Episode 12: Ph.D. Life In General and Why You Should Avoid Asking Students How Many Years They Have Left In Their Ph.D.

First-Year Ph.D. student Rojina Shrestha joins from Fort Collins, CO, USA, to discuss her experiences pursuing a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology. The episode extensively covers how Ph.D. students spend their lives daily, the stress around striving to publish their research papers eventually, and the burning question of how many hours of sleep students usually get. Rojina also somewhat tries to answer the question, "How many years are left to complete your Ph.D.?" a question that I discovered Ph.D. students pray nobody asks them. Additionally, we go over the existing belief of "Publish or Perish" in academia and its impact on academic integrity in the long run.
 

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Host Update: A month after recording the episode, Rojina Shrestha met a tragic and untimely demise in a plane crash when she was visiting Nepal during the summer break. I was fortunate to record the episode and hope her cheerful voice provides solace to all listeners who knew her closely. We would never have felt ready to say goodbye to someone as special as Rojina, but this timing feels especially tough.