An Honest Look at Grad School in STEM: It's Not For Everyone

[@azzamasim8811]

Awesome video man! Really gave me some good insight into post grad studies. And although I can't pretend that as a undergrad freshman I would understand a PhD students problems, the last bit about having those anxious low days really did hit home, and so your advice was super helpful even for me right now!

[@apocalypt0723]

Nice video! Would love to see more CFD related stuff

[@BeyondtheBigBang]

Thank you :) coming right up!!

[@nimeshsingh4943]

CFD is what I plan to do my thesis in as well- cool stuff!

[@BeyondtheBigBang]

Amazing! Love that

[@mathiasbarding8542]

Great video! - What is that coffee mug -"with a straw" you have? Looks super cozy and nice! I want one! :D

[@BeyondtheBigBang]

Mate! It’s an Argentinian tea with loooots of caffeine ahahaha

[@mathiasbarding8542]

@@BeyondtheBigBang Amazing! Thanks for the ref.

[@muskhan]

Cool video Alex : ) it's the simplest bugs which always get in the way 😩 . also, do you have a process for your notes when reading papers and for develop new ideas or is it just creating a new, dedicated LaTeX document each time and writing summaries/thoughts down?

[@BeyondtheBigBang]

Man for suuuuuurrreee. I have a set of dedicated notes for each general subject. One for general math, one for pdes, one for entropy stability, and one for general numerical methods. Then if I’m working out something random I’ll make a dedicated document for that, otherwise I try to keep things streamlined as possible. The point is to have it all in one place so if I make too many documents it defeats the purpose! When I read papers I basically just write down the important points, put the math derivations down in my own way if they’re useful. Whatever I need to not have to reread the paper unless I want the fine fine details.

[@muskhan]

@@BeyondtheBigBang Tyty makes sense, I'm creating a better digital system for my note taking this summer so I'm always curious to know how others organize themselves.

[@yuanyao5190]

A very wise post doc once told me that the first 2 years of research is the hardest, then it will get better. (this is for pure math). I presume this is bc when you are first doing research you're still used to reading high quality papers with good results but when you try to get your own hands on it you find yourself unable to make any progress and it's frustrating. Now I'm past my first 2 years and I do seem to be less stressed, though maybe it stems more from my lowered expectations of myself rather than improved research ability....

[@BeyondtheBigBang]

For sure. Both of those are true ahahaha. My expectations for myself have definitely lowered since I started 😅 but yes for sure, at least in my experience it’s only really in the third year that I feel I got to the point where I could actually do something rather than just learn.

[@janda1258]

As a student that just finish his first year on his bachealor program, the speach 6:03 terrifies me of the future

[@BeyondtheBigBang]

Well… I mean the plan wasn’t to terrify you but just to be honest 😅. You have time to try some summer research and see if grad school would be something you want to do or not. No rush and no pressure!

[@oliviapereira364]

Your video is so necessary! Thank you, found you on Reddit and you were right: there are not many videos of the kind on the internet. Any thoughts for a Genetics undergrad that likes math and microbiology and flerts with astrophysics?

[@BeyondtheBigBang]

Oh wow that’s quite the background!! It looks like you really have doors open for you to do anything. Well, the one tip I would say though is expect that you’re going to have to narrow the focus (most likely, maybe not if you find the right lab, but almost certainly). Masters and phd theses are very specific, and you learn a lot about a very small area. That doesn’t mean that you won’t learn things that are transferable to other disciplines, though. But the general topic will have to be quite specialized. At first it can be a sad thing because you feel like you’re leaving a lot behind (that’s how I felt for example about quantum mechanics or electromagnetism after undergrad), but eventually you come to terms with it because it’s a necessary thing. And you’ll realize that if you really like those things, you can always go back to them later on in your career once you’ve picked up all the other specialized skills along the way, and apply that unique knowledge in your own way. That’s how a lot of breakthroughs are made, cross discipline research! :)

[@oliviapereira364]

@@BeyondtheBigBang Thank you for your kind answer! Who knows, I might end up researching martian bacteria DNA models... jk All the best! Just subscribed :)

[@blue123456ization]

Nice vid man. I am also a CFD guy who intends to apply for PhD programs...AGAIN. I actually applied to UTIAS in 2019 but got rejected. Really cool stuff going on there in Zingg's group.

[@BeyondtheBigBang]

No way! That’s cool to hear. And don’t take it too personally, grad school admissions are competitive. If you’re motivated though, I believe you can do it. I’m happy to talk and give you advice on admissions. I’ll plug the discord again ahahaha but that’s a good place to ask for advice, the rest of the group can pitch in with their thoughts too

[@blue123456ization]

Looking forward to talk with you guys.

[@blue123456ization]

I have some questions. Since Discord is not up I will ask here. Did you have really good grades and research experience to enter PhD at UTIAS? Also, is your background in mathematics or engineering? Did your knowledge of PDEs, scientific computing and programming give an edge to you during the admissions? Finally how was your PhD interview?

[@greggstreuber4702]

@@blue123456ization as another member of the group I can throw my $0.02 in. You do need pretty good grades, it's a tough program so they do need to know you can handle the workload, but research experience (while a plus) isn't required. In fact, many people starting in our group have limited or no experience with CFD or numerical methods, what matters most is enthusiasm and ability to learn. When I started I had played around with commercial CFD software a bit, and thought it was neat, but had almost no knowledge of how they worked under the hood. In terms of the interview, many professors will handle it differently but with Prof. Zingg they are usually very non-technical. If you make it to the interview stage what he wants to see is if you're articulate, personable, and above all else a good culture fit for the lab.

[@blue123456ization]

Thank you. Did you get in the PhD program without any research experience? I ask this because in their admission requirments they say that 1 year research experience is compulsory through a MASc.

[@ultrapoci]

As an undergrad student which is struggling to decide whether to apply for grad school or not, thank you very much for this video! It was really useful. Also, just a quick question: have consider using Julia for programming? It is as performant as C++ but it's geared towards math and science, so it is very use to use (as easy as Python).

[@BeyondtheBigBang]

For sure I’ve thought about Julia. A lot of people in my field use it. I figured though that since I’m not 100% comfortable in Julia, it would be like an intermediate level code in terms of ease of use, and there’s not much point in having that, since the point of my code is that it’s just a playground. Great language though, and I should totally learn it some day.

[@greggstreuber4702]

No fucking way you were up at 8:30am

[@BeyondtheBigBang]

👀 soooometimes

[@cherryslab3034]

I see an argentinian here. Do you move there? Where do you study? How is life there? Estaria bueno un q&a sobre vos y como hiciste para llegar hasta ahi y consejos para alguien que recien empieza con el degree, me re interesa. Saludos desde argentina.

[@BeyondtheBigBang]

Vine a Canada de chiquito! Estoy en la U de Toronto ahora, pero bueno el mate y boca siempre presentes jajajaja pero igual tengo varios amigos que vinieron acá directo de latinoamérica para estudiar, así que si sería una buena idea hacer un video sobre eso. Unite al discord (enlace en la descripción) ahí charlamos más si queres :)

[@LucasDimoveo]

What was your undergraduate training in? Thanks for the video!

[@BeyondtheBigBang]

Physics! But people in my lab come from all sorts of backgrounds. You could come from math, physics, aerospace eng, mechanical eng, etc. At a certain point it doesn’t really matter, if you’re dedicated you’ll learn what you need to learn either way.