Five years ago, I got the email I had hoped for. “We are very pleased to offer you admission to the Neuroscience Ph.D. program,” it read, as confetti in the school’s colors rained down the screen. My parents didn’t have college degrees. I didn’t meet someone with a Ph.D. until college—and now I was going to be one, training in my first-choice program. My friend and I decided to celebrate by making some homemade mac ’n cheese, and we headed to the grocery store for milk. But there was none: The date was 13 March 2020, and COVID-19 had been declared a pandemic 2 days before. Now, I’m nearing graduation in another time of crisis—hoping to draw strength from the lessons I learned the first time around.
my comment: I think that just sitting and waiting for improvement is a bad position. If there is an opportunity to find a job in a commercial company or a startup related to scientific research, then you should try to get a job there. If possible, equip your garage, as described in the article by Nature (https://www.nature.com/articles/467634a), to do home research as a hobby, or maybe for non-governmental grants, in collaboration with your university. Your own laboratory in the garage is a guarantee that your equipment and developments will not be thrown out one "fine" day. More complex research related to dangerous and licensed actions must be carried out in large scientific centers in collaboration with them.
