As I get closer to completing my degree I’ve noticed that there is a large gap between theory and practice when I find myself working more and more in labs.
My course program is very extensive and delves into various areas either related to biotechnology or broad engineering. And this is great, especially for someone like myself, the ever hungry for knowledge.
What makes me somewhat uneasy is the fact that when I’m requested to perform certain simple tasks such as protein purifications or DNA transfections, my practical knowledge is far behind my theoretical counterpart.
This isn’t all bad news, especially because I’d always prefer to know the theory behind a technique or procedure and not know the practical part, rather than the other way around.
But in the real world this doesn’t really stick. So, like anybody that is finishing a long learning process such as a university degree, I don’t like making a fool of myself when push comes to shove.
Hopefully, with my theory well set in place I can now pick up the practical part of my academic learning in a timely fashion with a short voluntary internship.
So here’s a question: When you completed your degree, did you feel this type of imbalance between the theoretical and the practical components?
Note: This is not a rant against my university’s program, it’s just a fact that there is so much more to learn to do than we get a chance to perform in our lab classes.
Last updated:
Friday, 18 May
2007 - 20:46 UTC
I suppose you are talking about the move from undergraduate to graduate study. For the theoretical part, there are many graduate courses that is very necessary and helpful to the transition from an undergrad to a grad. And some newer knowledge can only be obtained by reading papers from the past decade. What we have learned in undergraduate years is mainly classic theories, but in practical research one may need more newer theories, which current books may not have covered so much. For the practical part, still you have to find books for the lab techniques involved in your program. In terms of organic chemistry, there are many books introducing every aspects of the lab techniques from types of ground glass joint to chromatography methods. Mechanisms of some classic instruments are also available in books, but for those of some newer instrumental techniques you may only find something useful from reviews (if any). For example I found nice reviews and papers on Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS), SAXS, and SANS (Small Angel X-ray/Neutron Scattering) technology.
I hope this is useful.
Thanks for the comment.
I would say that I’m half in agreement with what you said, but let me use your chromatography example as an.. uhm… example.
I’ve learned about the most common types of chromatography there exists. And have seen some of them in action. But when I was asked to prepare and perform an affinity chromatography for protein purification, I was lost in the lab.
That is what I was ranting about.
Obviously now I know because I finally got to do it all on my own. If my life depended on it that afternoon, I think I’d be in big trouble! ;)
well…I think you are just too worry about the situation. You can’t just suppose there is no way to achieve something although there may indeed be few. And if there are limited ways to cope with it you will not be blamed for just being helpless.
Back to the problem, sometimes you may find some very practical guideline from the user manual of the instrument, with all the warnings and cautions that let you feel free to try around the instrument and get familiar with it. I have been a part-time thermogravity (TG) operator, and to tell you the truth I just ruined the sensor for a time, and was severely blamed…but I did not lose the job. In fact I became very sophisticated with the machine afterwards. Your life doesn’t depend on it, man!
Yes, I agree. After the chance to see how the actual equipment works, it all becomes easier. It’s just that first confrontation with the practical work that is relatively difficult, even with all the theoretical background in that specific area.
Once again, thanks for your insight.
I consider myself quite lucky in that the university that I went to placed a high emphasis on practical work. During an MSc I mastered some other useful techniques. And then EVERY subsequent job or research project involved learning more methods that were completely new to me! By the time I reached the stage that I was unlikely to make a fool of myself it was time to move on.
I think that the important thing is to ask other people in your lab to show you how to do things and then to just give it a go. Most experiments fail the first time, and most researchers are happy to help a new person. After all that was probably how they learnt.
There are a lot of other useful resources, e.g.:
(1) You could have a look at the methods published at Nature Protocols (Volume 2 is free at the moment)(shameless advertising, I know)
(2) OpenWetWare also looks like a nice website.
(3) You could ask questions on fora e.g. the Chemical Forums or Nature Protocols Discussion Forum :)
(4) In the case of protein purification/chromatography stuff you can often get really useful practical advice by phoning the technical support people at the supplier.
About the technical support people at the supplier, I still want to add that those people may just surprise you when you ask. I was doing a ‘PS microsphere under dynamic light scattering’ project and had great difficulty absorbing proteins on the polymer beads. This should be a common trouble in experiment and should be overcome by more experimental labor. But when I try emailing the supplier of the microsphere, the technical support just knew how to attach different types of proteins to different sizes of bead in different buffer solution; they provided step-by-step protocol following which I succeeded immediately. They have a staff of experts to answer questions like this!
@Bronwen Dekker, thank you for the list of resources. Don’t what what rock I’ve been under to not have known about Nature Protocols :) Nice!
@Andrew Sun, once again I agree with you, most companies and suppliers have experts with a lot of specific info that otherwise would be hard to come across.
I cannot enter the comment section of your next post (‘picking and choosing’)
@Andrew: thanks for pointing that out. Only now noticed that it can’t be read in full. I’ve emailed the folks at Nature Network regarding this issue. Hope it’s all fixed soon!
Cheers!
My next post has been fixed and can now be commented in. :)