Sayre Lab

Discipline-based education research, cat pics, commentary on academia.

Run by @elliesayre, she/her

[Sayre Lab @sayrelab]

@SchmitBiophys I feel like you're not talking about subdrop...

[Sayre Lab @sayrelab]

@KUPhysicsAstro Oh yeah, they love vegetarians in the south.

[Sayre Lab @sayrelab]

While in general I love working with grad students, my lab is not taking new students for fall '22. For this year, I am not reading any grad apps.

[Sayre Lab @sayrelab]

Details here are field-dependent, but the gist rings true for all the physics grad apps I read.

[Roman Feiman @RomanFeiman]

Every year I read a lot of grad school applications from accomplished people that don't give me the info I'm looking for. It feels like a major hidden curriculum thing. So here's (my opinion on) how to write a great Statement of Purpose/Research for a PhD program. 🧵 1/

[Sayre Lab @sayrelab]

@Nate_Birkhead And, ugh, they're terrible if you want to experience a lovely paragraph again. The interface is measured in seconds, not ideas.

[Sayre Lab @sayrelab]

I used to read paper books, but then that was too much work so I switched to ebooks with tap-to-turn, but then that was too much work so I turned to continuous scroll, which is ok, but could there be a new level of reading laziness?

[Sayre Lab @sayrelab]

@Nate_Birkhead Agree that laziness = minimal effort, but hard disagree that listening to a book is less effort than passing the text before my eyes.

Translating sounds to words is hard. Too much work.

Also incredibly slow. Probably the worst way to consume books.

[Sayre Lab @sayrelab]

@SMWadgymar Not quite ready to PI in #DBER? That's cool, there are faculty professional development workshops to help you get started. Some of them are NSF-funded, from disciplinary societies, and/or via CTLs.

[Sayre Lab @sayrelab]

@SMWadgymar If you want to learn to do education research (#DBER is awesome), there is also BCSER: Building Capacity in STEM Education Research

https://t.co/sEu3ByDMNZ

[Betty S. Lai, PhD @BettySLai]

Want to get your grant funded?

Then you need a reviewer to champion your grant.

Here are 4 ways to write grants that are easy to champion.

@phd_genie @openacademics

[Sayre Lab @sayrelab]

@AllisonFGilmour Badly.

But, schools are generally ok with, "yuck, we will pick them up ASAP" without actually specifying which adult or when exactly, so there is time to activate the group text and figure it out.

[Sayre Lab @sayrelab]

@wrpigeek @SydneyDAK I mean, usually women have more fabulous hair than men, but men can be pharmacists too...

[Sayre Lab @sayrelab]

@DrBuncher Omg where are my glasses?!

...the ones on my face. That I am currently using to see, so that I can search for glasses.

[Sayre Lab @sayrelab]

Scene: at my desk, in my office, just finished a zoom meeting.

"I should refill my water bottle." Grab bottle, put on mask.

"Oh, there's some left. I should drink it."
Raise bottle to face, hit mask, cannot drink.

I am a grown up person with a professional career.

[Sayre Lab @sayrelab]

@WBrianLane Ah yes, sweater weather. ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

[Sayre Lab @sayrelab]

@SJDJ @TAndersen_nSCIr Sidebar, bio and chem are also no longer available.

[Sayre Lab @sayrelab]

This is chilling. No more physics majors, minors, or grad students at Emporia State.

https://t.co/8mme6sUyV3

[Sayre Lab @sayrelab]

Cat and I are having a slight misunderstanding about whether she meant to jump up on the supervisor stool, or whether she was just ... vertically kicking the stool to see how stable it is.