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MEGA - Drug/Legal issues impacting school/job

endotropic said:
Almost every employment application I've ever seen here in the US asks about drug use that occurred within the past 5 years, even for highly sensitive positions (e.g. requiring access to controlled substances). I don't know if some legal requirement prevents them from asking about use outside of that period, but that's the cutoff I'm used to seeing.

Could you talk to someone in the field you want to pursue? I think if you pose the question just like you did in this thread you could get some useful responses.
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Shit. A couple years ago I signed up to volunteer to help out with kids and the application asked if I use drugs. I lied and said No. I smoke pot and did not think it mattered what I do when I am not volunteering. My point is that sometimes it's okay to lie if appropriate.... unless it's some sort of high security government position. The govt can afford to administer a lie detector test.
 
I have a respectable slew of misdemeanors from the last 7 years (mostly poss. of small amts of drugs, public intox, underage poss. of alcohol, shit like that) and a warrant out in some crazy state for not going to court over a gram of weed. No dui's or felonies. I've never listed any of them of them on a job app, many companies have run background checks, and only one has failed to hire me based upon what they found on a check (and I know this dude had it out for me anyways haha). I really don't think they care about petty bullshit. Your charges don't sound all that serious. You might have a little explaining to do but it won't bar you from any profession. Keep yo head up and don't let the man fuck with cha. Hopefully we'll all get all this shit expunged soon anyways haha.
 
finishing a phd with a felon conviction

i was 3 years into my phd when i get arrested and did 2yrs. technically i'm a first offender (first felony conviction) though it was a 'violent' crime. i was doing ecology and epidemiology, even though i only had a BA in Japanese when i started. my GRE scores (1540/1600) got me a nice deal and in the door, but i wasn't prepared. while i was locked up, the loans i took out for a year of post-bacc prep work defaulted, of course, and being locked up with no way to communicate is no excuse...so, should i drop the idea? i have all the data for my dissertation on how hosts with multiple parasites can be modeled like ecosystems, i might could finish it, though it'd never get published. thoughts?
 
As someone who never finished their dissertation (two chapters in my depression got so severe I couldn't write more than a sentence a day), it can be one of the hardest things to put behind you. If you decide to quit its gotta come from a place of certainty. I'm not entirely clear though, would you be writing this just for yourself or to finish your Ph.D degree? I assume you talked to your advisor and he gave you the ok? The fact that you have doubts tells me you'd be best off finishing, assuming you truly have the option. Trust me, even with a felony under your belt, having a Ph.D. is better than not having one. The main difference I see between a lot of professional scientists with and without Ph.D's isn't that the ones with Ph.D.s are better scientists, it's that the ones with Ph.D's survived their Ph.Ds. If you can survive that you are in a good place for what lies ahead.
 
oh, no, i have no option for advisement or publishing. what i have is a HUGE database and some scripts in R that do stats and make nice graphs and LOTS of papers i've mostly forgotten. i never got beyond that level because my scholarship ran out and i can't deal with the whole 'make your science sexy to sell it to budweiser' even if i was writing about white tailed deer biology. that's the part i can't do - get funds. i can sit and do analysis and make models all day long, i love that. i started by taking other scientists data and turning it into interactive web pages, then just tested into the program and won a whoppin huge load of scholarship. but now i can do that, and really understand it...but what am i supposed to do with these skills?

i had a nice model for the disease patterns of migrating butterflies i did as a post-bacc project, with the web page where you can slider all the variables, but i lost the paper to go with it. still may use it for an example webpage/resume.
 
so even if you write a chapter or two and contact your advisor to share, there is no chance he'll consider it? Hmm, well, if you don't have a job right now and you have the luxury of time, you might get some satisfaction out of it, but also consider it might just be time to move on. Hard to though. I've gotten over a lot of things in my life but not finishing my dissertation after all those years... I still have some work to do to get over it. If you're telling me your bridges are truly burned, and you tested that theory by actually talking to your advisor, then the only purpose of this exercise is closure. That's not a small one, but you'd be better off using your talents in the workforce.
 
You can also get on the student loan rehabilitation program. They will set a payment that is based off your current financial situation and then if you make that payment on time for six months or so then your loans will be removed from default which will make you eligible for further student loans.
 
levelsBeyond said:
so even if you write a chapter or two and contact your advisor to share, there is no chance he'll consider it? Hmm, well, if you don't have a job right now and you have the luxury of time, you might get some satisfaction out of it, but also consider it might just be time to move on. Hard to though. I've gotten over a lot of things in my life but not finishing my dissertation after all those years... I still have some work to do to get over it. If you're telling me your bridges are truly burned, and you tested that theory by actually talking to your advisor, then the only purpose of this exercise is closure. That's not a small one, but you'd be better off using your talents in the workforce.
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i have issues there - i feel like i disappointed her. plus the semester i missed, she got pregnant and and lost it, and i never knew until i came back for my stuff. but you're right, i'm going to talk to her, or people in the lab. it's worth looking into.
 
If you're that smart and you want to finish, try everything you can to do so! Don't be like me and squander your intelligence. :)
 
Tude said:
If you're that smart and you want to finish, try everything you can to do so! Don't be like me and squander your intelligence. :)
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my other option is using what i learned to turn my family farm into a productive, sustainable business. people buying my tomatoes don't care if i just got over a bad case of the stripes. then again, no health insurance, no insurance at all.
 
tantric said:
my other option is using what i learned to turn my family farm into a productive, sustainable business. people buying my tomatoes don't care if i just got over a bad case of the stripes. then again, no health insurance, no insurance at all.
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I would focus on that instead of on the articles, project, PhD. work.

A Friend of mine has a PhD. and has published papers, and done post-doctorate work, and he told me how having a PhD. makes you too concentrated, or too focused and your job opportunities are very limited, and extremely competitive.
 
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^Qft! If you're able to work for yourself and it be sustainable, that's the best! You answer to no one but yourself.
 
It's not necessarily better to have a PhD than not, having a PhD automatically makes you overqualified for many jobs and shuts as many doors as it opens. It depends on the field, but there are many PhD's walking around looking for jobs, underemployed or even doing shit work because they're "overqualified." First thing I'd do is talk to one of your old professors, or someone in the same/similar department at the local uni and get their opinion on how to proceed. You definately need a mentor that knows the field and the job prospects in it. The government is cutting budgets left and right, and your field may be one.
 
I have a pretty serious DUI on my record along with many other charges, mostly alcohol related but there's also vandalism and shoplifting. I fucked up bad; and with background checks basically inevitable now I couldn't find a job even after applying to maybe 30+ jobs all over the country. I ended up with a decent paying job with a lot of room to move up, and I'm proud of it. Not my ideal situation but I did what I had to do, and I'm paying the bills just fine.
 
2 x DUI (Mid range and high range) - Good thing they were 5 years apart as the last one for high range would of been taken into effect upon sentencing me. Am currently on good behaviour however am bout to get my license back in 2 months.

1 x Obtain money by financial deception (Section 9, 1)

I blame all my problems on Anxiety and Depression but as of recent I see it's a mistake to blame it on something when I know and should know better.
 
Yes, been arrested many times, several misdemeanors, now convicted felon for Assaulting a Peace Officer. well, i'm dirt poor. my student loans defaulted in prison. OTOH, prison made me a better man (not from any kind of rehabilitation - that doesn't exist). i know now that if i follow the path of the Lord Buddha, i can be happy most anywhere. i know things about honor and loyalty that i only pretended before, plus, now i'm an alpha, which is kinda fun. i like my life - which is how i judge success. i remember as a kid, i had to fill out this card with all kinds of questions - one was 'what do you want to be when you grow up?' that was 3rd grade. i wrote 'happy'.
 
Job search after addiction

Hey sober living i have a question about a job imterview im going to tonight so some quick responces would be helpful. So around january of 2015 i watched my grandmother who raised me have a stroke and take her last breath, if that wasn't enough then the mother of my child left me and i stopped seeing my son for quite a while. This drove me to drinking heavily and a few meth/mdpv binges which eventually resulted in me losing my job.

Well i recently moved from Ky to Az and am now living at a halfway house and trying to stay sober. I have my first job interview in years and i really don't know what to say about my time being unemployed. Should i be straight up or maybe just make an excuse and try to avoid the subject as much as possible? Any help would be appreciated thanks.
 
Hm, I would lie. Don't even mention family problems because they just seem like excuses and they might think "you're one of them" you knows, always having to leave work early for a "family emergency" or etc. Can you say you were out of the country? Or out of state, taking care of family matters (caring for sick grandmother maybe), etc? Oh, yes, say you were out of state to take care of your sick grandmother & she passed away and then you had to take care of her estate matters, etc. You can also just make up some other part time employment, like free lancing, um, construction, or repair work, etc. Just so it makes you look busy.
 
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