Looking back on 2017

Dear CogTales reader, this post is about and made possible by you! You made this year the best yet in this little blog’s history. In today’s post, we want to take a moment and review which five posts you were most interested in. But first, we want to thank you. We’re hoping that you continue to come back and maybe even tell a friend or two about us. You can even contribute, if you have a story you would like to share, either with your name or anonymously, just get in touch.

So now let’s take a look back at the year as it is ending and review the top five posts according to our visitor statistics in 2017.

Rejection report: Part 1

Sometimes, things just fall into place:  The evening before the most recent Academic Crisis Line on dealing with rejection and frustration, I got a pre-holiday manuscript rejection. As pointed out by the crisis liners, rejection in academia happens to everyone on a rather regular basis. So what we should really be concentrating on is to deal with it in the most self-preserving and productive ways possible. One thing that can really help is to talk through it, and to connect with others in similar situations.

So I thought it would be an interesting experiment to share my unfiltered thoughts while I deal with this rejected paper here on this blog.

How to deal with rejection & frustration

Franziska Hartung, PhD

Being able to deal with rejection and frustration is a key academic skill. The earlier you learn it, the better. Whether you get roasted in a Q&A session, have to deal with constant cynical remarks from peers, get a series of papers or grant proposals rejected, or deal with the endless frustration of university bureaucracy and interpersonal conflicts – negativity lures around every corner. It’s time to pick your weapons.

With my friends Dr Molly Berenhaus and Dr Christina Bergmann, I chatted today about our strategies to deal with the everyday rejection and frustration in academia. In the session we talked about First Aid as well as Long Term Prevention strategies. You can rewatch the discussion here (most important take home messages below):

1. Understand that this is part of your job. Your experience is not unique to you -everybody deals with the same shit. Promised.
2. It is also rarely personal.

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How to manage your supervisor

This week’s academic crisis line on how to manage supervisors.
#1 Talk open about expectations, communication, and concerns.
#2 Their job is to help you get independent.
#3 Always be proactive and prepared.

Franziska Hartung, PhD

Today I talked about the relationship with your supervisor. The role of your supervisor is to provide you with an environment suitable to develop your academic skills in order to become independent and to finish your thesis in a reasonable time. In turn, your supervisor expects from you commitment, involvement, and accountability. It is important to understand that your supervisor is also a person with strengths, shortcomings and an own agenda. Luckily, it is usually in your supervisors best interest if you succeed because your success is also their’s. In order to have a functional relationship with them it is crucial to build on strengths and develop strategies to deal with difficulties. You are just as responsible to nurture your relationship with your supervisor as they are. In the live session, I discussed different types of supervisors sand how to deal with them:

Most supervisors are a combination of the…

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