world, we must stand up for what is right. India needs to wake up and protect the unborn, because a society that fails to value its weakest members is failing as a whole.

Honestly, every time someone online tries to drop the "rice bag" insult on Northeast Christians, I just sit there staring at my screen like a confused owl. For context, I’m from the Northeast, I’m tribal, and my family never converted from Hinduism. We had our own indigenous traditions, animism, and ancestral beliefs long before any missionary or priest set foot in these hills. So right off the bat, the whole "you sold out your ancestral Hindu heritage" narrative falls totally flat on its face. But logic aside, let’s actually break down the logistics of this insult because the math is simply not mathing.

Are you seriously telling me that an entire community, across generations, gave up their entire worldview, spiritual identity, and cultural framework for… a fifty-kilo sack of Basmati? Like, is your religion so flimsy and held together by such thin threads that a single carbohydrates distribution drive can wipe it out? Because if a handful of grain can overthrow an ancient, multi millennial theological system, that sounds like a massive skill issue on your end, not ours.

Furthermore, who is this supposed to actually insult?

If someone switches their eternal soul for a bag of Sonamasuri, either the convert is the most mercenary, foo -motivated creature on earth, or the religion they left had a market value of roughly 40 rupees a kilo. Either way, calling us "rice bags" just makes everyone involved look ridiculous, so please, if you're going to come for us, at least invent a slur that doesn't sound like a wholesale grocery list 🤦‍♂️.

Hey so its the title of this post basically! I’m a volunteer Wikipedia editor who mostly focuses on covering lesser known Physics topics or Northeast India adjacent articles. So I have spent considerable amount ofmy time working on creating and expanding articles for personalities from Northeast India or asian academics/physicists. I’m now looking to help expand coverage across the rest of the country so wanted to get suggestions (and please do not name herbalists, or anyone that promotes pseudoscientific culture; they might be notable but I cannot write an unbiased article on them)

If there are any trailblazing women, historical figures, local activists, artists, scientists, or community leaders you think deserve proper representation, please drop their names below! Also as per wiki rules we can definitely have an article on living women who are yk named a fellow of a major organisation like the National Academy of Sciences.

Looking forward to your suggestions! thanks