Speaker 1: You definitely wouldn't hear someone say I steal other people's ideas but I have seen it with my own two eyes multiple times. There's two in particular sort of that stand out to me and the first one was that I was using a particular method to separate out carbon nanotubes using electrophoresis and then that part of my process kind of just like went away and then one of my co-supervisors got their student to do exactly the same thing and ended up publishing papers to separate out carbon nanotubes into metallic and semi-metallic types. And the second time was when I was actually talking to my supervisor about what we should do next and in two meetings later he parroted it back to me, my own ideas, as his idea and I was like that was my idea but we just didn't say anything because we don't want to cause a bit of a scene. I don't know if he meant to do it on purpose. I feel like when you get loads of ideas, you kind of muddle them up in your brain and then you may be able to actually convince yourself that it is a genuine idea because you've forgotten where you heard it and there's so much noise in your life that you're like, yeah, this is brilliant, I'm a genius, here, I have this idea. I think this is true for a lot of highly successful academics and that is I'm not as passionate about my research as I pretend to be. There's like a role that academics need to play after they get to like kind of a certain level of success. They need to pretend that they are all about their research. Like the world loves a passionate supervisor, researcher that dedicates their life to doing that thing. What they don't realize is that it's actually not that they're passionate about it, but the academic system wants so much from them that they end up donating their life to that cause. And I think after a while you can convince yourself you're passionate about it because you need to fall into that role to get grants, to convince others that what you're doing is important. And it kind of just sort of like self-reinforces itself in your mind. And don't get me wrong, there are some very, very passionate people, but I think that is a rarity and we much rather like to say we're passionate about something when we're really not. But it's just kind of the role we need to fill as an academic because then we get more grants and yeah, so I think there's loads of people out there doing research that probably don't really care too much about what they're really doing, the day-in, day-out research component, but found some success there and therefore are doubling down on what works. This one, you never hear them say, but you see it. That is, I have neglected my own health and personal relationships for my career. Academia requires so much from the people that it absorbs. I have had loads of supervisors throughout my time in academia, and I would argue that none of them are healthy individuals, both in terms of their own health, but also in the types of relationships they have outside of academia. But I remember looking up and being like, wow, do I actually want to become these people? that was a big reason for me wanting to leave academia because I was like, they are not a kind of well-rounded person, they're always stressed, they're always sort of like, you know, sending emails at two a.m., so do I really want to become that person? And I feel like it's a slippery slope, no one wants to become that person, but once you realize what academia needs from you, you end up spending more time doing admin stuff, doing grant applications, doing supervision things, reading over reports, peer reviewing for free, and all of a sudden, it just consumes your entire life. So if you're not careful, it can do that. But no one will admit it. But we see the symptoms, we see the pale face, the bags under the eyes, the excessive alcoholism seems to be something that I noticed in academia. And also, the closer I got to people, the more fragile their kind of intimate relationships, not like I didn't watch them do it, but their closest relationships with their spouses always seem strained. I disagree with the reviewers, but I'm going to go along with them anyway because it's just easier. That is something that we all do, but we wouldn't say it that bluntly. Essentially, we just appease the researchers to make sure that our publications get published because it's just another tick in the box and you can move on. There is nothing worse than a paper that bounces from journal to journal to journal for months and so you just get bored and you're like, here we are, yeah, just do what they want, do exactly what they want, like don't even question it and just get it out there. It could be something as simple as referencing the reviewer's papers, like all 30 of them that they've given you, just because you're like, okay, they've asked for that, just get it out. And it's part of the publishing game is essentially just how do we appease the reviewers so that we get our paper in, but also kind of try to keep our academic integrity intact. And that can be very difficult. And to be honest with you, as the process of publishing a single paper gets on, you're like, whatever, just do whatever they want. I'm fed up with it. Yeah, yeah, just put in that thing that I disagree with, but it's fine. Everyone is tempted to embellish their research results. I never did it, but I was very good at marketing what I actually had. So everyone feels like they need to kind of like become a salesperson for their results by finding a fancy kind of application, but at the same time, there's an internal voice which is like, no, don't do that. You can't like say those things, but you do. You do say those things because there is a very fine line between lying and also then just sort of like marketing the best side of the results that you get. Everyone's doing it and no one would admit to the fact that they kind of sometimes feel a little bit uncomfortable with what they're saying about their work and sometimes I'd be like, ooh, could I actually say this will revolutionize an area? Well, can I actually say that this will like, you know, solve all these problems? Oh, I'll say it, I'll say it anyway because everyone else is saying it. The whole field is like, it's a game to kind of say the most outrageous thing about your field. You know, at one point, organic photovoltaics were going to revolutionize the solar industry. They never did. They probably never will have that revolutionary component, but you would always say it because everyone else did, and it just helped get your results published. You would never hear anyone say, I am struggling to understand the complex theories in my field, but I remember moments where I didn't want to look stupid, And so I'd smile and nod and I'd agree and then I'd go and I furiously Google what they said being like, what on earth does that mean? There are loads of very complicated, very specific parts of research that, you know, you can understand if you give it some time, but it is very likely that you're going to come across, even at the higher ends, you know, when you're a professor of theories and things you don't understand completely. You can go and learn them, but it is challenging and not a lot of people have the time to go and actually learn those theories in detail. So they kind of just get what people tell them and they move on. And I must admit that even in my industry job, I kind of like, that was a bit of a problem because people would say, oh, can you do this, this, and this? And instead of just being like, I don't understand what that means, and it was something really simple, I would go, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, go Google it, and then hopefully get it right. But you know, asking questions is not a bad thing at whatever stage of your academic career you're at, but you don't want to look like the stupid one because academia and your career is built off being clever, and so you can't be like, oh, that's very complicated. What do all those little symbols mean? Why has it got all those different Latin numeral? I don't understand what that means. What does that curly thing mean? All of the mathematical things in my field used to go right over my head, but I knew them well enough to use them. But if you scratched under the surface of my understanding, it was just a fog of confusion. Because academia is very competitive, no one likes to admit that they get a nice little sense of bubbling joy when their competition or who they feel like, other competitors at least, fail in some way. And that's a sad reality, is it not? Like, I never felt that. I would never felt like I was in competition necessarily with people, but I know people that would actively celebrate if someone didn't get a grant, if someone didn't get a certain result, if someone didn't get a particular student they wanted to absorb into their group, like they would find joy in the fact that someone else was not doing as well as they maybe expected themselves to do. It goes against the idea of research, right? Collaboration should be at the forefront, but anyway, there we are. You'll never hear anyone say, I am so pleased that person failed. So you'll also never hear anyone say, look, I've actually got pretty good at using fancy words to saying clever, but sometimes I don't even know what they mean. And I think we're all guilty of that. In particular fields, there's a language that you need to be very familiar with, and sometimes that language is quite strange or it's unfamiliar, and you hear it, and because you're meant to be clever, you just start using it. And maybe you don't fully understand the words, phrases, or whatever you're using. And I remember actually some of my advice to early career researchers was to actually go and really understand the specifics and the acronyms and the things around your field. Because if you can use them, it's like a shared language with other experts in the field, and it's just so much easier to communicate if you've got that shared language. But in the early stages, in particular, you are using them and you're like, oh, I don't even know if I've used that the right way, or like, there's all these fancy words and I just get good at using them and people just seem to nod and agree and therefore I am a better researcher because of it. But in fact, sometimes you don't even know what you're saying properly, but you know it's the right thing to say and that makes you look clever, doesn't it? So there we have it. are all of the things that you shouldn't say out loud in academia. I'd love to know what other ones you could add to this video. Let me know in the comments and there's more ways that you can engage with me. The first way is to sign up to my newsletter. Head over to andrewstapleton.com.au forward slash newsletter. The link is in the description. When you sign up you'll get five emails over two weeks, everything from the tools I've used, the podcasts I've been on, how to write the perfect abstract, my TEDx talk and more. 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