Member-only story
The dark truth about academic ghosting
“… and then I added just half a microlitre of Rhodamine, and the whole culture lit up like a Christmas tree. That’s how my master’s research resulted in solving a bottleneck that had been plaguing biochemistry for over two decades.”
Said one of the better cover letters I’ve received over the years. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a position for her, but I knew someone who did and was able to refer her to them.
I was an early career researcher who led and managed three projects. That’s not a lot, I know. Not all of the projects allowed me to hire PhD students.
Thus, the chances of me having an open PhD position at any given time were slim.
Now, I’m not saying I am or was the busiest man on the planet, but almost every minute of mine during a working day was well accounted for. I had my experiments to perform, and most of the time, I was getting my hands dirty in the lab.
Apart from my experiments,
- I had project and paper deadlines to address. I was still building my research profile.
- I had proposals to submit. That’s what put food on my table.
- I had meetings with my group and my students.
- I had meetings with vendors.
- I had absolutely ridiculous yet…
