Several weeks ago I was talking to a group of third-year medical students, and one of them asked me how I liked my work as a grad student. I think they have the impression that I work weird hours and live to serve whatever samples I have running or animals I've isolated. Then again, what they consider as "weird hours" is seemingly normal for me and for several other grad students I've talked to. My friends in med school have more of a set schedule; they're required to be at a certain place by a certain time, rather than coming in whenever they want and leaving when the work gets done.
That doesn't mean that I walk into lab at 1pm every day and work until 9 or 10 at night. There's still an expectation that I'll be in the lab enough to get the appropriate amount of face time with my advisor, but there's not much of an endpoint to when I'll be done for that particular day, which may be irritating for some people. The good part is that I can at least estimate the amount of time I need and plan accordingly, which is often what I tell people who think I'm overworking (namely my parents).
I have this ongoing love-hate relationship with grad school. Good results and published papers aside (which everyone loves anyway), I'd have to say I like the steep learning curve which can't be picked up in any class and the fact that I get paid to do something I enjoy (i.e., biology). It's also nice to have labmates I get along with.
That being said, I haven't met anyone yet that enjoys every minute of grad school; there's always bound to be something unsatisfying about it. When I first started, there were only three grad students (including me) and two undergrads. One of the grad students was MIA due to prelims, and the other came in at sporadic times. The undergrads had set schedules, but since I didn't know what they were, it seemed like they came into lab pretty sporadically as well. I had just started in the lab, and aside from not knowing where any reagents were kept, I also was unfamiliar with the project. So I got to sit in the office and read papers all week... or week and a half... which was an utterly isolating experience. The lab has since then gotten more members; there are now five PhD students, including me, a Master's student, an assortment of undergrads, and a lab tech, which livens things up a little. Plus I'm not completely lost as to what I'm supposed to be doing, so I can spend lab time actually doing benchwork instead of reading.
***
I really don't think the in-lab isolation aspect is nearly as bad as the out-of-lab aspect. There are days when I come home pretty late and the only thing that I want to do is wash up and read a mystery before bed. There are also days when I use going to lab as an escape of sorts from whatever problems I don't want to think about in the "real world." Other days it's equally painful to go into lab as it is to stay away from it, but the good part is that those days are rare.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Mentorship
I'm a horrible mentor. There, I said it.
Back in August, I told my advisor that I was interested in getting an undergrad helper for my research. There's a school-wide program here that helps undergrads (particularly underclassmen) get started on research by getting in touch with different PIs and their projects. I got to interview the students, and chose one to help me out, so he's been here since mid-September.
Unfortunately I've realized that I'm not very good at thinking of spinoff projects for other people. A few weeks ago, my advisor asked me how everything was going with the undergrad helper -- what was his project exactly? What was he doing? My answer was something among the lines of "he does what I tell him to do," which didn't sit very well with my advisor.
I've been teaching the student various molecular biology techniques, along with an overview of how they fit into the bigger picture of my project, but this approach doesn't work very well, especially if I just dictate what he's supposed to do and watch over his shoulder while he does it.
One of the biggest problems is that I don't trust other people to do "my" work, for fear of things getting messed up. I'm pretty sure my advisor had the same problem with me when I first started working in the lab; it got to the point where my advisor asked another grad student (a year above me) to watch my technique... as in look over my shoulder. When the other student said "but I don't think she's doing anything wrong," my advisor said "well, just in case..."
I'm trying to get the student to see the big picture before he goes off to work, but sometimes I glaze/skip over things that seem second nature to me, without realizing that the student is lost. However, there's a limit to how much "big picture" stuff can be covered before the students lose interest, and many subtleties can only be learned through actually DOING the work.
If I continue mentoring throughout the next school year, hopefully the current student stays in the lab...
Back in August, I told my advisor that I was interested in getting an undergrad helper for my research. There's a school-wide program here that helps undergrads (particularly underclassmen) get started on research by getting in touch with different PIs and their projects. I got to interview the students, and chose one to help me out, so he's been here since mid-September.
Unfortunately I've realized that I'm not very good at thinking of spinoff projects for other people. A few weeks ago, my advisor asked me how everything was going with the undergrad helper -- what was his project exactly? What was he doing? My answer was something among the lines of "he does what I tell him to do," which didn't sit very well with my advisor.
I've been teaching the student various molecular biology techniques, along with an overview of how they fit into the bigger picture of my project, but this approach doesn't work very well, especially if I just dictate what he's supposed to do and watch over his shoulder while he does it.
One of the biggest problems is that I don't trust other people to do "my" work, for fear of things getting messed up. I'm pretty sure my advisor had the same problem with me when I first started working in the lab; it got to the point where my advisor asked another grad student (a year above me) to watch my technique... as in look over my shoulder. When the other student said "but I don't think she's doing anything wrong," my advisor said "well, just in case..."
I'm trying to get the student to see the big picture before he goes off to work, but sometimes I glaze/skip over things that seem second nature to me, without realizing that the student is lost. However, there's a limit to how much "big picture" stuff can be covered before the students lose interest, and many subtleties can only be learned through actually DOING the work.
If I continue mentoring throughout the next school year, hopefully the current student stays in the lab...
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Conflict of Interest
I'm in grad school at the same place I went to undergrad, and I was telling a recent seminar speaker over lunch that the divide between college and grad school seemed much more pronounced. Then again, I have no other basis for judgement.
However, my first teaching experience was in a class that I had taken my junior year of undergrad, and my GSI was one of my current advisor's former students. He seemed pretty relaxed about class policies, given that we didn't do anything stupid, like take naps or text people. I think one of the best parts about the class was that everyone who was registered actually wanted to be there, and nobody was in that "I need an easy lab course to cruise through my senior year" mindset, which made life easier for both the GSI and the students.
Unfortunately cases like that are pretty much utopia.
I ran into that GSI about a year later, and found out that he was teaching the same class again. When asked how teaching was going, he gave a different response: students had become whiners. Granted, it was a lab class that met for four hours on a stretch, and lab activities aren't always going to be fun and games, especially if grades (and possibility of future schooling) is at stake. The biggest problem is that most of the students WERE in the "I need an easy A to graduate" mindset, and as a result, procured mediocre work and less-than-stellar behavior.
So what changed? The undergraduate biology program here requires all students to have at least 2 lab classes picked from a specific list. This class wasn't on the list when I took it, and suddenly it was, resulting in an influx of students that may or may not (most likely the latter) have wanted to take the class to begin with. The class always counted toward a biology degree, but since it wasn't on that specific list of labs, most people overlooked it.
One of things I struggled with a lot during my year of teaching was a huge conflict of interest between me and the students, or me and the institution. I wanted to students to care about the material they were supposed to be learning, and I expected them to put in the effort to do well in the class because they chose to take it. On the flip side, most students wanted an easy A and do just enough to cruise by. I had one student turn in his Google search list about Compound X as his bibliography about how Compound X affected embryonic development. I emailed him and asked him to redo it, which he never did. Two weeks later, he came into office hours in a panic because he claimed that he was "snowboarding in Canada" that day and didn't get the email. And also, "can I still get credit if I redo it now?"
Seriously? Why even bother asking that question? The answer is obviously no.
***
I was having a discussion with one of my friends about institutions of higher learning; I was angry about our current system and how much grade inflation there was. I think bell curves can be pretty fair, but right now our bell curve has shifted so much to the right; the average, instead of being a B- or B like some of the classes I saw in undergrad, is now an B+ or even an A-. How are you supposed to differentiate between the average students and the outstanding students then?
On the flip side, instructors get in trouble with admin if their class averages are too low. My professor for Orgo II got fired after her term teaching us. Student evaluations aside, she had one test that was so difficult that the class average (for 1000+ students) was a 42%. So part of this huge grade inflation problem stems from instructors wanting a bit of job security... I understand that at least in part. However, things get out of hand when a student who clearly deserves a C- or a C ends up getting a B... just so we can move the class average up a few points and avoid getting in trouble by admin.
No instructor wants to reward mediocrity, but it ends up that way because students are the ones who are paying... and therefore the customers. So what do we do?
However, my first teaching experience was in a class that I had taken my junior year of undergrad, and my GSI was one of my current advisor's former students. He seemed pretty relaxed about class policies, given that we didn't do anything stupid, like take naps or text people. I think one of the best parts about the class was that everyone who was registered actually wanted to be there, and nobody was in that "I need an easy lab course to cruise through my senior year" mindset, which made life easier for both the GSI and the students.
Unfortunately cases like that are pretty much utopia.
I ran into that GSI about a year later, and found out that he was teaching the same class again. When asked how teaching was going, he gave a different response: students had become whiners. Granted, it was a lab class that met for four hours on a stretch, and lab activities aren't always going to be fun and games, especially if grades (and possibility of future schooling) is at stake. The biggest problem is that most of the students WERE in the "I need an easy A to graduate" mindset, and as a result, procured mediocre work and less-than-stellar behavior.
So what changed? The undergraduate biology program here requires all students to have at least 2 lab classes picked from a specific list. This class wasn't on the list when I took it, and suddenly it was, resulting in an influx of students that may or may not (most likely the latter) have wanted to take the class to begin with. The class always counted toward a biology degree, but since it wasn't on that specific list of labs, most people overlooked it.
One of things I struggled with a lot during my year of teaching was a huge conflict of interest between me and the students, or me and the institution. I wanted to students to care about the material they were supposed to be learning, and I expected them to put in the effort to do well in the class because they chose to take it. On the flip side, most students wanted an easy A and do just enough to cruise by. I had one student turn in his Google search list about Compound X as his bibliography about how Compound X affected embryonic development. I emailed him and asked him to redo it, which he never did. Two weeks later, he came into office hours in a panic because he claimed that he was "snowboarding in Canada" that day and didn't get the email. And also, "can I still get credit if I redo it now?"
Seriously? Why even bother asking that question? The answer is obviously no.
***
I was having a discussion with one of my friends about institutions of higher learning; I was angry about our current system and how much grade inflation there was. I think bell curves can be pretty fair, but right now our bell curve has shifted so much to the right; the average, instead of being a B- or B like some of the classes I saw in undergrad, is now an B+ or even an A-. How are you supposed to differentiate between the average students and the outstanding students then?
On the flip side, instructors get in trouble with admin if their class averages are too low. My professor for Orgo II got fired after her term teaching us. Student evaluations aside, she had one test that was so difficult that the class average (for 1000+ students) was a 42%. So part of this huge grade inflation problem stems from instructors wanting a bit of job security... I understand that at least in part. However, things get out of hand when a student who clearly deserves a C- or a C ends up getting a B... just so we can move the class average up a few points and avoid getting in trouble by admin.
No instructor wants to reward mediocrity, but it ends up that way because students are the ones who are paying... and therefore the customers. So what do we do?
Thursday, December 16, 2010
2010 (Un)productivity
I haven't gotten very nostalgic lately whenever news broadcasts go into their annual "year in review" montages; more often than not, I can't wait for the year to end in hopes that 2011 will bring some real progress.
In terms of research and grad school, my verdict remains the same. Several of my labmates and I recently submitted fellowship applications to the NSF or NIH, which were due at the end of November/beginning of December. For me, it was like writing prelims all over again, except (a) the stakes were much higher, (b) my advisor edited it extensively, and (c) I had to relate everything I did to human health, which was slightly irritating. It wasn't too difficult to relate my work to the obesity epidemic, but sometimes it seemed like a stretch. One of my friends works as some sort of grant reviewer for the military, and I sent my (simplified) aims to him. Granted, he has an engineering background, so he didn't understand a lot of the language used in my writing. I used him to gauge what questions people might ask about my work in terms of human relevance; even so, sometimes I wonder if the relevance I presented in my application is a bit of a long-shot.
It seemed like the only things I did this year were teach and write. I taught during the term I took prelims, and then I went completely AWOL from lab for two weeks to concentrate on writing (and grading, but mostly writing). After I turned in the written portion, I was still teaching, but prepping for the oral exam. During this entire process, I think the only new data I got was that I could finally get bacteria to overexpress "my favorite gene," which I had been cloning for about 6 months. "My favorite gene" got translated in vitro to "my favorite protein," but I didn't get to test biological activity of the protein until June.
Summer was pretty nice; I tested "my favorite protein," and got some descriptive data. The minor problem was that it wasn't exactly full-speed ahead research. I got my thesis committee formed, but my project was still a bit hazy. So as a result, my advisor said to write a thesis proposal for my newly-formed committee. The proposal was similar to the one in my written prelim, but I could incorporate new data, so I had to do some rearranging/rewriting. At least I didn't have to go MIA from lab.
Until I got a surprise teaching assignment for fall term.
So somewhere in there I was teaching a heavier courseload and writing my application for the NIH. And somewhere in there I started feeling a time-crunch and data-crunch. What on earth did I accomplish in the past few months? I could summarize my entire year's worth of data in a picture and two graphs. Hardly what I would call a paper, and I'm halfway through my third year. O_o
The good part is that 2010 is almost over, and the road ahead looks less foggy in terms of project direction. The *really* good part is that I don't have to teach in January, so it'll be full-steam ahead from January until the end of August or even later. Here we go!
In terms of research and grad school, my verdict remains the same. Several of my labmates and I recently submitted fellowship applications to the NSF or NIH, which were due at the end of November/beginning of December. For me, it was like writing prelims all over again, except (a) the stakes were much higher, (b) my advisor edited it extensively, and (c) I had to relate everything I did to human health, which was slightly irritating. It wasn't too difficult to relate my work to the obesity epidemic, but sometimes it seemed like a stretch. One of my friends works as some sort of grant reviewer for the military, and I sent my (simplified) aims to him. Granted, he has an engineering background, so he didn't understand a lot of the language used in my writing. I used him to gauge what questions people might ask about my work in terms of human relevance; even so, sometimes I wonder if the relevance I presented in my application is a bit of a long-shot.
It seemed like the only things I did this year were teach and write. I taught during the term I took prelims, and then I went completely AWOL from lab for two weeks to concentrate on writing (and grading, but mostly writing). After I turned in the written portion, I was still teaching, but prepping for the oral exam. During this entire process, I think the only new data I got was that I could finally get bacteria to overexpress "my favorite gene," which I had been cloning for about 6 months. "My favorite gene" got translated in vitro to "my favorite protein," but I didn't get to test biological activity of the protein until June.
Summer was pretty nice; I tested "my favorite protein," and got some descriptive data. The minor problem was that it wasn't exactly full-speed ahead research. I got my thesis committee formed, but my project was still a bit hazy. So as a result, my advisor said to write a thesis proposal for my newly-formed committee. The proposal was similar to the one in my written prelim, but I could incorporate new data, so I had to do some rearranging/rewriting. At least I didn't have to go MIA from lab.
Until I got a surprise teaching assignment for fall term.
So somewhere in there I was teaching a heavier courseload and writing my application for the NIH. And somewhere in there I started feeling a time-crunch and data-crunch. What on earth did I accomplish in the past few months? I could summarize my entire year's worth of data in a picture and two graphs. Hardly what I would call a paper, and I'm halfway through my third year. O_o
The good part is that 2010 is almost over, and the road ahead looks less foggy in terms of project direction. The *really* good part is that I don't have to teach in January, so it'll be full-steam ahead from January until the end of August or even later. Here we go!
Sunday, November 21, 2010
The IQ Cutoff
My friend sent me an article a while back called "The Importance of Stupidity in Scientific Research". The author defined "stupidity" not as a lack of intelligence, but simply not knowing what the answer was... and devising ways to find out. He wrote that research is delving nto the unknown, and realizing that we'll never know everything about what's around us. Granted, scientists are making discoveries faster than ever, but the more we find out, the more we realize how much more we need to learn. There's always going to be phenomena that don't necessarily fit with our theories, and even as we learn new things, we can't say we've ever proven anything... just that whatever we discovered "supports" our preexisting hypothesis.
Unfortunately that's not my problem. I might not be fully aware of how much there is to learn, and I'm not too afraid of venturing out to learn something new. My biggest problem right now is that sometimes I feel stupid. And this time I mean lack-of-intelligence-howcome-I-can't-see-that-but-everyone-else-can stupid.
I'm currently writing a fellowship to be submitted to the NIH, and while the research strategy, experience, and rec letters are the most important, I still need to submit my list of science classes I took in college/grad school and the grades I got in them. I'm quite self-conscious about my grades; this problem happened when I was applying to grad school, when I was working as a rotation student, and it's happening again now. In college, I took liberties to challenge myself with multiple science classes (like any science major), but I might have underestimated what it was going to be like. Eventually I learned how to effectively divide my attention between three or four different science topics, but sooner or later, I would focus much more on the class(es) I liked, and as a result, the other subjects were set on the back burner. All in all, I was an "average" student.
Science might not be full of super-geniuses, but sometimes I wonder if there is a baseline level of intelligence and whether I'm floating around that line. My grades aren't saying much, and sometimes (like now) I get afraid that they might stand in the way between me and a fellowship. Do you have to be above average to succeed here? When do grades stop mattering at all?
Unfortunately that's not my problem. I might not be fully aware of how much there is to learn, and I'm not too afraid of venturing out to learn something new. My biggest problem right now is that sometimes I feel stupid. And this time I mean lack-of-intelligence-howcome-I-can't-see-that-but-everyone-else-can stupid.
I'm currently writing a fellowship to be submitted to the NIH, and while the research strategy, experience, and rec letters are the most important, I still need to submit my list of science classes I took in college/grad school and the grades I got in them. I'm quite self-conscious about my grades; this problem happened when I was applying to grad school, when I was working as a rotation student, and it's happening again now. In college, I took liberties to challenge myself with multiple science classes (like any science major), but I might have underestimated what it was going to be like. Eventually I learned how to effectively divide my attention between three or four different science topics, but sooner or later, I would focus much more on the class(es) I liked, and as a result, the other subjects were set on the back burner. All in all, I was an "average" student.
Science might not be full of super-geniuses, but sometimes I wonder if there is a baseline level of intelligence and whether I'm floating around that line. My grades aren't saying much, and sometimes (like now) I get afraid that they might stand in the way between me and a fellowship. Do you have to be above average to succeed here? When do grades stop mattering at all?
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Inception
The September 30 issue of Nature ran a piece about research sabotage at the University of Michigan, where a postdoc in a particular lab who deliberately ruined a fellow grad student's work by poisoning her cell culture media, among other things. Sadly, research sabotage is not unheard of, although in many cases it's an act of desperation.
A while back, one of my cohort members was talking about self-sabotaging labs, or labs that consisted mostly of postdocs. She called them self-sabotaging because of the intense competition between the members -- whoever has the best idea or approach to a problem gets funded. That's not to say all labs that have a lot of postdocs work that way, but sometimes intense competition fuels jealousy, which in turn leads to wrecking other people's work.
But where to draw the line? One of my friends went to a conference last year where the people present were so scared of getting scooped (having their ideas stolen) that they refused to interact with each other. Research is all about ideas... figuring out the right questions to ask in light of what's already known. And the best way to figure out if you have a good idea or not is to bounce them off the right people. For my case, it would be my labmates and my advisor. For the independent scientist with their own lab, it would be other people in the field. However, unless you already have decades of experience in the field, how would you know who would turn out to be a good collaborator versus someone who could scoop your ideas? Where do you draw the line at how much of your ideas to share versus what to keep hidden?
It would be an impossible ideal to have scientists collaborate with each other all the time. Grant money is tight and hard to come by, awarded to those with the best or most promising ideas...but unless you're a reclusive genius, good ideas are hardly the work of one individual. Which brings back the question... where does one draw the line between keeping it a secret and collaborating with someone else? Are there ways to minimize getting scooped?
***
In the movie Inception, the main character (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) states "what is the world's most dangerous parasite? An idea...it will consume you."
A while back, one of my cohort members was talking about self-sabotaging labs, or labs that consisted mostly of postdocs. She called them self-sabotaging because of the intense competition between the members -- whoever has the best idea or approach to a problem gets funded. That's not to say all labs that have a lot of postdocs work that way, but sometimes intense competition fuels jealousy, which in turn leads to wrecking other people's work.
But where to draw the line? One of my friends went to a conference last year where the people present were so scared of getting scooped (having their ideas stolen) that they refused to interact with each other. Research is all about ideas... figuring out the right questions to ask in light of what's already known. And the best way to figure out if you have a good idea or not is to bounce them off the right people. For my case, it would be my labmates and my advisor. For the independent scientist with their own lab, it would be other people in the field. However, unless you already have decades of experience in the field, how would you know who would turn out to be a good collaborator versus someone who could scoop your ideas? Where do you draw the line at how much of your ideas to share versus what to keep hidden?
It would be an impossible ideal to have scientists collaborate with each other all the time. Grant money is tight and hard to come by, awarded to those with the best or most promising ideas...but unless you're a reclusive genius, good ideas are hardly the work of one individual. Which brings back the question... where does one draw the line between keeping it a secret and collaborating with someone else? Are there ways to minimize getting scooped?
***
In the movie Inception, the main character (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) states "what is the world's most dangerous parasite? An idea...it will consume you."
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
More from the other side of the podium
I'm teaching again this term -- a lab class on animal physiology, full of overachieving premed students. It's a bit of a contrast compared to some of the stuff I had to deal with last term, but then again, it could be because my incoming schpeel was a bit different. I don't think anyone is super prepared to teach the first time around; no matter how prepared I thought I was, it still got to be a bit nerve-racking to stand up in front of 20-some kids and go through everything you expect out of them.
Even though it's a lot smoother this time around, I still see some of the nervousness creeping in. I'm teaching two sections, and sometimes I feel a lot more prepared for the second lab group. I write a list of stuff I want to cover in every class, but I tend to rush through things in the first class and go a lot slower (and cover more info) in the second. I'm hoping it'll get better as the term progresses.
*****
I told my advisor in August that I was interested in mentoring an undergrad research assistant, and he's been forwarding all these emails he's been getting from assorted undergrads looking for lab positions. Since they're going to be primarily working with me, I get to interview them and send the ones I liked to my advisor.
It was a little weird being the interviewer and not the interviewee; I had a few questions written down, but it wasn't just recording their answers -- it was gauging their interest in terms of voice inflections and body language. But while I was sitting there observing them, I'm pretty sure the reverse is also true. Just felt a little surreal being the person looking for a helper, and not the one looking for a helper position.
Anyway, I forwarded the resumes of two students to my advisor. He'll be interviewing them later and I'll probably start mentoring soon. :)
Even though it's a lot smoother this time around, I still see some of the nervousness creeping in. I'm teaching two sections, and sometimes I feel a lot more prepared for the second lab group. I write a list of stuff I want to cover in every class, but I tend to rush through things in the first class and go a lot slower (and cover more info) in the second. I'm hoping it'll get better as the term progresses.
*****
I told my advisor in August that I was interested in mentoring an undergrad research assistant, and he's been forwarding all these emails he's been getting from assorted undergrads looking for lab positions. Since they're going to be primarily working with me, I get to interview them and send the ones I liked to my advisor.
It was a little weird being the interviewer and not the interviewee; I had a few questions written down, but it wasn't just recording their answers -- it was gauging their interest in terms of voice inflections and body language. But while I was sitting there observing them, I'm pretty sure the reverse is also true. Just felt a little surreal being the person looking for a helper, and not the one looking for a helper position.
Anyway, I forwarded the resumes of two students to my advisor. He'll be interviewing them later and I'll probably start mentoring soon. :)
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