Most alpha domain of study

Neuroscience : Touches on all subjects that are considered "high IQ" such as : Math, philosophy, computational sciences, linguistics, psychology and science(robotics, physics, etc). Why aren't people hype about neuroscience, it's the most fulfilling domain you can major in, you have the complexity of STEM while being forced to be social and grounded. Having vision and creativity is also a must.

because you clearly dont realize how neuroscience research is like the exact same thing as other biology research. It's boring to all those except those in it. You're not fucking with peoples brains and discovering insane properties of the brain, you're doing boring ass cell culture and then running experiments on them.

neuroscience is one of those domains like environmental science or biochemistry that describes something insanely complex and can tie in at a very deep level to basic math or physics but that would require more time and brilliance than an undergraduate can afford so you spend your time memorizing and gaining a surface-level understanding of what real scientists have already figured out.

>Neuroscience : Touches on ... Math
???

Neuroscientist here

All I do is inject rat brain with shit and cell cultures. Very tedious and slow moving feild. Don't let bullshit psychologist try to romanticise this, it's not different from any other biology.

Broke up with an Astrophysicist last year and currently dating a Neuroscientist.

Neuros seem to have more fun, less abstract shit and more related to the real world.

Listening to both of them talk I'd say Neuro is superior, not heard her talk of maths tho

PhD candidate in Neuroscience here. I hate myself, my life and wish I never did this. I basically follow recipes to stain human tissue. The only interesting part of my job is when I get to interact with patients, but that's usually talking about how they're going to die from whatever rare neuromuscular disorder they have. Last week an 8 year old girl with Juvenile Onset Huntington's Disease told me she wants me to have her brain while smiling. I arrived at work today with a box on my lab bench... guess what was inside.

Holy shit that's dark, you work at a hospital research facility i imagine?

Yep.

I'm sorry friend
some day maybe your work will save a little girl?

send me samples bro

Probably not, I'm leaving academia ASAP. Everyone is in it for themselves. Science is no longer open, journals are corrupt and it pits everyone against each other. Gonna sell out and get a job in industry (hopefully big pharma) as soon as I graduate so if I'm going to hate what I'm doing with my life, I'd might as well make some money. Eventually I'd like to start or work for a charity that raises money for families of patients of neuromuscular diseases. You always hear "through sickness and health" at weddings. It's true. People quit their jobs and abandon their dreams to take care of their significant others or their kids. Usually go poor. Sucks. Something has to be done about it.

fuck me

I was always fascinated by neuro - until a few years ago I didn't even realise it existed as a science, until I had some small crossover as I was working out some ideas related to the perception of surfaces (physics). Utterly fascinated by the subject.

Your job seems like hell though, but I'm glad there's people out there doing it.

What would you do with it? If you can give me a legitimate reason why it's more valuable in your hands than in mine, I will.

honestly im not serious, just wanted to see your reaction. I dont work in a neuroscience lab, but i wonder if it would be any use to them. Dont think they do any specific disease shit though, more broad stuff.

one of my relatives had an early onset disease and went through mayo, he's literally only alive today because the right expert came in contact with him. yeah, the system sucks and these companies are making money hand over fist, but there is still a place for good people to make a difference
if you want to lobby for anything lobby for more pharma regulation, the charity business is a mess that only feeds the beast

Super interesting field man. You'll learn lots of cool stuff in school. You'll meet interesting people. You'll get a perspective of neurodegenerative diseases. Don't expect much of it though. Science is very repetitive and slow. Academia is corrupt. I was very passionate through my masters. Wish I could have stopped there, but by that time I was so in debt that I needed a decent paying job to make up for it, hence why you need a PhD. While doing my PhD I noticed that you need a PhD for anything, and the market is flooded, so there's no jobs available. I now expect to start out with a shitty low paying job not related to my PhD research at all. Also, nobody cares about your PhD because you're surrounded by people with them. It's not impressive anymore.

1st year PhD here.
fuck...

I hope your experience goes better than mine is.

Interesting.
I mean, I've made my choice, I'll be handing in my physics phd thesis in about 3 weeks, so I guess that ship has sailed for me - but I can't help but wonder if neuro would have been something equally fascinating.

Luckily I studied in Europe, so the whole Masters+PhD endeavour cost me less than 2000 bucks, of course not including the lost years and various madnesses I developed during that time.

Well as long as you didn't develop massive impostor syndrome.
You got something planned for after the PhD my dude?
(not him btw)

Thanks. What exactly is it? Does your PI suck? What are the specifics of you not having a good time? I see the 4th-5th year students and they seem fine, relatively happy, tired of course but still overall ok. I just don't want to waste four years of my life. The work is great though, and the environment is wonderful.

Yeah the lost years is one of the worst parts. Seeing all of your friends get married, have kids, buy houses, travelling the world. Here I am barely scraping by with rent for my 1 bedroom apartment so I don't have to have a roommate (I like watching porn with the sound on, sue me). Every now and then if I get lucky to win a good bursary I'll buy myself a treat (just bought a '99 stratocaster guitar for $875).

The madness. Went to student-services psychologist the other day because my supervisor considers me depressed. He asked me a bunch of questions, which I later found out each corresponded to one of the 9 criteria for major depressive disorder. The last one being, how often do you think about death. With my work, it's impossible to go a day without it.

My PI is great. She pushes us really hard because she expects lots from us, but hopefully the publications will benefit me. Very time consuming, and I'm tired constantly. Other than taking a week off over christmas, and going home for 4 days in October for my sister's wedding, I didn't take any days off last year. It's defeating knowing that no matter how big of a discovery I think I make, it's no nobel prize, nobody will care, it won't change anything really. It might be a building block for later, but I'm not going to change neuroscience as I know it in my lifetime. And if I do magically during my PhD, it's my supervisor who will get the credit.

Also, I don't want to brag, but I'm pretty sure I'm a solid 7/10. As you move up in science, for some reason, the girls seem to get nerdier and nerdier looking (not the good kind). Not much for prospects around me.

Some advantages though: presenting at conferences around the world is sometimes all paid for!

Got a post-doc offer shoved down my throat before I even started looking for jobs, so I'll go with that. It's in the US, Arizona - so I'll be moving to a new country. Again.

don't envy ya.
I mean, the whole PhD experience is sort of geared towards driving you to madness. And I don't even have the direct link to human suffering like you do, so I imagine it being much shittier.

Still - at the end of the day, I'll probably still do it again. Maybe that's the definition of madness right there.

how easy is it to get into a european graduate program if you're in the states? is there a standard track for this?

>It's defeating knowing that no matter how big of a discovery I think I make, it's no nobel prize, nobody will care, it won't change anything really.
is that the bulk of the issue? because i honestly dont mind that. I dont do anything super impactful, protein folding research is basically just about getting retarded amounts of data to eventually create a dependable model, and the overarching problem probably wont be solved in my lifetime. It really doesnt bother me about fame or recognition or anything. That'll probably change a couple years into doing it though...

Ah the post-doc position. A position for a glorified PhD candidate they made up because they want to keep you around labs longer, without paying you much more. Because there are no other jobs available and you have no original ideas for research of your own.

jesus christ dude. are you lego grad student by any chance?

It bothers me. Greatness is my habius corpus. I've always thought I was destined for greatness. I still do. I'm not ashamed to admit that. Mediocrity scares me, and I'm 99% sure that's all I'm going to amount to. I just really want to be remembered when I'm gone. I want to have contributed SOMETHING so that my name is mentioned at least 100 years after my death. Wish I wasn't like that, but I am.

I don't think you'd be at a big disadvantage compared to EU students, and frankly I know of a bunch of PhD positions we had open and literally NO-ONE applied.

Only problem is - most PhD projects are funded for nationals or EU students only, so you'd lose out on the maintenance grant. There are some projects without any 'region locking' though, just have to keep an eye out.

Make sure you're aware of the branch-specific mailing lists or websites that advertise the positions. I'm in the meteorological / Earth sciences, so for that you'd want to look at "metjobs". Then there's always FindAPhD ..

Eh.
60k per annum, I know the team, there's definitely more stressful jobs out there. Seems like a good deal to me.

yeah we totally believe you dude, that totally happened

dude you are great. This research isnt easy to fucking do. You dont think it's impactful and it may not immediately be but you're part of the bigger solution even if you dont recognize it.

Literally posted a picture of the brain a few posts later. Here, have another. A, anterior part of slice, P, posterior.

Huntington's is a genetic disorder. People get tested and symptoms are obvious. Because there is no hope for the disease, we do our best to give them some. We invite them to open lab days to show them the reserach we're doing and the valuable contribution their brains would be to us helping future patients.

wow, impressive
here's a goldbar that I have in my safe, I'm posting a pic of it so it must be true

>back to

what have you guys done to my thread

>I arrived at work today with a box on my lab bench... guess what was inside.
Jesus. Do they let you take a few minutes or is it the kind of field where they expect you to be hard hearted and get on with the job? Not sure I could handle something like that with professionalism and objectivity

>reverse image search
>nothing comes up
>hurrrduuuurrrrrrrrrr
> "b-but he must be lying!!!!"

faggot

back to

This thread hits really close to home. Neuroscience seems really cool but I'm hoping to start my PhD in biostatistics this year. I know science/academia is a shitshow, but after working for two years I'm convinced the 'real world' isn't any better.