Hello PhD

Most PhD students attend traditional academic institutions of higher educations. It’s the world of classes, campuses, and mortarboards you probably think of when you think about a University. But there’s a less-traveled path to a PhD that may actually hold some benefits for certain students, including those coming back to school after working for awhile, or those with families. We’re talking about research institutes, and it’s possible you’ve never even heard about this alternative path to a PhD. Research on the Brink Research institutes may not be on every student’s radar. Though there are several varieties, most research institutes exist as hybrids – not quite academic, but not quite industry. Not quite public, but not quite private either. Of the 10,000-15,000 research institutes in the United States, many were formed either to explore specific topics (agriculture, defense, or energy) or to bridge the gap between the lab and the wider world. These bridge-focused institutes can be industry partnerships or organizations that interface directly with patients through hospitals or clinical trials. This hybrid approach appeals to many scientists who want to see the tangible effects of their science out in the world. Instead of waiting for basic research to wind its way through publications, they can work directly on technologies that benefit patients. And happily, many institutes will actually train students and grant PhDs. This may be in collaboration with a traditional university (like the Max Planck Research Institutes), or a PhD may be granted by the institute itself (like Scripps). Voices from Beyond We talked with Kaylee Helfrich, a fourth-year PhD student at the UNC-Chapel Hill Nutrition Research Institute. The Institute is located about 2 hours away from the Chapel Hill campus in Kannapolis, NC, and that gave Kaylee a different experience from her campus-centric peers. This week on the show, she shares the challenges and benefits of doing research at an institute. We learn about classwork, how she finds collaborators and mentors, and tips for staying in touch with other students. We also learn about how the lifestyle differences could be either a blessing or a curse, depending on the student. Because most of the employees of the institute are career scientists and administrators, there are fewer students with whom to socialize after hours. On the plus side, those hours tend to follow a standard office work day from 9 AM to 5 PM with weekends off. For some PhD students, that may sound too good to be true! Leave a comment below and tell us about YOUR experience at a research institute. Was it the right choice for you? How does it differ from Kaylee’s experience? The King of (Pumpkin) Beers We nearly missed it this year, but we managed to sneak it in under the wire – it’s our annual tasting of the seasonal pumpkin beer! This time, we taste-test the Pumking Imperial Ale from Southern Tier Brewing. Curious what we thought? Let’s just say, the best thing about this beer is the mascot.

We’re bringing you this bonus episode to encourage our listeners to submit their artwork to the Promega Art Contest for Creative Scientists. This isn’t for everyone – it’s just for listeners of Hello PhD! The deadline is nearly here (December 1st, 2019), but you can still visit the contest page to submit a digital image of your fine artwork, photography, microscopy, or whatever! Five winners will receive prizes by mail and have their art on display at the Promega Employee Art Showcase. One Grand Prize Winner will win a free trip to the Art Show opening in Madison Wisconsin! We called Dr. Aparna Shah, who was last year’s grand-prize winner. Her submission, “an image of an immuno-histochemically stained mouse brain slice acquired on a confocal microscope” came from a project she had since abandoned. Thankfully, that image was still a winner. You can read all about her experience here: Oh, the Places You’ll Go, Thanks to Science! So don’t wait! Submit your images today!

In a world where it’s “Publish or Perish,” you’d expect “publish” to be the more favorable option. But, if you’ve ever spent a year or more performing experiments, crafting figures, writing a manuscript, finding a friendly editor and arguing with reviewers, that “perish” option might just sound pretty sweet right about now…. It’s no secret that the publishing industry has an inexplicable choke-hold on the scientific community. A handful of companies exercise editorial control, deciding which findings are permitted to enter the information stream. They charge the researcher who submits the paper, then charge exorbitant fees to the reader to see what was ‘printed.’ While the information age has flooded nearly every aspect of our daily lives, its transformative power sometimes seems to be walled off at the laboratory door. Luckily, there are a few scientists who are willing to chip away at that wall. Minimum Viable Publication Nate Jacobs wasn’t far into his postdoctoral training when he realized that the joy of publishing a paper had faded. Nate Jacobs, PhDCEO of Flashpub “I started getting really frustrated with the publishing process. Every time I published, it kind of felt like a failure. I wasn’t sure if other people would be able to reproduce it. It didn’t feel collaborative.” Nate said it started to feel almost as if he was talking to himself, rather than engaging in the back-and-forth communication of a scientific debate. “The best example of this,” he says, “is the discussion section. It’s called ‘discussion,’ but you proceed to have a conversation with yourself and create these straw-man arguments. It started feeling really fake to me.” Access was another problem. If your university can’t afford to subscribe to a journal, you’ll be forced to write to the paper’s authors, or to scour SciHub or other less-than-legal sources. “Of course I’m going to have to be a criminal to get my PhD done,” Nate adds wryly. So what’s a postdoc to do? Nate decided to give new life to an old idea whose time had come. Making a Micropublication “If you think of the current literature as big, slow, and exclusive, micropublication is the opposite of that,” Nate says. He summarizes a micropublication this way: “It is a single figure, a single finding. What differentiates it is that you’re not waiting until you have a full, complete, clear narrative. You’re really publishing individual findings.” Imagine an average cell biology paper. You might have multiple figures showing Western blots, immunofluorescence, DNA purifications, or statistics. Presumably, those are all referenced in the narrative arc of your paper, supporting some new conclusion. But along the way, you probably did a few experiments that “didn’t work.” Or maybe they contradicted your central finding, and you left them out in the interest of finally finishing up your manuscript. Some of those experiments would probably benefit from additional controls, or better antibodies held in another lab. You won’t learn about those improvements until the reviewers send the paper back,

Please recount your life story, all of your future plans, and why this graduate program is uniquely suited to fulfill those dreams.  Limit your answer to 140 characters. Okay, okay, the typical “Personal Statement” prompt on your grad school application is probably not that outrageous, but they CAN feel both cryptic and overwhelming. Here’s a real prompt from a real grad school application at a major university: In 1-2 pages, describe your career goals, research interests, past and present research experience, and why you’ve chosen the [Name Redacted] Program for your graduate studies. This prompt can induce instant writer’s block in even the most prepared applicants.  So where do you begin? This week on the show, we share tips for crafting the perfect personal statement that will highlight your grad-school-readiness and potential for greatness in a career beyond the degree. Anatomy of an Application The typical graduate school application has four main parts: * Transcripts* Test Scores (GRE, TOEFL, etc.)* Letters of Recommendation* Personal Statement Let’s unpack these one by one. Transcripts Transcripts are the easy part. If you’ve already done the hard work of researching schools that will be a good fit for your aspirations, you simply need to visit the registrar to send transcripts.  Sure, it’ll cost you a few bucks, but the main concern here is timing.  It can take moments or months for official transcripts to make their way to the intended school, so start early.  Many programs will accept ‘unofficial’ transcripts with an application as long as you send the real-sealed-deal eventually. Test Scores It seems like only yesterday when every graduate program required applicants to submit GRE scores, as well as some GRE subject tests.  That’s because it pretty much WAS yesterday. In the last year, nearly 100 programs have dropped their GRE requirement.  You can find a running list, maintained by our very own Josh, in a Google Doc he updates regularly. And while the GRE may not be required, many applicants will still take it.  Our advice is that if you choose to take the exam, you should definitely study.  Check you university’s website for test-prep classes and guides. If English is not your first language, you’ll also need to take a language proficiency exam like the TOEFL.  Typically, grad programs will expect scores to be recent – within the last year or two – to ensure you’ve kept up with the language. To learn more about the GRE requirement and why it’s falling from favor in biomedical graduate programs, check out our previous episodes: 023: Seriously, can we ditch the GRE already? 065: Does the GRE Predict Which Students Will Succeed? Letters of Recommendation While you probably won’t need to spend a lot of time on this section of your application,

Dr. Jimena Giudice has all the traits of a promising new faculty member. Through her training and early career, she has earned more than a dozen grants and awards. She’s co-authored two dozen papers. And she has trained students and postdocs, gaining a reputation as a highly effective mentor. You’d expect that Dr. Giudice’s undeniable success was the natural result of an early immersion in science and a dogged adherence to the well-worn path through college, grad school, and postdoc. But of course, you’d be wrong. Before discovering a love for scientific research, Dr. Giudice spent ten years answering a different calling. Changing Focus Dr. Jimena Giudice Growing up in Argentina, Jimena didn’t know that her eventual career in science was even an option. “My parents are architects, my sister is an architect, my cousins are architects, uncles are architects or graphic designers. So I really didn’t have anyone close that I could imagine you could do science as a career,” she recalls. So after high school, she enrolled in college to study industrial engineering. Four years into a six year degree, she put her studies on hold and made a personal decision. “I changed my path, and that’s when I started considering being a nun. I entered a congregation when I was 21.” Jimena knew that after three years in the congregation, she’d have the opportunity get back to school to continue her studies. Her congregation was focused on education, which gave her valuable experience. “I was teaching at different levels. Primary school, kindergarten, secondary school, people in the street, rural schools. I was full time working and teaching,” she says. As her fourth year of service approached, she started to think about what she could study during the next three years that would help in her congregation. She visited the university to explore the available courses, and found that her options expanded well beyond the architecture and engineering paths she had known as a child. “I remember the first image I have in my head is seeing students with white lab coats and the labs with glass windows and walls. And I have that image in my mind. I said ‘That’s what I want. I want to do that. I want to be with a white lab coat doing what they were doing.'” That moment was transformative. Afterwards, she says, “I always had the dream of doing experiments, even though I liked education and teaching. Thats when I saw for the first time that science is something where you can study and work and have a career.” One Good Turn With her passion for science ignited, Jimena had a new problem. A chemistry degree in Argentina takes six years, but her congregation allowed just three years to pursue a degree while also working during the day. She did the majority her classes at night, and traveled an hour and a half between the community where she lived and the university. “I had to multi-task a lot of things. My philosophy was: when I am in classes, I am in classes, and I have to get as much as I can from here because I don’t have a lot of time to study at home,” she remembers.

You’ve gotten this far, which means you have probably read the episode title by now. And that means you have questions. So… many… questions…. Let’s answer a few of them right up front. First, if you want to enter graduate school at age seventeen, you should probably start college around age eleven. That’s what this week’s guest Dr. Julia Nepper did. Second, you should know that even though Julia’s educational biography is unusual, the lessons she learned along the way will feel familiar to every graduate student. The Same New Story As a child, Julia Nepper loved to read. “I would read for eight or ten hours a day, every single day,” she recalls. Her parents decided to homeschool, which afforded her the flexibility to learn at her own pace. Her voracious appetite for books, and an intrinsic love of learning, propelled her through entire grade levels every few months. By age eleven, she had scored highly on the SAT, and enrolled in a community college near home. “You had to be at least sixteen to live in the dorms on campus,” she notes. “For the first two years, the college required me to have a guardian with me at all times, so my dad had to sit in the hallway outside of all of my classes.” Julia completed her undergraduate degree in Biology. She was fifteen when she first applied to graduate school. “I think I encountered my first big failure when I started applying to grad school, because I got rejected.” Her age and limited research experience probably impacted the admissions decision, but that was not the end of her story. Julia learned about a post-baccalaureate research program that would give her time and training in a lab environment. “I was going to get a year of ‘pre-grad-school’ where I would get to do research in the lab and act like a grad student, live like a grad student, bulk up my resume, learn more about whether or not I even wanted to do this… It was very exciting,” Julia explains. Post-bac programs available to other students who want to gain a year of experience before engaging in the 4+ year commitment of graduate training. To learn more about them, check out the Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) and Postbaccalaureate Intramural Research Training Award (Postbac IRTA/CRTA) After a year of post-bac training, Julia was accepted to the University of Wisconsin in Madison. She was elated, and eagerly moved to a new city to start her next adventure. But it wasn’t long until she faced an uncomfortable reality familiar to many graduate students. Though Julia had a long history of success – of good grades and academic accolades – graduate school demanded something different from the studying and testing that measured her progress in high school or college. “What made graduate school different was just the sheer amount of failure you encounter. And a lot of times, the complete lack of direction. Failing every single day starts to wear on you after awhile,” she remembers. Dr. Julia Nepper (Photo By: Michelle Stocker) In this episode, we ask Julia more about her unique experience as a teenager in graduate school. She tells us how she coped with failed experim...

As a researcher, you may brag about the open, collegial way that scientists share their findings in lab meetings, poster sessions, and journal articles. But if you dig beneath the surface, you’ll find a darker tendency built into our habits and institutions that actually cover up a lot of what we learn. For example, you might spend months testing the efficacy of a new cancer drug in vitro. But if that drug doesn’t have a significant impact on cancer growth, you’ll conclude your work is ‘not publishable,’ and the discovery will languish in your lab notebook. Meanwhile, in some other lab, at some other University, another scientist might get the same idea you had, and spend their own weeks or months doing the same tests, only to learn the same result. And so, year after year, the research community wastes immeasurable time re-learning the same lessons. And because of that, the march toward real insights and real cures slows to a crawl. This week on the show, we talk with Jon Tennant, PhD, who wants to re-open the channels of scientific communication and transform the way we build on what others have learned. Open Source Science The “Open Science” movement goes far beyond sharing negative results. It builds on the “Open Source” software movement that has been vital to the software engineering community for a generation. It encompasses all aspects of the scientific process, from planning experiments to sharing raw data to educating the public. Jon described just a handful of ways that scientists are opening their methods to the wider world. The first idea is the microPublication. Rather than gathering reams of data in the hopes of crafting a ‘story’ that a journal is willing to pick up, micropublishing focuses on sharing the results of individual experiments – pushing the data out to other scientists as they happen. In this way, you can collaborate in near-real-time, and inspire new paths of inquiry – even if the original idea doesn’t pan out. Another way to open your research is through pre-registration. In this mode, you present your hypothesis and research plan to a third party for review before you begin to collect data. That way, no matter the result, the world gets to learn about your experimental approach and whether the hypothesis was supported or rejected. While these novel modes of publication might sound exciting, they can have a hard time gaining traction in an academic setting where the Impact Factor of a journal can mean a promotion or a dismissal. How are postdocs and junior faculty members supposed to adopt these new publishing methods when the hiring or tenure committee puts so much stock in the ‘top-tier journals?’ Weaning academics from their addiction to Cell, Science, and Nature requires a cultural solution. The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment encourages signatories in academia and funding agencies to look beyond the Journal Impact Factor when making hiring and funding decisions. They highlight “the need to assess research on its own merits rather than on the basis of the journal in which the research is published.” Another campaign called “Free Our Knowledge” takes the pledge for open science on...

It’s that time of year again – summer days are growing shorter, your friends are trying to fit in one last trip to the beach, and the backpack aisle at Target is about to be cleared out to make way for the Halloween costumes. Yes, it’s back-to-school time. From toddlers to teenagers, this time of year instills foreboding about the school-year ahead. But as a first-year graduate student, you may have other feelings. For most, it’s the start of a new adventure. For the first time, you’re pursuing the one subject in the world you love best, surrounded by other equally brilliant and passionate people. It’s the end of being told what to learn and how to study, and the beginning of blazing your own academic trail. It IS a new experience – different from your matriculation in high school or college – and it may be difficult to know what to expect. This week, we lay out a ten-ish step plan for putting your best-foot-forward in that first semester of your graduate journey. Back to School We heard from Gary, who is about to start his own journey: Hello,I really enjoy listening to your podcast. I will be starting grad school in the fall studying geology. Do you have any advice for a person starting grad school and to make the first semester a good one?Thank you,Gary Gary’s question brought to mind many ideas we wish we had known in OUR first semester of grad school. We also reached out to current and former students on Twitter to hear their ideas. Here are the Top 10 themes we heard: 1. Try new things You’ll have plenty of novelty if you move to a new town and meet a completely new set of people, but don’t stop there. Take this transition period to try out new types of science in fields that you may not have studied before. 2. Get organized Many listeners recommended getting a calendar, and filling it with discrete tasks you can check off when you’re done. It will both keep your project on track, and let you visualize the progress you make each day. 3. Read more You’ll be tempted to spend your first days and weeks running experiments and generating data. After all – these rotations are short! But make an effort to spend time in the literature. Deeply understand the project you’re working on, and the foundational research that led to it. There’s no other time in your graduate training where building this foundation will be more likely, or more valuable. 4. Ask for help You’re in graduate school for training. You don’t need to pretend you know everything, and you wouldn’t need to be here if you did! Just like spending time reading the literature, asking for help early pays dividends over semesters and years. 5. Combat imposter syndrome At some point in your graduate career, you will feel that everyone else is smarter, more skilled, and better equipped than you are to succeed in the lab. You’ll feel a knot in your chest when you wonder how you managed to fool everyone into thinking you were ready for this, and you’ll wish you could sneak out the back and avoid the embarrassment of being identified as a fraud. That feeling is called imposter syndrome,

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a crystal ball that could reveal your grad-school future? You might look forward to see if that next experiment will work out, or if your research will eventually make the cover of Nature. What you should do with the power of foresight is to take a deep look at the quality of mentorship you’ll receive over the next few years. It’s no secret that good research advisors can be tough to find. Most are passable – you’ll learn what you need to learn and graduate on time – and a few are stellar, elevating your research beyond what you thought was possible. But of course, lurking somewhere at every institution, are a handful of awful, terrible, no good, very bad PIs. These are the people you must avoid at all costs, lest they destroy both your confidence and your career plan. Of course, no one has a crystal ball, and sometimes our choice of a research mentor doesn’t pan out. But there’s a website hoping to change that. Hindsight: 20/20 Gadareth Higgs was ready for graduate school. His grades were good, he had some research experience, and he had been accepted to one of the most competitive programs in the US. “I just assumed we would have good mentors. That was not the case,” he recalls. In his third year, Gadareth would be forced to change labs, and his new PI was “not big on mentorship.” Gadarath’s qualifying exam didn’t go well, and there were signs that the PI was working against him behind the scenes. Ultimately, he had to leave the program. Then he got an idea: why not make a website where students and postdocs can score their PI on the factors that matter, so that other students can make an informed decision before committing to a lab? Enter GradPI.com, which is something like RateMyProfessor.com for graduate students. This week, we talk with Gadareth Higgs and Paola Figueroa-Delgado to find out more about the purpose and people behind the website. At its core, GradPI allows students to score their advisors on five factors called the “SMART” scale. From the Frequently Asked Questions page: S stands for Standing. Reputation is important because your advisor will serve as the springboard for whatever you do next.M stands for Mentorship. It is important to have an advisor who can serve as a scientific role model, even if not as a career or life guide.A stands for Autonomy. The degree of independence desired by students is highly variable; only you know what’s best for you.R stands for Resources. Money talks. End of story.T stands for Tact. This is essentially a personality score. But it takes into consideration how well the advisor conveys feedback, and fosters a welcoming environment for students of different cultures, genders, races, religions, and sexual orientations. It’s important to note that low-scores in a certain category may not be a bad thing for every student. Paola described how a prospective mentee might use the ratings to find a good fit. “Everyone has different kinds of mentorship preferences. You can provide comments and feedback on these different categories and see why for you it’s important to have autonomy. So [an advisor] with a low autonomy score is not good for you,” she explained.

In some jobs, one day at the office looks a lot like the next. You could look through your calendar and optimize your meeting schedule and to-do list without much thought. But working in a lab is different: your projects are in constant flux, experiments lead to other experiments, and you need to balance bench work with meetings, mentoring, and writing. That busyness can lead to inefficiency as you tackle the items on your list one after another.  Worse, you’re forced to plan overlapping activities to fill the ‘downtime’ during incubations and time points. This week, we encourage you to take a step back, look over your list of competing priorities, and ask some hard questions about what’s really important. You might find you have more free time on your hands than you ever imagined… Throw it in the Focus Funnel Managing your time in lab goes beyond just making each experiment efficient and effective; you need to choose what tasks to take on, and which to let go.  That’s where the Focus Funnel from Rory Vaden’s Procrastinate on Purpose comes in handy. Just take your to-do list, and ask the following questions: * Does this task actually need to done? If not, eliminate it.* Does it involve a repetitive task that a computer could do?  If so, automate it!* Can someone else do it just as well as I can? If so, delegate it.* Does it need to get done right away? If not, procrastinate. If you answered no to all of the above, you’ve got a task that is important and requires your attention ASAP.  Now’s the time to set your pomodoro timer, and get the job done. As you work through this mental checklist, you’re sure to find activities that are best eliminated, automated, delegated, and procrastinated. Skip the fifth repetition on that Western blot that just won’t produce a pretty hot-dog shaped band. It’s okay, they’ll still publish your paper. Make an Excel template that runs all of your favorite statistics after a qPCR.  It’s better at math than you are anyway. Train your local undergrad to split your HeLa cells.  I promise you can get more if the first few batches get contaminated. Wait until after you talk with your PI to finalize those PowerPoint slides.  You know he’ll find something to criticize – why not make it something you were planning to fix anyway? The Focus Funnel can’t get you out of all of your work, but it will help you put each task in perspective and help you maximize the time you spend on the things that matter most. The Pirates of Alcosynth This week, we’re sampling the Hornigold English Style India Pale Ale from Mystery Brewing in Hillsborough, NC.  It derives its name from a piratical source which we reveal on the show.  The brewmaster at Mystery is none other than Erik Lars Myers, author of North Carolina Craft Beer & Breweries, so you know he knows his stuff! We also learn about Professor David Nutt’s research...

For most graduate students, the list of potential careers runs something like this: * Research Faculty* Teaching Faculty* Industry Researcher* Science Writer* …. ummmm… But the truth is that there are other, less talked-about careers that can be a perfect fit for scientists who may love learning but not working at the bench. Raison d’Liaison Listener Cara asked: I am a second year graduate student and I am interested in working with clinical trials in the future, maybe as a clinical trial manager or medical science liaison. I was wondering if you guys know anyone who went into this type of career who could talk on the show about how they got there and what their job is like?  Thanks! We tracked down Dr. Aoife O’Dwyer, an experienced Medical Science Liaison (MSL) and founder of MSLConsultant.com. When she’s not working in pharma, she’s coaching other scientists on ways to succeed in the MSL career! Dr. Aoife O’Dwyer Aoife hadn’t always planned on going to graduate school, but during an economic downturn, she was struggling to find work in the pharmaceutical industry. When her research advisor suggested pursuing a PhD, she saw it as a great way to build her skills and perhaps open up other career options. It didn’t take long for her to realize she did not want to stay in the lab long-term. In fact, she tried to quit in her first year! But her advisor convinced her to stay, and they developed a plan to help her graduate quickly. With her PhD in hand, Dr. O’Dwyer turned back pharma. She found a career that would leverage her love of science, her deeply honed research skills, and her desire to make an impact on medical care. This week, we talk with her about her role as a Medical Science Liaison – what it is, and what it takes to get there. MSL, KOL, PHD, OMG! First question – what even IS a medical science liaison?! Aiofe describes it this way: A medical science liaison is a field-based, non-promotional expert on a product or therapeutic area. The job of the MSL is to develop collaborative relationships with people we call key opinion leaders who are experts in a certain therapeutic area, and use those relationships to improve or inform the strategy of a pharmaceutical company. In other words, the MSL acts as an ambassador, bridging the gap between research labs, clinicians, and the pharmaceutical company. Importantly, there’s a bright line between what an MSL does and what the sales team is doing. The MSL role is non-promotional – the goal is not to sell more products to the physician. Instead, it’s about listening to doctors and patients to understand where there are challenges in care or gaps in data that the company can then work to improve. One common misconception about the MSL role is that you’ll need to find a company working in the same field where you did your PhD research. That’s just not true, Aiofa explains. Instead, you’ll be expected to ‘up-skill,’ quickly learning new areas of research as the industry develops. If this career has piqued your interest, you’ll want to hear the tips Aiofe shares for transitioning from lab to pharma. She advises students to hone their communication skills through experience, and gives unexpected advice on the application process.

Ten weeks is not a long time. It feels even shorter when you’re tossed into the deep-end of a top-tier research lab. If you’re spending your summer as a Research Assistant between semesters, or you’ve graduated and want to get some summer experience before grad school, we have ideas to help you hit the ground running. This week, we respond to a listener question. Talia wrote: This summer I had an AMAZING opportunity to do research at my dream school. I am a public health undergraduate and I have experience mostly in qualitative methods and community-based research. This summer I’ll be in a really cool epigenetics lab. I have very little background in biology and even less bench lab experience.For all of you bench lab folks and people in a mentoring capacity, what makes an undergraduate research assistant “coachable”? What habits do you love/don’t love in your RAs? Great question, and we’re sure Talia is not alone in feeling unprepared for her first foray in the lab. Classes and textbooks are worlds away from the hands-on experience of research. That’s why we crowd-sourced the traits other scientists want to see in summer research students. If you follow these guidelines, you can expect to make lifelong friends and have a solid letter of recommendation by the end of the summer 7 Habits for Summer Research Show Humility If you’re interested in a research career, you’ve probably done well in your classes and often been the smartest person in the room. That’s great for your self-confidence, but it’s going to drive your lab-mates and mentors crazy. When you start as an undergraduate student research assistant, recognize that no one expects you to be an expert. They expect you to be teachable. That means asking questions when you are unsure about the material or getting help on the experiment where things are unclear. And even if you have some prior experience, no one wants to hear you say “That’s not how we did it in my old lab…” Take a breath and be ready to learn a new way of doing things. Maybe the ‘old way’ was better, but you’ll never know until you try the new way! Pay Attention to Detail Research is all about the details, and your ability to focus and follow directions precisely will help you succeed. Have your mentor observe and offer tips on improving your technique – things like pipetting accuracy or clearly labeling samples will make or break an experiment. And in the first few weeks, we recommend keeping your headphones in your pocket and out of your ears. Get a few successful trials under your belt before you add other distractions while you work. Engage with the Science Having a summer student means an ‘extra set of hands’ in the lab, and that’s valuable, but you should strive to be more than a gel-running robot. To get the most out of your summer research experience, do what you can to actually understand the work you’re doing. That means asking about how your experiments fit in with the broader goals of the lab. Maybe you’re working toward a figure in a paper – take the time to see the forest for the trees. It also means trying to understand the techniques and reagents you’re using. How does this enzyme work? Why are we adding this buffer?

It’s no secret that post-secondary education is a rough road to walk. Graduate students rack up debt for the privilege of working long hours for an unpredictable number of years with very little faculty support. Well, that might be true in much of the Northern hemisphere, but in a land where mammals lay eggs and snakes eat crocodiles, all bets are off. Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi! Of course, we’re talking about Australia, where PhD programs evolved in ways both unique and inspiring. We talked with Tahlia Perry, graduate student and echidna connoisseur, about her experience earning a degree from the University of Adelaide. Tahlia describes many differences between a PhD program in Australia and the US, but we want to highlight four: 1. Higher Education is affordable Imagine not being saddled with tens-of-thousands of dollars in student loans when you decided to start graduate school. Would that change your career choices, or at least decrease the existential dread you feel when you consider graduating and trying to start a family? In Australia, higher education is supported by HECS-HELP loans – publicly backed funding that you only pay back AFTER you have a well-paying job. For example, your tuition and fees are covered throughout the course of your training. If your annual salary is below about $52,000, you pay nothing on your loan. If you happen to earn more than $52,000, a graduated repayment scale kicks in and the fees are paid like income tax until your debt is repaid. 2. Almost all PhD students ‘take a year off to do research full time’ It’s called “Honors Year” and after finishing an undergraduate degree (in 3 years, no less), students who want to continue to post-secondary education will take 9 months to focus on research before applying for a PhD program. Though the projects are time-limited and narrowly focused, it’s a great way to experience research full-time before committing to a multi-year ordeal. 3. A PhD takes just 3 years! This one really surprised us. We thought we were being bold by advocating for a fixed-term 5 year PhD, but Australia went and raised the bar! Instead of taking 1-2 years for rotations, classes, and trying to identify a project like we do in the US, Australian applicants include their research plan as part of the application! By the end of the first year, they’ve done a literature review and designed the study for approval by their committee. Then, over the next two years, they have frequent (required) committee meetings to make sure the research stays on track. 4. Students have a safety net In addition to regular committee meetings, the students have a safety valve to get help when the PI becomes a problem. During each meeting, the student’s advisor will step out so there’s a space to talk with the remaining committee members about any concerns the student may have about their boss. It’s not perfect, as the power dynamic between student and faculty will still favor silence, but it’s a start, and one worth considering by other programs. All in all, we were inspired by Tahlia’s experience, and by all the feedback we got from other listeners to our question about creating a fixed-term PhD.

Here’s a controversial idea: what if graduate school finished on a predictable schedule the way (checks notes) every other academic training program does! Since kindergarten, your education has had fixed milestones. You knew it would take 12 years to graduate from high school, 4 for college, and 2 for a masters or an associates degree. Even medical school takes a predictable 4 years, with an additional 3-6 for residency and fellowship, depending on the field. So why does graduate school take between 4 and 10 years, with a lot of discretion, uncertainty, and mental anguish in between? Start the Clock This week on the show, we explore the strange, but sticky, notion that graduate training should be open-ended with no fixed program of development. If we could sacrifice that sacred cow, we might be able to design some requirements and milestones that feel less arbitrary and can consistently churn out bright, capable scientists. Imagine a world in which your PhD program was limited to 5 years.  What type of training would build your research skills and make you ready for the workplace? The fact is, our current system is extremely variable – each student has a unique project with individual successes and failures.  One student might sail through in 3 years, while another is forced to change labs and stays through year 9. Is the first student smarter? Better equipped to succeed?   Or is the second student better trained by the additional time? The reality is that ‘time to PhD’ is not synonymous with skill or training.  And if time isn’t correlated with success, then there’s an opportunity to tighten up the training schedule without sacrificing pedagogical quality. We share a handful of ideas and concerns about a fixed-term PhD, but we’d love to hear what you think!  Is it worth standardizing scientific training, and where should we start? You may also like: 054: The 5 year PhD – #modernPhD Part 1 Breakfast of Champions Fry up some bacon, pull down a coffee mug, and pour yourself a glass of breakfast. It’s the Morning Smack Imperial Milk Stout from Three Taverns Craft Brewery in Decatur, GA. With maple-notes and a solid sweetness, this stout drinks like a dessert. And at 8% ABV, it’s probably wiser to save it for after dinner. You can still sip it from a mug, though!

Sometimes, a graduate school education follows the strait and narrow path through dissertation, postdoc, and faculty position. And sometimes, it sprouts wings and takes you somewhere else entirely. That was the experience for Isaac Childress. Isaac began his career as a physics PhD studying high-energy particles. But “Plan A” didn’t turn out exactly as he expected. Instead he found his muse in board games, and worked to design one of the top-rated games in history. Isaac Childres, PhD – founder of Cephalofair Games and designer of Gloomhaven This week we talk to Isaac about the downs, and ups, of his non-traditional career path. For Isaac, graduate school was a struggle with plenty of disappointments and feelings of failure. But outside the lab, he found inspiration while playing board and video games with his friends. As he played, he started to notice game dynamics that could be better. He imagined story lines and player interactions that would be both fun and challenging. Near the end of his graduate training, Isaac had designed a game called Forge War and had tested it with friends and reviewers. He set up a Kickstarter to see if maybe, just maybe, he’d earn enough support to actually get it published. The kickstarter brought in over $100,000. Isaac followed up Forge War with his award-winning Gloomhaven game, and the rest, as they say, is history. This physics PhD was building worlds, testing game dynamics, and ultimately, delighting players around the globe. We hear about everything from the time he was kicked out of his research group to the moment he knew his board game Kickstarter was going to be something special. If you’ve ever wondered if there’s a place for you outside the lab or in the world beyond graduate school, Isaac’s story is sure to inspire. Just make sure you look before you leap. Isaac concludes, “It’s alway good to have a backup plan before you start pursuing your dreams…” Find Isaac Childres at Cephalofair.com or on Twitter @cephalofair. You may also like: 018: How NOT to choose a career you’ll love This week’s refreshment comes once again from listener Adrian who shares the TROPICÁLIA American IPA from Creature Comforts Brewing in Athens, GA. It’s the perfect not-too-bitter finish to a sunny spring day.