How to find 'your' lab
Thesis-based graduate school in the lab is unlike any other form of education. There is no structured curriculum, no pre-determined end point, and no guarantee of what skills you will acquire upon completion. In fact, two students who begin graduate school in the same lab at the exact same time will leave with very different sets of skills and knowledge. The only guarantee of a graduate education is that you will leave a very different person compared to the person you were the day before you first walked into the lab. It is for this very reason that the most important decision of your entire graduate career must occur before you begin graduate school. The lab you select to undertake your training in is the most important choice that you will Commitment devices ever make in your career. Due to the magnitude of this choice, it is essential to understand what factors to consider in order to make the best choice.
Factors in lab selection.
Factors in mentor selection
The only thing a mentor can offer you is an extension of their own training and experiences. This limitation is fundamental to the identification of the best mentor for you. A mentor should resemble what you hope to become upon completion of your training. If you hope to run clinical trials, your mentor should be a clinician scientist. If you hope to oversee 'big data' projects, your mentor should be a bioinformatician. Miscalculating the limitations of mentorship is a common mistake of graduate students who hope to become something other than what their mentor already is.
Ready player One
There are two 'start dates' when you are accepted into a lab. Your 'first' start date is your introduction or welcome to the lab that may consist of a 'honeymoon phase', or it may not. Your 'second' and 'real' start begins when your co-workers leave you alone at your desk to attend to their own work. And there you are. You. Sitting alone. No structure. No instructions. Just the promise of expectations. Go.
Your first objective is to concoct a scheme to get away from that desk. Get out of that chair. Stand up, and move. You have to do it. No one else will do it for you. Perhaps you can make some stock solutions. Which ones should you make? Don't prep solutions you don't need. So identify a protocol. What protocol will you conduct? Well that depends on an experiment. What experiment should I start with? Well, what's your question? Define your question. Articulate your question. Write down your question. Your question is why you are in that seat, in that lab. Attack it. Thus, your plan of escape from the chair of idleness is to engage your question. Use this as an excuse to get up and become oriented with your new environment. An experiment forces you to explore and inquire. Where are chemicals stored? What are the house rules for navigating the lab space? Who are the helpful, patient, and receptive lab members? Who are the 'crazies' that are best to avoid? (Every lab has 'crazies'). All of this information is pertinent to navigating the lab space in order to engage your question.
The 'why' of a bench scientist
Beware of those who state 'we wanted to show'. This statement is fundamentally incompatible with the objectives of any scientist. There is nothing you should want to show. There are only questions you hope to ask, and observations you hope to understand. Science is not the business of hypothesis validation. Rather, science is the buisness of the acquisition of observations, and the collective interpretation of these observations. Imposing a human evaluation on observations as favorable versus unfavorable is completely antithetical to the purpose of measurement.
Negative results
Once attended a lecture by nobel laureate Andrew Fire in which he described how a decade's worth of work elucidated the basis of a negative result that would earn him the nobel prize. Only fools overlook the information garnered through analysis of negative results.
Factors in lab selection.
- 'Fit' with co-workers
- Identification of a healthy lab culture
- Outcomes of lab alumni
- Fit with mentorship style/approach
Factors in mentor selection
The only thing a mentor can offer you is an extension of their own training and experiences. This limitation is fundamental to the identification of the best mentor for you. A mentor should resemble what you hope to become upon completion of your training. If you hope to run clinical trials, your mentor should be a clinician scientist. If you hope to oversee 'big data' projects, your mentor should be a bioinformatician. Miscalculating the limitations of mentorship is a common mistake of graduate students who hope to become something other than what their mentor already is.
Ready player One
There are two 'start dates' when you are accepted into a lab. Your 'first' start date is your introduction or welcome to the lab that may consist of a 'honeymoon phase', or it may not. Your 'second' and 'real' start begins when your co-workers leave you alone at your desk to attend to their own work. And there you are. You. Sitting alone. No structure. No instructions. Just the promise of expectations. Go.
Your first objective is to concoct a scheme to get away from that desk. Get out of that chair. Stand up, and move. You have to do it. No one else will do it for you. Perhaps you can make some stock solutions. Which ones should you make? Don't prep solutions you don't need. So identify a protocol. What protocol will you conduct? Well that depends on an experiment. What experiment should I start with? Well, what's your question? Define your question. Articulate your question. Write down your question. Your question is why you are in that seat, in that lab. Attack it. Thus, your plan of escape from the chair of idleness is to engage your question. Use this as an excuse to get up and become oriented with your new environment. An experiment forces you to explore and inquire. Where are chemicals stored? What are the house rules for navigating the lab space? Who are the helpful, patient, and receptive lab members? Who are the 'crazies' that are best to avoid? (Every lab has 'crazies'). All of this information is pertinent to navigating the lab space in order to engage your question.
The 'why' of a bench scientist
Beware of those who state 'we wanted to show'. This statement is fundamentally incompatible with the objectives of any scientist. There is nothing you should want to show. There are only questions you hope to ask, and observations you hope to understand. Science is not the business of hypothesis validation. Rather, science is the buisness of the acquisition of observations, and the collective interpretation of these observations. Imposing a human evaluation on observations as favorable versus unfavorable is completely antithetical to the purpose of measurement.
Negative results
Once attended a lecture by nobel laureate Andrew Fire in which he described how a decade's worth of work elucidated the basis of a negative result that would earn him the nobel prize. Only fools overlook the information garnered through analysis of negative results.