Hello all of you beautiful people!

So, this is going to be a shorter update, but a necessary one because…

I officially turned in my thesis to my committee yesterday!!!! Hoo boy, that was a doozy of an experience. Pumping out a thesis in 20 days (not counting the two chapters that are just reprints of the articles I’ve already written) was stressful. 0/10, do not recommend.

Now, I’m not finished yet: My committee now gets to look it over and make any comments/revisions on it. Once I finish those, THEN I turn it to the thesis office (by June 16th) for my official “thesis turn in.” Next, I have to defend my thesis, which is where I give a talk in front of a bunch of people and my committee all about what I studied. Then, after people walk out of the room, my committee grills me on what I know. Hopefully I then walk away with my PhD after that.

In fact, the flier for the defense is out! It has my room and time. There is a Zoom option (they told me not to feature it on the flier), so just contact me if you’d like a link.

(Yes, I have many Matthews on my committee!)

Holy Cow, The Stress!

It is a universal truth that all PhD candidate will find themselves in an absurd amount of stress during their studies. Especially during the writing of their thesis.

I’m not going to give you the gritty details, but I can tell you that I got to a point a few times where I had so much stress, I had both gut issues AND joint pain. I never knew that was possible, but holy crap, was that painful. Like, it localized in my hips and knees (or I noticed them because I like to cycle as my main workout).

As of today, with 24 hours of my thesis being out of my hands, I’ve slept 11 hours and my muscles ache like I ran a marathon yesterday. How. How?!?

How About Them Jobs?

Um…

Yeah…

About that…

It’s not going well. Like, at all. I’m putting out feelers and applications daily, and I’m getting nothing. Not even for a basic bench job in a lab. Everywhere is laying off scientists. The job market is slim, if I can even call it that. I’ve been

And for those who are like, “well, this is temporary, and this will pass,” please keep in mind that I’d like to not be “temporarily” homeless or jobless. Especially after 6 years of intense training, I’d kinda like to be on a livable wage.

So what am I to do? Well, I have a couple of back-up plans, which really boils down to “which hobby of mine do I need to monetize?”

1) Do I become a content creator? I was 100% planning on keeping up my blog after my PhD, and I have so many video ideas. That said, it takes a while to even build up to 100 people watching your content (I have, what, a max of 50 people who see my content on instagram even after 2 years of consistently posting?), and is not the most stable source of income. I have been playing with the idea of making a ko-fi or patreon to help boost my income (these are sites that let people pay you monthly so that you can do your art), but that’s only a few bucks a month if I have people pay $1-5 a month. That’s not sustainable as real income.

2) Do I become a freelance science communicator? Is there a way I can walk into labs and offer my services to labs. I can make videos, write laymen summaries for their articles, work on their websites, etc. I’d be making their research palatable for . I would even give workshops on how to present/stand on stage/tell a science story so that scientists can learn to reach a different audience. And this is important right now, as we do desperately need. The problem arises when we have to ask if any lab is willing to, you know, PAY ME for what I can do (especially with money being tight right now thanks to the Trump administration’s efforts).

3) Can I become a science editor? I know there’s a shortage of editors for journals, and a major science editor has told me that I’d be a perfect editor, but many of the job openings I’ve come across online are not remote… and they’re in Texas. No. I’m not moving to Texas. Even under threat, I wouldn’t move there. If anyone knows of where to find the remote editing jobs, send them my way.

4) Can I take my chances as a freelance science writer/editor? This is a little more focused than being just a science communicator. This would be more helping writing articles and grants for a STEM audience, not the general public. Very different writing style. It’s not my favorite kind of science writing (it’s so freaking dull) but I can do it. And I can write fast, which is a major bonus. Do I want to write grants? No, that’s really not my strength. I can edit them just fine, but the money is in the writing bit. And my gosh, is writing a grant one of the more boring experiences I’ve ever done. But hey, it’s a job.

5) Do I also become a science illustrator? …Actually, this isn’t going to be a question. I’m going to offer this service once I’m out of grad school. It turns out I’m actually shockingly good at making figures, and even other science illustrators have mentioned that I’m very good at what I do.

6) Do I go the science journalist route? I've actually met with a science journalist yesterday over coffee, and he’s going to help me write 1-2 articles! Now, if I can turn that into an actual job rather than the hobby/side-hustle I was thinking it was going to be, this might be the most stable source of income out of everything.

7) Do I apply for… gulp a Post-Doc? I really, REALLY don’t want to, as it’s just me being in a PhD all over again, but with less guidance, and it’s REALLY not what I want to do after 6 years of a not-so-great grad school experience. But If I have to, I guess I could.

Yeah…. not the best options for coming right out of graduate school. All of these options (aside from option #7) were going to be my side-hustle ideas ALONG SIDE MY BENCH WORK in my original work plan back in January 2025. Well, I won’t be getting into the workforce until August 2025, so maybe jobs will start to open up by then? Who knows!

(And unfortunately, I’m not considering being a future indie publisher as a means of income. Indie publishers usually don’t start to seeing profit until after publishing multiple books. Once I publish, I’ll be lucky to break even on my first few books.)

How’s the Blog Coming?

It’s going to take me a bit to pump these out, now that I’m no longer being crushed by the weight of my PhD thesis, but I have 3 posts that are for sure going to be coming out:

1) Gunpowder in fantasy (80% done. I just need to bolster some sections and find more sources before I can publish. I haven’t touched it in 30+ days due to thesis work!)

2) Dire wolves (Covering the whole “genetically modifying dire wolves” story from an actual scientist’s perspective while also going into how we genetically modify animals)

3) Antibody production (covering the story of how a man recently immunized himself to multiple snake venoms and now has unique antibodies for scientists to study. Also, this is a very common fantasy trope, so it’s one worth delving into for my fantasy readers).

The blog is not dead, it’s very much alive, the writer simply couldn’t juggle that many writing projects at once! (thank you for your patience!)

Now What?

I’m giving myself 24 hours of complete rest, and then I’m going to work away on my defense presentation.

Also, we’re going to go on some fun bike rides once my body recovers. Lots of morning rides are in my future!

I’ll see you after my defense, my friends!

-Becca