Photo by Serikotik1970

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I recently finished reading A Primate’s Memoir by Robert Sapolsky and I really enjoyed it. It was quite fascinating to here his many stories about his time spent in East Africa amongst the baboons. It was also very encouraging to read about the many obstacles he faced while trying to do good science. Here you will find a post with several recommended science books, including Sapolsky’s.

I also enjoy reading other ‘popular’ books as well. I usually check Amazon’s recommendations or the NY Times bestsellers. I tend to float towards the paperback non-fiction, but I have enjoyed some very good fiction books (including Tolkien).

I often think that my time would be better spent reading journal articles in my field. I’m sure my boss would be a bit disappointed if he knew the amount of time I spent reading books, and the lack of time I spend reading journal articles. One of the professors here at my institution whom I admire told me that I should read at least one journal article per day. I’ve totally failed at doing that, but I think the advice is on the mark. I think one of the advantages of reading books, instead of, or in addition to, journal articles is that it sparks the imagination. It helps me to detach from my narrow focus for a bit and provides more of a world view. I guess this is why I like to read books about other cultures. Who knows, maybe I’ll come up with some brilliant experiments while reading about Middle Earth. Time will reveal if I should only bury my nose in journal articles. But for now, I think I’ll try to keep up with both.

Photo by Kai Henry

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Well, it’s final exams week and undergraduates are hogging all of the seats in the library. Each one of them has probably been staring at their monitors for the past 36 hours trying to cram in their brains all of the information that they should’ve learned during the semester. 15 weeks of reading is now being completed in 15 hours. What a terrible time of year!

As a scientist, I hypothesize that procrastination can kill you. There’s probably some data floating around about this but I’ll just do a bit of reasoning on this one. Let’s see, what bad things happen because of procrastination:

1. Sleep deprivation
2. Excessive caffeine consumption
3. Brain overload
4. Elevated blood pressure
5. Poor hygiene
6. Depression
7. Fatigue.

This list looks horrible. Why would anyone do this?

Don’t let procrastination get the best of you. Do your work! Don’t put it off. Start a study schedule in the beginning of the semester and stick to it.

Speaking of this, I’d better go and re-warm my coffee and get back to writing this grant…

Photo by The Doctor Is In’s

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For many first-year graduate students all over the world, this time of year imposes a significant, burdensome question that each one must answer. The answer to this question will determine their happiness, stress, and livelihood for the next few years. It may even impact their entire career! This question is: What lab am I going to join? Therefore, I thought it suitable to share my experiences about how I chose my lab (although I’ve only done it once).

Why is choosing the right lab so important?

Like I said before, it really will have a significant impact on the rest of your life. I strongly believe that the amount of publications you graduate with, and their impact, will be dependent upon the lab that you join. In saying this, I’m not just referring to the lab environment, but also your PI’s name. Who knows, if you get into the right lab, you may be first author on a few review articles in your field. With that being said, that probably won’t happen if you’re a terrible scientist. Also, your mentor during graduate school will be the most significant person to write you a letter of recommendation from now on. Therefore, he or she will either help you or hurt you when applying for that Harvard post-doc or high-paying industry job. Also, the amount of time you spend in graduate school will be partially dependent upon the lab you choose. The amount of hours you work per week, the stress you accumulate, and even the length of your vacation will be affected by the lab that you join. So, choose wisely.

Most graduate schools, as far as I know, try to make this process easier by allowing (or sometimes forcing) students to rotate in 3 or more labs before actually joining the lab in which they will conduct their dissertation project. This allows the student to get an idea of what the lab will be like before committing to spend the next 4 (or more) years of their life there. This is a great thing for graduate students. Although it does prolong the amount of time you spend in graduate school, it just may prevent you from dropping out. Therefore, you should really contemplate which labs you want to rotate in.

So, how did I come up with a list of potential labs to join?

Research Interests

The first criteria that I used to narrow my list of potential labs was subject matter. What exactly is this lab’s research about. For me, I was really fascinated by Microbiology and Immunology. However, I didn’t just look at those faculty members with appointments in the Micro/Immuno department, because there are several labs that work in those fields who aren’t members of that department. So, I had to search a bit harder. On my school’s website, there is a searchable database of all of the research faculty, which includes a short description of their research interests. Therefore, I basically went through that entire list and took note of those labs who were doing research that I thought I might enjoy. I was very particular in doing this, so I narrowed my potential choices by 95%.

The reason that I used ‘research interests’ as my first criteria was because I just couldn’t imagine spending my life doing stuff that I don’t enjoy. I think that a person doing that is basically asking for misery.

Publication Record

If I remember correctly, I think this left me with about 10-15 potential labs to rotate in. Therefore, I still had to narrow this list down to 4. The next criteria I used to shorten this list was the lab’s publication record. Let’s face it: the number of publications that you graduate with, and their impact, is probably going to be the most important stuff on your CV from here on out. Therefore, you want to join a lab in which you’ll be very productive and publish frequently in high-impact journals. Consequently, if a lab is not currently publishing well, it’s unlikely that you’re going to change this by joining the lab. On the same note, if a lab is publishing well, it’s also unlikely that this trend will change. Of course, this is not always true, but it’s a safe way to think when choosing your lab.

When looking at a lab’s publication record, there are a few things you need to concentrate on: the journals they are publishing in, and how frequently are they publishing. Also, make sure you’re only looking at those publications where the potential mentor is the last author (that means that the majority of the research done for that publication was likely performed in that lab). I, personally, wouldn’t join a lab that didn’t publish at least 2 papers in medium-impact journals (4-8) per year. However, you’ll find some labs that like to, as some people call it, wait for the home run. These labs don’t publish frequently, but will produce a Nature article every 2 to 3 years. Personally, I would rather join a lab that publishes more frequently. Knowing that my work is going to be published soon helps keep me focused and motivated.

Subjective Criteria

After removing the labs that have not been publishing well from my list, I was left with about 5 potential labs. From here, I spoke to older graduate students about these labs and removed the one or two wackos from the list. This left me with just the right number of labs that I could rotate in.

During the rotation, this is when you should use more subjective criteria to choose your final lab. You’ll definitely notice how well you fit in the lab, how friendly the other people are, and how your relationship with your mentor will be. Most importantly, you’ll learn how well you’ll be trained in the lab. These types of things vary from person-to-person, but here’s some general advice. Don’t join a lab that makes you miserable. Don’t join a lab where no one will help you. And don’t join a lab if you can’t meet with the boss regularly. I’m sure I could come up with a lot more reasons why not to join a lab, but I think you could figure it out. I really think that the quality of training you’ll receive is the most important thing during graduate school. It’s difficult to determine how well you’ll be trained during your rotation, however, if there is no one around, or willing, to help you, then you probably won’t be trained very well in this lab.

So, after the rotations, I had a good idea about the best lab for me and I joined it. Of course, I’ve left out a lot of details, so if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.

To all first-year grad students, I hope you all find the perfect lab. Please be sure to let me know, so I can try and get a post-doc position there ;) .

I came across this post online and thought we all could benefit from it. Check it out.

From Al Gore’s Chief Speechwriter: Simple Tips for a Damn Good Presentation (Plus: Breakdancing)

Photo by Misterbisson

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I’ve finally joined the ranks of those who like to walk while they work . Initially, I was skeptical. I wasn’t sure that I would get a good workout; I wasn’t sure I would be able to focus upon my work; and I wasn’t sure that I would be able to set up such a system in my home. Well, those skepticisms have been put to rest.

Concerning getting a good workout, I have come to terms that it just won’t happen. However, if done long enough, you can certainly burn some calories. Here [one and two ] are some very interesting articles concerning this.

Surprisingly, I was able to focus on my work, but there is a trick; you have to walk really, really slowly. I think the recommended speed is around 0.7mph. It seems as if I can focus better than sitting at my desk. I think this may be due to the terrible noise my treadmill makes, which helps me block out the television.

I had to be a bit creative in order to set up such a system in my home. I already had a very cheap treadmill that my wife uses. I sometimes jog on it, but the top speed is only 5mph, so that’s a really slow jog. If you look at the picture below, you can see that the controls for my treadmill are on a slant. (Please excuse the terrible quality of these photos; they were taken with my phone.)

So, I couldn’t initially think of what could be used to set up a desk on my treadmill. I began searching, almost violently, around my home looking for anything that could be used for this purpose. I then remembered that I removed a shelf from a small bookshelf I had in order to use the bookshelf as my desk. So, I found that piece (stored under a bed) and, because of its shape, was able to attach onto the controls while resting on the arms of the treadmill. So that was great. I began using it and I found that it was very hard to type on because of the huge slant.

So, I tried to be a bit creative and wrapped some towels around the arms of the treadmill in order to raise the bottom portion of the desk. That worked for a while, but then I wanted to be a little more hi-tech. So, here’s a pic of my current setup. I basically just grabbed some old binders that I had and tied it to the desk and treadmill using some shoe-strings. Works like a charm.

I feel pretty good about this, as I feel this could really help keep me in shape. As a graduate student, I’m always strapped to my laptop. This allows me to get some exercise while still being productive. As of now, I’m trying to walk and work for about an hour per day. Upon finishing, my hips and lower back ache, so I guess this is a sign that it’s working. So, for all those who make the excuse that there’s not enough hours in the day to exercise, this may be a good option.

Photo by UBC Library

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My wife and I were recently conversing about the state of education in America. We discussed the statements of others about American students not being able to compete internationally in Math and Science. Although we did not fully agree with such statements, my wife, who is an Elementary School teacher, gave some possible reasons why such a thing could happen in the future. Of the several things she stated, one particular thing really caught my attention. She said that Americans went to school for the wrong reasons. Instead of seeking to gain knowledge about a particular subject, she said, many students attend school because they will get a better job upon finishing and have a higher salary.

I began to think about what she stated in light of some recent statistics . These statistics suggest that about 29% of Americans over 18 years old have a Bachelor’s degree. However, only about 1.2% of Americans over 25 have a PhD. These statistics also confirm that the more education one has, the higher the salary. So, if what my wife said is correct, one would expect to have a higher percentage of Americans with terminal degrees. However, the statistics suggest otherwise. Why is this so?

”If it was easy, everyone would do it.” -Anonymous

I think the reason is, to put it simply, graduate school is tough. It requires one to work long hours with very little pay (much lower than the average salary for persons with only a high school degree). Without a firm commitment to in-depth study and learning knowledge for it’s own sake, it’s close to impossible to finish graduate school. One has to love it. So, my advice to future graduate students, or new graduate students, is to make yourself love graduate school. Immerse yourself in the university environment. Hang out with other scientists. Read voraciously, but not just to finish the book, but to have a firm understanding of whatever you read. Lastly, try to have fun doing research, discovering the unknown.

Photo by Simon Music
Originally posted at my old blog
I’ll only re-post a few items to stimulate discussion.
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Let’s face it, most research projects don’t work. No matter how hard we try, how many gels we run, how many Western blots we develop, sometimes, the science just isn’t there. This can be very frustrating, especially if you’ve spent years on a project, only to realize later that your hypothesis was wrong. Therefore, to prevent students from remaining on the PI’s payroll for 10 years, most students will work on multiple projects at one time.

Most projects can easily take a year to complete. Of course, each project is composed of multiple experiments. Likewise, each experiment is going to have to be standardized. If you’re one who really doesn’t like to waste time (and you should be), then you’ll probably do multiple experiments per day for different projects. At the end of the week, you would have probably completed about 10-15 different experiments (or several steps of experiments) from 2-3 projects. Come Monday morning, your experiments may be a bit of a blur, and you may not know what you should be doing next. When your next lab meeting comes around, although you’ve been working hard, it may seem as if you’ve done much of nothing if you can’t express your results and current projects in an organized manner.

How do you stay on top of this stuff?

1. Set up your folders
You should keep a folder on your computer for each project that you are undertaking. All the data that you generate for each project should be stored in its particular folder. For example, one of my project folders has Excel file sheets (for number crunching), Word documents or txt files for protocols or experiment details (sometimes this information is included in the Excel files), and graphs of my data. Anything relating to this project should go into the same folder.

2. Keep a list
Furthermore, I keep a running list of my projects in a txt file along with some brief information regarding the status of my projects (how many mice/group, list of experiments in those projects, how many times it was repeated, etc.). This allows me to quickly overview the status of my projects and determine what I should do next.

3. Next Actions
Daily, I write down a list of Next Actions (see GTD by David Allen ). This list holds all of the things that I need to do next for all of my projects. When one thing is completed, it is crossed out and another Next Action, from the same project, is placed on the list. This helps me to continuously move all of my projects forward. However, by having this list, this does not mean that I work on all of my projects at the same pace. On the contrary, I tend to focus on one project at a time until it is completed or there is another reason that I cannot move the project forward. At one point, I used to write these actions on index cards and hang them over my bench. I’m not sure exactly why, but I stopped doing that and I am now keeping it attached to my hipster PDA in my pocket.

4. Most Important Tasks (MITs)
Here is a trick I learned over at Zen Habits . Everyday, make a list of no more than three items that you must accomplish. These tasks should be the most important tasks on your Next Actions list and you should begin working on them first thing in the morning. As soon as you get to the lab, just knock out these tasks and spend the rest of the day however you want. By the evening, even if you goof-off all afternoon, you’ll still feel good about yourself knowing that you have accomplished your MITs.

These are tips that I’m currently using to complete my PhD. I’m sure that many others will have different, probably better, ways of managing projects. Please share them in the comments.

Photo by Sanbeiji

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”It takes intelligence, even brilliance, to condense and focus information into a clear, simple presentation that will be…remembered.”
- Mary Helen Briscoe

I recently sat through one of the worst seminars in my life. It probably wasn’t as terrible as I think it was. I’m sure the presenter, who is an endowed chair of something, is quite brilliant. Nevertheless, he was unable to convey his research to his audience in an understandable manner. It may be that I am just an idiot, and it’s my fault that I didn’t understand the lecture. But, based upon statements from others who attended the lecture, I wasn’t the only one that wanted to leave early. Instead of creeping out of the back door, I decided to take notes about what I thought the presenter failed miserably at, and also what could be improved upon. After examining my notes, I have come up with six tips to consider before your next presentation.

1. Bring everyone up to speed. Science is so broad that everyone specializes in something. With that being said, you should not lose sight of the big picture. If your research is focused upon G-protein coupled receptors, most members of the audience should have some idea about your topic. However, you should refresh the audience about the mechanism of receptor activation, and how this fits into the big picture about, let’s say, drug development. If you’re speaking to medical students and/or clinicians, spend more time focusing on the clinical implications of your research. The main idea here is to help the audience leave your presentation with a good understanding about what you just spoke about.

2. Engage your audience. I know, I shouldn’t have to say this, but apparently some of us need to be reminded: when you present, face your audience. It really bothers me when presenters talk directly to their presentation, instead of to the audience. It’s almost as if they don’t want the audience to fully grasp their subject matter. Face the audience and try to make eye contact with people in the crowd. Also, try not to sound boring. Speak about your research as if you’re actually excited about it.

3. Double-check your slides. Be sure to run your presentation beforehand in the same room that you’re going to be presenting. Spend some time thinking about the room setup. Are you going to use a Mac or a PC? Is the software you need available on the computer (e.g. Keynote, PowerPoint, QuickTime)? Are you going to use your own laptop? Do you have the correct adapters? Will the people in the back of the room be able to read your text? Will your pictures or video files play on this computer? These are some major questions you should consider before presenting.

4. Use body language. Act like you’re excited. Use your hands a bit (in a normal way, but not too much). Don’t go berserk with that laser pointer trying to slay Darth Vader…that’ll really annoy your audience. I find that the talks that I most enjoy are those in which the presenter moves around a bit on stage and uses good body language to keep the audience engaged.

5. Practice. Practicing is not going to make your presentation perfect, but it will get you very, very close. Some people may have presented the same lecture many times and not need any additional practice. However, the rest of us should go through our entire speech several times before actually presenting. This will prevent you from reading every word on your slides and, consequently, speaking to the screen.

6. End early. Every great lecture ends with a great discussion. Remember, you’re not presenting your research because you want to show the world how great you are; you’re lecturing hoping to get some excellent feedback to advance your research and help you get past those Nature reviewers.

I’m sure this list not even close to being complete. I would love to hear any additional advice from experienced presenters (or listeners) in the comments.

Hi, I’m Nuruddeen. I’m currently a 3rd year graduate student at Vanderbilt University in the U.S. My current research is focused upon the macrophage immune response to Helicobacter pylori infection.

During my time as a graduate student, I’ve ruined more experiments that I wish to think about. Many times, it was due to a slip of the hand or a careless mistake. However, sometimes, I bust my experiments because a very important trick was left out of the protocol. It is these types of things, along with other advice I have received, that led me to begin my own blog. I wanted to save other graduate students from the disasters that I’ve experienced.

I envision this blog being a place where I can post all of the advice, tips, and lifehacks that I have gathered as a graduate student, along with many of the tricks that I’ve learned. I’m sure that I don’t have all the answers for navigating successfully through graduate school. However, with some thoughtful discussion, maybe this blog will be a great resource for graduate students worldwide.

Thanks for reading. I look forward to any questions or comments.