r/LadiesofScience

Hi ladies, I’m 26F from India, currently preparing to apply for PhD positions in chemistry in Europe. My main targets are Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, & Sweden.

I’ve also been in a relationship with my boyfriend for about 4 years, and we are seriously considering getting married. He works in the corporate sector in procurement, so if I move to Europe for my PhD, the plan would ideally be for him to move with me and establish his own career there as well.

Does it make more sense to get married before I start my PhD, or should we wait until after I’m settled into the PhD?

I'm not asking whether I should marry him in general. We've already discussed marriage seriously. I'm trying to understand the practical implications of getting married before an international PhD move.

I wish to hear from women who have done a PhD abroad while married or who moved abroad with their partner before/during their PhD.

A few things I'd really like to know:

1. Did your partner move with you? How difficult was it for them to find work?
2. Did marriage/spouse residence rights actually make a meaningful difference?
3. For those in Europe, which countries have been particularly good/bad for dual-career couples?
4. Anything you wish you had discussed with your partner before moving abroad?

I do not wish to do more of long distance relationship, I want us together. Please help.

What’s up Docs (and Docs-to-be)!

Any advice on what to look out for while picking supervisor? I’ve heard both testimonials and horror stories that have made me really cautious about this.

How did you navigate your selections?
For those who got great ones, how has that affected your research?

As well as the terrible ones? Have you had to confront them about their negativity? How did they react?

Baseline question: What made you know you and your supervisor were compatible/incompatible?

I’m currently a senior program administrator at a large cancer research organization and I’m good at my job. It took me getting physically sick to leave the lab and enter scientific administration. My commute is 1.5 hours each way, and we have to be in office 3 days a week. I have a 3.5 year old daughter and due to my husband's insane workload and work related travel- I am often the one doing all of the house work, childcare drop off, pick up, extracurriculars etc. I am not bitter about it. However, I feel like our child, is the one paying the price for all of this. Because I am so tired and overwhelmed and constantly rushing- she genuinely doesn't get anywhere near the patience she deserves. I love my job, my team and my boss & I am up for a promotion come 2027. I have built a place I am actually proud of. That said...I have one child. She has one childhood. I believe I am qualified enough in my life to seek a full time remote role with better pay. Setup a nice home office- and be actually present for her. But this is the first ever job I have been happy at. Like genuinely, fulfillingly happy. What should I do? Do I look? Do I keep doing what I do? Will I regret making a change? Would I regret not making a change? I feel like I am on this roller coaster boat ride of to or not to

Hey everyone - I am a recent PhD (29F) in a STEM field and I am really excited to be starting a postdoc at an ivy league school this fall. One of the things that I am really excited about is never again being called Miss or Ms or Mrs - I feel like I've worked hard and earned my title.

Now, it has always been awkward telling people what I do - I'm sure we've all been there, where someone asks you what you do and you say {science field} and they say "oh wow - you must be really smart . . ." and it gets awkward and then potentially uncomfortable as they try to continue the conversation (in my case, its astro, and I cannot tell you how many people have told me their zodiac sign. So many). But this is something I'm used to, its something I've learned strategies to avoid and so on. But I'm always stuck wondering - do men have to deal with this as much? Are they told zodiac signs when they mention their work, or do people assume they do "real" science?

On the other side of all this, my parent is always telling me to be humble and careful about telling people about what I do. If I say stuff like "I'm getting my doctorate" or "I do Astro" they sometimes play it off at be like "she loves to tell people that" and make me sound very proud and arrogant and boastful - it drives me nuts. Now they're saying not to tell people that I've got my degree, or where I'm going to work because to do so is apparently bragging (though apparently they have no issues bragging about it themselves . . .).

I'm not here to get commiseration about my parent - I can deal with that. But this false humility and being told that I shouldn't tell people about my degree and basically being told to be demure and all that - is that a woman thing? Do you think that men have to deal with it too? Can they be like "Hi - I'm Dr XXX YYYY" without social repercussions? Or are they told to downplay they're work too?

EDIT: I recognize that socially, when you're meeting another human being, you're going to say "my name is AAA BBBB" and of course not include a title - I've not been going around saying "Hi, I'm Ms. AAA BBBBB". When being formally introduced by another person though, I personally think that Dr. is the only appropriate title for someone with a medical doctorate or a Ph.D. (Its like when they were arguing that it should be President and Mrs Biden instead of President and Dr. Biden - the former is completely unacceptable in my eyes, because it implies that her marital status and husband's job define her more than her own achievements. BS.) However, regarding the introductory "Hi - I'm Dr. XXX YYYY" statement above, I meant more that they are able to openly discuss their position and achievements without making things awkward around non-academic strangers - an experience I don't often have - or if they are also encouraged to be more modest than that.

EDIT: Also, regarding the Mrs. Ms. and Miss bit - I just never liked any of these titles because they all (except Ms. - I acknowledge that) essentially define a woman by her marital status, which I'm just not crazy about. I'm happy to have an alternative, and one that I worked hard for.

I just graduated this year with a degree in biomedical sciences and I didn't really have a clue about what I wanted to do during my bachelor years (The curriculum covered literally everything very briefly). I love human biology (diet/neuroscience/embryology), but one thing I also really love is writing and reading. I've always loved writing, and found science journalism to be really fitting for me. My question is, what can I do now (I'm in a gap year) to move towards my goal as a science journalist?

I’m a rising senior and have always wanted to get a PhD and become a professor. This summer, I’m doing an REU at an extremely prestigious school and am absolutely miserable. Didn’t have a real project and my mentor didn’t give a rat’s ass about me and was never around to help. That, compounded with the fact that the project my mentor had promised I’d work on — we wrote proposals as part of the application — he ended up completing and publishing himself left a sour taste in my mouth. After realizing that the project we’d discussed in the proposal wasn’t happening anymore, I found the courage to ask him if he could give me some real work and he put me on this other dead end and called it a project. Well, that too, I suppose, is fine. They tell you that that’s research.

Over the summer, my mentor was never around. We communicated via Slack only but that’s fine too, I suppose. They tell you that that makes you an independent researcher. However, since what I was doing was so open-ended and aimless, I needed more guidance. I tried every way I could to get through with him. He’d say things like “you’re getting ahead of yourself” and “you know I can do all these things myself” when I’d ask him for clearer goals or suggestions on what I could try next. So, I tried to find where I was going wrong; I changed the way I asked questions, changed the way I’d send him updates and explain what I’d done, changed the way I responded to his suspicion. Oh, and speaking of suspicion, everything I did was met with nothing but suspicion and doubt. He’d never give me any direction, and because I had to make progress I’d simply do something the way I saw fit and share it with him. Now if I were to give him 10 updates, he’d ignore all the things I did perfectly and latch onto one very small inconsistency he’d see. He’d just tell me it looks wrong or suspicious — no elaboration on exactly what it was that was seemingly wrong and what I could do to fix it. I’d spend hours trying to figure out what was wrong and appease him. I’m not a very confident person to begin with, so all this doubt took a toll on me. I’d dread sending him what I’d done because I’d be afraid he’d dismiss it without any direction on what I could do next.

I worked overtime, on the weekends, late at night. My hope was that if I worked hard enough he’d perhaps see that I am trying and… feel that I am worth investing some time in? That never worked out. As the summer progressed, it became really clear that this was not something he gave single shit about. Every day I’d get a message from him saying he’s busy and that he’ll respond to things within a few days.

With little time left and no results for my deliverables, I finally spoke up and told him my concerns. I told him I’m losing motivation. His only response was “I’m sorry” with a shrug. He changed the topic and asked me if I’d watched the odyssey instead?! I found it so dismissive! After having told him all my concerns and seeing that he didn’t care, with 3 weeks left and knowing that he wasn’t going to be around for much of those either, I told him I’m quitting. He freaked out, didn’t ask me what I wanted to be able to successfully finish, and forced me to continue working. I’ve been working at this place begrudgingly since then.

I think the only reason he freaked out is because he’s a new postdoc and was worried my quitting would reflect poorly on him and that he’d have to explain to the PI why I quit (since the PI is funding me). Nothing’s changed since my telling him I quit, I’ve been miserable. I cry every day. I feel incredibly disillusioned and put off by academia. As a senior, there’s so much I need to focus on right now but all I feel is dread and disinterest. My REU last summer was similarly difficult, but since it was my first bad research experience I chalked it up to an anomaly. Now I just feel like too much of a failure to want to stay in academia.

I don’t know what to do at this point, how to pick myself up my bootstraps and get to work.

Hello, I am 28 and I left my PhD with a master's in chemistry and I work currently as a paralegal. I am not confident that I want to spend my whole career in this field but I just feel kind of lost. I live in a small city with no network or support system and I have been applying to scientist jobs with no success because I don't have a PhD. Is applying to lab tech roles something worth considering? I just need a path forward, my current job works long hours for little pay and there isn't room to move up without going to law school. I am hesitant about applying to lab tech roles because they would pay less than my current position and surely require more hours, but perhaps it would be worth it because I am worried my scientific skills might atrophy while I don't work in science or a lab?

For context, I went to a very competitive university and it's been difficult watching my peers advance in their careers while I feel stuck. Many of my classmates have their PhD, JD, MBA, etc., are team leads, directors, vice presidents, staff scientists, etc., or are making a lot of money. I want to keep pushing myself because I'm used to setting big goals but I can't seem to move forward anymore: I'm stuck in a job that doesn't treat me well, and in my life I've set a lot of goals that I've failed to meet and now I am unsure if I can set new goals and meet them. I know I should be grateful that I have a stable job in this economy but I just cant help feeling like I need to move forward and not stay in this inertia of having a deadend-but-ok job.

I am really struggling to get anything on my western blot when I probe for ubiquitin. I squish larvae in standard RIPA buffer with EDTA and protease inhibitor. I use biorad 8-16% gel, run on 150v, for Western blot- transblot transfer system with 2.5A 7 minute turbo transfer.

Mono and poly-ubiquitinylated conjugates antibody from Enzo(ABS840). But all I get is blank gel when I probe for ubiquitin but actin is most definitely there. What am I missing?

Please help :)