How I confronted my growing cynicism about academia—and rekindled my sense of purpose

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Earlier this year, a graduate student from another lab knocked on my door in tears. She had previously taken a course I taught, but her visit surprised me. She said she no longer thought graduate school was right for her. She felt she couldn’t do anything right and didn’t fit in. She worked constantly, yet didn’t feel productive. A cynical voice inside my head whispered, “That’s just how academia is.” Yet, as she spoke, I realized how much her story echoed my own. The hope and optimism I’d come into academia with had started to fade for me, too. But over the coming weeks, as I helped this bright young scholar rediscover hope in her journey, I rediscovered my own.

Like her, I was the first in my family to go to college, and my first encounter with academia was inspiring. When I was a senior in high school, I enrolled in a human anatomy course at a local community college. One Saturday I wandered the campus, hoping to catch a glimpse of a lecture hall—something I’d only seen in movies, where they seemed full of promise and possibility. Those 2 years at community college opened my eyes to the possibility of a career in research and teaching—something I hadn’t known existed—where I could create new knowledge and help others achieve their dreams.

When I finally became a professor, I still believed deeply in higher education’s transformative power. On my first day as a professor, I even had my partner snap a photo of me with a whiteboard noting: “First day of college.” I was beaming. When a senior colleague warned my optimism wouldn’t last, I thought they were just bitter.

Now, 4 years into my dream job, I understand how cynicism can creep in. I feel it with every wave of job cuts, every attack on science, and every student laden with debt and uncertainty. It was easy to feel discouraged while serving on the university’s finance committee during several rounds of layoffs. My view of college as a beacon of hope had started to feel more like a mirage. At some point I stopped taking photos of my first day of the academic year.

When that student came into my office, she reminded me of myself at that age, bearing the weight of being first generation and the resulting insecurities and impossible expectations. The negative gossip, disillusionment, and other toxic elements of academia I know well as a faculty member were starting to drag her down. Her situation shook me out of my complacency, and I resolved to do what I could to help.

Over several weeks she and I dug into the issues and considered her options. I told her that during the third year of my Ph.D., I had considered dropping out. Instead, I managed to renew my sense of purpose by aligning my work better with my original goals, changing my research topic, and getting more involved in mentoring undergraduates. In the end, she decided to try a similar approach, changing up her dissertation committee and her project focus and conducting research in collaboration with communities she cares about. We don’t meet on a regular basis anymore, but she seems to be thriving.

This experience helped me see that maintaining hope doesn’t mean ignoring hardships or naïvely expecting things to work out. It still takes effort.

Now that I am facing my own doubts again, I am creating more opportunities to connect with graduate students, including new office hours. When I meet with them one on one, I try to help them focus on the things they can control, such as building healthy work habits and supporting one another, and tune out the things they can’t, such as shifting institutional priorities or the politics of funding decisions.

Taking notice of the hopeful signs around me also helps sustain me. I felt hope again this semester when I stepped into the lecture room for our first class activity and saw that students were already asking questions and helping one another. I might have overlooked that before. But this time it helped remind me why I’ve stayed in academia.

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How to engage your students and teach effectively

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For the many graduate students and postdocs who find themselves in front of a classroom, the transition from student to teacher can be abrupt—and the new responsibilities overwhelming. That was the case for Endy Lopes Kailer the first time she taught college undergrads when she was beginning her master’s degree program. Despite previous experience teaching English and tutoring high school students, she felt “very nervous and intimidated,” she recalls. “I wanted to connect with my students and show [them from] day one that they could rely on me and that I truly cared about their learning experience.”

She committed to preparing, down to writing some jokes to break the ice. “Only two people laughed,” she says. “That crushed my confidence, but also taught me that it takes time for students to open up and connect.”

During the following 6 years, Kailer—now a graduate research assistant in agronomy and soil science at Kansas State University—honed her skills to effectively engage and teach her students. “I have been able to replace the anxiety and insecurity for excitement when I step into a new classroom,” she says. Soon enough, students started to show their appreciation in positive feedback about her teaching style.

To help readers on their own teaching journeys, Science Careers asked Kailer and other researchers with recognized teaching experience to share their insights and approaches. The responses have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Q: How did you get into teaching, and what was your first experience like? Was it difficult to transition from student to teacher?

Jack-William Barotta, Ph.D. candidate in fluid mechanics at Brown University: Teaching has always been a passion of mine. I started out as a tutor during my freshman year of college and later volunteered for office hours and exam reviews. I quickly realized the importance of supporting students’ unique approaches, and that it’s OK to be human and make mistakes. The first time I taught a dedicated course, I didn’t get through as much of the content as I had planned because we ended up diving into a beneficial discussion about a related concept. This experience taught me the value of overpreparing for lectures while remaining flexible about the exact content covered.

Evangelia Gazaki, associate professor in mathematics at the University of Virginia: I started as a teaching assistant in my second year of grad school, and in my third year I started teaching my own calculus class for nonscience majors. I was definitely excited going in, and also definitely nervous. The challenges were plenty, partly because I was an international student with no experience with the U.S. college system and an accent. But what I was most unprepared for was the level of the students in my class. A very large portion of them thought they were terrible at math, and I had to work hard to build their confidence.

Cel Welch, postdoc in chemical engineering at Stanford University: My first teaching assignment was in the first year of my Ph.D. as a [teaching assistant ] of an executive master’s in a science and technology leadership program. I mainly took this position because starting grad school had depleted my financial resources. I also wanted to help my [principal investigator], who was managing the course. I was skeptical about TAing 40- to 70-year-old business professionals as a young grad student with a biomedical engineering background, but the professor and I collaborated to make interesting resources for the class that leveraged my perspective. It definitely opened my eyes to how teaching can be creative and enjoyable. Shortly after, I TAed my first engineering course, an entirely different experience that made me realize it is one thing to understand, and another to teach content.

William Kelton, senior lecturer in biomedical sciences at the University of Waikato: While working in industry, I actively sought out opportunities to give guest lectures at a local university, as I was considering a move back to academia. Upon taking my academic position, I was tasked with developing a series of master’s level workshops. It quickly became apparent there was a great deal of preparation required for each class that I clearly hadn’t fully appreciated as a student. Our university’s rapid switch to online learning during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic presented additional challenges for a new lecturer grappling with unfamiliar learning platforms. I distinctly remember being relieved after delivering the first workshop and realizing I had an excellent cohort of understanding students to thank for making the experience positive.

Angelika Lahnsteiner, postdoc in molecular biology at the University of Salzburg: I started teaching during my first year as a Ph.D. student, and I quickly developed a passion for education. But it took me several years, and several moments of “I will quit this job,” to learn how I can deal with challenging situations. Sometimes, students will ask why someone receives extra time for exams without realizing this student has a disability, or they may feel they have been treated unfairly after failing a class. I try to stay as calm as possible and explain the situation clearly to them, seeking guidance from more experienced colleagues or the legal department if needed. I’ve also learned to accept that I will never reach every student—not all students will like me as a person or my teaching style—and that’s OK.

Florian Golemo, postdoc in robotics and 3D perception at McGill University: My teaching responsibilities and independence gradually increased over time. Being part of a team teaching a large undergraduate class during my Ph.D. felt like an apprenticeship, allowing me to observe experienced instructors and learn the ropes, from classroom management to assignment design. My first solo flight came during my postdoc, teaching cognitive science to 200 students with backgrounds ranging from psychology and philosophy to computer science. I vividly recall the sinking feeling of seeing some students disengaged while others struggled. That first experience really shaped me into the teacher I am today: one who values continuous improvement and believes learning is a collaborative journey.

Q: What is your teaching approach or philosophy, and how do you measure success toward your goals?

Golemo: Effective teaching is about more than content delivery; it’s about creating an inclusive environment where every student feels seen. I immediately asked my diverse class for feedback, inquiring about prior knowledge, adequate pacing, and how I could better meet their needs. The course improved significantly as a result, and I discovered the power of student collaboration in shaping learning. Since then, my teaching philosophy has centered on adaptability and responsiveness—listening to students, understanding their perspectives, and adjusting my approach.

Kailer: I have made it my life’s mission to make learning fun and accessible to others who, like 7-year-old me, had to work against the odds to access education. Teaching is also caring, helping students get back on the horse when things get difficult and creating a safe space for every student. By the end of the semester, I always know each of them, their struggles, their strengths, and how I can take those aspects on board to benefit their learning process.

Welch: I personally thrive when making conventionally difficult or disliked content digestible. The best way for me to get a pulse on the class not just once it is over (as in course evaluations) but while it is happening is having anonymous forms after each lecture where students tell me if they found a concept or problem confusing. In terms of student interaction, I just aim to be myself and to be open. I will never be the person who tells a student they should give up, but I will hold them to a high standard and connect them to the resources they need to succeed.

Barotta: I don’t want to be seen as an all-knowing figure at the front of the class; rather, I aim to create a learning community where we all learn from each other—including me. I want my students to feel excited about the content, engage deeply with it, and understand that it’s OK not to grasp everything immediately. For me, success is measured by my students’ growth as problem solvers, their willingness to explore unconventional approaches, and their ability to recognize their own worth.

Gazaki: My favorite motto is “Don’t be afraid of the math, get your hands dirty!” During my postdoc years, I taught inquiry-based learning classes, where students work in groups on worksheets and the instructor serves more as a moderator (also known as the flipped classroom experience). To this day, I make my lectures very interactive, encouraging students’ participation by constantly having Q&A times. I also have large groups of students working on problems on the blackboard during office hours. Besides getting energetically involved with the material, this approach helps them build community.

Kelton: I think it’s important that students learn to apply key theoretical concepts to solve problems, thus avoiding the rote learning that can pervade some fields. Rather than prioritizing detailed memorization, I’ve adopted a real focus on flipped learning with practical lab sessions and workshops. I think this approach is all the more important these days, considering the rise of artificial intelligence tools. Beyond tracking pass rates and gathering feedback at the end of the course, I’ve begun to implement online polls during the course to understand how the students see themselves as learners and whether they have any subjects of particular interest that I could cover.

Q: How do you go about preparing and delivering the course material? What professional training or resources did you have access to?

Kailer: It takes a lot of research and reading to create a great set of slides for a lecture and be prepared to answer questions. I always try to show that complex topics can be easily understood if presented in a more digestible manner, often bringing soil samples, live plants, and organisms preserved in resin blocks for the students to observe and interact with. I find this hands-on approach especially valuable to support students who may find it challenging to focus during traditional lectures, especially students with ADHD, as it makes learning much more memorable and exciting than simply viewing pictures. I also try to connect course material to current events to help students understand the relevance and practical application of what they are learning in class. To help me develop my teaching skills, I watched YouTube videos and read open-access books developed by my and other universities. I recommend asking former teaching assistants about their experiences with the course and inviting the main professor to attend some of your lectures to provide feedback. Critically observing great professors and other role models will also help you in your learning process.

Welch: I use a similar approach to teaching as I do when writing a grant or research paper and preparing talk slides. First, I set aside some time to abstractedly think about the topic and the main things that must be touched on. Then, I scaffold an outline of how I will address these concepts. I flesh it out with specific pieces of information, review, and modify (time permitting). For grading, at first I was giving overly detailed comments, taking twice the time or more than I do now. I started striving for efficiency once I realized the students didn’t necessarily care. In terms of training, I was able to pursue three teaching certifications as a Ph.D. student, which taught me a lot of skills. Then as a postdoc I completed a mentorship certificate, which made me aware of the pitfalls in my style and how to correct them.

Barotta: Typically, I first go through material from several textbooks and online resources from other instructors or organizations to gain different perspectives on the topic. I then focus on creating in-depth, applicable problems that complement the material, with the lecture content structured around these examples. I like to start by presenting a key concept and showing how tackling a related phenomenon or application will be achievable by the end of the lecture. The final example or content point usually ties back to this initial concept, creating a full-circle moment. I also make an effort to keep the lectures interactive by incorporating numerous questions and activities. My formal pedagogical training has been incredibly helpful in this regard, as I’ve been exposed to various forms of active learning that I am now implementing, such as debates and discussions, Think-Pair-Share moments, and case studies. Then, setting up asynchronous communication channels, such as Slack, has been useful for students to continue conversations outside of class or form problem solving groups.

Kelton: I’ve joined a group of academics from both the education and science fields that has been a great forum to share ideas, resources, and most importantly, come to grips with simple practical steps you can take to improve your teaching. For example, I now quite often use short, prerecorded videos to deliver content ahead of class, allowing more time for interactive workshop style learning. Developing classroom strategies has been a learning process with some trial and error. In my classes, I’ve found that simply posing a question and waiting for the class to answer is an effective tool to drive engagement. I also try to pace content and avoid the temptation to include too much material.

Golemo: It’s a little bit more preparation, but I generally gear the lecture for the slower students and have optional further resources for the more advanced students to keep them engaged. As for course materials, traditionally in the department there are a lot of classic experiment papers to read as homework. But I’d argue that it’s faster and more effective to discuss them in a lecture so I can make sure directly that the students pick up on the (modern) criticism surrounding some of these classic experiments. Meanwhile, I like to give the students more contemporary and diverse materials to explore between lectures, like podcasts, book excerpts, and TV shows. There are Star Trek episodes that do a better job exploring the nature of intelligence than some papers do.

Lahnsteiner: Several days before the lecture, I send students videos and learning materials to allow class time to be dedicated to discussions and collaborative problem solving. To help students track their own learning progress, I prepare ungraded quizzes for each lecture on our learning platform, where they receive automated feedback. Then, in a final workshop, I ask students to prepare in small groups some posters about key epigenetic mechanisms and present them to classmates. I also created a board game about these mechanisms for student teams. While these activities may seem playful, I have found that active engagement significantly improves learning outcomes. I learned some of these teaching approaches in a three-semester course I recently completed. As part of the program, I also took a voice training class to control my breathing and manage nervousness, which significantly increased my self-confidence.

Q: What do you find are the most enjoyable or valuable aspects of teaching? What has proved more challenging for you?

Golemo: I’ve always loved teaching, and witnessing a handful of students getting motivated to do a summer boot camp on AI following last year’s cognitive science class has made me really excited for becoming a professor. Still, I have a little bit of stage fright. I’ve been building confidence over the years, but when I step into the big auditorium in front of 200 people, it’s daunting for the first couple minutes. Today, the feeling will naturally fade once I settle in, but what helped me in the early days was a saying from one of my role models: “The worst day of teaching is still better than the worst day without teaching.” As for balancing teaching, research, and free time, that’s tough. The silver lining is that it gets a lot easier over time. With practice, you become better at prioritizing different tasks and gauging how much time some topic will take to prepare for a given class. And then, creating a whole course for the first time is a massive time sink; updating and adjusting one that you’ve already taught is a walk in the park!

Kailer: It is so fulfilling to see a student that used to struggle with a subject to not only learn it effectively but also enjoy it. And certainly, teaching has indirectly benefited my research by helping me gain strong communication skills. However, whereas students have the option to not show up when life happens, the instructors have to be there, consistently, so organization and planning skills are key.

Kelton: Marking has been a real challenge time-wise, and I’ve been working on strategies to reduce this burden while still achieving quality assessment. Then, having to adapt to the widespread use of AI tools has further changed the nature of assessment. I’ve found individual or group presentations with question-and-answer sessions to be a good way to gauge the depth of student understanding. For me, the most rewarding part of teaching is seeing students really grasp a concept. Teaching has also been an amazing tool to connect with and recruit enthusiastic students, which makes growing a research team significantly easier and more enjoyable.

Barotta: It is thrilling to have a say not only in how the content of a course is taught, but also in shaping the content itself. But the teaching moments that truly stand out for me are the discussions with students that take place after class or during office hours. The most challenging aspect has been figuring out how to ensure that my teaching style is accessible to students with different learning preferences. Balancing teaching and research has been deeply rewarding for me, as I’ve found my research has informed my teaching and vice versa.

Lahnsteiner: The communication skills I have developed through teaching have been invaluable in my research collaborations and grant writing. And I really enjoy being reminded that I’ve made a positive impact by following the progress of my students over the years. However, it’s easy to spend countless hours, even on weekends, preparing lectures and research materials. Finding a healthy balance between work and life is essential—not only to stay motivated but also to generate fresh ideas for both teaching and research.

Welch: Teaching helps my research by engaging another part of my brain and increasing my overall life satisfaction (it is very rewarding to help students!). However, it is not always perceived as high value in academia, so I have had to be wary of my time spent.

Gazaki: Having students tell you this was the most fun math class they’d taken or share with you their successes have been truly rewarding moments for me. Still, even years after moving to the United States, I sometimes feel significant cultural differences with my students. It took several years until a friend told me that I can come across as very blunt when telling students how I see things. Now that I know about this, during one-on-one office hours I explain what my feedback means and that it’s only meant for them to grow and succeed in the class. This feeds into another challenge: having a positive impact on all students. No matter how much I try, there are always students who might need a different approach. But it’s not always easy to figure out how to help them, nor do I always have the patience. I’ve made numerous mistakes over the years, but I hope that every mistake I make also helps me grow as a teacher.

Q: Any misconceptions you would warn against, or final words of advice?

Kailer: When I started teaching, I believed that I only needed to reserve the timeslots for my lectures; I had no idea of how much time I would need to prepare the course material and grade or to help students outside of class. Be aware of these “invisible” responsibilities, and make sure to ask the professor responsible for the course what are the expectations and time commitment.

Kelton: For me, the realization that lecturers don’t always need to provide immediate answers has been particularly helpful. Initially, I found this concept uncomfortable given the expectation of lecturers as subject matter experts. But I learned you can use these questions to create deeper discussion with the class, or tell the students you will get back to them after doing some more reading. Then, enthusiasm is contagious, so try to bring energy to your classes. But remember it’s perfectly normal to have days where your teaching doesn’t go to plan or feels a bit flat.

Welch: Do not go into teaching thinking that since you aced the class years ago or are a great researcher you will automatically be great at it. If half of your class is confused, that’s a good sign that it’s not the students’ fault. Many researchers see teaching as a burden or a distraction, but it can genuinely help you grow, so keep an open mind.

Lahnsteiner: Start teaching early. When I applied for my second postdoc position, I was explicitly asked about my teaching experience, and my 5 years gave me an advantage that many others were only beginning to develop. Also, be patient; many skills develop with experience. Confidence and authenticity are key; be yourself and don’t try to fit a mold. Then, it’s easy to blame students for an apparent lack of interest, but it’s our responsibility to make learning exciting and meaningful.

Gazaki: During grad school, I thought I had everything figured out for a course I had already taught once. I was obsessively working on my thesis, and I postponed preparing a midterm exam until late the night before. I ended up making a typo in a problem that made it impossible to solve. Most embarrassingly, I did not catch the error until after I started grading. The moral of the story is that we are not perfect. But if we build a relationship of trust with our students and we show them that we care, they can be very grateful and forgiving even when we mess up.

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To increase diversity in STEM, a foot in the door isn’t enough. We need better support

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The question caught me off-guard. The video call was supposed to be a simple wrap-up with a program evaluator—one last meeting to close my year in the postbaccalaureate program. I thought it would just be a chance to say thank you, talk about next steps, and get a bit of advice. Instead, I was asked a critical question: “How has this program shaped your sense of belonging in STEM, and in neuroscience specifically?” I stared at the screen for a moment, blinking. I wanted to be honest, but I didn’t want to sound ungrateful. I knew how much the program had invested in my classmates and me. I also couldn’t ignore the weight of what I had experienced.

The program’s mission was to provide training to students from underrepresented backgrounds who had graduated from universities without many research opportunities. Coming from a small liberal arts college, I went into the program to gain the hands-on research experience I would need to be a competitive Ph.D. applicant.

It sounded like the gateway I was after. I wasn’t exactly sure what I needed to learn to become a competent researcher. But, I reasoned, surely the program would know.

It didn’t take long for those hopes to unravel. I soon learned that my cohort was the first. We were told we would be the “guinea pigs,” and that there would be growing pains.

We had weekly group meetings with the program directors, mostly focused on research updates and goals. But no one seemed to grasp how new we were to all of this. We didn’t just need feedback on our experiments. We needed someone to tell us what academia even was. How to navigate it. What questions to ask. We were hungry to learn, but the gaps were wide, and the silence around them made everything harder.

It’s hard to say why those involved didn’t understand what we needed. But it was clear that very few people on the medical campus where we were working looked like us. One day, as I was working on my laptop at a small coffee shop on campus, a woman in scrubs asked, “Do you have to be an employee, or can anyone just sit here?” My heart sank. I wasn’t bothering anyone. I belonged. And yet, somehow, others didn’t see it that way.

Meanwhile, I was struggling to get my experiments off the ground. Three months into the program, my mentor was put on administrative leave. I was unofficially placed under my mentor’s supervisor, someone senior in the department. He was genuinely invested in the program. But he wasn’t closely involved in my day to day. Without a direct mentor, I was left trying to piece things together on my own.

For months, I made almost no progress. When I asked questions of others in my lab, many of whom were stressed about their own future, they told me to “just look in the literature” and offered no further guidance. Once, a colleague said, almost casually, “Some people just aren’t cut out for this.”

Through my struggles, the program never checked in on me. It was a professor teaching one of my classes who ultimately filled that gap. After noticing I was obviously very unhappy, she invited me to switch to her lab.

I went on to work with her for the rest of the year. She gave me what I was missing: technical skills, insight into the unspoken norms of academia, and the red flags to watch out for. She helped me rebuild my confidence and gave me tools, language, and a way forward. “You’re a star,” she said once, so casually it felt like a fact.

In the end, I came out of the experience achieving what I set out to do. I applied to and was accepted into the graduate school of my choice. But it wasn’t because I was guided or nurtured by the program. I decided to be honest and tell the program evaluator the truth. The program showed me I was capable of doing neuroscience research, but it didn’t give me a feeling that I belonged.

Now as a first year Ph.D. student, I find myself fielding questions from students considering similar programs. I tell them to ask about the kind of support they’ll receive in and outside of the lab and what programs mean when they say “mentorship.” Who will be responsible for guiding you? What are their roles, and what are your options if things go off track? Talent and grit matter, but so do structure, transparency, and care.

The author is a Ph.D. student in the United States.
Do you have an interesting career story? Send it to SciCareerEditor@aaas.org. Read the general guidelines here.

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USDA funding delays under Trump compromise agricultural research

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Georg Jander was delighted in May when a grant he’d submitted last year to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to study how maize responds to attacking insects received favorable reviews. But now, 4 months later, he still doesn’t know whether it will be funded. The same cloud of uncertainty hangs over the heads of many agricultural scientists, as USDA continues to postpone grant decisions and fails to announce many new funding opportunities. Jander, a Boyce Thompson Institute plant biologist, says he and “a lot of other people are just frustrated because we don’t know what to do next.”

USDA typically awards more than $1.7 billion in funding each year for a wide range of research on food, nutrition, and agriculture. But by the end of this fiscal year it will have awarded just over $1 billion, according to its public database. Some approved grants have yet to receive a single dollar for work that was expected to begin earlier this year. “We’ve missed an entire field season,” one agricultural researcher says.

It’s not unusual for new administrations to review funding programs. But after President Donald Trump took office in January, his administration went further. It ordered USDA to freeze funding of all awarded grants, a stoppage that lasted for much of the first half of the year. The aim was to identify grants that included work related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, which were canceled wholesale. The agency also canceled grants to universities for research related to climate-smart agriculture. And it stopped awarding new grants.

Other funding agencies took similar steps. But USDA remains behind even as other agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health, have ramped up grant funding in recent months. “It’s been very, very delayed,” says Julie McClure of the Torrey Advisory Group, which lobbies on behalf of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America. (USDA did not respond to a request for comment.)

Competitive grants, which fund research at universities and other organizations, have fared the worst. As of 16 September, with 2 weeks left before the end of this fiscal year, USDA’s center for extramural research funding, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), had awarded just 558 competitive grants, according to its public database. That’s 68% fewer than during the prior fiscal year—and $741 million less in competitively awarded research funds. In contrast, the $800 million of so-called capacity funds, which are largely distributed by formulas to certain universities, has all been committed.

One reason for the shortfall in competitive funding is that NIFA simply did not invite new grant applications for much of the year. The first funding opportunities were only posted in July—and with tight deadlines of just a few weeks. The long-standing Foundational and Applied Science Program, which awards $300 million per year, was posted on 1 August with deadlines as soon as 2 October. “A ridiculously short turnaround time,” says Crispin Taylor, executive director of the American Society of Plant Biology. The agency also appears to have a backlog of applications submitted last year that remain in limbo. The number could be in the thousands, a former USDA staff member says.

Morgan Carter, who studies plant pathogens at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, had hoped a graduate student in her lab could win a USDA fellowship to study new biocontrol approaches for fungi. But the agency has not posted a request for applications. “We don’t know the status of this program.”

Even for scientists who were awarded grants, the path hasn’t been smooth. According to USASpending. gov, a federal database, USDA turned the spigot back on for many suspended grants in August. But the delays complicated research plans. Many labs have delayed hiring postdocs or project managers or have had to scramble to find other support.

What’s causing the delays is unclear. Some observers suspect the White House Office of Management and Budget or the Department of Government Efficiency, formerly run by Elon Musk, have taken charge of funding and are responsible for the holdup. “The real question is who’s making the decisions?” says Elizabeth Stulberg, a lobbyist with Lewis-Burke Associates.

Stulberg adds that because the Senate has only confirmed some of the Trump administration’s nominees for USDA posts (four of 12), the agency also may not have the bandwidth to make swift funding decisions. Staffing has also dropped at NIFA. By March, 11% of its 488 employees had taken the Trump administration’s offer of deferred retirement and another 8% had left for other reasons.

Senate confirmation of entomologist Scott Hutchins as USDA’s undersecretary for research, education, and economics, which could happen as early as this month, could help break the logjam, McClure says. Observers say Hutchins knows agricultural research and USDA. New money Congress has put into agricultural research could also help. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes $1.25 billion over 9 years for agricultural research facilities, beginning with the next fiscal year.

But until the delays subside, many researchers remain on tenterhooks. For now, says one pretenure faculty member who has waited more than a year to learn whether a grant submitted to USDA will be funded, “We are all juggling.”

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Delays, uncertainty plague NSF fellowship for graduate students

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One of the premier U.S. graduate fellowships is mired in uncertainty as would-be applicants await overdue details about how to apply for the upcoming year’s awards. The National Science Foundation (NSF) usually releases the application guidelines for its flagship Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) in mid-July, giving applicants at least 90 days to prepare materials before an October deadline. But for weeks NSF’s website has read “solicitation coming soon,” leaving many frustrated and confused.

It’s not clear what’s caused the delay. An NSF spokesperson told Science on 26 August that the solicitation was in development. When asked for an update this week, they wrote, “I don’t have anything for you at the moment but will let you know as soon as that changes.”

The current limbo adds to other recent deviations from the status quo for the program. In April, NSF gave out fewer than 1000 GRFP awards—a far cry from the 2000 it doled out the year before. The agency later added 500 more fellowships to this year’s award tally. But the final list drew accusations it favored applicants in certain fields, such as computer science.

Some took it as good news last week when the agency updated its website to indicate that this year’s applications would be due in late October. Previously, some had feared this year’s program wouldn’t happen at all.

But with just over a month before the deadlines, many hopeful applicants are growing increasingly impatient to see this year’s instructions and learn whether NSF has any surprises in store—such as a shift to embracing industry partnerships. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they release the solicitation with completely different instructions,” wrote a Reddit user in a group devoted to discussing GRFP applications.

For many students submitting to the GRFP, it’s their first experience putting together a grant proposal, says Brian O’Meara, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville who has been tracking updates to NSF’s website and sharing his thoughts about them online. So, “The more lead time the better,” he says, adding that “it will be important for potential applicants to know if they are even eligible before putting in the work to prepare to apply.”

NSF’s website states that any applicant submitting a fellowship or grant application to the agency will “have a minimum of 90 days from NSF’s announcement of a funding opportunity to prepare and submit a proposal.” Susan Brennan, a former GRFP director who now works at Stony Brook University, says that when she worked at NSF the 90-day cutoff was taken seriously. “If we were 1 day late with the solicitation, then we would have had to justify it, move the deadlines,” she says. “For some reason, we are now halfway along, and we are so very late that many students will not be able to apply this year, and it’s very concerning.”

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Meeting students where they are doesn’t mean lowering academic standards

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From ScienceMag:

Experimental Error logo
Experimental Error is a column about the quirky, comical, and sometimes bizarre world of scientific training and careers, written by scientist and comedian Adam Ruben. Barmaleeva/Shutterstock, adapted by C. Aycock/Science

It’s back-to-everything orientation time. If you’re in any sort of teaching role, you’ve probably been told repeatedly to “meet students where they are.” (Do not take this advice literally; students are most likely at their homes, and meeting them there is creepy.)

It’s one of those platitudes that’s easy to ignore among all of the other introductory advice, like “foster critical thinking” or “don’t park in the space marked ‘Reserved for University President.’” It’s also advice that can be easily misconstrued as a call to lower academic standards, accepting that your students will arrive without the skills necessary to succeed—so make sure the classes you teach don’t require those skills, lest you anger the university president who’s already staring incredulously at your Corolla.

But maybe it’s time to rebrand the recommendation to “meet students where they are.” Instead of a maligned boogeyman or meaningless cliché, maybe it’s actually an important reminder of a teacher’s true role.

A few months ago, I attended a roundtable about student mental health. The speaker, Joe Sparenberg—a physical science instructor and adjunct professor at Howard Community College, Anne Arundel Community College, and the Community College of Baltimore County—described ways professors can help alleviate their students’ anxiety. Some students might come to a class with an official accommodation plan handed down from the university mental health office. But plenty of students with similar challenges have no diagnosis, simply because diagnosis is expensive, inconvenient, and not always broadly available. What can professors do to help all these students get as much as they can from the course—to meet them were they are?

Some might say it isn’t a professor’s job to alleviate their students’ anxiety; students need to toughen up and rise to the level of rigor of the field they’ve chosen to pursue. Maybe it is, Sparenberg would respond, and maybe it isn’t—but that doesn’t mean professors should consider themselves off the hook, especially when some of the techniques they can use are both sensible and simple.

In his experience, when students have opportunities to get support and assistance, they feel calmer and more capable. So, he figured, why not explicitly offer that support and assistance as directly as he can? Throughout the course, he polls his students and asks what they’d find helpful. He can’t satisfy every request, but if they ask for something reasonable, why wouldn’t he try to help?

For example, some students told him they found the pace of the course nerve-wracking. Some professors might tell the student that’s too bad, we have to get through the materials, so you just need to adapt. Sparenberg, on the other hand, asked what he could do to help. And when a student suggested they’d feel less anxious if they could find out what books are required before the semester begins, so they had a little more time to digest everything, that sounded to Sparenberg like a completely fair request.

Students wanted weekend office hours; Sparenberg didn’t mind. Students had questions about the course material but felt embarrassed to ask in class; Sparenberg set up an app called Padlet where students could ask questions anonymously, after class, or even during class. This helped him gauge his own pacing, making sure he hadn’t just skipped past a key concept. More importantly, it removed the stigma of asking the professor to slow down, when you’re sure everyone else in class is keeping up.

Sparenberg recalled his own training as he sought the support that would help him succeed. Some teachers pushed back, he said, insisting, “This is my class.” Sparenberg shrugged. “I’m like, ‘Cool, I’m your student.’”

I know a lot of professors who would bristle at that last sentence. It’s overly accommodating, student-as-consumer, all-about-me-me-me, they would say. But what Sparenberg describes isn’t coddling, it’s just using available tools in a practical way to help students succeed. Offering accommodations isn’t artificially removing the pressures of the real world, it’s giving the students the tools they need to deal with them. Actively seeking out what your students need to be successful is the difference between being a teacher and simply a content deliverer.

At the same time, accommodation has to be a two-way street. It’s sensible to expect students to show up with engagement, positive intention, and willingness to work hard and learn.

So maybe meeting students where they are is just half the solution: Students and professors should meet one another in the middle. You can maintain rigor as an instructor, Sparenberg reminds us, and not be a brick wall.

As we start our classes this semester, let’s remember that we have no idea what’s going on in our students’ lives. We see them for a few hours each week, and outside of that, they all lead complicated existences as humans. It’s their responsibility to meet our expectations, and it’s our responsibility to help them do that.

And if we don’t know what simple adjustments we can make to help our students, what do we do? We treat them the same way we address anything else in science, the same approach that was taught to us and that we hope to teach to them.

Ask.

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I thought science hinged on prestige. Moving abroad made me reassess my priorities

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From ScienceMag:

I still remember the first morning I biked to university in Copenhagen, the February air reddening my cheeks. I was thrilled to be on an exchange semester overseas, but I saw it as just a detour from my imagined career path. I didn’t realize I was already pedaling toward a different life—one that would make me reassess how to achieve a fulfilling research career.

I grew up in the United States with a clear sense of what a “successful” science career should look like. I might not have admitted it openly, but I believed that the right pedigree—a well-known university, a prestigious Ph.D. program, a respected adviser—was what determined whether someone would be taken seriously as a scientist.

But everything changed during my time as an undergraduate in Denmark. Here, I fell in love. First with the country. The cobbled streets. The bike lanes. The quiet confidence of a society that seemed to trust its institutions. Later, with a man I met by chance—who will soon be my husband. A Fulbright grant allowed me to return to Denmark after my exchange. The official goal was to broaden my academic horizons and learn new scientific skills. But unofficially it was a chance to see whether this relationship might become something lasting.

As the months passed, the idea of returning to the U.S. to pursue a “big name” Ph.D. program felt less compelling. I began to seriously consider staying in Denmark for a doctoral position that would allow me to build a life with someone I loved.

I found myself fixating on how this choice might look on a CV. Would colleagues back home see a Danish Ph.D. as a step down? Would I be taken less seriously without North American training? Would I regret prioritizing my personal life over a more conventional path? In hindsight, these anxieties seem ludicrous. But at the time, they felt very real. In the end, I chose to stay.

The adjustment wasn’t always easy. It can be hard for a foreigner to live in Denmark, where many friendships are formed early in life and social circles can be slow to open. But I had my relationship to lean on, and gradually I built a community.

As I started my academic life here, Danish culture began to transform my mindset. Danish society is guided by Janteloven, an unwritten code that says you are no better than anyone else. Growing up, I would have said I believed in this ideal. But subconsciously I probably felt otherwise. In the U.S., an unspoken hierarchy is attached to certain professions. Scientists and doctors often enjoy a higher social standing than, say, electricians. In Denmark, this distinction is far less pronounced.

The same ideals pervade academia. There is no Danish university that is considered “better” than others, and prestige plays a smaller role in people’s decisions. Even within universities, there is very little hierarchy. Everyone addresses each other by first name, and talking to a senior professor feels like chatting with a colleague.

In Denmark, I also discovered a new type of work culture: one that insists on work-life balance, expects people to leave the office at a reasonable hour, and treats evenings and weekends as personal time. In the U.S., long hours are worn like badges of honor. But after my time in Denmark, that way of life no longer appeals to me. I feel fortunate to work in a place where I have more space for hobbies, relationships, and simply living.

Gradually, I have come to adopt the Danish perspective. I now see that the value of a scientific career isn’t measured only by the institution on your diploma, but by whether your work feels meaningful, whether you’re growing as a researcher, and whether you can sustain the curiosity that brought you into science in the first place. I now question why I ever felt a degree from Denmark would somehow be worth less than one from North America.

I still sometimes wonder how my life might have unfolded had I returned to the U.S. I might have gained more recognizable credentials. But I would have missed the chance to build a life here, to invest in a relationship with someone I love, and to discover a work culture that aligns with my values. For me, staying in Denmark has brought not just a different way to approach science, but also a sense of belonging I didn’t know I was missing.

Do you have an interesting career story? Send it to SciCareerEditor@aaas.org. Read the general guidelines here.

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After my world started spinning, I recalibrated my approach to work

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From ScienceMag:

I look at the beaver dam with trepidation. As an ecohydrologist who studies the engineering abilities of beavers, I’ve crossed hundreds of these structures with little hesitation. But now each step feels like braving a precipice. I move slowly, scanning the logs underfoot for stable ground, my students carrying the equipment I once shouldered. I’m conscious that at any moment the world can suddenly spin, leaving me reaching for the nearest willow branch just to stay upright. Vertigo has rewired how I move through wetlands, lecture halls, and life in general, making me hyperaware of balance—both physical and professional.

My vertigo roller coaster began with a strange incident 4 years ago. On my first day back on campus after the pandemic lockdowns, three masked men burst into my office as I met with a student on Zoom. It was straight out of a movie. The student kept talking, unaware of what was unfolding. After what seemed like an eternity, the man closest to me muttered “wrong person” and walked out. They didn’t physically hurt me, or—thankfully—the faculty member whom I later learned they intended to harm. But the intrusion unsettled me in ways I couldn’t shake.

I booked a massage to calm my frayed nerves. Instead, as my neck was being massaged, the room began to violently spin. As I later learned, the pressure dislodged tiny crystals in my inner ear that are crucial to balance. In a single moment, the ground shifted beneath me. And I didn’t know when—or whether—it would stop.

Afterward, days blurred into weeks as I stayed in bed, propped up to sleep upright, afraid to move my head lest I vomit uncontrollably. I abandoned all my duties except teaching, which I did on Zoom with my camera off, my mother-in-law advancing the slides and whispering occasional prompts as I spoke from memory. It was a dark time: harder than the pandemic, harder even than raising children. As the main income provider, I worried constantly about my family’s future if I didn’t recover.

Physiotherapy eventually helped stabilize my inner ear. Gradually the room steadied. But my journey wasn’t over. A year later, the vertigo returned, and then slowly faded over 10 months. Now, I live with the anxiety that at any moment, the floor might begin to shift again.

More than once, I’ve felt the spins come on midlecture, forcing me to grab the edge of the nearest table to steady myself. I’ve learned that vertigo demands constant mental energy just to keep upright. It’s work no one sees. And that’s part of what makes it hard to talk about.

I haven’t had any mishaps when I’ve been out in the field with my students studying beavers. But the fear is always there. So, too, is the shift in how I see myself as a scientist. Despite my love of fieldwork, I have had to accept that some seasons, I will do less of it. I’ve learned to build more flexibility into research plans, delegate in ways that help students grow, and focus on aspects of ecohydrology for which a steady gait isn’t crucial, like data analysis, writing, mentoring, and service.

My own vertigo has made me alert to signs of it in others. I notice the colleague who sits through standing ovations. The one who avoids certain terrain. The one who always takes the elevator. I see now that many of us are navigating invisible limitations while still showing up fully for our work.

These days I move with a kind of cautious attention I never needed before. But a slower pace has also opened up space for quiet gratitude. For months I couldn’t walk without assistance. I couldn’t look at a computer without vomiting. Now, I can be back in the field. I can travel. I can still do the work that makes me feel alive. My steps are slower, and the fear is still there—but so is the joy of taking them.

Do you have an interesting career story? Send it to SciCareerEditor@aaas.org. Read the general guidelines here.

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As a Ph.D. student, I felt unprepared to mentor—but I’m glad I took the leap

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From ScienceMag:

As I waited for the Teams meeting to begin, I started to question myself. “Wait, who am I to be mentoring someone?” I thought. I was just a first-year graduate student who still regularly sought guidance myself; what advice could I have to offer? Months earlier, I had applied to be a mentor through a program at my university that provides free support for potential Ph.D. applicants from groups that are historically underrepresented in science. I am passionate about helping students from backgrounds like mine, and I was eager to pay forward the guidance I had received earlier in my journey. But now that the moment was here, I was overcome with doubt.

As an undergraduate, I had no idea how to become a scientist. The process felt opaque and overwhelming, particularly to a first-generation college student. I always felt as though I was behind my peers, simply because I did not know how to access certain resources or get involved. Still, I pushed forward, learning the hard way through trial and error.

Things began to turn around at my first meeting with the professor who would become my lab supervisor. I was extremely nervous, but she was welcoming and understanding, genuinely interested in learning about me and my career goals. Throughout college, she provided support, professionally and personally, bolstering my confidence, helping me understand it is OK to take time away from lab for family, and more.

Being a mentor at my Ph.D. university seemed a great opportunity to do the same for others. I enthusiastically applied and was excited to be selected and matched with a mentee. But as our first meeting drew close, uncertainty crept in. There was no guidebook to follow. How should I structure our meetings? What if she asks a question that I have no idea how to answer? How could I be ready for this type of leadership role, when I still had so far to go myself?

That day of our first meeting, I was terrified. But once my mentee joined the call, seeming very enthusiastic about meeting me, and started to talk about herself, I had a flashback to my own college experience. I remembered struggling to navigate getting into a research lab and applying to summer internships and graduate school. The fellow first-generation student on the other side of the screen was probably going through something similar—feeling both uncertainty and a fierce determination to figure it out and achieve her professional goals.

What mattered, I realized, was not to be some imaginary perfect mentor with all the answers, but to get to know my mentee, including her hopes and ambitions, and offer whatever guidance and support I could based on my own experiences. We ended the meeting having set some practical goals for the year—including writing her personal statement and practicing research presentations—and just as important, laid the grounds for an authentic, personal relationship.

As our sessions continued, I still went into each one worried I would not be prepared to solve every problem my mentee encountered. But over time, I realized I could help in practical ways. I could equip her with the skills to tackle obstacles, such as answering difficult questions during interviews and research presentations. Just like my mentee, I had dreaded the “tell me about yourself” prompt; where do you start and how much should you tell? In my case, I had found a happy balance by explaining how being diagnosed with mixed connective tissue disease during college had driven me to pursue a Ph.D.—but I didn’t go into details that would have felt invasive and draining. I described my approach to my mentee, so she could adopt the parts that resonated with her.

When I did not know the answer to an issue she raised, I was honest about it and did my best to listen, provide feedback and guidance, and allow her to determine her best course of action. Sometimes I was there simply to provide a safe space to vent. I could help even when I did not have a solution.

A few months after submitting her graduate school applications, my mentee sent an email thanking me for my support and guidance, which she said helped increase her confidence. She probably doesn’t know that she helped increase my confidence, too.

Do you have an interesting career story? Send it to SciCareerEditor@aaas.org. Read the general guidelines here.

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How an academic betrayal led me to change my authorship practices

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From ScienceMag:

The day the paper was published should have been a moment of pride. Instead, it felt like a quiet erasure. There it was: the data set I had helped shape, the computer scripts I had debugged and refined, the analytical framework I had spent months developing—all neatly embedded in a peer-reviewed journal article. But my name was absent. The feeling of exclusion was painful enough—but what stung more was that I had seen it coming, yet had felt powerless to stop it.

In 2020, during my doctoral studies at a major European university, a more senior Ph.D. student asked for help coding the analysis for his thesis. We had several in-depth discussions about the work, and he promised me co-authorship if the results were published. He even suggested the outcomes might fit into a chapter of my own dissertation, and that he would inform my supervisors once the work matured. I believed him.

Over the next year, I invested hours of focused effort into writing, modifying, and validating the scripts that underpinned the analysis. But crucially, the collaboration remained informal. Most conversations happened over voice calls. Any emails I sent went unacknowledged. There was no official record of our agreement or the work’s scope. In hindsight, I now see that this lack of documentation was not an accident—it was deliberate.

A few years later, I learned the research was being prepared for publication. But my enthusiasm quickly turned to dismay when I realized the student I had helped—who was lead author on the paper—had no intention of including me as a co-author. When I spoke up, he claimed responsibility for coding the analysis, and said there was no written proof that I had worked on it.

One co-author acknowledged my contribution and attempted to intervene. My supervisor supported me, too. But the student still refused to include me. Eventually, I decided my efforts were better focused on my current work, and I gave up fighting.

My name was nowhere on the published paper—not even in the acknowledgments.

The betrayal had real consequences. Believing the work would lead to a joint publication, I had spent valuable time on it during my own thesis writing, delaying my Ph.D. by at least 6 months. Even worse was the emotional toll: frustration, helplessness, and a deep sense of injustice.

My story isn’t unique. Authorship discussions too often rely on informal agreements, and many early-career scientists are unaware of standard authorship criteria. Even when research groups do have formal guidelines about who should be a named author, they’re often not discussed until after a manuscript is already in draft, and students may be too hesitant to assert their rights in hierarchical lab cultures.

After my experience, my colleagues and I began to think about strategies to stop others being unjustly denied authorship. Eventually we came up with a set of procedures we now follow for every project in our lab to make sure all contributors receive fair recognition. We create a shared document outlining roles and authorship expectations right from the start, and agree on milestones when authorship will be further discussed, such as at key analysis phases or before manuscript drafting.

I also try to lead by example, discussing authorship openly with students and junior colleagues, and ensuring they receive the appropriate training in research ethics. I make sure they keep records of their contributions and read journals’ authorship guidelines, and that they are aware of institutional support they can turn to if they encounter problems, such as research integrity offices or ombuds.

We’ve been trialing this new approach for a few months now, and the feedback from other lab members has been really positive. I’d encourage everyone to consider doing something similar. Authorship is more than a line on a CV—it is an ethical necessity. Every cleaned data set, debugged script, and refined figure deserves acknowledgment. And every early-career researcher deserves the confidence that their work will not just be used—but respected.

Do you have an interesting career story? Send it to SciCareerEditor@aaas.org. Read the general guidelines here.

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