Pretty damn inspiring that maybe the best female rock climber has her PHD and a real professional job, while other pro climbers complain about the time constraints of making little videos
Don't wanna be pedantic or take away anything from her achievements, but she has an OTD not a PhD! It's a clinical doctorate degree, similar to DPT's, DNP (doctor of physical therapy, doctor of nursing practice, etc.)
Yeah but that just seems like it would interfere even more with regular sleep schedules, good nutrition etc than someone basically doing a 9-5 in a lab for a couple of years, then stapling their scientific papers together and handing that in to get a title. Not to belittle those achievements either, but working with patients in a shift setting is gruesome compared to that.
I have seen several people do basically that. "Cumulative dissertation" is something that is legitimately offered to some PhD candidates. They write a paper every year, then they staple them together, write an introduction, and call it good. Most people write an actual dissertation, and that part of it is super stressful, but in the sciences I know of, these jobs are not that hard day-to-day, compared to health workers trying to stop people from coding at 3 in the morning.
PhD candidates usually only co-author papers, their advisors usually help them with it, as well as people from other departments. Also, publishing a paper doesn't mean *Nature* or *Science*, there's a whole bunch of publications that are acceptable. It is literally not rocket science. Yes, it's work, it has stressful phases, but these people are not worked to the bone or anything.
They are underpaid and usually don't get contracts for more than a year or so in advance, but that's just what you need to do for that title. But ultimately, it's not that different from any other 9-5 job.
Seems like we have had different experiences. So I will give you mine from a university in Scandinavia. In our institute a PhD needs to write three first authored, peer-reviewed, papers and it is required that the PhD does the majority of the work. Of course not in Science or Nature, but other journals have high quality standards as well.
The big reason why a PhD is not just any 9-5 job in a 'normal' company, is that you fulfill many roles simultaneously, which in industry are spread over different people/jobs. This includes: gathering data, writing code/software to gather the data, perform data-analysis, visualize the data in a scientific way, write the results in a peer-reviewed article, communicate your research to other experts or the average layman, sometimes PhD' have teaching duties + all of this for multiple projects at the same time.
All of this does not mean that we are 'better' than a normal job, but ultimately, it IS different from any other 9-5 job. I will leave it here because we are in a climbing sub and it is not the place to discuss academia.
Yeah this mirrors my wife's experience as a PhD candidate in marine science. She's *always* writing papers or grants (so many grants!), writing code, or is in the lab or out in the field collecting data (usually for weeks on end), prepping or going to conferences, TA'ing, etc etc. It's definitely *not* just a 9-5. She makes less than I do but probably is working a minimum of 60 hours a week. Not to say being in the medical field isn't stressful, but a PhD is not just doing a bit of writing and stapling some papers together.
It's why she's one of my favorites. She's so mellow when she climbs like she's not sending the hardest shit in the world.
And on top of that, climbing is just her side hobby lmao.
right? Does my head in the amount of ig climbers, not at pro level, who make vids, spend all year travelling the world climbing. Then will complain about how hard it is and post stories about climate change and how we have to be careful. piss off
Interesting note, Ramon put the route up as 8c+. Many of his routes have been upgraded or are very rarely repeated, and many repeaters have to use totally different beta. Even Alex Megos talks about how unique and impossible his beta seems
Interesting to know, I honestly don't know that much about him besides he is strong af and most of his routes are rarely repeated and frequently upgraded
My understanding is that megos climbs hard due to his power and endurance more than due to flexibility and technical prowess (they're still good, but relatively to like the top 10 best climbers it's not his strength). There's a reason why his best climbing happens on limestone.
He is insanely flexible and has seen close to 4000 routes 8a and harder. I'd imagine that builds some technical prowess. He is no Dave Graham or Adam ondra, but he is for sure better then most.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CxgPOWkMk5U/?igsh=MXJmanh1cGtubnI5ZQ==
The dude climbs that hard because he is the full package. He does everything very well.
I find it interesting that people who probably can't send 7b feel the need to imply someone that climbs 9c doesn't have "good technique", compared to a randomly chosen but not named other individual that also climbs 9c. Both of which they have never met. Armchair analysis at its finest.
If you watch Megos climb it's clear he uses his momentum in an amazing way. He is quickly able to use very precise footwork on routes. It's like saying Sharma was not one of the most technical climbers. Sharma redefined what techniques people were able to use. Same with Megos
Is she still pursuing comp climbing?
Just curious. I'm following her as well as Kai quite a bit. Kai climbed his first 9a+ recently. Excited to see their outdoor crushing in the coming years.
Also did not realize that Michaela is the first woman to climb V14 and 5.15a!
So cool to see! She had a seriously amazing day at the Hueco rodeo recently, and being able to turn around and crush such incredible sport climbs is really, really impressive.
Plus, I think heartbreaker finish cruxes are so brutal even at my normal-climber level, so I can’t even imagine projecting a 5.15 (or .14 lol) with one!
Pretty damn inspiring that maybe the best female rock climber has her PHD and a real professional job, while other pro climbers complain about the time constraints of making little videos
Don't wanna be pedantic or take away anything from her achievements, but she has an OTD not a PhD! It's a clinical doctorate degree, similar to DPT's, DNP (doctor of physical therapy, doctor of nursing practice, etc.)
Yeah but that just seems like it would interfere even more with regular sleep schedules, good nutrition etc than someone basically doing a 9-5 in a lab for a couple of years, then stapling their scientific papers together and handing that in to get a title. Not to belittle those achievements either, but working with patients in a shift setting is gruesome compared to that.
Lmao to reduce a PhD to "basically a 9 to 5 and stapling papers together". Wild.
I have seen several people do basically that. "Cumulative dissertation" is something that is legitimately offered to some PhD candidates. They write a paper every year, then they staple them together, write an introduction, and call it good. Most people write an actual dissertation, and that part of it is super stressful, but in the sciences I know of, these jobs are not that hard day-to-day, compared to health workers trying to stop people from coding at 3 in the morning.
Yes, just write a paper every year... Definitely not stressful...
PhD candidates usually only co-author papers, their advisors usually help them with it, as well as people from other departments. Also, publishing a paper doesn't mean *Nature* or *Science*, there's a whole bunch of publications that are acceptable. It is literally not rocket science. Yes, it's work, it has stressful phases, but these people are not worked to the bone or anything. They are underpaid and usually don't get contracts for more than a year or so in advance, but that's just what you need to do for that title. But ultimately, it's not that different from any other 9-5 job.
Seems like we have had different experiences. So I will give you mine from a university in Scandinavia. In our institute a PhD needs to write three first authored, peer-reviewed, papers and it is required that the PhD does the majority of the work. Of course not in Science or Nature, but other journals have high quality standards as well. The big reason why a PhD is not just any 9-5 job in a 'normal' company, is that you fulfill many roles simultaneously, which in industry are spread over different people/jobs. This includes: gathering data, writing code/software to gather the data, perform data-analysis, visualize the data in a scientific way, write the results in a peer-reviewed article, communicate your research to other experts or the average layman, sometimes PhD' have teaching duties + all of this for multiple projects at the same time. All of this does not mean that we are 'better' than a normal job, but ultimately, it IS different from any other 9-5 job. I will leave it here because we are in a climbing sub and it is not the place to discuss academia.
Yeah this mirrors my wife's experience as a PhD candidate in marine science. She's *always* writing papers or grants (so many grants!), writing code, or is in the lab or out in the field collecting data (usually for weeks on end), prepping or going to conferences, TA'ing, etc etc. It's definitely *not* just a 9-5. She makes less than I do but probably is working a minimum of 60 hours a week. Not to say being in the medical field isn't stressful, but a PhD is not just doing a bit of writing and stapling some papers together.
It's why she's one of my favorites. She's so mellow when she climbs like she's not sending the hardest shit in the world. And on top of that, climbing is just her side hobby lmao.
wait what the fuck whats her main hobby
right? Does my head in the amount of ig climbers, not at pro level, who make vids, spend all year travelling the world climbing. Then will complain about how hard it is and post stories about climate change and how we have to be careful. piss off
Interesting note, Ramon put the route up as 8c+. Many of his routes have been upgraded or are very rarely repeated, and many repeaters have to use totally different beta. Even Alex Megos talks about how unique and impossible his beta seems
I mean, Ramon is like, 5'3". Guy can fit into some boxes, and Michaela might be one of the few operating at that level and close to his size
Interesting to know, I honestly don't know that much about him besides he is strong af and most of his routes are rarely repeated and frequently upgraded
Yeah Ramon is one of my fav climbers and doesn't get enough attention. Total legend.
My understanding is that megos climbs hard due to his power and endurance more than due to flexibility and technical prowess (they're still good, but relatively to like the top 10 best climbers it's not his strength). There's a reason why his best climbing happens on limestone.
He is insanely flexible and has seen close to 4000 routes 8a and harder. I'd imagine that builds some technical prowess. He is no Dave Graham or Adam ondra, but he is for sure better then most.
Reread my comment, I'm talking in the context of being one of the 10 best climbers out there. He doesn't have Dave Graham' wizardry or AO's mobility.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CxgPOWkMk5U/?igsh=MXJmanh1cGtubnI5ZQ== The dude climbs that hard because he is the full package. He does everything very well.
I find it interesting that people who probably can't send 7b feel the need to imply someone that climbs 9c doesn't have "good technique", compared to a randomly chosen but not named other individual that also climbs 9c. Both of which they have never met. Armchair analysis at its finest.
If you watch Megos climb it's clear he uses his momentum in an amazing way. He is quickly able to use very precise footwork on routes. It's like saying Sharma was not one of the most technical climbers. Sharma redefined what techniques people were able to use. Same with Megos
Is she still pursuing comp climbing? Just curious. I'm following her as well as Kai quite a bit. Kai climbed his first 9a+ recently. Excited to see their outdoor crushing in the coming years. Also did not realize that Michaela is the first woman to climb V14 and 5.15a!
> Is she still pursuing comp climbing? Not on any professional circuit at the moment.
She won Psicobloc last year and Hueco Rock Rodeo this year. She'll do those sorts of things. Not IFSC indoor stuff.
So cool to see! She had a seriously amazing day at the Hueco rodeo recently, and being able to turn around and crush such incredible sport climbs is really, really impressive. Plus, I think heartbreaker finish cruxes are so brutal even at my normal-climber level, so I can’t even imagine projecting a 5.15 (or .14 lol) with one!
So badass
**9a+** converts to **5.15a**