#adademia

So I've recently been thinking about academic publishing and failure, or, more specifically, the prevalence of paper rejection. I submitted two papers about a month or so ago, and recently both of them came back rejected- one with the opportunity for re-submission and the other just flat-out rejected. And what I've found very interesting is that I'm never emotionally impacted by this in the way people seem to expect. Everyone I tell gives me dramatic condolences and solicitously asks how I'm doing. But I really am never put out by it! It could be because every paper I've submitted so far has initially been rejected, but then gone on to be published in a high impact journal regardless, or maybe I internalized all the advice about not taking paper rejections personally that I've read online, but I really am never upset, and I almost always find the reviews to be very helpful in honing the paper further and getting it published on the next round. I have had some unnecessarily nasty reviews in the past, but again, it's never bothered me.

A list of my top ten favorite things my research advisor has said to me, presented here with zero context.

@freehugsbear​: #my question is #how many coworkers does it take to have 127 office plants? #like #are we talking 127 coworkers and 1 plant each? #are we talking 42 coworkers with 3 plants each? #one coworker who's just wild about plants? #what's the distribution here?

The reason that university politics is so vicious is because stakes are so small