|
Grad SchoolPart 3 Surviving Grad School Hello fellow TL netizens. I'm Zaranth, and I'm going to be sharing my graduate school know-how with you and this is the Part 4: You can find Part 1 here!And Part 2 here!And Part 3 Here!You’ve done it - you got past the interviews, you chose a school, and now you’re on the way to getting a PhD and getting called “Doctor.” But what should you expect during grad school? How do you navigate through this long, sometimes confusing process? Never fear, Zaranth is here! This blog post is going to cover a lot of different parts of grad school, so it will be long, but hopefully very informative. Enjoy! Note: This post will be heavily influenced by my own experience. UMass has an umbrella program, which means students are accepted to the graduate program, and they pick their department based on which lab they decide to work in. It is possible to generalize my experience to almost all graduate programs in the US, but the details will differ. I invite people who have different grad school experiences to post in the comments, so folks can see the kind of diversity that exists. Note: In this section I will introduce an abbreviation some of you may not know: PI, which stands for Principal Investigator. This references the professor of the lab you choose to join. (PI comes from the last author listed on biology papers, which is the professor.) Year 1 - Courses, Rotations, and Selecting a Lab,Year 1 is very intense. There are multiple levels of stress that you will have to deal with. Most likely, you have moved away from where you did your undergrad. You’ll be searching for new friends and getting used to living in a brand new city. You will be dealing with classes, and expected to do better than you did in undergrad. You will also be rotating through labs that you will possibly join for your thesis research. Each of these things is important, and you need to succeed at all of them at the same time. Let’s start with moving to a new place. Getting Settled in a New CityThe grad school should be able to help you with this. If the school does not have student housing, or if you choose to live off campus, you should be able to get some recommendations for apartment buildings that are close to campus and affordable. The school may send out a list of first year students that are looking for roommates. If you want a roommate, get on this list. It’ll be good to room with someone going through the same things you are. Realize that you will be living in this city for 6-7 years, so you have the ability to move around. If you live somewhere that you don’t like, use the time to scope out the area and find a better neighborhood to move to next year. Coursework Year 1At my school, there is a full load of coursework in your first year. There are two types of courses, lectures and paper discussions. The lecture courses are graded through homework and exams; the paper discussions are graded via participation and knowledge. My school requires a grade of A or B. A student who receives a C must repeat that course and obtain an A or B. If a student receives two C’s, they are kicked out of the school. If a student outright fails a course, they are kicked out of grad school. About half to three-fourths of your time the first year is spent on coursework and studying. The coursework will be more difficult than you had in undergrad. Mainly, this is because you will be expected to learn and memorize all aspects of science research in a short period of time. You will be flooded with information, and each lecture will present a new topic and its associated details. In one lecture, a professor went through 65 extremely detailed slides in 45 minutes, and then went through another 60 in the last hour. It’s a lot of information to take in. The courses are taught by faculty. At UMass, a different faculty teaches on different topics, meaning that it’s common to have a new faculty teaching each lecture in a course. This also creates diverse grading during exams, since each faculty grades their own questions. Therefore, you have to determine how to answer each question based not only on the material you learned, but on the faculty that will grade you. Some faculty want you to write a two-page essay answer, while others want one sentence and a diagram. This only creates additional stress during exams. Another type of class you’ll probably be exposed to is based on reading primary literature and discussing it in a group setting. The idea is to learn how to understand and dissect scientific publications. These courses are usually pretty easy, since the focus is on group discussion and comprehension. The hardest part is getting used to reading and interpreting the papers. Once you’ve got a few under your belt, the rest should be pretty simple. Lab RotationsBesides surviving the rigorous coursework, you will be going through rotations. Rotations are short periods of time (anywhere from 4 weeks to 3 months) that you spend in a lab, working on a mini project and deciding if you want to join that lab for your thesis research. Many incoming students wonder how many rotations they should do before settling down in a lab. I would suggest doing at least three. Just because you like the first lab doesn't mean that’s the one you should pick. There may be better labs out there, and there may not be. This is the most critical choice you will make in grad school, so it’s better to err on the side of caution. To pick a rotation lab, first check out the faculty’s web site. Does their research sound interesting? Read the most recent publication or two from the lab. Do you like what you read, or did you find it boring? How many publications does the lab have, and when did the most recent one come out? How big is the lab? Once you have a few candidate labs, e-mail the professor and ask for a meeting. Wait for a few days, then e-mail again. If you don’t get a reply, go ahead and stop by the professor’s office. If you don’t get a friendly answer, don’t bother rotating there. During your meeting, discuss the projects that are currently underway in the lab, and ask about any ideas the professor has that a new grad student could take on. It’s a good sign if there are a few projects ready and waiting to be picked up by a new student. Once you’re in a rotation, it’s important to get a good feeling for the lab. Most likely, you’ll be working with another grad student or a post-doc for the rotation. This lab member will show you the ropes and help you get your hands wet at the bench. Some schools focus on the result of that work as a measure of competency. It’s important to keep in mind that along with impressing the professor, you are judging the lab. Is this a place you could work in for the next 5-6 years? Choosing a LabAt the end of your rotations, you will have to choose a lab in which to do your thesis research. There are a lot of considerations at this point, and I’ll address some of them here. 1) Try to avoid working in a lab where you are the only grad student (exceptions are small labs just getting started). If the lab has been around for a while and there are no other grad students there, it may be a sign that it’s not a good lab. 2) Listen to the gossip about professors. If you hear about PIs who are harsh on their students, who hound them for results, it is a good idea to avoid that lab. I’ve talked to a few students who regret joining their labs because the professor is pushy and controlling. They’ve actually told current rotation students not to join the lab. 3) Make sure your professor is around and available. I’ve heard stories of students going months without even seeing their bosses. That’s too long. You should feel comfortable enough with your PI that you can walk into their office at any time and sit down to chat about your progress. Your PI should be in their office most of the time. They are there to act as your mentor, so find one that will. 4) Think about the quality of research you could produce in that lab. Does the lab work with a model organism? If so, which one? (Mice take forever to work with, flies are irritating, yeast is easy, human cells can be very tricky.) Is there a pet technique that the lab uses? What type of science will you be learning and doing, and how will you use that in a future career? If you didn’t like the type of experiments you performed during your rotation, don’t join the lab. 5) How big a name is your PI? This has pros and cons. If your PI is a big name in their field, they’ll be traveling to a lot of meetings, but they also know a lot of people and can connect you for future employment. If they are a small name, they’ll be more accessible, but also may not have great contacts. This may or may not influence your decision, but it’s something to consider. Overall, think carefully about this decision. Consider what type of support and friendship you will get from your labmates; the type of mentoring you’ll get from your PI; the type of research you will produce and publish; finally, consider how long it will take you to graduate. Make a good, smart decision! Year 2 - Qualifying ExaminationIn your second year of grad school, you may be taking one or two advanced topics courses, but your main objective will be to prepare and complete your qualifying examination. What is a qualifying exam? Again, this will differ from school to school, but what I have to say will generally pertain to most programs. Typically, the qualifying exam consists of a written portion and an oral portion. At my school, the written portion takes the form of a grant proposal. The oral portion consists of your committee members (more on this in a sec) and you sitting in a room for two hours while they ask you questions. Choosing Your CommitteeAt most schools, you will have the freedom to choose most, if not all, of your committee members. This is a decision you will need to think a lot about. You will need to have between 3-5 members. Your members should be other professors from the school that work in your field, or a closely related one. You want them to understand your project, and you also want them to be able to contribute and enhance it with their knowledge. Your choice of committee may have to be approved by the dean. Make sure you know the specific rules and deadlines set up by your school. Personal story time! When I had my qualifying exam, I picked the minimum number of committee members: 3. It’s easier to schedule 3 people, and I thought it would be nice to field questions from fewer people. My oral exam was scheduled for 10 am. At 9:30, I got my computer set up (I had a PowerPoint with slides describing my proposed thesis research), got my food ready, and began to wait. Two of my committee members showed up on time, but the third (and my chair!) was not there. We waited for about ten minutes. I went to his office - no one there. I checked in with his secretary, and she told me that he was out of town for a conference. WHAT!?! I couldn’t believe it. How could the chair of my committee completely forget about my qualifying exam (which I had been working on for three months)? I felt very upset. Since the school required three members to be present, we abandoned the exam, and I went back to my lab literally shaking with emotion. About ten minutes after that, the missing chair of my committee walked into my lab. He had forgotten the start time, and thought it was eleven instead of ten! I called back the other two members of my committee and we held the exam. I passed. The lesson I want to share is: always have more members than the minimum. Even though it is a pain to schedule everyone, you don’t want to run the risk of having to cancel your exam because a member forgot the start time, or had a personal emergency and couldn't make it. The Written ExamMost schools will have a written portion of the qualifying exam. At my school, this takes the form of a grant application. Basically, you write up what you propose to do for your thesis research. To complete this portion takes a couple of months. First, you will have to do a lot of reading. You need to familiarize yourself with your chosen field’s literature. You should start by reading reviews, and continue by reading primary research papers. It’s important to keep these papers organized. I suggest using some sort of annotated bibliography method. I like to summarize the paper on a sticky note and put that on the front page of the paper. Then I file the paper according to subject. Endnote is a popular software for organizing papers, and there is a free Firefox plug-in called Zotero that does a similar job. As you write the exam, get help from fellow students who have passed their qualifying exams. They can give you advice and help you with the layout. At my school, you cannot get help from your PI. You will need to hand in your finalized proposal to your committee before you have your oral exam, so they can read it and prepare questions for you. The Oral ExamThis exam can also take many different formats. At my school, the oral exam can technically cover any and all course material you learned in year 1, as well as the written research proposal. In reality, most of the questions are about the written proposal. We prepare a PowerPoint presentation that augments the written proposal. The presentation includes figures from published papers that support our hypothesis, experimental procedures and hypothetical results, and possibly preliminary data that you or someone in your lab has already produced for this project. Be prepared for this exam to last a long time. The committee should ask a lot of questions, since they are testing the depth of your knowledge about your chosen research topic. They also want to make sure that your proposal is reasonable and can be completed in 5-6 years. They will offer alternative experiments, and may request that you completely get rid of one of your aims. Basically, you need to be prepared for anything. Many students provide food for their committee. If the exam is in the morning, coffee and donuts are typical. Some of our students even provide Panera sandwiches if the exam is at lunchtime. Find out what the norm is at your school and follow it. You want your committee to be in a good mood! Some schools or departments require their students to qualify on a topic that is not related to their thesis research. I think this is a horrible idea, but it’s not in my power to change the system. Be aware that this may be a factor for your own exam. If it is, you will have to do the work twice - once for your qualifying exam, and once for your thesis research. Years 3,4, and 5These are the middle years. You should be producing a lot of data. At this point, you’re basically grinding away, trying to get some publications out, and trying to make all your experiments work. There are a few things that I can address during these years. Career Development Huh? Why should I be worrying about what I’ll do when I graduate, since graduation is literally 4+ years away? Actually, this is the time you should be thinking about this the most. If you leave it until your 5th or 6th year, it will be too late (trust me on this one, folks). I will be speaking about career options extensively in Post 5, but it’s important to mention here. If you want to go into teaching, begin to search out teaching experience (if it’s not required of you already). If you want to go into business, find someone to shadow. Begin networking. Take extra classes if necessary. Figure out what you want to do when you graduate, and begin getting the experience you need now. Going to a MeetingAt some point, your PI will have decided that you’ve done enough work to present it at a meeting. Scientific meetings can be large or small events, and they can last anywhere from a few days to an entire week. It’s common for students attending a meeting to prepare a poster, and if you’re lucky, you may be asked to give a short talk. You’ll have to submit your poster/talk abstract well in advance of the meeting, so make sure you know the deadline and get your abstract submitted! I think this is a good spot to discuss building a poster. First, time - you should start working on this poster at least two weeks ahead of the meeting, and you should give yourself one week to get it printed (unless your program has a poster printing machine and can do it for you in an afternoon). Make sure you check the size standards of the meeting. Don’t bring a poster that is too big for your assigned space. Next, you need to think about the layout. There are a lot of details that go into a poster, including color schemes, font and font size, and whitespace. It’s very important to get the design right, otherwise no one will stop at your poster.There’s a website offering free PowerPoint poster layouts here: http://www.posterpresentations.com/html/free_poster_templates.html. Alternatively, your lab may have a template you can, and should, use. Remember to put your school’s logo in the top bar, along with the logos from your funding sources. I’m going to direct your attention to the following websites for detailed information about designing a poster. I think together they cover everything you will want to think about during the poster design. There should also be a department on campus that can help you if you get stuck. http://chem.virginia.edu/graduate-studies/test-links-pg/how-to-make-a-scientific-poster/http://www.cns.cornell.edu/documents/ScientificPosters.pdfhttp://sustainable-energy.ksu.edu/files/cse//CSE Symposium PosterPresentation 2011.pdfWriting a PaperHopefully, you will be in a position to write at least one paper in these few years. Paper-writing should be a collaborative effort between the first author (hopefully, you) and the last author (your PI). Sometimes this is not the case. There are some PIs who will write the entire paper themselves, and others who leave it entirely up to the graduate student. Each paper-writing situation is different. Here’s a nice overview of writing a scientific paper: http://classweb.gmu.edu/biologyresources/writingguide/ScientificPaper.htmCommittee MeetingsDepending on the school, you will have meetings with your thesis committee on a regular basis. At UMass, we are required to meet with our committee at least once every year. Your thesis committee is not necessarily the same as your qualifying exam committee - again this will depend on the school. The job of your thesis committee is to make sure you are producing data and staying on track to graduate on time. For each meeting, you should prepare a presentation detailing the work you’ve completed, the work you are currently doing, and the work you plan to do in the future. You should also have a few back-up experiments tucked up your sleeve, in case your committee hates what you are currently doing. MotivationSome of you may have read a blog post of mine entitled “Grad School Ruined My Confidence.” http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=352064 (Actually the inspiration to create this TL Knowhow in the first place; lots of people are interested in grad school but don’t really know what it’s about. I should mention that I feel better now!) This is a common occurrence in the later years of grad school. How do you keep your motivation up when you’ve been stuck in a rut? What if that critical experiment just doesn’t work? What if all you obtain are negative results that cannot be published? What if you wake up one morning and realize that you hate you life and never want to see a Pipetman again? What if someone publishes a paper on exactly what you are working on? Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. And let me tell you, it fucking sucks. You don’t want to be in lab, and when you are there, you spend all your time browsing TeamLiquid. All grad students think that this will never happen to them, and all grad students are wrong. How you respond to this situation depends on your character. For me, I was able to work through the slump. Sure, I was not being very productive, but I got some things done. It helped that I was having weekly meetings with my boss, so he was checking in on my progress regularly. When you hit the wall, you’ll have to do whatever you can to get over it. You may need to take a week off and get away from the lab entirely. You may need to remind yourself why you started grad school in the first place and what you want to accomplish. Get support from fellow students, friends and family. I am lucky to have a very supportive and understanding boss. It’s gonna happen, it’s gonna suck, and you will have to pull yourself out. Consider this fair warning. Year 6/7 - Dat ThesisThis is the final piece of graduate school. By this time, you should have a few papers of first or second authorship under your belt. You should have presented your research in a professional environment. You have worked really hard to expand the knowledge of the human race. It’s time to write it all up and create your thesis. A thesis is a book containing all the work you’ve done in your graduate career. It contains chapters that pertain to the experiments you did and the results you obtained. Basically, it’s like 6 Cell papers all wrapped up into one bound volume. Each university will have their own rules about thesis writing, so I will share my knowledge and depend on others to add to it in the comments! At UMass, it’s your thesis committee (yes them again) who will decide when you are ready to write. Sometime in your 6th or 7th year, you will get the coveted check mark next to the box “Permission to Write” on your committee form. There will be much rejoicing, and then the pain begins. Once that box is checked, you have four months to write, edit, and defend your thesis. You’ll start with a clear plan of attack. You’ll put together the easy chapters first. Basically, you can modify the papers you have written to become chapters. If you have unpublished data, that can become a chapter as well. You will need an introduction, discussion, and future direction section. Then you need to add in all the references. At this point, you’ll probably be sick of everything you’ve ever done. Then you’ll need to edit and review the thesis before handing it to your PI for review and editing. Your PI will suggest numerous changes. You will edit again, hate your life, and finally hand it off to your dissertation committee for their input. “Dissertation committee?” the astute among you ask. So far, there’s been the Qualifying Committee, the Thesis Committee, and now the Dissertation Committee. At my school these are all unique! One of the main differences in the Dissertation Committee is the requirement for an outside member. This person is basically a PI at another institution that will read your thesis and come to your defense and offer an outside opinion. The point is, be aware that there can be a lot of requirements, and you need to be proactive in figuring out what they are. Anyway, you’ll eventually get your thesis written and orally defend it. Hopefully, you will pass your thesis defence no problem, and now you are officially DOCTOR. But what to do now? Where can you go in the world? Coming up in part 5 I will address perhaps the most pressing question: What can you do with a PhD in biology?
|
United States24342 Posts
Although everyone's experience will vary (depending on school, discipline, etc) just reading the experience of someone who has been through it recently seems like it can be very helpful. I am interested to see part 5, although I wish there was one for physics.
|
There is huge discrepancy in the "exams" that people take. There are schools that use these to "weed" people out whereas others have a very high pass rate. Additionally, if you fail the exams, you get a second shot at the portion you did not pass. Fail again and you won't be "Doctor". I don't want to overgeneralize here but it's usually foreign students who fail the oral part the first time around.
Also, I heard some schools require both a qualifying exam and comprehensive exam.
|
These make me not want to do it... sounds like so much stress/pressure/work.
|
Great writeup, as usual!
Hope part 5 comes up soon, I'm currently in my last year of PhD and interested in what lies beyond the thesis defense..!
|
oh boy ... part 5 is actually going to be the hardest one. I've been pretty good about writing these things before the last one was published, but I have not even started part 5 yet. I'll get to work ASAP ... hopefully I'll have more time to work on it over the holidays.
Schools are very different in their qualifying requirements. I can only write from my own experience, but I invite those with other experiences to share, so readers can get a better representation of the differences.
Thanks to everyone for your positive comments. :-)
|
I think it'd be worth mentioning the NSF predoctoral fellowship (I just subitted mine today). Having your own funding can help out a great deal if you 1)unexpectedly need to move (much easier to transfer if they don't have to pay), 2) aren't completely boned if your advisor decides to leave, 3) your advisor will love you.
|
Quite different to the UK, ours is anywhere between 3-5 years and you find an area that interests you run labs etc collaborate results write a paper and defend it all the while being employed generally by the University to be a workshop leader/helper/tutor in your given area, I guess we miss out the first 2 years of your version off grad school.
|
T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
I don't understand how people get the motivation to do this.
|
intrigue
Washington, D.C9931 Posts
i like reading this as comedy
|
On November 22 2012 04:48 T.O.P. wrote: I don't understand how people get the motivation to do this.
It's not so much destination but the journey that people enjoy. Some people just like to learn and to challenge themselves, and the high you get when you have momentum from consecutive experiments working.
I'm currently doing my M.Sc. and recently gotten out of a downswing. I'm 1.5 years in and for the first 1.25 years I had nothing but negative data and lab books filled with troubleshooting. I wanted to quit and wondered why I even bothered with grad school, and fortunately for M.Sc students, you can leave without publishing. Not too long ago I got a critical experiment to work and now my project is exploding and branching off into many directions. These days I can't wait to get into the lab to gather more data; I'm even considering switching into the PhD program to see how far I can take this project (although I still haven't decided yet).
When nothing is working and you're depressed, the days can feel very long. But when you have an active project with momentum, the days don't seem long enough! You suddenly want to do everything and read everything, and you feel like a GOD! I'm going to generalize here, but working for this feeling is how grad students remain motivated.
|
Great read as usual. Can't wait to read part 5
|
I just stumbled on this and found it quite interesting, reading this the process itself is not so different from professional school, I am a 1st year PharmD (pharmacy) student and was wondering what you think about the difference in difficulty from professional school and graduate school.
Also, is there interest in a professional school version of this? I am not sure if it has already been done or if I even have time, but it is a possibility.
|
On November 28 2012 08:31 sechkie wrote: I just stumbled on this and found it quite interesting, reading this the process itself is not so different from professional school, I am a 1st year PharmD (pharmacy) student and was wondering what you think about the difference in difficulty from professional school and graduate school.
Also, is there interest in a professional school version of this? I am not sure if it has already been done or if I even have time, but it is a possibility.
I have no idea how professional school works! Maybe you could share a brief post about the generalities of it. I'm sure a Knowhow would be great, and it probably doesn't need to be as extensive as a 5 part series. ;-)
Good luck in school!
|
YEAH! I just got my PhD position; Karolinska Institute, Stockholm ^_^
|
Two grades? A and B?America fuck yeah?
|
On December 01 2012 23:03 epoc wrote: Two grades? A and B?America fuck yeah?
Which is the same as the standard grading system at Swedish universities. I don't quite get where that comment is coming from, but whatever
Very interesting and well written, I for sure wouldn't be able to make it through that kind of work! Impressed by all of you guys pursuing a PhD! Good luck!
|
Is the medical school process similiar to PhD process?
|
On December 04 2012 13:24 HotGlueGun wrote: Is the medical school process similiar to PhD process?
I don't think so. From what I know of medical school, the first two years are very coursework intensive. Then next two years are more clinical. You're in and out in four years and in debt up to your eyeballs.
Actually us grad students make fun of the med students as taking the easy way, for what it's worth. I TA'd a med school course on Human Genetics and the students were pretty average. Basically, Med School is good for you if you can memorize a ton of information and regurgitate it. Grad school is good for you if you want to learn to think. burn
Note to med students: Yes you have a lot of work to do and yes it's hard.
|
Couldn't really tell, are you still in the progress of finishing your Ph. D. or are you all finished?
Hopefully the job market for your discipline is stronger than for mine ><
|
On December 05 2012 00:08 Zaranth wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2012 13:24 HotGlueGun wrote: Is the medical school process similiar to PhD process? I don't think so. From what I know of medical school, the first two years are very coursework intensive. Then next two years are more clinical. You're in and out in four years and in debt up to your eyeballs. Actually us grad students make fun of the med students as taking the easy way, for what it's worth. I TA'd a med school course on Human Genetics and the students were pretty average. Basically, Med School is good for you if you can memorize a ton of information and regurgitate it. Grad school is good for you if you want to learn to think. burnNote to med students: Yes you have a lot of work to do and yes it's hard.
IMO I've thought of it as the top 5-10% of your class tries to go into research, the next 30% go into med/dental/pharm, etc. Then the rest are often left to switch majors.
I know that it's not really true, but basically I think that the people in researchers have tons more dedication to learning the topic than those in healthcare fields.
|
@KOFgokuon: I am finishing up - I plan to graduate in late summer/early fall of 2013.
@sechkie: I think people in research are really interested in discovering new things and expanding knowledge. Healthcare is much different. It's about taking things that are already known and applying them to medicine. I don't think it has anything to do with grades or percentages in school as much as it has to do with attitude.
Edit: 300th post :-D
|
On November 18 2012 02:55 micronesia wrote: Although everyone's experience will vary (depending on school, discipline, etc) just reading the experience of someone who has been through it recently seems like it can be very helpful. I am interested to see part 5, although I wish there was one for physics.
Anything in particular you would like to know about physics grad school? I'm in my first year, so I won't be as knowledgeable as Zaranth, but I can answer questions about some of the basics.
|
United States24342 Posts
On December 09 2012 09:20 Aldrovandi wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2012 02:55 micronesia wrote: Although everyone's experience will vary (depending on school, discipline, etc) just reading the experience of someone who has been through it recently seems like it can be very helpful. I am interested to see part 5, although I wish there was one for physics. Anything in particular you would like to know about physics grad school? I'm in my first year, so I won't be as knowledgeable as Zaranth, but I can answer questions about some of the basics. The hardest part to get information on is the equivalent of 'part 5.' If you actually get a phd in physics, what are your options specifically? This is my current knowledge:
1) Do post docs for a few years (low pay but necessary for better academic appointments later like professor if you can land it, and even then your pay is crap until you work your way up the ladder) 2) Get hired by some company (I have no idea doing what, or what type of companies, or how the starting salary etc would be, how or in demand this is) 3) Work some menial job for low pay because you can't get anything good.
|
On December 09 2012 12:40 micronesia wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On December 09 2012 09:20 Aldrovandi wrote:Show nested quote +On November 18 2012 02:55 micronesia wrote: Although everyone's experience will vary (depending on school, discipline, etc) just reading the experience of someone who has been through it recently seems like it can be very helpful. I am interested to see part 5, although I wish there was one for physics. Anything in particular you would like to know about physics grad school? I'm in my first year, so I won't be as knowledgeable as Zaranth, but I can answer questions about some of the basics. The hardest part to get information on is the equivalent of 'part 5.' If you actually get a phd in physics, what are your options specifically? This is my current knowledge: 1) Do post docs for a few years (low pay but necessary for better academic appointments later like professor if you can land it, and even then your pay is crap until you work your way up the ladder)
So my understanding of it is that a lot of your options are going to depend on what your focus and specific research is. Postdocs are an option for everyone, but as you mentioned, the pay is pretty abysmal given how much training you have and how much work you are expected to put in. Postdocs at national laboratories might have it a little better than postdocs at universities (they seemed a little happier at least.) Going into military research is also an option, just depends on whatever moral qualms you may have about that kind of work.
2) Get hired by some company (I have no idea doing what, or what type of companies, or how the starting salary etc would be, how or in demand this is) Going into the private sector to do research is a lot more reasonable for people doing research in fields with direct applications - materials science, condensed matter (semiconductor research!), and optics. Stuff like chemical/biophysics I think can also get you a job in medical research, but I'm not really familiar with any of it.
For people doing stuff like HEP/particle physics it's possible to focus on programming and go to Wall St. as a quant after you finish your Ph.D., they'll have you doing numerical modelling. This supposedly pays really well, the tradeoff is that there's no physics involved. I don't know that this is specifically a particle physicist thing, more a "good at math and programming" thing.
Because you learn a ton of instrumentation techniques and have to build a lot of research equipment yourself, some people go off to be high-level technicians at instrumentation companies or found their own device manufacturing companies. I know one postdoc who was collaborating with my undergraduate advisor ended up starting a company selling vibrators.
3) Work some menial job for low pay because you can't get anything good.
As far as working a menial job goes, I once asked a professor in undergrad if I would be able to get a job with a PhD in physics. He said, "if you have a PhD in physics you will always have a job available to you somewhere, it's just a question of whether it's the job you want." Menial job might be an option, but it won't be the only one.
|
Reading this makes me depressed about my ambition to get a doctorate one day.
|
Ignoring volunteer/research work, extracurriculars, letters of recommendation, what type of college GPA is necessary to get into a good grad/med school?
|
@micronesia: there's actually a lot one can do with a PhD - sorry it's taking me to long to get to part 5 ... but it's important to remember that we are not defined by our technical abilities. We love to think that we are skilled because of the techniques we know, when in reality we can learn how to do any technique. It's better to think about other abilities that PhDs have and companies want: things like working under pressure, high levels of self-motivation, communication skills (presenting, writing, etc), ability to think on your feet, ability to think critically, ability to work well with others, etc...
@Praetorial: yeah it's not for everyone. The bad part is once you start, it can take a really long time to finish, and then you'll be 30.
@HotGlueGun: I had something like a 3.3/4.0 (check part 1 for exact numbers). GPA is actually not that critical - the research experience and letters of recommendation are more influential. A steady GPA that shows you're not failing courses should be enough.
|
On December 10 2012 23:49 Zaranth wrote: @Praetorial: yeah it's not for everyone. The bad part is once you start, it can take a really long time to finish, and then you'll be 30.
haha not as bad as my MD/PhD goals... I mean I'm really excited about it but it's still depressing to think how old i'm going to be when i get out of school, not even taking residency and stuff into account. and I'm applying without having taken any time off
@HotGlueGun: I had something like a 3.3/4.0 (check part 1 for exact numbers). GPA is actually not that critical - the research experience and letters of recommendation are more influential. A steady GPA that shows you're not failing courses should be enough.
This is definitely true for grad school, but for medical school it might be a bit different - I can't really give a good number for what GPA you need, but you do need a relatively good GPA to get your foot in the door (getting a secondary application/interview invitation). But the difference between say a 3.7 and a 4.0 generally won't matter much, although it generally depends on the school (for example, from what I've heard and seen WashU's med school emphasizes numbers a lot more than most schools, and considering how laid-back my interview was there I think that's fairly accurate)
|
On December 01 2012 23:03 epoc wrote: Two grades? A and B?America fuck yeah? This is every grad school everywhere btw
I'm in a doctoral program for clinical psychology and a B- gets me kicked out of the program
luckily there's remediation options and such in case it does happen but like hell i'm going to let myself get a b- in any of my classes
On November 18 2012 17:41 galtdunn wrote: These make me not want to do it... sounds like so much stress/pressure/work. I don't know what you thought getting a doctorate was like but I assure you it's not just sitting there braindead like undergrad is
|
Med school is very different from graduate school and you'll see a lot of variability from country to country in the training you get in both.
Med school memorization only gets you so far really. You'll look good on a few written multiple choice tests and when people pimp you on rounds, but your performance on the wards will be dictated by the efficiency with which you collect information and your organizational skills. Once you're in the hospitals/clinics, its all about how you categorize the information into problems and the steps you're going to undertake to address each problem.
Example: 65 year old female with a past medical history of coronary artery disease, dyslipidemia, type 2 diabetes on insulin and she is a long term smoker. She complains of shortness of breath and chest pain. You have a certain approach for how you'll collect information, examine the patient and do your investigations. You want to address infectious and cardiac causes while keeping an open mind for other dangerous and less dangerous possibilities like pulmonary emboli, cancer, gastric reflux. Does the patient have a pneumonia, is the patient in heart failure and if so why, is there a combination of problems occurring at this time, etc. Each possiblity needs to be addressed individually. Medicine is ultimately a lot more about management. Once you understand how to organize yourself and manage your patients and their issues in a given field, it becomes fairly straightforward.
Research: a couple details I want to add to the OP's excellent post: PhDs don't necessarily have to take 7-8 years. You can grind out a good PhD in 4-5, but that requires a lot of hard work, persistence and luck. Do not underestimate the power of luck in research. The project you start working on most likely won't be the project you end up writing your thesis about. Despite your best efforts and rigor as a scientist, you may not get into Nature or Cell because your work is not the topic of the day. As you go through your PhD, the first couple years you end up doing a lot of trouble shooting and in the middle years you collect data and really once you hit your first paper, you should have an understanding of what it is you need to push a study forward and at the same time, you'll find data flows much more smoothly. Barring any disaster, once you publish your first paper, your following studies and thesis should be out within a 1.5-2 years after and you should be defending. You eventually learn how to think about research and how to organize yourself along what people will expect you to present to publish. The really hard part of the PhD is getting over that initial really aggravating, discouraging hurdle where nothing works and nothing makes sense and then understanding that reviewers will wipe their asses with your paper before handing it back to you. Research can be pretty ungrateful work.
I want to emphasize the OP's point that the most important part to your PhD is the lab that you select. You need to have a good dynamic with your boss. Your relationship is essential as your boss will decide the pace at which s/he reads your papers, approves your going to conferences and you can't pass your defense unless s/he's happy. You want to make sure you have ressources in your lab you can rely on because odds are, your boss won't be there too often for you and you'll be on your own to figure out what is going on and how to get things done. Having people help you learn how to do experiments, give talks, write papers and to bounce ideas from is essential for your success.
Committees are not so scary if you know how to stack them in your favor if your school allows. You want people that are familiar with your field and won't have an invested interest in sinking you. The quals is really as bad as it gets as its one of the earliest times you get challenged. As you go to conferences, write papers, have more committee meetings you'll find people will keep asking you the same questions over and over. By the time you defend, you should already have answered 2/3 of the questions people will be asking many times already. Remember: almost no one will ever ask a question to which they don't already know the answer. God forbid THEY look stupid at YOUR talk.
Writing the thesis is really about writing the introduction to your thesis. You recycle your publications as the main body of your work and you add in an introduction and a discussion at the end. The introduction will be a broad review of what your work is based on (which you can later turn into a publication or 2) and it will be the most awful experience you will ever have had. Just stay home for a month and do nothing but write. Its basically a long tedious text that almost no one will ever read again where you have 2-3 references for every single sentence you write. Do not go fishing for references later. The discussion is intellectual masturbation.
In medicine and research, transferable skills go a long way. I agree with the OP's later comments. The subject of a PhD doesn't really matter because ultimately, the PhD reflects your acquisition of a certain number of skills. I can talk to people in different fields about their work because the way you think about things is the same. The subject matter is important, but its pretty easy to orient yourself around the logic behind their work. A PhD really reflects your ability to synthesize a body of work independently, the ability to ask a precise question, pick apart an idea and communicate information to both a scientific and a lay audience (and as easy as that is to say, it takes years of practice to do). These skills will serve you well regardless of whether you go into government, industry or continue as a post doc to try to become a PI yourself.
|
I only got three years for my PhD in molecular biology, it's a hell of a grind! The above post talking about luck is so true. GLHF to all of you who engange in this sort of career.
|
Looking back at it, I truly enjoyed my time in getting a master's degree in biostatistics. Ye gods, it was hard, though.
I'll say this now, as I don't expect to remember to swing by for part 5 -- surround yourself with brilliant people even after you graduate! That's the best way to keep learning, and to keep work in your field interesting.
|
Very interesting series of posts!
Just one remark: even though it is mentionned in part 1, it's not always clear that you are talking about biology + in the US kind of PhD. There is a *lot* of variance about everything you say, with respect to field and location.
I am currently getting my phd in computer science in France, and, just to point a few major differences: -no qualifiers, no intense coursework during 1st year (this is more or less done before) -no "lab rotation"; again this is done in other ways -duration = 3 years for most people -these things are very different for my friends getting their phd in the same university but different field -etc..
to the author: maybe remind people, sometimes, that the information you give is very specific to field/location? to people reading: if you consider getting your phd in a different country/field, and want accurate information, it may be good to look elsewhere.
Again, thank you for sharing all this info, I'm too lazy to do the same for my field/country.
|
The thread applies to most PhD programs (at least, the sciences and engineering) in North America, much less in Europe. Differences, for example, can include that some programs in the UK force you to graduate after 3-4 years, regardless of publications. Its like a master's in the US where you write, submit and defend. Something to keep in mind with these programs is that publications are the currency of academia and that I have heard several influential academics outright say that many European PhDs were not competitive in North America as a result.
The US programs, more than the Canadian programs, can have the rotations across the first year where you see what lab fits you by spending a semester there.
|
That is pretty good info! Thanks. I have a BSc in bio and decided to go do another one in computer science instead of going to grad school because I want a job and $$$ easily. Later down the road though, I want to go back and get a PhD in bio/bioinformatic so it's good to know.
|
On December 17 2012 00:51 Dr.Sin wrote: The thread applies to most PhD programs (at least, the sciences and engineering) in North America, much less in Europe. Differences, for example, can include that some programs in the UK force you to graduate after 3-4 years, regardless of publications. Its like a master's in the US where you write, submit and defend. Something to keep in mind with these programs is that publications are the currency of academia and that I have heard several influential academics outright say that many European PhDs were not competitive in North America as a result.
One thing worth noting though: to start a PhD in France (and in many other European countries), you first need to complete a master program, with usually a 6 months research internship. Also, in science, many people here have gone through "classes prepa", that give in two years the equivalent of an American masters student's level in mathematics/physics. Bottom line: even though the PhD program itself only lasts 3 to 4 years, we don't need to spend time rotating/studying for quals/getting "basic" advanced classes, etc, because this has been done in a slightly different way before. We start doing research/publishing right away.
That being said, 3 years *is* a short time, and if you want to pursue academia after, you are expected to go through 1 or 2 years of postdoc in a different lab/country. Universities around here might not want to hire somebody who spend 5 years in the same lab.
|
I'm a second year in biology.
There are of course even variations between schools. Where I am we had very minimal coursework and the exams are relatively informal affairs.
PhD is indeed a different animal in US vs Europe. But as someone said before, if you are looking to stay in academia what matters is your publications, not where you got the degree and what was involved.
|
Publications matter (I'd say they're the most important, think we can agree on that) but to say where you went and what was involved doesn't matter is quite naive.
|
Europe definitely has a different system for their PhD process. Here in the US no masters is required, so for the first few years of graduate school we are basically doing a masters. The differences begin before that step too. In college, a degree in the US is much more general. Though we declare a major and minor, we also have to take "general education" courses such as English, Social Studies, etc. I gather that in Europe the collegiate courses are strictly about a specific discipline with no need to take classes outside that field.
Publications are important, but the lab you do your research in is probably just as important. Your PI has a huge influence over your career. If your PI is working on the forefront of the field, doing cutting edge research, and is well known in the community, you'll have a better chance at securing a good post-doc. Also the management style of the PI is critical to your success. I would say that the name/prestige of the school is not that important, but who you are working with will definitely affect your future career.
|
Yes, very true. Overall, I think there are so many determinant things that are mostly unknown before you actually start your PhD (your PI, your lab, your topic is trendy or not, your paper got bashed by retarded reviewers, etc) that luck becomes a huge factor. So yeah, avoid PI who look like big frauds, labs with no money, and super crappy schools, but I'd say that the one thing you can have the best estimate *a priori* is how much you are interested in a topic. This has been the determinant factor for my choice and I don't regret it (my PI has turned out to be, after a few months, super awesome, and I didn't really know that before I picked him).
|
In my grad school you can get under a B but... you fail. There are like one class you can C on but of course its pretty negative on your GPA.
|
I am a PhD student in Canada. Had a chance to talk to the Vice President of Genetech in a conference San Francisco last week. I was told post doc experiences are a must for most big pharmaceutical now. Even biotech companies prefer PhDs' with post doc experiences.
|
Looks just about the same as everything else I ever heard about science grad school, thanks for posting this, confirmation is helpful.
|
On December 21 2012 04:59 WoodLeagueAllStar wrote: In my grad school you can get under a B but... you fail. There are like one class you can C on but of course its pretty negative on your GPA. A B is a very implicit way of saying they don't think you really belong, but they'll still take you if you pay. Should be getting A's in every graduate class as a PhD student.
|
On December 28 2012 07:01 HanFuzi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2012 04:59 WoodLeagueAllStar wrote: In my grad school you can get under a B but... you fail. There are like one class you can C on but of course its pretty negative on your GPA. A B is a very implicit way of saying they don't think you really belong, but they'll still take you if you pay. Should be getting A's in every graduate class as a PhD student.
Totally depends on the grad school. In some, B is already very good. In some, you are paid (have funding) and pay a very small tuition. ...
In short, what you said is completely false for many grad schools. Please, when you share your knowledge/experience, be specific about the context. What you are doing is like plotting a graph with no labels on the axis.
|
Your article made me shiver while reading it. I'm so god damn scared man
|
On January 06 2013 08:33 Incze wrote: Your article made me shiver while reading it. I'm so god damn scared man
Unless your research is in the field of biology AND you are in one of the elite universities like UMass, I wouldn't be very scared. You know there are many thousands of universities around the world that do research and manage to deliver despite not being "top tier". I don't feel the pressure like the author explains here in Ukraine researching agricultural economics. I'm more concerned about finding or creating something worthy. Unlike in the U.S., where the salary of PhDs is somehow held in the margins of $90-120k per year, in most countries you can also get $100k per year but your chances of being unemployed or working for a miserable wage of like $5-10k a year are quite high. And the salary is determined by significance of your scientific achievements. It is not some requirement that keeps me reading 5-10 articles every day or analyzing countless data on weekends, but the desire to get a better salary, which is wildly determined by a market. Which system do I like better? Hard to say, considering that I probably would have never made it even to my bachelor in the U.S. due to the cost of education.
|
@Reasonable: Not sure if you're giving USD but the salary for PhDs ranges around $20-30k - maybe you were referring to a salary after having the PhD, which would be more accurate. You're right in that I am talking about my own personal experience, about a biology PhD. There are likely different pressures on other types of doctorates, which I don't know about.
@Incze are you planning on starting a PhD soon? Where and for what discipline?
|
I want to get my PhD in Computer Science but I don't know where. I'm only planning on getting to that in like ~5 years from now, unless I get sidetracked due to not having rich parents (<5k a year). Things may change in the meantime. It's still scary as fuck
|
Nice read! My experience was fairly close to the OP's, but there were some differences and extra points I wanted to make (because they would have helped me a TON). I finished a PhD in chem (P-chem, to be more specific) in 2010 at UC Irvine, and just finished a post-doc in France. I have 2 posts (since this one got long, fast), one to give the numbers, the next to give (a veteran's) advice.
During grad school: The stipend was about $1500/month (after taxes iirc) for a grad student (this can also be up to a few hundred dollars more per month depending upon funding sources), and I asked around and it was 35-40K for post docs in the dept (it could be a few thousand more depending upon where the funding came from). Even masters students got paid, since they were always teaching a class. From experience, chem and physics students are paid roughly the same, but bio students generally make more money, probably due to the immediate applicability and generally higher impact of their research (you really do have to teach yourself to not begrudge people who have it just slightly better than you, remember humanities grad students get hella-boned in comparison). They had on-campus housing available for $550-750/mo. That and an Albertson's club card made living reasonably affordable. After grad school: I knew a lot of people who were synthetic chemists and left with a masters degree (sometimes just burned out, but sometimes for other personal reasons). They found jobs working for pharma companies fairly quickly with a starting salary around 60k/year. Unfortunately, this was before the economy tanked, so the market is a little worse now, but there is still a demand for masters-level synthetic chemists. The average time it took someone without a masters to graduate was 5-6 years. With a masters, it could be as fast as 4 years. I knew people who stayed in California as well as people who ended up on the east coast as well as Texas, or, in some cases, returned overseas to work in England.
On the P-chem side of things, the average time to finish was 4-5 years without a masters and could be 3-4.5 with one (though there are always exceptions). Since the field is so varied for p-chemists, I can really only say that all my friends (some with masters degrees, some with PhDs) had easy enough times finding jobs, though I didn't ask how much they make. One guy more or less indicated that it was ~80k/year working at a well-established company in SoCal (don't remember the name). Some friends or labmates went to Intel, some to laser manufacturers (I have to assume the starting salary is at least 70k/year for the PhDs, though I am not sure), some also went to optics companies like Leica and Olympus to design microscopes and other optical systems. Again, you can end up in many different places around the world.
For international students, you do NOT pay to attend grad school. Your PI will basically pay 50k or so (I don't know the exact figure) for you to work for them. A lot or most of that will go to the school to pay for your tuition, the rest is to give you a reasonable stipend. I know examples where people were having kids, though not the norm (some of my female friends had kids during grad school, though of course they took longer to graduate; and some of the male students also had one or even two kids, though generally with financial help from family).
Exams and such: In P-chem, you had about 1-1.5 years of classes. After the first year, you had a huge comprehensive exam which you had to pass reasonably well. You needed to maintain a B, but unless you were a total f*ckup that wasn't too tough, which is to say, you had to keep studying and trying as hard as you could, but it was doable. The extra half-year or so of classes generally had to do with what lab you wanted to join. I took an optics class and a class with the biology graduate students. Some people took another math or engineering class or two, or comp sci class. Again, it depended upon the specific lab. After the second year, we had an oral exam which had two parts. The first was about your own research and results, and the second was to design an advanced experiment to answer a question in a completely unrelated field (though generally still a science, a lot of people chose either a physics or biology topic)
For the synthetic chemists, they took about half a year of classes, with no comprehensive exam. However, they had to give an oral exam at the beginning of their second year comprised of their research. I'm a little fuzzy on the details, since I didn't have to take the exam. However, after every major hurdle is always a nice go-crazy party.
I have to note here, however, that I have heard of schools where there are NO exams, and just classes and research. While it is tempting to go to a school without exams, make sure that it's still a well-respected one. In general, I will not care what someone gets on their advancement exams, however, it was a real confidence-booster to pass my exams and feel like I belonged there. Confidence boosts are few and far-between in grad school, I'll address that in my next post.
After exams Research, research, research. Sometimes you're discovering something new the whole world has never known (rare, but infinitely cool, even if you think at the time that it is insignificant), but most of the time you are discovering something new for yourself. In these latter cases, you really should stop and realize how cool the information still is. After 3-4 years of this, you write it all up into a giant "holy crap I never thought I'd write a giant book" book. I had to write mine fast (3.5 weeks) and it came out...meh. But usually you will have a couple of months in the USA to do it. You will learn about as much writing your thesis as you did in the previous 5 years or so. It makes all the difference when you have to organize it all on paper. In France, during my postdoc, the students started writing about 4 months in advance. But the bureaucratic process is longer there, and requires more coordination. I don't think one system has an advantage over the other when it comes to the writing part, it's just different. You give an oral presentation of your work which is theoretically "judged" by members of your department and for us had to include a member from another STEM dept on campus. However, nobody defends unless they are ready, and I have not heard of anyone failing. Some people may ask dickish questions, but that was not my experience. For me, I had about 10 minutes worth of discussion/questions at the end of my presentation, in France they have a whole HOUR dedicated to it!
That's about it for the numbers, I'll post up my advice for the chemists hopefully quite soon. Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions about chem grad school.
|
On January 10 2013 03:56 Incze wrote: I want to get my PhD in Computer Science but I don't know where. I'm only planning on getting to that in like ~5 years from now, unless I get sidetracked due to not having rich parents (<5k a year). Things may change in the meantime. It's still scary as fuck I can give you an advice as an economist here. You'll be swimming against the current if you choose to go for PhD in Computer Science right now. The IT field is bubbling big time due to inception of the "apps" and mobile device markets, which means salaries are very high and the skill requirements are relaxed. This is natural to any high tech field, but it doesn't last. Eventually the IT market will become over-saturated with labor force, while the new technologies will render many IT professions obsolete. This may happen in several years, but no one knows when until it happens. The proper way to go about it is to work for a business while the party lasts, but save as much money as possible. When the IT sector cools down, salaries will decline and work conditions will deteriorate, then you may quit the full-time job and enroll in a PhD program. It will be much easier because there will be no opportunity cost to your PhD program, i.e. you will not be sacrificing a high paid corporate job to do science because there will be no high paid job at that time available to you.
|
Hey TallMax thanks a lot for your input! I'm interested in reading the second part. :-) Chem and Bio are pretty similar, it seems.
How did you score your French post-doc? How do you feel the American training compares to the French system?
|
On January 17 2013 00:33 Zaranth wrote: Hey TallMax thanks a lot for your input! I'm interested in reading the second part. :-) Chem and Bio are pretty similar, it seems.
How did you score your French post-doc? How do you feel the American training compares to the French system?
Yeah, they are fairly similar. I will add that I do have one friend who finished her Bio PhD just a few months ago at UCI. She had taken time off inbetween college and grad school, and had a couple years of work experience. She went back to industry and had people coming to her to try to hire her, she didn't have to search for a job really at all. Given some of the responsibilities she's told me, I'd be surprised if she makes less than ~80k/year starting (though, you can't forget her several years of prior industry experience).
To answer your question about how I got the position, there was a flyer posted on their website looking for postdocs in my field. Six months before I graduated, I applied, and didn't hear anything for about 3 months. While I was at a biomedical optics conference I ran into a grad student from the department (different PI) I was looking at, and we just chatted for a while. I mentioned that I had applied and never heard anything back. Next day, I got an email saying they were interested. While I have no idea whether he said something to the professor, I have a tough time believing it was that big of a coincidence. Anyways, I told the professor I was still finishing up, but I was definitely interested in working for him. I Skyped with him and another permanent researcher the summer after I graduated (about 2-3 weeks after, iirc), we all hit it off, got the OK from my fiancee (she's also a PhD, but in synthetic chem), and started late September 2010.
It doesn't sound particularly difficult with the after-the-fact details, but it's always more intimidating when you are the one doing it. I had a decent CV, 3 first author papers, one each in Applied Optics, Journal of Biomedical Optics, and J. Phys Chem B, and 1 second author paper in Optics Express. I'm not listing the journals to brag, in my field they're considered decent enough journals, but they're obviously not Nature, Science, PNAS, or Phys Revs. So, you don't need to be absolutely outstanding to make your mark. You'll be attractive to labs who do similar things no matter what, as long as you get good rec letters, present yourself as knowledgeable but still very driven. Seriously, as long as you appear inquisitive and knowledgeable to some extent, you'll get pretty far, same thing goes for undergrad too. You can also just straight-up email profs who are not advertising, especially if they already know of your professor.
Are you looking to postdoc, or go the industrial route? Any idea where you want to go geographically?
The training between the USA and France is different, at least I found it so. I prefer to give specifics since it might vary, but I was at Ecole Polytechnique, just outside of Paris. The department was a biomedical optics group, we had hardcore biologists, and hardcore optical physicists, but everyone had absorbed enough of each others disciplines to understand each other fairly well, and everyone knew what the other side would and would not understand. There was a main director, and under him were basically the professors. However, they also have permanent researchers who eventually get the ability to train grad students (I forget the titles in French). The professors typically had about 2 grad students and 1 postdoc. There was TONS of face time with your professor, which was awesome. Especially since my advisor was super awesome.
A quick aside, after about 5 months, a bunch of us were talking during lunch about all the video games we liked to play. I mentioned Starcraft and he chimed in "I am the MAN at Starcraft." So, I was assured from that point on that I would get along with my advisor.
I liked the system because I had a lot of filling out of my skillset to do, and the large amounts of interaction gave me the chance to do it. Additionally, the PhD students I worked with were EXTREMELY smart, but also very humble about it. They never bragged about the hours they worked, their test scores on anything, whatever. I felt dumb in a lot of ways based on how much more I felt they knew than me, but they were happy to help. That was a bit different than the competitive atmosphere I had found in the USA (and had heard about from just about everyone I knew, even at other universities). However, my wife was in another lab in Paris, and she found a lot of people who were competitive, so it might just be the lab I was in, or the discipline. Also, you don't generally work weekends, and it seems like that's the norm for Europe from what I've heard. The people who were ~45+ years of age were all gone by 6:30-7ish most nights unless they had a better reason to stay, and the grad students and post docs would generally be gone by 7:30ish or so unless they had a reason to stay. Sometimes earlier if they had families. Everyone treated it like a job they loved. I never saw anyone on facebook at work (stark contrast to what I found in the US). The publications that came out were generally fewer but went into higher-end journals.
I know, however, that I got a bit lucky with this lab. I have heard extreme horror stories about the French bureaucratic system in other labs, and it is terrible. People can do plenty of things to make someone unable to do work efficiently. So find your lab carefully if you cannot visit. If you're used to using a particular piece of equipment, and it's routine across your discipline to do something yourself, make sure that the lab you are interested in will let you do it yourself. I know people who were not allowed to take their own NMRs (the lifeblood of synthetic chemistry), and the person in charge of it was lazy and didn't like to work. Their work suffered greatly for it, and the guy could never be fired, given how difficult it is to fire anyone in the French system. So, be careful, you can't expect the unexpected, but they tried to make it sound like it would be easier since they had a dedicated technician who would do all the work. That does not happen.
And, I'll write up my recommendations for grad school soon, just got bogged down with a conference paper I have to finish.
|
Now that I've gotten my first MD/PhD program acceptance (yay!) I'm starting to think more about where I want to go - a decision for which I feel rather unprepared, so I was wondering if you guys have any advice about picking a graduate school (I'm not as concerned about the medical school) or how to approach revisit events. At interviews I've mainly been thinking about whether I'd be happy at the school and how good of a fit the research is, but I've liked almost every school I've visited so far.
and btw, I have a bit more time now so I can try to help if anyone has any questions about MD/PhD programs!
|
@danana Seems like you're looking at the right things - the atmosphere and the quality of research. If you're not getting bad vibes from students about finding a lab, the financial situation, etc, that's good news. The main decision of your PhD will be choosing a lab. Make sure you go to a place that seems to have a lot of professors with openings for students - especially in the areas of work you think you are interested in. I had a pretty easy decision to make because one school I was accepted to had no money, and the other was in the same state where I had done my undergrad and I wanted to explore more of the country. Of course, I would not have come to this school had I thought there were funding problems or overcrowding (no space in the high-profile labs). Really, you have to choose the best fitting school based on your own personality and research goals. Good luck!
|
Great work. I'm 3rd year med school. And I can definetly feel you on some of this stuff. Good job!
|
I'm doing my phd (partly) at University Paris South (near Polytechnique), in CS. I confirm most of what Tallmax said about French labs: -be aware of the possible administrative nightmares, they happen, and as said, they can be hard to solve (administration has big inertia and lots of power) -work atmosphere is not very competitive, very friendly and relaxed. Hours are reasonable (9 to 6 or 7pm), no work on week end except under deadline pressure (which does not happen too often because we publish less but in "good" journals/conferences) -and yeah, you are usually supposed to become relatively friendly with your advisor, eat lunch together, talk about video games, movies, news... At least it's the case in my lab/with my advisor.
|
I clicked this blog at a whim and saw that this was at UMass. I am currently a student at UMass right now! Where is your lab? ISB, Morrill, Lederle?
|
My aunt did a PhD on oxidative stress in uterus. in Oslo University hospital. She only commented that the ceremony was way more difficult than she was aware of. I was there. One of the professors (I can't remember his name). Acted like he was negative on absolutely everything. The day after I spoke to some of her colleagues and found out that this guy acts like this on every single ceremony! :D
|
@Yenticha: Cool! Are you at Orsay? Do you live around Guichet? Or do you commute from the city?
In general I wanted to give a few recommendations based on my own observations about going through grad school and now a postdoc.
Problems.
1. You will COMPETELY lose your sense of feeling smart enough. You stop having grades to know whether you feel like you belong, you have projects which rarely work, and they constantly drag down your stamina. You will probably (and naturally) start off by comparing yourself to other grad students and postdocs. One particular instance involved me at a party at a good friend's house. He was in physics, and there were a bunch of first year physics grad students in attendance. We were all (about 8 of us, me and my friend at this point are the only old guys there, being 4th years) chatting in a circle. Then the first year guys start sizing each other up, talking about where they came from and their grades. Once one person brought up their GRE scores, literally ALL the other first years came into the conversation saying "Well, I got a ### on my GREs, blah blah blah." But, it's what people think they have to do to belong.
2. Your boss turns out to be crazy and or really dumb. These horror stories are very real, and you will probably have at least one friend who has to deal with this. Friends of mine worked for PIs who more or less got their position because of relatives in the system. They seem OK at first, and come off as normal, but then they do not have their shit together. I experienced this in both France and the USA, so it is a universal situation. In France, it's tougher to deal with, you just have to try to avoid it as best as you can, since people cannot be fired and your PI may be too big to criticize. In the USA, there are pretty much always department resources that will protect your anonymity, and investigate the problem while respecting everyone's point of view as best they can. Some problems might be improper use of research funds, improper professor-student or professor-postdoc relationships, ridiculous work hours, research ethics violation, (i.e. making up data, adding random people as authors on papers, etc), racism, sexism, favoritism. All these can definitely happen.
Solutions/Prevention. 1. Don't compete, just don't worry about anyone else. You made it in for a reason. You probably won't be able to get out of the mindset at the beginning. I certainly felt inadequate, but, I started to realize that if you want to be happy, you really can't keep competing. Someone works harder than you somewhere, someone has better results, someone got luckier with their project and is TOTALLY badass. The lucky and/or harder working people might even be arrogant dicks about it; but, it's not your problem, and it doesn't affect your career. I found having a good work/play balance greatly eliminates this. I played sports, some vidya games, went out with friends often, basically made sure I had sources of fun OUTSIDE of the lab. Also, being there for your friends and labmates when their shit isn't working (even if yours isn't working either) helps them so much, and they will naturally do the same for you. Finally, remember that you're operating at the limits of what we understand as humans, there are no textbooks that explain everything, and it will take longer than you first expect to add anything useful to the knowledge pool. Your professor knows this, they are hiring you for the person you are going to grow to be, and for the work you are going to do, not because you should be brilliant already.
2. Like the OP said, listen to gossip about certain profs and groups. There are a few red flags I would watch out for:
1) Asian professors who only have Asian (ESL) students. I truly apologize if this comes off as racist, but this really is a concern. There are plenty of Asian professors who are AMAZING. However, if they only have Asian graduate students/postdocs, make sure they are not treating their group as slave labor. I knew a prominent Asian professor who did this, and a postdoc came to him complaining about not being paid for a couple months, and the professor basically told him that he should be focusing on important things like his work. This could also be a problem with other foreign PI's, but I only have personal observations from Asian-led labs. 2) Professor puts two teams of people within his group on one project. In chemistry, this could mean having 2 teams working to synthesize one molecule. The first team "wins" and gets to publish, the second gets F'ed over. Either way the boss wins. This leads to a very competitive environment, and will not help you much in learning. 3) Professor does not share data, computational programs, lets anyone else write papers or communicate with collaborators. This is pretty shady, and was one of the symptoms of the psychology PIs who recently got caught making up data for a large number of papers. Exceptions, if there is an invention/patent involved, you should respect a professors hesitance when it comes to sharing data. Also, it is considered normal for a group to be secretive if they have very interesting results, but they don't want to get scooped. I remember when induced-pluripotent stem cells were discovered, the groups waited to publish because they wanted to get more of a head-start on other groups. What is a concern is when someone tries to keep others out of the loop, so watch out for gatekeeper-type professors. 4) PI has no money. Generally means you will have to teach, and will have trouble finding resources. This is why they often list grants received on their CVs. 5) Professors who do not make it a point to credit the grad student/postdoc/collaborators. This is a petty attempt to make the PI the genius behind everything. If the professor is the one coming up with all the ideas, this indicates that they do not let grad students/postdocs think for themselves, and will give you very little time to learn/develop as a researcher. 6) Grad student/postdoc alumni cannot find good positions/professor does not help with job searches. I have friends who feel completely abandoned by their PI after they graduated, and still (over a year after graduation) cannot find jobs. 7) Professors who do not take complaints/concerns seriously. If you have a problem and your professor shrugs the problem off, then they are probably not going to respect you.
Above all else, I recommend finding your group based on the group environment and professor mentality. Unless you have a specific industry you really want to go into, you will fall in love with whatever research you do. Honestly, it all presents interesting problems and solutions, and as long as it is evident that you are very thorough and methodical in your research, you will find somewhere to go. I remember going to grad school wanting to do some environmental research, and UCI has great environmental-chem research groups (and the PIs are also really good all around people, if you go to UCI chem, Don Blake is one of the coolest people you will ever meet), but I met with my future professor when I was visiting the school (he was too, since he was only just about to start there), and we hit it off. He just struck me as a great guy to work for, good work ethic, good research goals, and very open-minded. So, I changed to biomedical optics, and haven't regretted it once.
As I said before, if you do run into any of the above problems, there are almost always (I think required by law) solutions if you have problems with a particular person, even if it is a professor. I had a friend who had so many problems with her professor, and clearly explained them to her research committee, backed up with evidence. They sided with her wholeheartedly. The only time I had a problem with my professor, I emailed him about it (he made me feel quite stupid at a group meeting) he immediately responded, let me know that he thought a lot of my work/progress etc., and made sure that we were all cool. He was/still is a really good guy, but I cannot say I have personally had to go through anything more serious than that, thankfully.
Best of luck to those who go into it. I can't promise you any specific outcome, but if you PM me, I can give you more advice/answers than you will probably ever want. Thanks again for starting these Zaranth, it's nice to hear how similar others experiences were even for large distances.
|
If you care at all about having a career, I would not recommend this route. I myself attended a top 10 graduate school, earned my Ph.D. in genetics and have been toiling as a postdoc for the last 4 years with no career prospects in sight. Now before you go calling me a crap scientist or the exception to the rule consider this; no one that I have ever known in this field (even people who were postdocs when I started about 11 years ago) has a career as a researcher except two people who are now assistant research professors, one that's an assistant teaching professor and three that are in biotech.
Literally out of the hundreds of people I know in this field, 6 have careers. Everyone else has jobs such as deadend postdoc positions, is an adjunct professor in junior college, or has gone back to school to earn a different degree.
Keep in mind again if you will, I earned my Ph.D. from a top 10 school and did two postdocs at two separate top 10 schools.
I basically went through hell to earn this degree and I can't find a job that is considered a career to save my life and neither can my friends in the field. I have a full time postdoc position and I teach classes at two different community colleges at nights as an adjunct professor. I even tried becoming a full time professor at these community colleges and found out that it takes an average of ~4 years for a position to open up in junior college and for you to be hired full time! I have to literally kill myself working and applying for jobs to make 48K/year. And that's IF I ever land one of these jobs.
TL;DR Don't do a Ph.D. in Biology, you will likely never have a proper career and be stuck as a postdoc / instructor forever.
|
@GreatFall. I have no doubt that you are not a crap scientist, and that you probably did/do well as a postdoc. Professorships are daamn hard to get. I just have a few questions about your troubles. Are you looking to be in a certain part of the country? That is, are you limited in your choices by location? Also, is there a possibility that you can postdoc doing something outside of hardcore genetics to increase/expand your skillset? I admit that I do not know how bio degrees generally spring forth into careers. For the people in biotech, do they still use the knowledge they gained while studying? Or do they branch out a lot?
Also, with your genetics experience, is it easy to translate into bioinformatics?
|
@GreatFall. TallMax is right, you need to consider moving around. U.S. education system is under heavy pressure from globalization, which puts pressure on salaries. The policy has been such that salaries for education specialists (as well as in many other sectors) are held high to prevent decline in the GDP. This forces higher productivity. Many scientists, no matter how good they are, can't produce enough to maintain 100k a year salary no matter how hard they work. It is basically because guys overseas are catching up with technology and can do the same work for 20-30k. As a result, structural unemployment hits many good specialists. Since there is no light at the end of the tunnel for the U.S. policymakers, I would suggest you explore some opportunities elsewhere. With your skill level, you will be coveted in China, ASEAN countries, and very welcome in Europe. Although you will not be paid 100k a year there (although you just might), your cost of living will be so low that your savings will surprise you.
|
On January 21 2013 13:45 GreatFall wrote:
TL;DR Don't do a Ph.D. in Biology, you will likely never have a proper career and be stuck as a postdoc / instructor forever.
Way vague bro
|
I disagree about how bad Greatfall describes the situation to be, but I agree research is difficult and ungrateful. I have seen excellent scientists not be offered positions following their post docs because of hidden rules that no one discusses after one completes their post doc. For example, in the past decade, at McGill, one of the powerhouses of Canada with world standing, several departments have not hired a single person who did not complete 5 years of post doctoral research outside of Canada. This is a tough reality to discover for people who did their post docs there and a couple friends of mine ended up being nailed as a result. What's most difficult is that by the time people end up completing applying for and completing post docs, they are often less mobile as they can have young families.
Furthermore, the nature of what gets funded has changed over the past decade with a stronger emphasis on translational, more applicable research, over basic science. This is in addition to differences in funding available in different fields. I ended up completing a combined MD/PhD because I knew that in the long term, it would offer me superior job security and open doors to certain kinds of research and approaches I saw would be in much higher demand. Similarly, a friend completed an MBA after his post doc and is now in industry.
In summary, the long term of research is highly political and you need to learn the rules of the game and even then, sometimes you lose.
|
Just gotta throw a big "Thank You" to Zaranth and TallMax for their insight into this area Thinking about PhD programs for my future and this has been a big resource, many thanks!
|
@GuiltyJerk Awesome glad it has been helpful! PM me if you have any specific questions or whatever, I'm happy to discuss stuff.
Part 5 should be coming out soon! :D
|
Oh wow, cool. I just started my PhD in Biological Sciences at Texas Tech. I study ecology of amphibians (mostly, but we have a community focus). Cool to see other SC fans out there pursuing the same thing.
|
Concerning poster presentations, let me share one little bit of insight from my own PhD (theoretical physics).
I was at a conference in Sapporo, Japan. Big thing, flew over with my prof all the way from germany. There were thirty-odd graduate students who all presented posters. Now the thing I hadn't seen before at other conferences was that they allowed all students to give a two-minute presentation of their poster. Total time allotted for this program point: 60 minutes.
I was lucky enough to be among the first five or so people, so the audience wasn't completely flooded with rapid-fire science spam yet. Most people tried to cram as much as they could into two minutes of presentation, which if you think about it seems like a lot of time, but in fact isn't. You can get out maybe 8-10 sentences, that's it.
My solution was to basically say "I did this and this and that with these methods, and our results seem to indicate blah and blah. If you are interested in the topic, meet me at poster 123 and I'll be happy to give you more details." The rest of that hour was so bad (and I don't mean that in a purely derisive fashion), I sometimes had to bite my lip (hard!) to not burst out laughing at people who tried to read out their whole poster or derive obscure mathematical formulations. It was so trashy, I still can't believe it.
In summary: if you give talks, don't try to cram stuff in, it just doesn't work.
|
On January 21 2013 09:57 TallMax wrote: 1. You will COMPETELY lose your sense of feeling smart enough.
I can't stress this enough! I'm a third year PhD student in chemical engineering and I feel so low at times. Most common lab instruments have been developed so well that it takes months get up to speed. Don't get me started on troubleshooting...
Part of this isn't our fault. In the U.S., we don't learn about recent innovations. Much of what I learned as an undergrad is exactly what my advisor learned 30 years ago, which means our generation is totally lost when we get our B.S. and go work somewhere.
You're right that competing will bring about a large feeling of inadequacy. After all, we're now measured by the same stick as people who had their PhD before I was even born! It's best to take what's in front of you, MASTER it, and continually add tricks and tips from those you work with.
I found having a good work/play balance greatly eliminates this. I played sports, some vidya games, went out with friends often, basically made sure I had sources of fun OUTSIDE of the lab.
I want to point out that this isn't a "free pass" to slack off. Grad school is the academic equivalent of boot camp and it's expected you'll put in a good 50ish hours a week.
Also realize that grad school is a marathon, not a race. You need to pace yourself, reward yourself, and cope with the stress. Sure, you can work 70 hour weeks and sleep four hours a night, but is this keeping you physically and mentally healthy? There will always be more work to do, so make sure you're setting realistic goals and timelines AND set aside some time to relax.
On that note, scientific research is SLOW. At the end of your studies you could probably recreate your research in a fraction of the time. You may have high expectations for yourself, so be sure to give yourself a break since it's oh-so-easy to get caught up.
you will fall in love with whatever research you do. Honestly, it all presents interesting problems and solutions,
This is SO true. I went to grad school in hopes of studying environmental transport, but I ended up in heterogeneous catalysis. I definitely found a comfortable niche
On January 29 2013 22:32 Dr.Sin wrote: Furthermore, the nature of what gets funded has changed over the past decade with a stronger emphasis on translational, more applicable research, over basic science.
In summary, the long term of research is highly political and you need to learn the rules of the game and even then, sometimes you lose.
I'm not sure I completely agree with this. Yes, funding for applied research is greater than basic science. Applications yield money, especially if you're cashing in on hot topics. The two are NOT mutually exclusive. Take my research : I'm funded by a local company, yet I've discovered a number of things about existing catalysts that were previously unknown or understudied.
I totally agree with knowing how the politics work. Grad school is all about building a set of skills that you can apply to a broad, yet specialized area. In my field a TON of research money is going out to supported gold catalysts for CO Oxidation and steam reforming, improved efficiency of proton exchange membrane fuel cells, and synthesis of chemicals from biomass (all related to the U.S. "energy crisis"). You can choose to study whatever you want and have a hard time getting funds, or you can apply your skills to areas getting a lot of attention. It certainly is an interesting game...
I also want to add that there are a TON of brilliant scientists out there, not just the ones fortunate to be at the right place, right time, and with the right talent. Industry and academia use a lot of different scales to measure researchers. The ones I know of are: total research dollars, number of federal grants, publications per year, citations per year, publications in high impact journals, hirsch index, number of patents, pedigree (attended top school or studied under famous advisor, or both), number of former students with jobs...the list goes on. Academic departments (especially deans) seem to care more about total grant money, though that isn't necessarily the best measure. My advisor, for instance, doesn't have a lot of federal money, but he gets a fair number of industrial contracts and all of his former students in the last ten years (even undergrad student workers) have found jobs within a couple months of graduation. He is coveted as a consultant and has a reputation as one of the best process engineers in the state. Another advisor got a multimillion dollar federal grant and frequently publishes, yet some of his recent graduates had a lot of difficulty finding employment (one tried for nearly a year). Even though he spent half his career in industry, he isn't often tapped for help (it may seem like I'm ripping on him, btu his greatest strength is his communication and ability to pull people together - truly an invaluable skill. There are pros and cons in multiple areas and the point is to judge the whole package, not special pieces others find important, and find what best suits your future aspirations.
On a final note, a grad student will spend considerable time building skills that may seem unrelated. I do experimental work, so I've spent most of my three years repairing broken equipment, troubleshooting electronics, and building reactor systems with automated process control from scratch. Most equipment isn't under warranty, so becoming a de facto technician/machinist/electrician/repairman is inevitable. Several friends do computational research and spend a vast majority of their time coding. Seeing as we're CHEMICAL engineers, things like programming languages and complex simulations (like first principles simulations) seemed irrelevant. Nevertheless, each area of study has several contributing factors where you're woefully inexperienced. These are also areas that others, even with your degree, spend entire careers. This is where a ton of your time is spent, especially in the first few years.
|
Good resource for those who want to pursue a phd in life sciences, GJ OP. I myself am a 6th year PhD student and just got an unofficial permission to write, pending my paper submission. It's really a marathon, and it's quite common for students in my lab that nothing works for the first 3-4 years. Literally all of my data that I'm planning to submit for publication comes from the last 1.5 years... which is a bit depressing given that I spent half of my 20s on doing nothing but hey, better than having dropped out with nothing having come out of it.
While GreatFall might sound overly pessimistic, I pretty much agree with his sentiments and am planning to gtfo of research once I get my phD. Probably going to head into intellectual property straight away.
|
Godness, I have my first ever "fair" (in that case it's a undergrad fair) for which I have a poster. But I have no idea what do people want to hear when they will come to me ?!
I mean should it be complementary from the poster (because obviously the poster does not show everything) or should it be deeper information; IDK IDK OMG HELP.
|
@ anatase: Your first poster session! That's great! The majority of people that come to your poster will want you to walk through the poster with them. You should be prepared to explain each step of your procedure and the results. Some of them will ask you specific questions either about your experimental set-up or about your results, and you should be prepared to discuss the finer points and details of each step. It's true that the poster should be able to stand alone, but the point of you being at the session is to lead people through it and answer their questions.
When someone approaches you, smile at them and ask them if they would like you to walk them through your poster. Most will say "yes" but some might say "no" and take a quick glance and leave. Don't feel bad if this happens, they're not snubbing you or your research, they may be browsing the posters.
Something you should also prepare is a quick, 30 second to 1 minute verbal overview of your poster. Make sure you can quickly and easily summarize your research into a few sentences, perhaps with one brief reference to a figure for clarity. Some people just want to hear the conclusions of your research. Something along the lines of "I used X technique to show that Y is true, and that led us to investigate Z, using Q, and thus we were able to show that ... RESULT! This is very interesting because ..."
Bring a bottle of water with you, and wear layers with comfy shoes.
I hope those tips help! Good luck - please report back and let me know how it went.
|
This may be easier to understand if you reformat it in terms of build order and supply count
|
On January 21 2013 13:45 GreatFall wrote: If you care at all about having a career, I would not recommend this route. I myself attended a top 10 graduate school, earned my Ph.D. in genetics and have been toiling as a postdoc for the last 4 years with no career prospects in sight. Now before you go calling me a crap scientist or the exception to the rule consider this; no one that I have ever known in this field (even people who were postdocs when I started about 11 years ago) has a career as a researcher except two people who are now assistant research professors, one that's an assistant teaching professor and three that are in biotech.
Literally out of the hundreds of people I know in this field, 6 have careers. Everyone else has jobs such as deadend postdoc positions, is an adjunct professor in junior college, or has gone back to school to earn a different degree.
Keep in mind again if you will, I earned my Ph.D. from a top 10 school and did two postdocs at two separate top 10 schools.
I basically went through hell to earn this degree and I can't find a job that is considered a career to save my life and neither can my friends in the field. I have a full time postdoc position and I teach classes at two different community colleges at nights as an adjunct professor. I even tried becoming a full time professor at these community colleges and found out that it takes an average of ~4 years for a position to open up in junior college and for you to be hired full time! I have to literally kill myself working and applying for jobs to make 48K/year. And that's IF I ever land one of these jobs.
TL;DR Don't do a Ph.D. in Biology, you will likely never have a proper career and be stuck as a postdoc / instructor forever.
How many publications do you have and how many publications do those other people have? You need over 20 after your postdoc to get a job at a major university.
|
On March 04 2013 02:59 Hydro033 wrote: How many publications do you have and how many publications do those other people have? You need over 20 after your postdoc to get a job at a major university.
That's not exactly true. They look at quality and quantity, also the type of research is fairly important. Certain subfields are booming with candidates, so while they make for good graduate studies because something is a hot field, eventually you have a lot of people competing for the same position when they all try to become professors. Also, a lot of people will start out at smaller schools, do high-impact research, and move to other, more prestigious universities. So there are ways of moving around.
In chem, I've known faculty with as few as 6 publications getting professorships, starting at a major university. Especially in synthetic chemistry, you can spend a lot of time optimizing and running reactions, that shiz just takes a long while.
|
On March 04 2013 03:33 TallMax wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2013 02:59 Hydro033 wrote: How many publications do you have and how many publications do those other people have? You need over 20 after your postdoc to get a job at a major university. That's not exactly true. They look at quality and quantity, also the type of research is fairly important. Certain subfields are booming with candidates, so while they make for good graduate studies because something is a hot field, eventually you have a lot of people competing for the same position when they all try to become professors. Also, a lot of people will start out at smaller schools, do high-impact research, and move to other, more prestigious universities. So there are ways of moving around. In chem, I've known faculty with as few as 6 publications getting professorships, starting at a major university. Especially in synthetic chemistry, you can spend a lot of time optimizing and running reactions, that shiz just takes a long while.
Well of course there is a quality/quantity tradeoff. A publication in Science can probably net you a top position whether you even have any other publications or not.
|
On March 04 2013 10:27 Hydro033 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2013 03:33 TallMax wrote:On March 04 2013 02:59 Hydro033 wrote: How many publications do you have and how many publications do those other people have? You need over 20 after your postdoc to get a job at a major university. That's not exactly true. They look at quality and quantity, also the type of research is fairly important. Certain subfields are booming with candidates, so while they make for good graduate studies because something is a hot field, eventually you have a lot of people competing for the same position when they all try to become professors. Also, a lot of people will start out at smaller schools, do high-impact research, and move to other, more prestigious universities. So there are ways of moving around. In chem, I've known faculty with as few as 6 publications getting professorships, starting at a major university. Especially in synthetic chemistry, you can spend a lot of time optimizing and running reactions, that shiz just takes a long while. Well of course there is a quality/quantity tradeoff. A publication in Science can probably net you a top position whether you even have any other publications or not.
It wouldn't, you'd need at least 2-4 others if you have one in Science/Nature, otherwise it could be a fluke. Plus, it depends upon whether you're first author, and how groundbreaking the work is.
|
I didn't mean to imply that basic science doesn't get any funding, but at least in the biological sciences, there is a significant, increasing pressure in that direction.
Re conferences: Learning to communicate is a hugely important skill that people need to develop during their PhDs. It takes a lot of practice and it shows the mastery of a subject to be able to speak to different kinds of audiences so that they will understand what it is you're talking about. It is also very difficult to narrow down a talk in language an audience can understand in short presentations while still being able to show the key elements of your data without overwhelming your audience in data. Ultimately this ends up being good practice for the defence because it needs to summarize your phd in 20 minutes and the questions you are asked by your committee have often been asked by many other people before them.
|
On March 07 2013 07:46 TallMax wrote:Show nested quote +On March 04 2013 10:27 Hydro033 wrote:On March 04 2013 03:33 TallMax wrote:On March 04 2013 02:59 Hydro033 wrote: How many publications do you have and how many publications do those other people have? You need over 20 after your postdoc to get a job at a major university. That's not exactly true. They look at quality and quantity, also the type of research is fairly important. Certain subfields are booming with candidates, so while they make for good graduate studies because something is a hot field, eventually you have a lot of people competing for the same position when they all try to become professors. Also, a lot of people will start out at smaller schools, do high-impact research, and move to other, more prestigious universities. So there are ways of moving around. In chem, I've known faculty with as few as 6 publications getting professorships, starting at a major university. Especially in synthetic chemistry, you can spend a lot of time optimizing and running reactions, that shiz just takes a long while. Well of course there is a quality/quantity tradeoff. A publication in Science can probably net you a top position whether you even have any other publications or not. It wouldn't, you'd need at least 2-4 others if you have one in Science/Nature, otherwise it could be a fluke. Plus, it depends upon whether you're first author, and how groundbreaking the work is.
I'll second that. After I got my first publication in a proper journal, there wasn't a single professor at my university who thought it wasn't a fluke. They came up with so many ridiculous explanations of how this "fluke" has occurred. A couple of guys even accused me of fraud and theft. Not even my PI believed me it was legit. Even though I was the only bloody author. So then I spent a full year of my life working on nothing but the research that yielded another publication in a properly rated journal. Then everybody suddenly shut up, gave me shitload of respect, job offers started flowing in, and all went much smoother than before.
|
Its a little different here in the UK, I WISH I had seven years for my PhD. Here you generally apply for a specific project in a specific lab and get funding for that exact thing usually from an external funding body. Then you get three years to do the research and an extra year to write up.
If it helps anyone, from the perspective of a current third year PhD student (and the impression I've gotten from talking to postdoc colleagues of mine), here the process is something more like: 1st Year - Establish yourself in the lab, learn procedures, start to try and get preliminary data. Complete compulsory "personal development" stuff. 2nd Year - Panic that a year has gone by. Start actually trying to get stuff done. Start to make some progress at some point and pull a small amount of data together. 3rd Year - Continue with progress from the second year, speeding it up to try and produce as much data as possible. Most likely your funding will only be for three years so this is your last chance to get it. Start considering writing some up at some point. 4th Year - Write up thesis. Viva.
|
This is crazy cool thanks for the info!
|
Love reading these, looking forward to part 5 especially. On that note, I wonder if anyone could offer me a bit of advice or general info to help me make up my mind.
I went into work straight out of school for a few years as I wasn't really sure what was going on with my life. At 24 I went to Uni and completed a foundation year in order to gain access onto a degree program. I'm currently finishing the 3rd year of an integrated physics masters (MPhys). I'm really really struggling to decide what to do when I finish. I feel it's a total waste to not continue to do something that utilizes a large amount of the knowledge I will have gained by the end of the 5 year programme, and I obviously love physics.
If I had gone straight to uni from school, I would have done a PhD in a heart-beat, having no commitments, never having known what having real money was like and given that I would have had more years in front of me. From there I would probably have gone on to post-doc work, looking to go onto a faculty position.
However, when I graduate next year I will be 29. Luckily PhD's here are only 3/4 years long, however the down side is the pay is horrible. Some of the PhD's at my uni go for as little as £13,800 with the average being £15,000. While this is tax free, it seems ludicrous to me to go from earning £20,000 in a office job with only school grades to earning £5,000 less after studying for 5 years! Money aside, I would be finishing my PhD by the age of 33, about the time a normal person would be looking to start their first faculty position. From this point, slaving away at post-doc work for another 3-4 years before looking at a decent pay grade and position really seems too far down the line for me. You may be thinking I'm being a bit greedy or I'm not that old, but I'd like to get a mortgage, own my own house and look to have a family by my mid 30's. I don't want to be barreling towards 40 in a bit of a uncertain and unstable position.
Ideally, I would love to walk out of my masters next year into an industry job doing something I'm interested in, but that seems like something that would be very hard to do ?
The question is, if I want to work within the science industry how key is that PhD? Is it worth putting my life on hold even longer in order to secure a position I really want or can I get their a better way earning as I go? I'm just looking for a more informed and/or outside perspective.(I'm happy to hear from people stateside, I'm sure some things are different but I'm sure it would be helpful still.)
|
|
United States24342 Posts
On March 18 2013 01:21 Dknight wrote:Interesting piece from NPR on too many STEM PhDs? Some nice discussion in the comments too. There seems to be a big disconnect between what students are told to do if they are interested in science, and what people must do to work in science.
|
|
|
|