u/RoleMaleficent9409

My program is five years, but my PI said I can finish in four. My PI is well-connected, and her colleague from a different university wanted to hire me for a postdoc. As you know, PhD stipend is extremely low. I understand that Postdoc positions are underpaid, but my salary would be from $36,000 USD to $70,000.

I wanted to stay an extra year to take more classes and learn more skills, but I’m also tired of being poor. I’ve published several papers, so I don’t really need additional publications.

I am based in the United States, and I believe I’m currently being bullied. I am not being bullied by my advisor or lab members. I am being bullied by my cohort and program director. Bully is a very strong word, and I wanted to avoid using it. However, they are intentionally targeting me even during casual class discussions. The target started after I joined this prestigious lab that many of my cohort mates wanted to but got rejected. I was offered many opportunities to co-author with my advisor’s four postdocs, so I quickly gained publications as a co-author.

I thought I was the problem or wasn’t likable. Then I shared my experiences with my trusted friends at other universities and they all told me I was bullied. I recently completed my required courses, and I no longer have to interact with my cohort anymore. Then, my program director started bullying me through email because I have limited in-person interaction with them. I now have official proof and realized I wasn’t making things up. I can report this but trying to avoid problems.

Have you ever been bullied in your PhD program? Thankfully, the program director is not in my committee, so I won’t have to worry about them.

There’s a professor who thinks all the PhD students in my program should stay for 6-7 years because we’d get the full learning experience. She did hers for 7 years and learned a lot.

It’s so ignorant, given how much she portrays herself as an advocate for students. We can’t afford to live on this PhD stipend. She was able to live comfortably because she has wealthy parents.

I’m very furious right now. For my program, we don’t have an advisor until after three rotations. When I started my PhD, there was a professor who I hit it off immediately with. I applied for a grant, and asked her for feedback. She gave me significant feedback revolving my writing. I didn’t get funded.

I eventually found my advisor. Over time, I realized this professor who I was close with liked asking me questions to extract from me so I distanced myself from her.

Three days ago, one of her students (more senior than me) published a research letter (short research). The methods were different from mine, but it was clear the idea was similar to what I proposed on my grant. I’m so angry. I checked the draft I emailed her, and the idea is very similar. The other student is just looking at it from a different lense, so I can’t accuse her of taking my idea, but the foundation is the same.

My current advisor told me to always be careful with what I say to people because they don’t have ideas, and she’s right. These academia folks are very book smart but don’t have innovative ideas.

There’s this older white woman at work who I never had issues with. I don’t work closely with her. Anyways, she seemed so mad at me for some reason. Then, she suddenly talked about a mistake I’ve made in a public meeting without mentioning my name. The director, who actually likes her, de-escalated the situation since it would have felt problematic to trash me in public. This white woman was very mad and almost cried.

Ever since, she has been throwing snarky remarks to test out my patience. These comments aren’t mean but shady. I’ve been trying to hold myself together around her, but I’m slowly losing it. Should I clap back? I’m worried she will cry because she almost did. Earlier in my career, a white woman has cried before and I almost lost my job. It was traumatizing.

I have a very supportive PI who speaks highly all of her students. She is very hands off and doesn’t provide much feedback except for labmate 1. It is so clear she invests in labmate 1 the most.

Labmate 1 is a 4th year, and labmate 2 and I are 3rd year. I understand that labmate 1 is slower with understanding research, but I find it unfair that my PI would literally spend time to write 50% of the manuscripts for labmate 1 while she barely touches labmate 2 and I’s manuscripts.

I recently found out that our PI formatted and submitted a manuscript on behalf of labmate 1 because labmate 1 was taking too long to submit it. However, she made me and labmate 2 format our own manuscript and submit it.

Should I be mad?

I understand that academia is quite competitive, and I’m interested in hearing how everyone manages their relationships outside of school with people in academia.

I have a friend who’s in a PhD program, and we’ve been friends for two years now. We met through Yoga, and I only started sharing more about academic-related stuff to her in our second year of friendship.

She started her program four years before me. We’re in similar but different fields — hers is statistics, mine is biostatistics. I fully acknowledge her program is harder than mine, and I’ve never claimed otherwise. She’s very supportive and kind when it comes to my personal life, but I’ve noticed she gets competitive whenever our conversations turn to academics. A few examples:

1. I once told her I wished my program had better courses. She responded defensively, “Well, your program isn’t statistics — you guys don’t have to know this.” I pushed back a couple times, then realized I was just getting into unnecessary arguments, so I stopped.

2. I told her I plan to graduate next year, my 4th year. It typically takes students 5 years to graduate. She said, “Oh, maybe it’s because you’re using easier methods and data. But that’s good, you get to finish fast.”

3. I published 2 papers (1 first-author, 1 second-author), and she said, “Well, my field is different — it takes longer to publish.” This felt like she was downplaying it. I actually have real experience with the publishing process, since I was heavily involved in research and worked as a research manager after my master’s. She hasn’t published before, so I’m assuming it might be the reason why she’s so triggered.

4. I told her I received a grant. She genuinely congratulated me but added, “You’re lucky your PI is good at writing grants.”

Outside of academics, she’s a great friend. But I’m starting to wonder if I should just keep this part of my life separate from her — only talk about personal stuff, and not bring up school/work wins at all. Has anyone else dealt with this? Do you draw a hard line between personal and professional life with friends like this, or is there a better way to handle it?

I am in a cohort of 7 people. There’s this professor, who’s NOT the department chair, but she pretty much runs the program because she teaches most of our core courses. She was initially nice to me until I started receiving grants.

I have been actively googling and searching external funding opportunities from foundations and organizations. With a humble brag, I’m decently good at writing grants and have received slightly over 20 of them (most are small and just a few thousands).

This professor is quite mad at me for not sharing these opportunities with people in my cohort. There are reasons why I don’t share with them: (1) A few of them are not nice to me because of my sexuality. They have made imitated my hand gestures and made passive homophobic comments towards me (2) I searched these opportunities on my own time (3) They don’t share opportunities with me either. They just don’t get funded.

This professor told me that we are colleagues and a network, so we should be helping each other. She has been pretty mean to me ever since she expressed anger to me for not sharing and has actively targeted me in class whenever she could.

Am I wrong for not sharing?