Comment by htx80nerd
3 hours ago
>What am I missing?
I will answer this question honestly. I used to be friends with a group of PhD students work worked in labs. Every week I heard their complaints. One relayed a story in which a Chinese lab mate / co-worker was refusing to following their boss (PI) directions or request, and shared secret results with another Chinese student in a competing lab.
- Their boss (the PI) had asked the Chinese student to train other labmates on some specific testing methods, they refused.
- The Chinese PhD student would simply ignore the PI emails.
- Then magically their study results end up leaked to another Chinese PhD candidate.
Chinese PhD types can 'buy' their way into labs. They have so much money no one wants to turn them away. Only the government can force it.
Most people have no idea what day-to-day life is actually like in PhD life / labs. It's a lot less "science" and way more "human drama" than you could imagine.
Are we supposed to generalize your third-hand anecdote about one Chinese PhD student to all Chinese PhD students?
> Chinese PhD types can 'buy' their way into labs. They have so much money no one wants to turn them away.
The way it works in the US is that labs pay the PhD students, not the other way around. I have never heard of a student paying the lab, ever.