{"id":4921,"date":"2013-02-21T21:40:51","date_gmt":"2013-02-21T21:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/?p=4921"},"modified":"2013-02-21T21:40:51","modified_gmt":"2013-02-21T21:40:51","slug":"blogroll-its-time-to-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/2013\/02\/blogroll-its-time-to-talk.html","title":{"rendered":"Blogroll: It’s time to talk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: As we continue to invite bloggers out there in the wild to compose our monthly Blogroll column, JessTheChemist<\/a> penned the March 2013 column.<\/em><\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

Is a PhD bad for your health?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Graduate students will be all too familiar with the trials and tribulations that PhD research brings, but is it bad for your health? Chemjobber<\/a> and Vinylogous<\/a> at ‘Not the Lab’ hosted a blog<\/a> dialogue<\/a> on ‘Is graduate school in chemistry bad for your mental health?’ to raise important issues that rarely get discussed. Chemjobber shares his personal experiences including \u201cthe feeling that [his] entire life was an utter failure\u201d. Vinylogous recounts that his \u201cweekends had been given up, as had hobbies\u201d and \u201c7-day workweeks were expected; dinner was eaten hurriedly at one’s desk; stealing was frequent and hoarding of reagents and glassware was necessary\u201d. Not only are the five posts excellent, but the comments that the posts have produced are insightful and eye-opening.<\/p>\n

Derek Lowe<\/a> also joined in the mental health discussion<\/a> at ‘In the Pipeline’ and at ‘Periodic Boundary Conditions’, Miss MSE<\/a> adds her personal viewpoint<\/a>. She highlights the need for a life outside her PhD and concludes that \u201cthe most important thing I can do for my mental health is this: talk to people who aren’t in grad school\u201d. Finally, MB<\/a> at ‘Colourblind Chemistry’ reveals the consequences of picking the wrong principal investigator<\/a> and how he dealt with that. He summarizes the mental health posts nicely with the comment that \u201cgrad school is incredibly difficult, but it doesn’t need to be demoralizing\u201d.<\/p>\n

If the posts described above don’t put you off life as a graduate student, then head over to ‘The Drew Lab’ where Joshua Drew<\/a> gives out some first-rate tips<\/a> on how to apply to graduate school, from GRE scores to the personal statement, noting that \u201cthere are no set formulae as to what makes a good candidate\u201d.<\/p>\n

Written by JessTheChemist<\/a>, who blogs at https:\/\/theorganicsolution.wordpress.com\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

[As mentioned in this post<\/a>, we\u2019re posting the monthly blogroll column here on the Sceptical Chymist. This is the March 2013 article<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: As we continue to invite bloggers out there in the wild to compose our monthly Blogroll column, JessTheChemist penned the March 2013 column.  Read more<\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":541,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs-we-like"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/541"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/thescepticalchymist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}