resolved

It's my last day of funemployment before I start my summer rotation, and I'm sitting at this amazing coffee shop at the edge of Durham, and I'm thinking now would be the perfect time to write my grad school resolutions.

So here it goes, in no particular order, and some are tangible, achievable goals, and others are more lofty, amorphous, general whims.

_Keep a paper notebook, but transcribe everything electronically at the end of each day.
_Apply for NSF GFRP my first year (and second, if applicable.)
_Apply for travel awards for conferences
_Write the methods as I do the experiment
_Outline the paper I 'want' to write, and do the experiments simultaneously
_Attend the Physiology course (or any other MBL course!) at Woods Hole
_Attend any course, really
_NO GCHAT 9-5 (ok 10-4)
_One (1) blog post a month on a paper I've read. (resurrecting journal club!)
_Go to as many relevant/semi-relevant seminars as I can and no iphone! notes only!
_No shit talking. about anyone or anything. No exceptions.
_Be writing my thesis by the time I'm 30.
_Polite, prompt and short emails from now on. (Following the rule that if it can't be answered/explained in 3 sentences, pick up the damn phone.)
_Work hard in rotations, so at least two labs want me to join.
_ASK QUESTIONS IN SEMINARS.
_And for gosh's sake rachael, PLEASE STUDY FOR EXAMS.

My biggest character flaw, (if I had to choose just one! I know, hard) is that I am sometimes (ok most of the time) slightly over-confident and can sometimes (ok most of the time) think that I know a little more than I actually do. I am working on that.

So if I had to pick one phrase to sum up my goals for grad school, it would be this:

Stay humble, stay curious, work hard, there is always an alternative hypothesis, and no goofing off on the internet.

I look forward to revisiting these goals in 5.7 +/- .7 years.

Should be fun.

grad school jitters

aka FREAK OUT.

I sent this email to my pops yesterday.

i'm starting to get nervous about starting my rotation. 

like, how do rotations work?? do they just give you a project? when am i supposed to start thinking for myself? how much am i supposed to talk with the PI? how much do i have to do on my own? am i going to have a harder time over the summer with L because it will be harder to work on weekends and things? 

POPS am I making the biggest mistake of my life?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!

Apparently, I am starting a summer rotation and also having a panic attack. Luckily, I've got my pops.

He sent me back the most rocking awesome of all emails. 

Remember stay calm, there is absolutely no question that you can do this. Don’t forget that. What you’re really asking is whether you’re going to be a “famous” scientist, trust me, you can get a Ph.D. 

This is so on point. Because I think I am worried about not being good enough to be a PI, or writing a nature paper, or some other bullshit like that. But that's not what I'm here for, right now, at 25 years old. I'm here to learn to do good science and get a PhD. And I can do that. I'm good enough for that, right now. I got into the grad school I wanted, they wanted me. This is the right thing.

Pithy answers:
like, how do rotations work??
Random, they work how you want them to.

do they just give you a project?
Yes, typically they give you a grad student or postdoc to shadow

Oh, big help, pops.

when am i supposed to start thinking for myself?
Day 1, but the hardest part is to not be too annoying. I wouldn’t say be demure, but don’t be ashamed to ask questions, and get over whether they are stupid or not.

The word I think he's looking for is "modest". Got it.

how much am i supposed to talk with the PI?
Depends totally on whether you even see them. See how s/he interacts with the other students and use that as a gauge  Don’t be shy, it’s your relation with the PI that will dictate your degree. If you are comfortable I think that trumps everything else.

am i going to have a harder time over the summer with L because it will be harder to work on weekends and things? 

Nope, the best scientist I know, John Carbon was an 9-5 guy. It’s called efficiency. What you will miss are the endless hours of wasting time and schmoozing. You  might have to develop tricks to make yourself the most efficient. [Redacted] in my lab was master of that. She would get her reading done, when most people (today) would be texting and social mediating. Literally, she’d be living on the scope and have a little reading light to read papers while she was babysitting the scope.
Don’t worry about weekends and things- focus on being efficient-
[Redacted] works about 10-4 on average and she’s a great student, it’s really called working well and efficient and not to fall into the grad student trap of being there all the time. That is one of the biggest myths that is still perpetuated. That said, you do need to be thinking all the time and really probing deeply into the problem

Can I just pause for a second and point out that my dad calls it "social mediating"?  Gotta love that guy.

I'm starting my first rotation June 3rd. I won't go too detailed into why I chose to do a summer rotation, suffice it to say, it's getting my feet wet, and I am really excited about starting grad school. I'm really nervous. I've never been a grad student. I've been a technician for 4 years, and while I started out thinking very highly of myself and that this was a great preparation for grad school, I'm not that confident anymore. (A good thing, probably.) I'm nervous about getting to know new people, seeing how a new lab works, learning new techniques. (What if I have suddenly forgotten how to pipet!) I'm nervous, but it's the good kind of nervous. The kind of nervous that means you're really excited, that means you're on the right track. It's like learning to swim for the first time. Or riding a bike without training wheels. You're wobbly at first, you can put your feet down at any time to stop, but you can tell it's going to be a thrilling ride.


Any other PIs or grad students or post docs have good tips or tricks for first rotations? Is anyone else as freaked out as I am? So far I have decided that I am going to be modest, hardworking, inquisitive, and efficient. Oh and not annoying.

Controversy in science

Had this email exchange with my pops yesterday:

From: Pops
To: me
Subject: another controversy
You don’t want to be part of:

Indeed, he declared war on molecular biology, seeing it as evolutionary
biology’s Scylla. The Charybdis was the Modern Synthesis, which hedescribed as “the private domain of a quasi-scientific movement, whosecreted it away in a morass of petty scholasticism” [3].

From: me
To: Pops
Subject: Re: another controversy
'liberating biology from the Procrustean bed of dogma on which it has been cast for so long,'
I'm not sure what a 'Procrustean bed of dogma' is, but I'm pretty sure I don't want to be there.
me

 This was regarding this article: 

How the Microbial World Saved Evolution from the Scylla of Molecular Biology and the Charybdis of the Modern Synthesis

doi: 10.1128/​MMBR.00002-09

Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. March 2009 vol. 73 no. 1 14-21

I'm really not sure if this type of article is the zenith or nadir of a scientific career, but I'm pretty sure I don't want to be on the receiving end of this article. 

**

Scientific controversies are really interesting to me. At one level, I think it's exciting to be at the cutting edge of a field where there is the chance to be controversial. At another level, it's probably really hard to fight against dogma. And then, everyone says "oh science isn't personal", yadda yadda yadda, but you know what? Sometimes I think that's a bunch of bull. Yeah it's not personal, but if you've put all your time and energy into developing an idea and someone publishes something against your idea, then of course it's personal. (Except it's not.. I dunno. It's a fine line. Work-life balance, and all that.)

My dad is in a cool controversy (from his perspective, because he thinks he's right) about...oh gosh I'll butcher it...number of proteins at the kinetochore? *ducks*. My PI has forever been defending GWAS in the GWAS vs candidate gene/sequencing camp. Somewhat recently there's been some controversy regarding the claims made by the ENCODE project. It's interesting because some of these are more or less just matters of semantics. Some are less about the real science, and more about competition for funding and publishing in high profile journals. Some are actually about the science. 

**

I really think my dad is one of my personal heroes, despite the fact that we didn't get along all throughout my middle and high school years. He said that his graduate adviser told him something along the lines of this:

You can disagree with a conclusion, with a method, with a whatever, but you can't argue with the data. Because it's all about the data. And nature doesn't lie.

Nature doesn't really do us that many favors though either, so, there's that. 

(I double-checked what pops's grad adviser actually said about the data vs conclusion thing, and got this email back:)

From: Pops
To: me
Subject: Re: hey what's that thing 

Yep, exactly. So if you’re writing a paper, you should cite the author’s data positively, rather than citing their conclusion in a negative way

It's a pretty good way to go about life too, if you think about it.

Science goals: Hold on to this feeling.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to get out of my scientific career, and what I want to bring to it. This can be summed up, I think into my “scientific goals”. And who doesn’t love a list?

I’m starting to keep a running list--and I’ll fill it with no-brainer things like “keep up with the literature”, and “write some awesome papers”, but also maybe more intangible/sound bite type things like, STAY CURIOUS!

Here’s my first goal as I embark on my graduate school (!!!!!!!!!!) career.

Hold on to this feeling.

Y’all, I cannot contain myself. I am so immensely excited for graduate school. I’ve picked my school, which I’m still keeping a little quiet about until they send me my official letter and I officially accept, and I’ll write more about choosing the school later, but suffice it to say, it was one of the easiest decisions I have ever made, and I am so confident that it is the write place scientifically for me, and I am so ready and excited, and am reading papers for people’s who’s lab’s I’m interested in working with...etc...

So, dear lab-girl, what should you be doing right now? Holding on to this feeling.

I’m reading more papers than I ever have before, which is great. I’m getting excited about people’s science, but I’m also learning how and why we read papers. (I wrote a blog post a while back on “how” to read a scientific paper, and while yeah, It is how I read them, I think you have to read a ton to really get it.)

While I was reading papers as preparation for grad interviews, I realized that there were a variety of reasons people read papers. A flavor for every mood, if you will. Sure, some of it is reading for the science but if you’re reading out of your field, it can be more about the types of experiments, the logic and the progression of the story. Gosh, while I was reading all these papers it really became about the story. Somewhere along the line, something just clicked into place, and I thought to myself, wow, this is why we read. I mean, it’s why we read books too--it’s the story, it’s the writing, it’s the craft, it’s the plot. It’s exactly the same for scientific papers. It’s the plot, the experiments, but it’s also the craft of writing. I’ve gotten to this really weird place in my life where I’m actually enjoying reading papers. (Thank goodness this happened right before I decide to go to grad school.)

And I just want to hold on to this feeling. I want to hold on to being really exciting about attending the university I’ve chosen to attend. I want to remember being excited about going to seminars from future colleagues and faculty members. I want to remember that this amazing feeling.

I want to hold on to this feeling when my experiments don’t work, when I’m trying to learn something new and it’s hard, when I’m frustrated with something I cannot control, when I do something lazy and I have to make up for it 10-fold later, I want to remember this feeling. This excitement, this zeal. Knowing that going to grad school was the easiest decision I’ve ever had to make. That I have never been happier in my life because of this.

This was a choice I made, and I did everything to get myself to this place. I worked really hard, so don’t lose this feeling.

One of my biggest fears is that I’ll get burned out. I’ve been a technician for three years, and I’ve seen a lot of disgruntled post-docs and frustrated grad students. I don’t want to be these people.

Eric Lander (famous scientist) did Reddit’s Ask Me Anything the other day, and someone asked him this:

As an advisor to the President, what is being done or do you think will be done to increase the attractiveness of students finishing PhD programs in science?

He gave the most badass reply ever:

We need to shorten the time for getting a PhD and for a first faculty job. Young people should get out into the scientific world early, when they have lots of fresh ideas. We should encourage grants to young scientists and should encourage them to take big risks. When you're taking big risks, science is amazingly fun.

So, goal numero uno in entering grad school. Hold on to this feeling. I want to forever be excited by what I’m doing. I want to love my projects, and to be excited about what other people in my field are doing. I’m excited to work hard as a grad student. I want to keep being excited about that well into my graduate career.

Pre-interview prep. And fashion!

My first interview is this coming week. It's a Thursday-Friday-Saturday one, where Thursday is like, dinner or something, Friday are all the interviews and stuff, and Saturday is something else. I don't know the exact details because I haven't received my itinerary yet.

I'm not an overly anxious person in general, but I am starting to get nervous.

I had this crazy dream last night that I received my itinerary, but it was blank. I wasn't interviewing with anyone. Then I realized that it wasn't blank, but all the names had been whited out, so I had to hold it against a window in order to see through the white out. So I do that, and I read the names, and none of them are people that I've requested or prepared for...and they're all MDs.

This is funny because I didn't *think* that I had anything against MDs, but apparently my subconscious dream self is really worried about them?

What am I doing to prep for my interviews you might ask? Here's what I'm doing.

1. Reading papers

My schools all asked me for a list of 10+ people that I'd be interested in talking with. I spent a fairly long time generating these lists, so I had a pretty good idea of the people whose research I was interested in and about a one line description of what they do.

I'm reading one paper (and preparing questions!) for about...five of the ten faculty that I chose. To be honest, this is about all I could manage. Nothing like slogging through a paper to figure out whether you're really interested in a topic or not...

It's sort of a hedging-your-bets kind of scenario. Reading papers takes a fair amount of time. I'm hoping I get the people I've prepared for, but when my final list comes, I'll focus on those people's research, and hopeful I'll have a small headstart with the papers that I've already read.

I had to push myself to read primary papers. For me, reviews are way easier to read and understand, but the more time I spent with them I found out that primary papers are easier (for me!) to find things to ask specific questions about. For one field and a PI that I'm really excited about, I read both. (I hope I get her.)

2. ...not mock interviewing

Other people are doing mock interviews, which is totally a good idea if want to do them. I chose not to...mostly because I've been a tech in a university for the past four years. I can talk about my science and my contributions to my projects at the drop of a hat. I've presented posters at international meetings. I've successfully ridden the elevator with faculty members of my department and not said anything too asinine. I spent a long time making the decision to go to grad school, so I can defend and articulate my motivations. I'm totally just going to wing it.

Clearly most of my preparing is reading papers, thinking up questions and...

3. ...agonizing about what to wear. 

Okay! I know! I hate that this is like almost as troubling to me as the science, but it is, okay? Let's not fight it. Let's deal with it.

Me and my labbies have been in a constant debate that goes something like this.

me: No one in lab/grad school dresses up.

everyone else: It doesn't matter, it's an interview. 

me: But I would feel like a complete moron pipetting in 'slacks' or 'business casual' whatever.

everyone else: It doesn't matter, it's an interview.

me: But that's not how it is in real life!

everyone else: ...

The point is, as much as I want to fight against it, everyone else interviewing is going to be in business casual, and if I'm the only one not, even if labs are casual and I know this, I'm going to be the one that looks bad.

The anxiety part is this: I've been a tech for the past four years and my clothes/personal style ranges pretty much on the 'slightly disheveled' end of casual so...there's that.

One of my favorite quotes ever is "Beware of any endeavor that requires new clothes," and I hear H.D. Thoreau on that because this is definitely an endeavor that requires new clothes and you best beware.

So I did it. I went to the mall and bought myself an outfit. A whole outfit. Everything fits, everything looks good. It's new, so I don't have to iron anything. And let me tell you, having a whole outfit ready to go for Friday has alleviated so much stress.

Because I don't need to be worrying about what I'm wearing. I want to be worrying about getting myself into grad school.

And looking really good doing that can't hurt.

Bad lab blogger!

Sorry for the web silence lately. I've been applying to grad schools and waiting to hear back from grad schools and I've been so wanting to write about the process but also I was kind of freaked out that if I didn't get in anywhere then why the heck would anyone want to read about what I thought about applying to grad schools...but I also realize that maybe that's not the point of this blog, or why I like writing, or science, or whatever, so web silence will end...soon.

I'll write about the whole process and my experiences with applying, and finding letter writers, and deciding what to focus on in my personal statement, but I'll start out right now saying this.

I got my first rejection yesterday. Berkeley. Which was not entirely unexpected for reasons I will go into later (I promise!), but here's the best thing to come out of it.

I was making coffee in the break room when my PI came in, and he asked me how I was doing, so I told him, "I got my first rejection yesterday."

His reaction?

"Get over it."

Which...was awesome. And exactly what I needed to hear. And exactly why I love academia, and why I know I'm so ready for grad school. I feigned surprise at his response, of course, and he replied, "What did you want me to say, go home and feel sorry for yourself? You know you're wanted other places, get over it."

He actually added one more expletive in there, but it seems slightly unnecessary here.

Because yeah, what am I going to do, wallow? Nope, gonna get over it.

(I received some less than nice responses, one from another tech on my floor, "Oh you probably just weren't good enough to get in." That's cool. I'm cool.)

But that's just, the way of the world, you know?

Emily Dickinson

My dad sent me this poem in an email today:

"Faith" is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency

--Emily Dickinson




This needs so little commentary, but speaks so perfectly (and succinctly!) to how universal the themes of discovery and science are. And Emily Dickinson, how awesome is she?