A UC Davis Graduate Student Blog

Author: Staff

March for Science on April 14th!

This year’s March for Science is on April 14th. Here is a snippet from their website. “March for Science Sacramento is part of a global movement advocating for evidence-based policy. Last year, more than 10,000 people marched in Sacramento. Please join us on April 14th and show your support for open, inclusive, and accessible science as an essential part of our democracy. Be a catalyst for change! ” Maybe I will see you there?

-Yulong

 

For more information, Please visit http://www.marchforsciencesacramento.com/  .

 

This post is edited by Linda Ma.

For any content suggestions or general recommendations, please email to UCDBioScope@gmail.com and put science 2.0 in the title.

Know Your Needs- Maslow Hierarchy of Needs

What are the needs that you must satisfy to live a happy and fulfilling life? One of the most influential modern psychologists, Abraham Maslow tried to answer that question by creating the Maslow hierarchy of needs. It’s an important question to think about, not just because it might help you to achieve a happy and fulfilling life, but also how your actions might influence the people around you and their abilities to accomplish that. For example, we are talking about mentorship this month in our blog post, and being a good mentor could greatly influence some of the higher needs, such as belonging, esteem, and even self-actualization. If you can help the undergrad that you are mentoring find meaning in their work, which satisfies one of their higher needs, they are likely to be more productive. This podcast from Ted Radio Hour has an excellent introduction to the Maslow hierarchy of needs.

 

-Yulong

 

https://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/399796647/maslows-human-needs

 

This post is edited by Linda Ma.

For any content suggestions or general recommendations, please email to UCDBioScope@gmail.com and put science 2.0 in the title. 

Image attribution: “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” by BetterWorks Breakroom is licensed under CC BY 2.0

 

Establish commonalities to increase your mentee’s productivity

Are you currently mentoring someone? Are you actively trying to connect with your mentee? Did you know that simply establishing some commonalities with your mentee can significantly increase their productiveness and their ability to learn, especially if they have a different background from you? Here is a super short podcast ( first 10 mins) talking about the actual study. Establishing commonality is often the first thing I try to do when I’m training a new undergrad, and I think that you should too.

For more about mentorship, please check out our blog post from this month.

-Yulong

 

https://www.npr.org/2015/10/13/444446708/in-the-classroom-common-ground-can-transform-gpas

 

This post is edited by Linda Ma.

For any content suggestions or general recommendations, please email to UCDBioScope@gmail.com and put science 2.0 in the title.

Achieve Your Goals with WOOP

When we are facing challenges and problems, it often requires us to tackle it from multiple perspectives. For example, we are talking about impostor syndrome in this month’s blog post. On the one hand, we need to be more compassionate towards ourselves and to understand the origins of those problematic feelings in order to correct them. On the other hand, we should equip ourselves with tools that can help us directly achieve our desired outcomes. This podcast from the Hidden Brain series is about WOOP (Wish Outcome Obstacle Plan), a scientifically supported method to help you achieve your goals.

-Yulong

https://www.npr.org/2016/05/10/477379965/woop-there-it-is-four-steps-to-achieve-your-goals

 

 

Edited by Linda Ma.

Self Compassion

How compassionate are you to others, and to yourself? I often feel that it’s so much easier to be sympathetic, forgiving, and supportive to others than to myself. Since we are talking about impostor syndrome this month in our blog post, which self-compassion plays an important role in, I wanted to share with you this short video that contains a 6-step exercise to help you become a more well balanced and self-compassionate scientist.

-Yulong

 

 

Edited by Linda Ma.

Finding Your Way: Choosing a Thesis Lab

Contributing authors (alphabetical order): Emily Cartwright, Anna Feitzinger, Keith Fraga, Hongyan Hao, Jessica Huang, Sharon Lee, Linda Ma

 

Congratulations, you’ve made it past the harrowing applications, nerve-wracking interviews, and awesome recruitment food! The first year in graduate school can be difficult, as you juggle coursework with organizing rotations and looking for the lab you’ll be dedicating the next 4-6 years of your life to. The question of which lab you will join is the question that you think about all the time, and rightfully so. The experience and relationships you make during your PhD are transformative. But there are many variables to consider and reaching a final decision on which lab to join can be a challenge!

All of us here at BioScope have gone through the same process, and we have some ideas that just might give first-year graduate students another perspective on deciding on a lab. In some ways, this is an advice column, but definitely not a “How to” article. We don’t know of a magic bullet that makes this decision easy. Part of the process is actually experiencing the process itself: all of the highs and lows, all of the epiphanies and backtracking, and the feeling of finally deciding. So let’s get started!

Getting through rotations!

Perhaps the first step in deciding on a lab is doing rotations. Granted, some disciplines and graduate programs do not operate on a formal rotation schedule. However, in general, there is a period of time during the first year where you will have the chance to rotate with a lab that you are interested in. The “Car Dealership Test Drive” analogy works perfectly here. What better way to experience a lab environment, the research they do, and how you work with the PI more than doing a rotation with them?

Specifically, here at UC Davis, many graduate programs provide great resources for finding faculty to rotate with. Don’t forget that you can look in other departments as well! UC Davis has diverse faculty, covering a range of fields that you will definitely find something that you’re interested in pursuing.

While shopping for a car, you can test drive as many cars as you want, which is not the case in graduate school. You can only participate in a limited number of rotations. Therefore, there can be a lot of planning and reflection that goes into who you should rotate with. There are two things we want to stress about managing rotations:

(1) Know what you want to study – or what you DON’T want to study – to a point where you can narrow down the labs you are interested in. Having the self-discipline to focus your interests is critical for decisive rotation decisions.

(2) Rotations are less about the progress you make in the short amount of time in the lab, and more about getting a feel for the lab. In the rotation, you receive a small project, and in the hopes of impressing the PI, the lab, and your peers, you devote a lot of energy to generating results. Striking gold during a rotation (such as getting results that will contribute to a manuscript) is rare, and not something to bet on. Instead, it is much more efficient to devote your attention to being in lab, experiencing the group, learning how you work with the PI, and gaining a solid grasp of the research program.

Honesty and Realism goes a long way

An important thing to remember when looking for rotation labs is to be realistic. You can’t be searching for a lab that studies microRNAs in brain development by day and cures Down syndrome by night. Even a lab with diverse projects maintains very specific and well-defined areas of interest. Having ambitious goals and ideas are great, but the key is to not pigeon-hole yourself to a point where every lab you come across doesn’t quite do everything you are excited about. Your perfect lab does not exist. You have to let your scientific interests grow and develop, and allow yourself to be mentored.

This goes to a deeper point about graduate school. It is not so much what you do, but how you do it and learning the skills to be a scientist. It is very common for individuals to work on something totally different from their thesis research after graduating. Doing a PhD helps you sharpen the tools to study a variety of problems. Getting a PhD is more about the training, and finding a lab is more about fit than it is about field.

Handling uncertainty is key

As mentioned above about rotations, knowing your interests is key to to deciding which lab to join. This is part of “Knowing yourself,” which consists of answers to questions like, “What am I interested in?”, “What type of research environment do I work best in?”, “Do I want a PI that is hands-on or hands-off?”, “What do I want to do after my PhD? And how can my thesis lab facilitate that?”, and many more. You can answer these questions by thinking back to labs you’ve worked in before and what you liked and didn’t like about them. With each rotation, you’ll be able to get a clearer idea of what your answers to these questions are.

Deciding on a thesis lab can be roughly split into concerns of two types: concerns that you can control, and concerns that are beyond your control. What we want to highlight is an appreciation of the difference between what you have control over (your attitudes, your interests, your effort) and things you cannot control or predict (how your relationship with your PI will develop, how funding will change, how experiments will go).

The major pitfall in deciding a thesis lab is being too worried about things that you cannot control. We are all concerned about choosing the “wrong” lab, becoming stuck in a situation where we need to switch advisors. In those cases, the relationship with the PI deteriorates due to a host of reasons. You cannot forecast these changes to your relationships. You do your best to address problems early on and find solutions. Appreciating the things that you can control gives you a tool in making your decision.

Things you should ask yourself

Choosing a thesis lab is a very personal process. It is about you, and you finding your way through graduate school. All of us here at BioScope arrived at our respective labs in different ways, and we pondered different concerns. However, we have recognized a few questions you should ask yourself. These are questions that you do not need the answer to right now. These are questions where your answer will change over time, maybe every 5 minutes! Nevertheless, these are some questions that are meant to get you thinking.

The Research

  • Do I love the science, and am I excited about the unanswered questions in the field?
  • Can I see myself truly enjoying reading papers in this field?
  • Am I willing to perform the literature searches necessary to fill in my gaps of knowledge?
  • Can I imagine performing the essential lab techniques on a daily basis, becoming an expert in the lab’s tools?

The Thesis Advisor

  • Can I see myself working with this PI for the next several years?
  • How comfortable do I feel communicating with the P.I.? Is it easy to have a conversation and brainstorm ideas?
  • Do I do better when the P.I. has an open door policy (questions always welcome), or can I be productive without meeting with my P.I. once a week?
  • What is the PI’s track record with other PhD students? What do other people say about the lab?
  • Is my PI supportive of my future goals?

The Environment

  • Can I have enjoyable and intellectual communications with the other students/post-docs, or do I feel like there are unpleasant interactions?
  • Do I prefer a lab that’s more social, or one where everyone goes into lab just to get the work done?

The grass on the other side is still just grass

Finally settling into a lab is a wonderful feeling; It’s like finally finding a home. And yet, we still have our difficulties. We still have our miscommunication. We still sometimes ponder if we made the right decision. It is very natural to have these questions because, like we said, there is no magic bullet, no recipe for doing this. And as scientists that strive for some degree of precision and exactness in our lives, this is hard to wrestle with. A lab is not perfect when you join. It takes dedication, patience, and communication to create a PhD training perfect for you. So keep calm, and carry on.

 

 

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