Hello PhD

It’s official: the Hello PhD podcast is one year old!

In honor of our birthday, we’re taking a look back at our favorite episodes and moments from the first year of the show.

Stay with us…

Cheers, Mate!

We start the celebration with the Alpine Beer Company Hoppy Birthday Session India Pale Ale.  Brewed on Alpine Blvd. in Alpine, California (near San Diego), this beer packs a hoppy wallop.

And listen – I like hops as much as the next guy – but a birthday cake made entirely of hops is probably going a bit too far.  Save ’em for the beer.

The Way We Were

We took a few moments to remember why we started this podcast in the first place.  Basically, it’s for all of you: the graduate students, postdocs, and career scientists who are navigating the PhD process and beyond.

It’s a difficult road, but one that can be so richly rewarding that it’s worth the pain.  The goal of this podcast is to share the strategies and stories of other scientists to make the way just a little bit easier for everyone.

We’ve had our favorite moments and episodes over the past year.  We’re still gnawing on the insights shared by Dara Wilson Grant in an interview about stepping off the tenure track.

We also recall the #gradInsurance debacle at Mizzou and how quickly the story unfolded after administrators cancelled graduate student health insurance coverage without notice.

We met lots of cool people this year, including a tenure-track professor, a management consultant, and a member of the teaching faculty.  They’re doing vastly different jobs, but they all love their work.

Never ones to shy from controversy, we also covered a lot of the endemic biases and blind spots that plague the scientific community.  There’s a measurable gender bias in science, and we’re still using the GRE for admissions even when it’s not a good predictor of success. We’re also not doing a good job of supporting the real powerhouses of most labs: the postdocs.

All in all, it’s been a great year for the Hello PhD podcast and we’ve loved connecting with you and hearing your stories.  We hope you’ll continue to share your successes and struggles over the next year to keep the conversation going.  You can reach us any time at [email protected] or on Twitter or Facebook.

One last note – we’ll be releasing new episodes biweekly rather than every week in the coming year.  That should give you plenty of time to catch up on past episodes while you work in the tissue culture hood.

Thanks for listening!

 

 

 

It’s official: the Hello PhD podcast is one year old!

In honor of our birthday, we’re taking a look back at our favorite episodes and moments from the first year of the show.

Stay with us…

Cheers, Mate!

We start the celebration with the Alpine Beer Company Hoppy Birthday Session India Pale Ale.  Brewed on Alpine Blvd. in Alpine, California (near San Diego), this beer packs a hoppy wallop.

And listen – I like hops as much as the next guy – but a birthday cake made entirely of hops is probably going a bit too far.  Save ’em for the beer.

The Way We Were

We took a few moments to remember why we started this podcast in the first place.  Basically, it’s for all of you: the graduate students, postdocs, and career scientists who are navigating the PhD process and beyond.

It’s a difficult road, but one that can be so richly rewarding that it’s worth the pain.  The goal of this podcast is to share the strategies and stories of other scientists to make the way just a little bit easier for everyone.

We’ve had our favorite moments and episodes over the past year.  We’re still gnawing on the insights shared by Dara Wilson Grant in an interview about stepping off the tenure track.

We also recall the #gradInsurance debacle at Mizzou and how quickly the story unfolded after administrators cancelled graduate student health insurance coverage without notice.

We met lots of cool people this year, including a tenure-track professor, a management consultant, and a member of the teaching faculty.  They’re doing vastly different jobs, but they all love their work.

Never ones to shy from controversy, we also covered a lot of the endemic biases and blind spots that plague the scientific community.  There’s a measurable gender bias in science, and we’re still using the GRE for admissions even when it’s not a good predictor of success. We’re also not doing a good job of supporting the real powerhouses of most labs: the postdocs.

All in all, it’s been a great year for the Hello PhD podcast and we’ve loved connecting with you and hearing your stories.  We hope you’ll continue to share your successes and struggles over the next year to keep the conversation going.  You can reach us any time at [email protected] or on Twitter or Facebook.

One last note – we’ll be releasing new episodes biweekly rather than every week in the coming year.  That should give you plenty of time to catch up on past episodes while you work in the tissue culture hood.

Thanks for listening!

 

 

 

Jessica was finishing her third year of grad school when she finally decided she had had enough.

Funding had gotten tighter, and her PI had basically checked out.  Many of her lab-mates saw the writing on the wall, and left their projects behind to find other work. With no support from her advisor or peers, she had little hope of turning things around.

And then her thesis project – the one she just proposed and defended – was scooped by a competing lab and published in a major journal.  It was the last straw.

Jessica had three options:

* She could quit immediately, and have no degree to show for her three years of work.

* She could find some portion of the project to salvage as a Master’s thesis.

* She could start all over and try to find a new lab.

Amazingly, she chose Option 3.

A Spork in the Road

This week on the show, we invited Jessica into the studio to share her story.

It’s an impossible position, but one that graduate students face every day – the day you can see the conclusion of your dissertation topic and it’s a dead end.

The decision to forge ahead or cut your losses is so challenging because of the costly investment we make in graduate education.  Graduate school means taking a subsistence salary for an unpredictable number of years, living frugally or taking on debt.  It’s a time when friends and peers are gaining valuable experience for their resumes while you try and try again to get your Western blot bands to appear with “publication quality.”

It’s painful, too, because of the binary outcome.  You either get the degree, or you don’t.  There’s no “92%” when it comes to a PhD, even if you’ve completed all that work.

Jessica shares the play-by-play mental and emotional process she went through during that fateful third year: realizing her current situation was untenable, remembering the optimism that had brought her to grad school in the first place, and facing her uncertainty about the future.

She describes how she decided to start over in a new lab with a totally new project, and how she found a PI who would take her on after what looked like failure to the outside world.

In the end, she earned her PhD.  Now she’s doing work she loves in the way she always imagined.

If you’re considering a similar step out of grad school or into another lab, we hope hearing from Jessica will give you the inspiration and information you need to make an impossible choice.  Whatever you choose, we’d love to hear your story.  Email it to [email protected].

You say Pecan, I say Pi’kahhhn

As a special thanks to Jessica for sharing her story, we sample one of her favorite beers!  It’s the Lazy Magnolia Southern Pecan Nut Brown Ale brewed in Kiln, Mississippi.  It claims to be the first beer made with whole roasted pecans, but it’s only a matter of time before other breweries try it too.

It’s apparently a little bit difficult to find, so let us know if you spot some in a store near you!

Jessica was finishing her third year of grad school when she finally decided she had had enough.

Funding had gotten tighter, and her PI had basically checked out.  Many of her lab-mates saw the writing on the wall, and left their projects behind to find other work. With no support from her advisor or peers, she had little hope of turning things around.

And then her thesis project – the one she just proposed and defended – was scooped by a competing lab and published in a major journal.  It was the last straw.

Jessica had three options:

* She could quit immediately, and have no degree to show for her three years of work.

* She could find some portion of the project to salvage as a Master’s thesis.

* She could start all over and try to find a new lab.

Amazingly, she chose Option 3.

A Spork in the Road

This week on the show, we invited Jessica into the studio to share her story.

It’s an impossible position, but one that graduate students face every day – the day you can see the conclusion of your dissertation topic and it’s a dead end.

The decision to forge ahead or cut your losses is so challenging because of the costly investment we make in graduate education.  Graduate school means taking a subsistence salary for an unpredictable number of years, living frugally or taking on debt.  It’s a time when friends and peers are gaining valuable experience for their resumes while you try and try again to get your Western blot bands to appear with “publication quality.”

It’s painful, too, because of the binary outcome.  You either get the degree, or you don’t.  There’s no “92%” when it comes to a PhD, even if you’ve completed all that work.

Jessica shares the play-by-play mental and emotional process she went through during that fateful third year: realizing her current situation was untenable, remembering the optimism that had brought her to grad school in the first place, and facing her uncertainty about the future.

She describes how she decided to start over in a new lab with a totally new project, and how she found a PI who would take her on after what looked like failure to the outside world.

In the end, she earned her PhD.  Now she’s doing work she loves in the way she always imagined.

If you’re considering a similar step out of grad school or into another lab, we hope hearing from Jessica will give you the inspiration and information you need to make an impossible choice.  Whatever you choose, we’d love to hear your story.  Email it to [email protected].

You say Pecan, I say Pi’kahhhn

As a special thanks to Jessica for sharing her story, we sample one of her favorite beers!  It’s the Lazy Magnolia Southern Pecan Nut Brown Ale brewed in Kiln, Mississippi.  It claims to be the first beer made with whole roasted pecans, but it’s only a matter of time before other breweries try it too.

It’s apparently a little bit difficult to find, so let us know if you spot some in a store near you!

We’ve all had bad days in the lab: you throw out the supernatant you were supposed to save, or contaminate all the cells in tissue culture.

It hurts, but the next day, you can start over and try again.

Today on the show, we hear the true story of a woman who dropped a tube and splashed radioactive tritium all over her self, her bench, and the floor.

And then things took a turn for the worse.

Stop.  Just Stop.

This week, our guests Nicole and Craig regale us with a tale of simple mistakes compounding with bad decisions.  We won’t spoil it for you – you have to hear it for yourself!

We’re also excited to announce the launch of a website called Labmosphere by friend-of-the-show Juan Villalobos.  You’ll remember him from Episode 41 and his work on Peer Support at Oxford.

Labmosphere has links and resources to improve and maintain your mental health while you complete your degree.  There’s even a place to share your stories and experiences with others.

A few other resources we mentioned in this episode:

The BenchWarmer’s Podcast – More tales from the world of science like the one you heard today.

The National Postdoc Survey – Hurry up and take the survey if you haven’t yet!

Prickly Paybacks

This week, we’re drinking the Shiner Prickly Pear Summer Seasonal brewed in Shiner, Texas.  This was meant to punish Josh for making Daniel drink the ShockTop Lemon Shandy a few weeks ago.

This beer combines all the fun of eating cactus with the flavor of blue Kool-aid.

Just watch out for the spines!

 

We’ve all had bad days in the lab: you throw out the supernatant you were supposed to save, or contaminate all the cells in tissue culture.

It hurts, but the next day, you can start over and try again.

Today on the show, we hear the true story of a woman who dropped a tube and splashed radioactive tritium all over her self, her bench, and the floor.

And then things took a turn for the worse.

Stop.  Just Stop.

This week, our guests Nicole and Craig regale us with a tale of simple mistakes compounding with bad decisions.  We won’t spoil it for you – you have to hear it for yourself!

We’re also excited to announce the launch of a website called Labmosphere by friend-of-the-show Juan Villalobos.  You’ll remember him from Episode 41 and his work on Peer Support at Oxford.

Labmosphere has links and resources to improve and maintain your mental health while you complete your degree.  There’s even a place to share your stories and experiences with others.

A few other resources we mentioned in this episode:

The BenchWarmer’s Podcast – More tales from the world of science like the one you heard today.

The National Postdoc Survey – Hurry up and take the survey if you haven’t yet!

Prickly Paybacks

This week, we’re drinking the Shiner Prickly Pear Summer Seasonal brewed in Shiner, Texas.  This was meant to punish Josh for making Daniel drink the ShockTop Lemon Shandy a few weeks ago.

This beer combines all the fun of eating cactus with the flavor of blue Kool-aid.

Just watch out for the spines!

 

As a second-year grad student, Craig was making progress on an exciting project in a new lab.

Then, one morning, the PI called Craig into his office.

“I got a really generous offer to move the lab to Sweden.  Do you want to come with me?”

Should I stay or should I go?

You might think of your lab as a physical location in a building at your current University, but in fact, research is mobile.  If your mentor gets a better offer, she may choose to move across the country or around the world, taking her grant money with her.

As a graduate student you’ll be forced to decide between the University and your research advisor.

This week, we talk with two scientists who decided to stay with the University.

Craig was a second-year grad student who had only been in the lab a few months when his advisor got an offer in Sweden.  At that point in his career, he was able to find another advisor who would take him, and he hadn’t lost much time.

Chris was in a different situation.  His PI left during his fourth year, and rather than uproot his project and his life, he decided to stay behind.

Now, he’s the last man standing in an empty lab.  That choice has expanded his responsibilities as he tries to complete a dissertation while migrating research and reagents to his PI’s new lab at a different University.

The decision to follow a PI is difficult, but Craig and Chris were both at points in their graduate careers where it made sense to stay.  Let us know what YOU decided to do when your advisor moved on by emailing us.

Two hearts are better than none

By inviting some new friends into the studio this week, we also landed a case of excellent beer!  Bell’s Two Hearted Ale is a refreshing American-style IPA and is one of Josh’s favorites.

Hey!  Save some for the rest of us!

 

As a second-year grad student, Craig was making progress on an exciting project in a new lab.

Then, one morning, the PI called Craig into his office.

“I got a really generous offer to move the lab to Sweden.  Do you want to come with me?”

Should I stay or should I go?

You might think of your lab as a physical location in a building at your current University, but in fact, research is mobile.  If your mentor gets a better offer, she may choose to move across the country or around the world, taking her grant money with her.

As a graduate student you’ll be forced to decide between the University and your research advisor.

This week, we talk with two scientists who decided to stay with the University.

Craig was a second-year grad student who had only been in the lab a few months when his advisor got an offer in Sweden.  At that point in his career, he was able to find another advisor who would take him, and he hadn’t lost much time.

Chris was in a different situation.  His PI left during his fourth year, and rather than uproot his project and his life, he decided to stay behind.

Now, he’s the last man standing in an empty lab.  That choice has expanded his responsibilities as he tries to complete a dissertation while migrating research and reagents to his PI’s new lab at a different University.

The decision to follow a PI is difficult, but Craig and Chris were both at points in their graduate careers where it made sense to stay.  Let us know what YOU decided to do when your advisor moved on by emailing us.

Two hearts are better than none

By inviting some new friends into the studio this week, we also landed a case of excellent beer!  Bell’s Two Hearted Ale is a refreshing American-style IPA and is one of Josh’s favorites.

Hey!  Save some for the rest of us!

 

Shhhh!  There he is.  Behind that rack of Eppendorf tubes….

The elusive ‘Postdoctoral Fellow’ in his native habitat!

If we’re quiet, we may be able to observe him as he completes an experiment, writes a few paragraphs in a grant proposal, and nurtures his young (i.e. graduate students.)

Postdocs are difficult to study in the wild, and no one knows exactly how many of them exist outside of captivity.

But thanks to a recent study from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), we are starting to understand their migration patterns as they leave the safety of the training lab and venture into the wider world.

If only they’d wear tracking collars

Last week on the show, we explored the embarrassing lack of data surrounding the number of postdoctoral fellows in American Universities.  We called for better tracking to improve training and prepare students for a broad variety of careers.

This week, we get our wish, as Elizabeth Silva et al. help to shed a little bit of light on what happens to scientists after the postdoc period is over.

In their study “Tracking Career Outcomes for Postdoctoral Scholars: A Call to Action” published in PLOS Biology last month, Silva and colleagues followed 1,431 postdocs from 28 training programs at UCSF.  The study ran from from 2000 to 2013, and represented labs from 277 different faculty members.

So where did the postdocs go?

Over 80% went on to careers we traditionally think of as ‘research’ in academia, industry and government.  Another 12% were in science-related careers like K-12 education, communication, policy, regulation, and business development. Another 4% sought more training, and 1% were classified as ‘other.’ 

While the bulk of postdocs stayed in research, not all went on to traditional tenure-track faculty positions.  In fact, the article implies that some labs produce more faculty-track trainees than others.  What’s their secret?

In the end, we believe additional research like the UCSF study can help Universities to prepare their trainees for the full breadth of careers possible with a PhD.

And while the UCSF data is important, it’s just a tiny snapshot of the overall ecosystem.  The authors call on other institutions to track their own students and trainees, so that we might begin to understand the lifecycle of a modern scientist.

Beer and weed?

To wash out the taste of last week’s Lemon Shandy, Josh picks up a top-shelf bottle of Clouds of Pale Gold Brett Farmhouse Ale from the Urban Family Brewing Co in Seattle.  It’s brewed with lemon and dandelion greens for a citrusy bitter one-two punch.

And because it’s bottle conditioned, make sure you take the first pour.  Save the dregs for your friends and co-hosts!

Shhhh!  There he is.  Behind that rack of Eppendorf tubes….

The elusive ‘Postdoctoral Fellow’ in his native habitat!

If we’re quiet, we may be able to observe him as he completes an experiment, writes a few paragraphs in a grant proposal, and nurtures his young (i.e. graduate students.)

Postdocs are difficult to study in the wild, and no one knows exactly how many of them exist outside of captivity.

But thanks to a recent study from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), we are starting to understand their migration patterns as they leave the safety of the training lab and venture into the wider world.

If only they’d wear tracking collars

Last week on the show, we explored the embarrassing lack of data surrounding the number of postdoctoral fellows in American Universities.  We called for better tracking to improve training and prepare students for a broad variety of careers.

This week, we get our wish, as Elizabeth Silva et al. help to shed a little bit of light on what happens to scientists after the postdoc period is over.

In their study “Tracking Career Outcomes for Postdoctoral Scholars: A Call to Action” published in PLOS Biology last month, Silva and colleagues followed 1,431 postdocs from 28 training programs at UCSF.  The study ran from from 2000 to 2013, and represented labs from 277 different faculty members.

So where did the postdocs go?

Over 80% went on to careers we traditionally think of as ‘research’ in academia, industry and government.  Another 12% were in science-related careers like K-12 education, communication, policy, regulation, and business development. Another 4% sought more training, and 1% were classified as ‘other.’ 

While the bulk of postdocs stayed in research, not all went on to traditional tenure-track faculty positions.  In fact, the article implies that some labs produce more faculty-track trainees than others.  What’s their secret?

In the end, we believe additional research like the UCSF study can help Universities to prepare their trainees for the full breadth of careers possible with a PhD.

And while the UCSF data is important, it’s just a tiny snapshot of the overall ecosystem.  The authors call on other institutions to track their own students and trainees, so that we might begin to understand the lifecycle of a modern scientist.

Beer and weed?

To wash out the taste of last week’s Lemon Shandy, Josh picks up a top-shelf bottle of Clouds of Pale Gold Brett Farmhouse Ale from the Urban Family Brewing Co in Seattle.  It’s brewed with lemon and dandelion greens for a citrusy bitter one-two punch.

And because it’s bottle conditioned, make sure you take the first pour.  Save the dregs for your friends and co-hosts!