More about PhD stress for Kisstopher, Chad starting a new job, academic publishing, and some details about Chad’s academic work.

Transcript

K: So, lately I’ve been thinking about dealing with the stress of my PhD and PhD feedback.

C: I have not been thinking about my PhD.

K: (laughs) I think you have been kind of, though. I mean because you’re finally working in your field.

C: Yes.

K: And so I think, does that – actually, I don’t know. Interesting question. We’re about to learn something new about Chad. Does working in your field make you think about your PhD more, or does it make your PhD feel more relevant?

C: It makes it feel more relevant because when I was editing full-time, I was still working with the material. It was just kind of like my nose pressed against the glass. So I feel like

K: With one sad tear rolling down your face?

C: Yeah. I feel like I thought about feedback a lot more when I was doing that because I was literally seeing feedback. I was seeing the reviews from peer reviewers and that kind of thing, so I was dealing with other people’s feedback on their work.

K: And you were giving feedback.

C: And I was giving feedback, correct.

K: So, something I was wondering that I didn’t ask – I don’t know why I didn’t ask you this. The five years

C: You were saying it for the podcast.

K: Obviously we save our best stuff for the podcast, man. Saved it for like five years, six years now. Oh my gosh. Seven years? No, six years. I don’t know. Don’t ask me about time. It’s confusing. So, when you were doing editing

C: Seven years.

K: Yeah, it’s really confusing. When you were doing editing, did it make you want to publish?

C: Yes.

K: Really?

C: Yes.

K: Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Did it make you want to publish non-academic stuff?

C: No, it made me want to publish academic stuff. Sometimes I would edit a paper and I would think “I could do this so much better.”

K: Really?

C: Yeah. But I didn’t have the remit to just rewrite their paper for them. It was just really limited.

K: So did you want to publish your own original stuff?

C: Um, yes. But… in math, it’s easier to publish as an outsider, but it’s still not easy. It still would have meant a lot of time at the university library to make sure I was caught up on all the papers and things.

K: Mhm.

C: So math you get like 80% of papers available through ArXiV, which is open-access pre-prints. But there’s still that 20% to check, so there’s a lot of stuff around publishing that’s different than the stuff around writing. So it made me want to do math. It didn’t so much make me want to do all the other stuff around getting published in peer-reviewed journals.

K: Mm. And, really, sadly in the midst of that time – so you were working on a project, and then one of the project members passed away, and we still feel the loss of that loss deeply.

C: Yes, that’s correct.

K: And I feel like, for me, because your path to publication – to me, felt so involved with their loss that it just… I guess I just left it to you to come to me if you wanted to have those conversations. Rather than introducing that conversation because it was quite a big loss for you.

C: Yeah.

K: And quite the los of a big project, so I feel like it was a loss for the world as well. And so, it’s just a tragedy – and I guess it makes me feel really really sad, still.

C: Yeah.

K: And so I don’t venture there unless I’m feeling quite sturdy, and I don’t think I was feeling quite sturdy. As you can see, I’m still not feeling quite sturdy about that.

C: Yeah. So, there are things – like I have one thing that I could put in the effort to get published as a