This semester in my Psychopathology class, I tried something different. Rather than assigning a regular final paper, I gave my students the freedom to choose any medium they wanted for their final project. Thread! 1/10
My mom passed away extremely suddenly and unexpectedly while visiting me in Princeton a few weeks ago on Dec 8, of an acute aortic dissection. She was 56. This happened 7 months after the death of my dad, from cancer.
I'm an only child. I don't have an immediate family anymore.
I can't process very much right now. I actively try to avoid thinking about the enormity of this loss. I don't know how to live the rest of my life without my mom now. But one thing I have been able to take in is the amazing community around me. I'm so lucky and thankful.
@PaoloAPalma
A student posted a free textbook download on Piazza and when I was doing an in-class walkthrough I paused there and said, "not that I'm commenting on any one thing specifically, but Piazza is an amazing place to both find and share resources that would benefit the whole class" 👀
My friends have taken better care of me than I could have dreamed. They have a schedule where they take "shifts" to stay overnight and be with me. I haven't been alone in my apartment for even a minute since my mom passed.
I never imagined this would happen—that I would lose both my parents, in the same year, while still in my 20's. If I had, I would have been terrified at the idea of feeling entirely alone in the world. But astoundingly, that is not how I've felt at all over the last few weeks.
I wasn't alone on Christmas, and I won't be alone on my birthday on Dec 31. I'm 3,000 miles away from "home" (California), where my parents lived and where I grew up, and I have a very limited number of relationships with my remaining biological family.
My (personal, non medical professional) PSA to anyone with ovaries thinking about freezing their eggs someday: Get a pelvic ultrasound & hormone blood work. Soon. (Assuming you're at least in your mid/late 20s+)
I never thought I wanted biological kids until my parents died. 1/8
Faculty: “Grad students always find something to complain about. They should do something to fix the problems instead of complaining“
Grad students: *actually do things to solve the problems*
Faculty: “Grad students need to work on research instead of wasting time on service—“
This week's Twitter Discourse™ is on whether faculty should speak with prospective grad applicants (before interviews). I think many of the problems & dilemmas underlying this convo could be resolved by having clear and comprehensive department/program websites. Thread: (1/6)
I want to send a HUGE thanks to
@povertyscholar
, whose prompt and rubric was so generously shared on Twitter and which I heavily based my own prompt/rubric on. 10/10
One last point: Not everyone wants to have kids, and that's also great. We are all different! And we should all get to decide whether we have kids, and how, and when. What we need is more access to healthcare and more info about our own bodies, all across the board, full stop.
Ok, time for a happy grad school tweet! Being a grad student here is the happiest I've ever been. This is the most "myself" I've ever felt. The belonging, community, & freedom I feel is like nothing I had in college or anywhere else. I found my people here and they're amazing.
Pelvic ultrasounds are relatively affordable, quick, & not painful (way less so than a pap smear). It will show your follicle count & a blood test will tell you additional hormone markers of your ovarian reserve. This appointment should take ~20 minutes and cost ~$100-200. 4/8
I always thought I would adopt/foster kids. Then my parents died when I was 28 and I had a sudden, urgent need for bio kids.(Anecdotally from adult orphan grief groups I'm in: this is a common experience!) The problem: I'm 31 and am discovering that I have Bad Fertility now. 2/8
I highly recommend this assignment as an alternative to a standard final paper. I think students learned more and were more invested and engaged when they were working with a medium they enjoyed. And as a result, the projects were *super* impressive and high-quality. 9/10
I am *not* saying everyone should freeze their eggs immediately. Instead, if you're already thinking about it, know that there is a fast, easy, relatively cheap way to get extremely helpful information about your fertility *now* so you can decide *when* to pursue the process. 5/8
One student wrote and illustrated a children's book about PTSD, narrated by a child whose big sister comes home from college acting differently after experiencing something "really, really bad." She also wrote a "parental guide" with research on PTSD. 4/10
Returning to Twitter to share that I defended my dissertation and became Lauren Do Feldman, PhD! Milestones like this are extremely loaded when you've lost your parents, but my amazingly supportive friends, advisor, and committee made the big day very special. Call me Dr. Nornen!
Me: I've been really busy lately.
Mom: With what?
Me: Meetings and e-mails.
Mom: What are the e-mails about?
Me: They're about meetings that are coming up.
Mom: And what are the meetings about?
Me: They're about e-mails to look out for.
I'm "young," but my fertility markers are terrible and are massive outliers for my age. It will likely take me several cycles of IVF and multiple tens of thousands of dollars to freeze enough eggs to likely result in 1 baby. 3/8
One policy-leaning student wrote a bill proposal to expand resources and funding for personality disorders—and submitted a video of him giving the speech to (a hypothetical) Congress! 7/10
My (social psychology) lab @ Princeton is looking to hire a full-time lab manager/RA, to start later this summer! We work on diversity, stigma, and inequality. Please send your interested students and RAs to me for more information!
I put off making that first appointment because I thought it meant I was initiating/committing to the entire egg freezing process. That was wrong. Simply booking that appointment and getting that quick data point a few years earlier might have saved me a lot of grief. 6/8
Researchers of inequality/prejudice: What do you do when you submit a paper on stereotyping and get back a review that's unabashedly racist? Asking for me.
Statistically, most people probably have an ovarian reserve that is within a typical/"good" range. If that's you: wonderful. But if this thread reaches one outlier (like I am), and it prompts them to make that quick 20-min appointment, I'll be very very glad. 8/8
A data science-focused student found huge public datasets on suicide and made fascinating data visualizations about suicide trends over time and across different countries.
It was amazing to see students thinking up mediums for this project that I couldn't have imagined! 8/10
If you’re in LA and you have a big dog I can cuddle, please DM me. It’s an emergency (emotionally). As in for emotional reasons I need to hug a dog ASAP
It also might have clarified whether my egg supply was/is declining so rapidly as a result of the extreme stress/grief of my parents' deaths. Who knows. Many things in this world are unpredictable, and the only preventative weapon we have is the ability to gather information. 7/8
Academic depts: Our faculty study inequality& its downstream effects
Also academic depts: Our graduate labor disparity is so extreme that some grads' teaching requirements are 8x higher than their cohort mates. Hope this doesn't affect your productivity or our communal culture❤️
The worst faux-feminist anti-SW argument is that sex workers are "selling themselves." In fact, sex workers maintain ownership of their bodies at all times & and are selling a *service*. If you conflate someone's whole personhood w/ their sexual activity, you're NOT A FEMINIST!
I was blown away by the creativity and thoughtfulness my students put into this. Many of them saw it as an opportunity to combine their other interests and talents with whatever topic from the course they found most interesting. Here are just some of their creative projects. 3/10
What are your tips for making beautiful presentation slides? Are there icon/graphic packs you like to use? Templates? Fonts? General rules of thumb? Please share with the class!
Some students interested in web development created websites that could serve as information and resource hubs for particular disorders. Some conducted video interviews with acquaintances who work in the counseling field. 5/10
The assignment was to create an educational tool on any topic we touched on in class. Students could make a podcast, YouTube video, or anything else—so long as it was accessible to non-psychologists, and so long as they drew from primary research sources. 2/10
A few design-oriented students created beautiful magazine issues on various mental health topics. Some wrote and recorded really engaging and informative podcast episodes on topics like bipolar disorder and the genes x environment relationship. 6/10
At the very least, it should include who's taking a student and who's not, so applicants don't waste their $ on application fees. It should also include all the info and tips that one would give a prospective if (if!) they were discussing the program in a meeting. (2/6)
Super proud of my research mentee Jessica Brice, whose study on universities'
#BLM
statements found PWIs used more social unity words ("community, "together"), while HBCUs used more reform words (“defund,” “restructure,” “abolish"). Watch her video here:
I am conducting a very important survey for science! Please indicate whether you know what a snickerdoodle is. Then tell me where you're from in the comments
@Catherineoscopy
this is great! another great icebreaker is to have students pair off and try to come up with one thing they have in common that has nothing to do with our school. it's possible for class statuses to influence these discussions, but I always find their discoveries unexpected!
PSA for every grad student whose new year resolution is to get better at statistics: nearly everything I know about stats and R, I learned from Erin Buchanan
@aggieerin
& Mike Marin
@StatsMarin
's YouTube channels. Thank me later!
Adviser: It's hard, but you have to protect your time by saying no to service.
Me: I know, but I worry that if I don't do it, no one else will.
Her: They have to get along without you. No organization can be just one person. An organization of 1 person is called fraud.
🤯🤯🤯
I posted this in my first month as an RA (before applying to grad school!). The name for this was belonging uncertainty/imposter syndrome. 7 years later (a few weeks ago) I spoke at
@PrincetonGrad
Orientation to 750 new grad students about imposter syndrome. We love full circles!
Adviser's high praise after my yearly brown bag to the department: "You made a lot of changes after your practice talk in lab. There was a lot more psychology in this one."
So this was me exactly 5 years ago. As someone who's now in the position of *writing* LORs for my students, let me say this: it is a total pleasure to sit and meditate on the very best qualities you had the privilege of seeing in a student. Don't be nervous about asking for LORs.
4 take-aways here: (1) This levels the playing field and makes all relevant info accessible to everyone—not only more privileged applicants who are "in the know" (often it's these same applicants who even know they can email faculty or feel comfortable doing so!) (4/6)
“Faculty are 25 times more likely to have a parent with a PhD. Moreover, the proportion of faculty with PhD parents nearly doubles at more prestigious universities.”
As someone in a university/dept where children of faculty/PhDs are extremely over-represented... 🥲🥲🥲
1/ New preprint! The “Socioeconomic Roots of Academic Faculty,” with
@alliecmorgan
@laberge_nick
@DanLarremore
Mirta Galesic:
We surveyed 7000 U.S. faculty from 8 disciplines to study how socioeconomic status shapes the academic workforce. 🪴 A summary:
#ASFP2021
Roll Call! I’m a PhD student in Psychology at
@Princeton
who’s helping underrepresented PhD applicants through
@asfp_phd
—because I wish I could have benefitted from a program like this when I was applying to grad school (and was out of my mind w/ anxiety & self-doubt!)
I yell about things that need to change because I love my dept & university & I want them to be even better than they are. Loving an institution means wanting it to be the best version of itself. If you're applying to grad programs, I hope you land in a place where that's true❤️
I started my first online classes this week by having everyone share how they've been passing time at home.
Pros: Helped students feel connected & fostered participation.
Cons: Now my students start emails to me with "Dear Lauren, I hope you're enjoying your new PlayStation..."
Are you considering applying to Princeton's Psych PhD program? On Nov 11 @ 4pm ET, our panel will demystify the application process and discuss the program & our experiences. Applicants from underrepresented backgrounds are especially welcome!!
Register:
Drinking away imposter syndrome (it’s tea people relax) from my first first-author pub mug. Thanks
@WalkerSchneider
for keeping me nerdy (ps, peak at
@CeewinL
on the mug too)
Y'all!! Achievement unlocked: a website that describes itself as "a conservative watchdog to the nation’s higher education system" wrote about my & GSG's anti-racism letter! Shoutout to them for excerpting some quotes from the letter that I'm especially proud of. 😍
that list advisors who aren't taking students. (4) Grad students and junior folks can persuade their depts to do this! I did this last year and my dept website was updated accordingly. If you're looking for an e-mail template to send your dept chair/admin, feel free to use! (6/6)
If you were in my apartment complex at approximately 9:45am last Sunday and saw a small asian girl walking a dog trip over a curb and face-plant on the sidewalk: no you didn't.
If you ever find yourself suffering from imposter syndrome and feeling like you don't deserve the job/title that you have, remember that this person got and kept her job as Secretary of Education of the United States for four whole years.
If you’re in LA and you have a big dog I can cuddle, please DM me. It’s an emergency (emotionally). As in for emotional reasons I need to hug a dog ASAP
Info/tips/answers to FAQs you may want to include: should you email faculty before applying? What should you say in the email? Is it a lab/advisor or a cohort model? Should you mention secondary advisors in your app? How does funding work? What's the coursework like? (3/6)
@DrStephCraig
@SMasonGarrison
We used point allocations for the main rubric components: demonstrates a thorough understanding of the topic; engages directly with research (and cites at least 5 peer-reviewed journal articles); shows significant effort, thoughtfulness, and creativity
My dept page that changed:
Page on whether/how to email faculty advisors:
Tufts' page, which inspired me to propose this to my dept:
Credit to Steve Luck and Lisa Oakes who wrote the original resource!
THIS!! I've been really discouraged to see that anti-sex work bias is one of a few biases that "progressive" / "inequality"-focused scholars and activists still feel free to perpetuate and make disparaging jokes about. Sex work is valid work! Sex work is not sex trafficking!
People who've already won awards shouldn't be over-selected and -prioritized to win future awards. Merit matters, but doing good work is only possible if you have the opportunities and resources to do it, e.g. by *already* having funded awards. MERIT! IS! ENDOGENOUS! TO FUNDING!
"Failure is okay" is a nice message, but first-gen and low-income students often can't afford to fail—b/c they don't have the safety nets of more privileged peers. Instead, writes
@Hallmark2032
, unis should foster inclusiveness & avoid dismissing struggle:
This is wildly common in academia (probably moreso at "prestigious" schools/programs) and it often comes with advantages that are mind-boggling to first gens. Thank you -- for some reason I find that 2nd/3rd gen+ academics are really reluctant to own this!
I am one of those privileged academics whose 3rd+ gen professor. It’s a massive form of privilege. At UChicago *MANY* of my colleagues had prominent faculty parents. Can’t change it towards equity til we own it.
Live footage of me "volunteering for service" "as an elected representative of my graduate constituents" when really I joined these committees to eavesdrop on how policies and procedures actually work within the university, so I can strong-arm some much-needed changes later 😈
(2) You do not have to re-invent the wheel. There's plenty of public info you can source to create this webpage (more on this below!) (3) This will save faculty AND admin a lot of time and work. They won't have to answer the same questions many times, or weed through apps (5/6)
One things my students say that makes me feel old is, "but this paper was published in 2011, which was ten years ago, so probably a lot of things have changed since then."
🙃
What are our favorite tools (websites, apps, software, graphic/icon packs) for making beautiful presentation slides? Overall, and also for making things like diagrams, flowcharts, etc.?
If anyone was wondering if I still cry whenever a dissertation defense committee comes back after deliberating to say "congratulations, doctor" even when their return is virtual and just means popping back into the Zoom room -- the answer is yes. Yes. A million times yes.
Does anyone else feel like they get much more playful (and take themselves less seriously) the older they get? I'm so much more playful (and less serious) now than I was when I was a kid!
Throwback to when my English prof told me that it's standard to refer to authors by their last names, not their first names, when writing about them in academic papers. And I looked her dead in the eye and said, "but I *feel* like I'm on a first-name basis with Virginia Woolf"
@MoraReinka
@AnytimeFitness
The ad industry is often vile, but this is one of the more appalling and shameless ones I've seen—to cultivate & profit off of body shame, which too many of us are already made to feel. Hopefully everyone else who got this this e-mail has the same reaction to it as me, which was:
Been thinking about this a lot lately. I was really hoping not to have to be the one to do (what should be) the collective work of addressing this. (I was also hoping that Asian students in general wouldn't have to jumpstart these efforts.) But here we are. Ideas are welcome!
Genuine question: has your university/ department/ organization said anything about the wave of violence against Asians and Asian Americans? Any statement, events, or talks on this? I’m not aware of any at my college (perhaps students organized something?) and not sure what to do
Kudos to Tufts for having this on their website! So much of this info is "insider knowledge" about how to navigate grad school applications. Making it explicit is SO helpful for underrepresented folks who may not have access to such info & norms. Other schools should follow suit.
Lawsuit challenging Yale’s admissions practices excludes “favored” Southeast Asian subgroups from its definition of Asian Americans, as
@spamfriedrice
notes.
I can't wait to put this tweet on a slide to show that anti-egalitarians who bemoan "social justice snowflakes" and "PC culture" nevertheless invoke "reverse racism" and "reverse sexism" in an attempt to argue that white men are the true victims of oppression. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
When you're a grad student who's just taught your 6th class of the week and you still have to work on research after this because your draft """should""" have been done weeks ago
Thank you, Paolo! I'm so glad there's (much-needed) national attention on these topics. It's a pleasure working with
@go_laaunch
on their mission, and I'm thankful for collaborative support from people like you and the rest of AARG!
Sorry but my and
@J_C_Chin
's future joint lab, the
Political,
Ethnic, &
Racial
Identity
Lab
also known as (Yellow) PERIL, is perfect and not all forced
Any advice for dealing with the uncertainty/anxiety of asking for letters of rec? Especially for those awkward 2nd or 3rd letter slots where you're asking someone who you haven't worked *that* closely with...
THIS! This was the case in my dept: I was told that the dept's teaching requirement was 3 precept hrs over the whole degree. In actual fact, if you didn't have external funding like NSF, your actual requirement is 39 precept hours. Yes, 13 times what I expected.
Also ask current grad students how much they actually teach, spend on writing grants, their health insurance, etc. Sometimes letters can be misleading, eg the min you have to teach is XX, but without external funding you ACTUALLY teach XX + a lot.