_Photo by starfish235 _

---

I recently met with one of my dissertation committee members in order to discuss my proposal for the completion of my PhD. We discussed the aims, the preliminary data, and the results I had obtained thus far. We also spoke briefly about my publication prospects, which journal(s) do I plan to submit my work to. After a brief pause, seemingly weighing his words, he said to me, “You’re picking the low hanging fruit.” This confounded me a bit, as it took me a moment to figure out what he actually meant. Basically, he was trying to tell me that I’m taking the easy route through graduate school. He agreed that I could graduate with the work that I proposed, but he forced me to ponder if this is all I wanted out of graduate school…just to graduate.

When I joined my lab, I picked up on a project that was already funded from one of his grants. It was his idea, his experiments, but I was doing the work. In a few places I was able to actually use my own brain, but most of the ideas were all his. I thought this was normal, as I didn’t think graduate students could be expected to generate their own dissertation projects upon first joining the lab. However, what my committee member made me realize was that the great graduate students do come up with their own ideas. For me, coming up with my own high-risk project is…well…just that, risky. I feel quite safe working on things my mentor has already established. However, I now realize that if I ever plan to run my own research lab, I need to begin generating my own ideas.

I’m now beginning my fourth year and I hope to publish my first, first-author paper soon. Maybe after that I can begin working on my own projects and establishing myself as an independent scientist. And maybe then will I be able to reach the ripe fruit at the top of the tree.

I found this interesting article about one man’s experience doing a PhD. Some parts are amusing, but most of it is depressing. However, I think it offers an alternative view to the jolly life of doing a PhD. Here’s a quote:

“A PhD is not an extension of a Masters, or a super-super-BSc. It’s a qualification to conduct research. I’ll repeat that again because its important: it’s a qualification to conduct research. Therefore, the whole thing is not about actually solving a problem but the process you go through.”

Here’s another:

“And you are on your own. There is no team, no one to work with. It’s particularly lonely and, in the end, no one will actually care about your research except yourself (and, by the end, you probably won’t care either).”

I recently asked a post-doc in my lab, whose been actively doing research for 12 years, what are the most important tips to be successful in science. Her reply:

1. Dedicate 1 hour everyday to read a scientific article relating to your field of study.

2. Be consistent in your experiments. If you do something and it works, do it the exact same way everytime.

After hearing her response, I thought this would be perfect advice to share with some of the Nature Network readers. Then, I had a brilliant idea; I should pose this same question to all the intelligent people at Nature Network.

So, let’s have it guys. What do you think are the most important tips to be successful in science?

Photo by me
Sorry for not posting lately. I’ve just finished writing and defending my dissertation proposal.
-————————————

During my first year as a graduate student, James (Jim) Crowe , who is an awesome scientist and a great guy, once told me that I should read at least one journal article everyday. When he first told me this, I wasn’t really sure how to take it. Was he trying to intimidate me, scare me away from science? Or was he pulling one of his prized tips out of his bag, essentially giving me the key to scientific success? Now, in my third year, I would say it was the latter.

Reading one paper every day is tough, for me at least. The articles are dense. One sentence in a scientific article could have taken a grad student like me a year to complete. If you’re reading anything outside your field, you’ll have a tough time simply pronouncing the words correctly. And, if you’re reading about your own field, you still have to become accustomed to new methodologies that are always emerging. It’s not easy, but it gets better with practice.

Keeping up to date on recent scientific publications is essential to be successful in science. All of our work is simply an advancement of the work of others. Furthermore, it’s much easier to formulate a great hypothesis when you are aware of all of the preliminary data, even though this data was generated by another group. Also, if you carefully dissect several high-impact articles, you’ll begin to understand what it takes to publish high-impact papers.

Why read one paper per day? Why not one per week? Why not two per day? Well, one per day seems to be just tough enough that only a few people will do it, and just easy enough to be consistent. A quick glance at Jim Crowe’s pubmed record and the CRISP database would suggest that anything he has to say about science is probably right. The key is to read as much as you can.

I haven’t quite come up with any advice concerning reading review articles as opposed to primary research articles. Maybe someone can shed some light on this in the comments.

Go forth grad students, and read until your eyes burn.

_Photo by slightly-less-random _
_Repost from my old blog _
-———————————————

During your first and second years as a Ph.D. student, your brain will be challenged to its maximum. You’ll be forced to learn new information faster than Neo in the Matrix when he was programmed to learn Kung Fu. In your classes, the subject matter that you are being presented with is probably somewhat familiar to you; however, you’ll be learning a lot more details. Furthermore, many of the details were not available in your college textbooks because now, you’ll be learning directly from peer-reviewed journal articles. Not only will you learn how the science works, but you’ll also learn the experiments that were used to prove such facts. Also, if you’re really insightful, you’ll begin to question the research, see what’s missing, and have some idea about what experiments should be done next. This is the biggest difference that I could see between college and graduate school. You’re not only expected to learn the material, but you’re also expected to learn how this material was discovered. This is the ultimate goal of Ph.D. training, to teach you to think critically and analytically, like a scientist, and learn how to solve scientific problems. That’s the career you are being prepared for…to be a scientific problem solver.

Lab work is yet another challenging feat that you are bombarded with upon entering graduate school. I know you’ve worked in a lab before, but not like this. No one’s gonna hold your hand this time. You’ll probably be given some keys to the dungeon and an older student’s lab notebook and told to get to work. Well, it probably won’t be that bad. Besides, there are several labs to choose from, and each one is different. However, you will be expected to function independently at some point during your graduate school years. You will have to learn many new techniques, some of which will take a few tries before you can grasp them. With that in mind, be prepared to do a lot of experiments that probably won’t work the way you want them to. Remember this, the faster you standardize these techniques, the faster you’ll graduate.

Here are 3 general tips to help you pass successfully through these stages:

Immerse yourself in graduate school
This is going to be your life for the next few years so you must learn to love it. Try your best to enjoy being a student doing cutting edge research. Train yourself to love reading, writing, studying, and doing lab work.

Read as much as you can
This cannot be overstated. For everyone in the world, reading is a good thing to do. But for scientists, it’s almost an obligation. If needed, go back to those old college textbooks to brush up on the basics. Also, and probably more importantly, you have to read journal articles. I know that upon first glance, most journal articles look terribly boring and tough to understand, and that’s normal, because if you don’t understand the paper, it’s probably not going to be very interesting. The more you read them, the better you’ll become at understanding them. One professor told me that I should read at least one article everyday.

Ask for help
Most people aren’t jerks. If you need help, ask someone, and 9 times out of 10, they will help you. In your lab, when you need help on some technique, go to the friendly, smart post-doc. If you’re having trouble with a concept presented in class, go and visit the professor. It’s their job to help you.

This is definitely not an exhaustive list. If you have found other tips that were helpful to you, please post them in the comments.

_Photo by Serikotik1970 _
-———————————-

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 _
-———————————

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 _

---

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) ":http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/04/11/from-al-gores-chief-speechwriter-how-to-give-a-damn-good-presentation-plus-breakdancing/

Photo by Misterbisson
-———————

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.