Hello PhD

The good news is that your research project has gone well over the last few years, and you got your paper published.

The bad news is that you published everything in that one paper, and you’re out of ideas.

And you’re five years into the program.

And your PI doesn’t want to help you anymore.

How, exactly, are you supposed to get your research project out of the rut and back on track so you can graduate?

Fasten Your Seatbelts

That was the question posed by a listener this week.  And he’s probably not alone.

Dear Josh and Dan,

I am about to finish my fifth year in graduate school. We published my work several months ago in a good journal but I currently feel like I am in a rut.

I started writing my manuscript early last year and it took over eight months and multiple rounds of peer review before the manuscript was finally published. The reviewers asked for more and more until, eventually, almost everything I’d worked on since joining the lab became included in the paper. It makes the paper great but it didn’t leave me much of a jumping off point for my next experiments. In fact, all of my proposed leads became dead ends.

I’ve been working on more experiments but nothing has gone anywhere in over six months, which is really disheartening. Teaching responsibilities and other assignments have kept me from being able to focus on research like I used to be able to. Further, it feels like my adviser is no longer interested in my project. The only thing they want to talk about is another lab mate’s work and how something minor in my work tangentially relates to that work they are more excited about.

I guess I’m writing because I am not totally sure what to do. I saw the light at the end but now I don’t. Do you have any suggestions for students in a rut like me?

Sound familiar?

First, we can commiserate about the glacial pace some journals take to get a paper published.  The constant back and forth with reviewers can ruin the excitement you once had for your results.

But more importantly, we think the listener needs to change his focus: instead of finding ways to restart his research project, he should start taking steps toward graduation.

Tune into this episode for more ideas on getting a project unstuck, or share your story with us by email.  We’re here to help!

Here Be Dragons

To celebrate the latest season of Game of Thrones, we’re drinking Seven Kingdoms Hoppy Wheat Ale from Ommegang Brewery in Cooperstown, NY.  It’s not clear what this beer has in common with the George R. R. Martin novels or the TV show, but it’s got a cork, and it’s pretty tasty!

Winter is coming!  Er… actually summer is coming, but you catch my drift.

And as promised, here is the ‘heartless’ cashew nut in fruit!

 

The good news is that your research project has gone well over the last few years, and you got your paper published.

The bad news is that you published everything in that one paper, and you’re out of ideas.

And you’re five years into the program.

And your PI doesn’t want to help you anymore.

How, exactly, are you supposed to get your research project out of the rut and back on track so you can graduate?

Fasten Your Seatbelts

That was the question posed by a listener this week.  And he’s probably not alone.

Dear Josh and Dan,

I am about to finish my fifth year in graduate school. We published my work several months ago in a good journal but I currently feel like I am in a rut.

I started writing my manuscript early last year and it took over eight months and multiple rounds of peer review before the manuscript was finally published. The reviewers asked for more and more until, eventually, almost everything I’d worked on since joining the lab became included in the paper. It makes the paper great but it didn’t leave me much of a jumping off point for my next experiments. In fact, all of my proposed leads became dead ends.

I’ve been working on more experiments but nothing has gone anywhere in over six months, which is really disheartening. Teaching responsibilities and other assignments have kept me from being able to focus on research like I used to be able to. Further, it feels like my adviser is no longer interested in my project. The only thing they want to talk about is another lab mate’s work and how something minor in my work tangentially relates to that work they are more excited about.

I guess I’m writing because I am not totally sure what to do. I saw the light at the end but now I don’t. Do you have any suggestions for students in a rut like me?

Sound familiar?

First, we can commiserate about the glacial pace some journals take to get a paper published.  The constant back and forth with reviewers can ruin the excitement you once had for your results.

But more importantly, we think the listener needs to change his focus: instead of finding ways to restart his research project, he should start taking steps toward graduation.

Tune into this episode for more ideas on getting a project unstuck, or share your story with us by email.  We’re here to help!

Here Be Dragons

To celebrate the latest season of Game of Thrones, we’re drinking Seven Kingdoms Hoppy Wheat Ale from Ommegang Brewery in Cooperstown, NY.  It’s not clear what this beer has in common with the George R. R. Martin novels or the TV show, but it’s got a cork, and it’s pretty tasty!

Winter is coming!  Er… actually summer is coming, but you catch my drift.

And as promised, here is the ‘heartless’ cashew nut in fruit!

 

What makes two PhDs who escaped from grad school years ago want to revisit all the highs and lows of their training?  Short answer: Beer!

But the long answer: Grad school is no cakewalk – classes are challenging, experiments fail, and sometimes, PIs seem like they’re from another planet. We made it through one day at a time, relying on regular conversations and scheming over a beer at the end of a long week.

Hello PhD is your chance to join those conversations and benefit from the experience of other scientists who have made their living in, and out of, the lab.  We want to help you take advantage of all of the great benefits of your science training experience, and avoid some of the mistakes and pitfalls.

In this episode, we’ll share the origins of the Hello PhD podcast and how Dan and Josh (your fearless hosts) first met.  We’ll also lay out some of our goals for the show and how you can get involved.

To celebrate our origins, we sample one of the beers that started us on the path to Hello PhD – the Top of the Hill Blueridge Blueberry Wheat.  It’s 64 ounces of blue-flavored goodness, with a couple of fresh berries dropped in for a surprise finish.

The last layer of our origin story is the word-origin of “chromosome.” Now that you understand the DNA of the podcast, you may as well know the DNA of the word used to describe DNA… It’s like an etymological Inception!

What makes two PhDs who escaped from grad school years ago want to revisit all the highs and lows of their training?  Short answer: Beer!

But the long answer: Grad school is no cakewalk – classes are challenging, experiments fail, and sometimes, PIs seem like they’re from another planet. We made it through one day at a time, relying on regular conversations and scheming over a beer at the end of a long week.

Hello PhD is your chance to join those conversations and benefit from the experience of other scientists who have made their living in, and out of, the lab.  We want to help you take advantage of all of the great benefits of your science training experience, and avoid some of the mistakes and pitfalls.

In this episode, we’ll share the origins of the Hello PhD podcast and how Dan and Josh (your fearless hosts) first met.  We’ll also lay out some of our goals for the show and how you can get involved.

To celebrate our origins, we sample one of the beers that started us on the path to Hello PhD – the Top of the Hill Blueridge Blueberry Wheat.  It’s 64 ounces of blue-flavored goodness, with a couple of fresh berries dropped in for a surprise finish.

The last layer of our origin story is the word-origin of “chromosome.” Now that you understand the DNA of the podcast, you may as well know the DNA of the word used to describe DNA… It’s like an etymological Inception!

Spoiler Alert: Working in a lab is tough.

Yes, there’s the academic challenge, but it can also be an emotional roller-coaster when experiments fail, colleagues conflict, and you push yourself past the normal limits.

When someone in your lab has a bad day, does it sound like this?

Grad Student: (despondent sigh) “I can’t believe that PCR failed again.  I’m never going to graduate.”

Lab Mate: (in a rush) “Yeah, that sucks.  Check your primers again.”

Instead of finding support among peers and co-workers – the very people who understand how difficult lab can be – we often find indifference, dismissal, or half-hearted pity.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

You Can Learn the Skills of Peer Support

With a little bit of training in concrete skills like active listening, we can transform our everyday interactions into ones that actually build people’s confidence and help them to find their own solutions.

Grad Student: (despondent sigh) “I can’t believe that PCR failed again.  I’m never going to graduate.”

Lab Mate: (stopping) “Yeah, sometimes it feels like your whole degree is riding on getting one experiment to work. It’s depressing.”

Grad Student: “Exactly! And with our funding so tight, I’m afraid to go into the PI’s office with another failure.”

Lab Mate: “I know.  He’s really been crazy about the money.  He gets mad when experiments don’t work, but everyone knows that’s part of science.”

Grad Student: “Yeah, well I have to find a way to make this work.  Maybe it’s my primers.”

Lab Mate: “I can take a look at them with you if you want. Let me just run this stuff to the autoclave.”

Grad Student: “That’d be awesome, thanks.  Maybe if it works this time, I’ll just forget to tell him about the last one that failed…” (smiles)

It’s a made up situation, but things like this happen every day.  Our peers and lab mates reach out for support by expressing doubt, frustration, fear, and anxiety.  We have the choice to engage and support them, or to ignore the signs and dismiss their concerns.

Walking the Talk

This week on the show, we talk with Juan, a graduate student at Oxford who learned the skills of Peer Support through his college.  With over thirty hours of intensive training, he and a group of other students learned about active listening, nonviolent communication, and adaptive resilience.

What’s more – they practiced those skills with each other, and then in their daily lives.  According to Juan, it transformed his experience in the lab.

We ask Juan what Peer Support really means and what the training was like.  We also find out some concrete ways it’s made a difference in his lab and life.

If you want to learn more, talk with the counseling service at your university to see if there’s an existing program nearby.  Together, we can make the scientific community a more supportive, creative, and affirming environment.

That’s a Fine Ale!

And since Juan is in England at the moment, he shares one of his favorite brews from Suffolk: “Old Speckled Hen.”  We’re just thankful it was ice cold and not served warm and flat!

Spoiler Alert: Working in a lab is tough.

Yes, there’s the academic challenge, but it can also be an emotional roller-coaster when experiments fail, colleagues conflict, and you push yourself past the normal limits.

When someone in your lab has a bad day, does it sound like this?

Grad Student: (despondent sigh) “I can’t believe that PCR failed again.  I’m never going to graduate.”

Lab Mate: (in a rush) “Yeah, that sucks.  Check your primers again.”

Instead of finding support among peers and co-workers – the very people who understand how difficult lab can be – we often find indifference, dismissal, or half-hearted pity.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

You Can Learn the Skills of Peer Support

With a little bit of training in concrete skills like active listening, we can transform our everyday interactions into ones that actually build people’s confidence and help them to find their own solutions.

Grad Student: (despondent sigh) “I can’t believe that PCR failed again.  I’m never going to graduate.”

Lab Mate: (stopping) “Yeah, sometimes it feels like your whole degree is riding on getting one experiment to work. It’s depressing.”

Grad Student: “Exactly! And with our funding so tight, I’m afraid to go into the PI’s office with another failure.”

Lab Mate: “I know.  He’s really been crazy about the money.  He gets mad when experiments don’t work, but everyone knows that’s part of science.”

Grad Student: “Yeah, well I have to find a way to make this work.  Maybe it’s my primers.”

Lab Mate: “I can take a look at them with you if you want. Let me just run this stuff to the autoclave.”

Grad Student: “That’d be awesome, thanks.  Maybe if it works this time, I’ll just forget to tell him about the last one that failed…” (smiles)

It’s a made up situation, but things like this happen every day.  Our peers and lab mates reach out for support by expressing doubt, frustration, fear, and anxiety.  We have the choice to engage and support them, or to ignore the signs and dismiss their concerns.

Walking the Talk

This week on the show, we talk with Juan, a graduate student at Oxford who learned the skills of Peer Support through his college.  With over thirty hours of intensive training, he and a group of other students learned about active listening, nonviolent communication, and adaptive resilience.

What’s more – they practiced those skills with each other, and then in their daily lives.  According to Juan, it transformed his experience in the lab.

We ask Juan what Peer Support really means and what the training was like.  We also find out some concrete ways it’s made a difference in his lab and life.

If you want to learn more, talk with the counseling service at your university to see if there’s an existing program nearby.  Together, we can make the scientific community a more supportive, creative, and affirming environment.

That’s a Fine Ale!

And since Juan is in England at the moment, he shares one of his favorite brews from Suffolk: “Old Speckled Hen.”  We’re just thankful it was ice cold and not served warm and flat!

Kenny Gibbs is a scientist who studies other scientists.

After earning his PhD in Immunology from Stanford, he turned his attention to the broader topic of scientific careers and how PhDs choose and evolve in their work.  Through surveys and interviews with postdocs and research scientists, Dr. Gibbs explores issues like career-interest formation and postdoc development.

Wouldn’t you like to ask someone like that for advice on your graduate training?

Unlock your potential

You’re in luck!  Dr. Gibbs recently did an interview with gradlogic.org where he revealed three keys to graduate school success. We take a deep dive on all three in this week’s podcast.

1. Remember that Ph.Ds. are beginnings not endings.

It’s so easy to enter a PhD program with blinders on: your entire focus turns to attaching three letters after your name.  But that degree is not an endpoint, it’s just a beginning to a long and productive career.  Dr. Gibbs knows that better than anyone, as he’s actively studying what happens to students after they graduate.

When the going gets tough and you can’t even imagine graduation day, Gibbs recommends that you take stock and remember why you came to grad school in the first place.  What motivated you to apply all those years ago?

Keeping the big picture front of mind helps avoid those desperate days when you just feel ‘stuck.’

2. Go to a school and work with an advisor where you can see yourself doing well as a person.

Have kids?  Look for a program where you see people with kids succeeding.  Love to snowboard? Find a school where that’s popular (and possible!)  If you want to practice your faith, make sure you don’t land somewhere you’ll feel ostracized or worse.

In other words, you can find great research almost anywhere, but the broader interpersonal and cultural values of your workplace can really change your experience.  Don’t ignore the subtle clues about how students and postdocs are feeling in their work – it can be an important indicator that people like you are either thriving, or slowly stifling.

3. Manuscripts (and theses) only get written when you write them.

It’s tempting to put off writing that dissertation chapter until the 11th hour of your 6th year, but the truth is, writing is a requirement for graduating (and succeeding.)  Why not make it a habit?

We offer some tips to get you over the ’empty page paralysis’ that keeps so many from moving on.

Made from Real Heine

This week, we dig deep in the back of the fridge and split a bright green bottle of Heinekin.  Long story short: the history is more interesting than the beer.  Sorry Holland!

Kenny Gibbs is a scientist who studies other scientists.

After earning his PhD in Immunology from Stanford, he turned his attention to the broader topic of scientific careers and how PhDs choose and evolve in their work.  Through surveys and interviews with postdocs and research scientists, Dr. Gibbs explores issues like career-interest formation and postdoc development.

Wouldn’t you like to ask someone like that for advice on your graduate training?

Unlock your potential

You’re in luck!  Dr. Gibbs recently did an interview with gradlogic.org where he revealed three keys to graduate school success. We take a deep dive on all three in this week’s podcast.

1. Remember that Ph.Ds. are beginnings not endings.

It’s so easy to enter a PhD program with blinders on: your entire focus turns to attaching three letters after your name.  But that degree is not an endpoint, it’s just a beginning to a long and productive career.  Dr. Gibbs knows that better than anyone, as he’s actively studying what happens to students after they graduate.

When the going gets tough and you can’t even imagine graduation day, Gibbs recommends that you take stock and remember why you came to grad school in the first place.  What motivated you to apply all those years ago?

Keeping the big picture front of mind helps avoid those desperate days when you just feel ‘stuck.’

2. Go to a school and work with an advisor where you can see yourself doing well as a person.

Have kids?  Look for a program where you see people with kids succeeding.  Love to snowboard? Find a school where that’s popular (and possible!)  If you want to practice your faith, make sure you don’t land somewhere you’ll feel ostracized or worse.

In other words, you can find great research almost anywhere, but the broader interpersonal and cultural values of your workplace can really change your experience.  Don’t ignore the subtle clues about how students and postdocs are feeling in their work – it can be an important indicator that people like you are either thriving, or slowly stifling.

3. Manuscripts (and theses) only get written when you write them.

It’s tempting to put off writing that dissertation chapter until the 11th hour of your 6th year, but the truth is, writing is a requirement for graduating (and succeeding.)  Why not make it a habit?

We offer some tips to get you over the ’empty page paralysis’ that keeps so many from moving on.

Made from Real Heine

This week, we dig deep in the back of the fridge and split a bright green bottle of Heinekin.  Long story short: the history is more interesting than the beer.  Sorry Holland!

Sometimes, we use the words ‘research advisor’ and ‘research mentor’ interchangeably, but be careful – they’re not the same thing.

When you join the lab of a research faculty member in your second year of grad school, you’ve chosen a research advisor.  Whether that person turns out to be a ‘mentor’ remains to be seen.

An advisor helps to direct your research and provides a space for you to work. But a mentor goes further, clarifying your academic potential, nurturing your strengths, and pushing to shore up your weaknesses.

If an advisor is a teacher, a mentor is like a scientific parent.

As valuable as a research mentor can be for students and postdocs, mentorship is not an innate skill all scientists possess at birth.  For some, it comes naturally, and others may never get it.  For most, it’s something that can be learned and developed over time.

The key word is “can.” They won’t improve by accident.

This week on the show, we outline two concrete steps toward making more advisors into mentors.

Step 1: ‘Measure’ mentorship, and make it count

If you want more of something, your first goal should be to figure out how much of it you have, and incentivize it.  For research advisors, that means collecting feedback on how they’re training students and postdocs.  With that information in hand, you can give them an incentive to improve.

Last week, we observed that mentorship wasn’t on the tenure committee’s checklist, but feedback from some faculty listeners proved us wrong.  At some universities, mentorship is measured and counts toward tenure decisions.

One school handles the tenure situation cleverly: they weight student-published papers more heavily than those that the PI published alone or in collaboration with other labs.  If your students are publishing, you’re probably doing a decent job at mentoring!  If you publish on your own, you’re not taking the time to include them in your research.

On a broader scale, the Future of Research Group is working to grade institutions on mentorship, support, career development opportunities, benefits, and other criteria that make a training program successful.  

Step 2: Mentor the mentors

Faculty can learn to be better mentors, and some schools offer training to improve advisor-student relations.

For example, the University of Wisconsin – Madison offers resources and mentorship training to all faculty through the Mentor Training Core of the National Research Mentoring Network.

Check with a student affairs or postdoc affairs group on campus, or any faculty member to see if similar training opportunities are available at your university.

From Table to Brain

And first but not least, we pop the cork on Mystic Brewery’s Table Beer from Chelsea, Mass.  Don’t let the light golden color fool you – it’s bottle conditioned and full of flavor.  Even after a careful pour, we got a little more foam than we bargained for…

We also got a look a the elusive hippocampus in this week’s show.

Sometimes, we use the words ‘research advisor’ and ‘research mentor’ interchangeably, but be careful – they’re not the same thing.

When you join the lab of a research faculty member in your second year of grad school, you’ve chosen a research advisor.  Whether that person turns out to be a ‘mentor’ remains to be seen.

An advisor helps to direct your research and provides a space for you to work. But a mentor goes further, clarifying your academic potential, nurturing your strengths, and pushing to shore up your weaknesses.

If an advisor is a teacher, a mentor is like a scientific parent.

As valuable as a research mentor can be for students and postdocs, mentorship is not an innate skill all scientists possess at birth.  For some, it comes naturally, and others may never get it.  For most, it’s something that can be learned and developed over time.

The key word is “can.” They won’t improve by accident.

This week on the show, we outline two concrete steps toward making more advisors into mentors.

Step 1: ‘Measure’ mentorship, and make it count

If you want more of something, your first goal should be to figure out how much of it you have, and incentivize it.  For research advisors, that means collecting feedback on how they’re training students and postdocs.  With that information in hand, you can give them an incentive to improve.

Last week, we observed that mentorship wasn’t on the tenure committee’s checklist, but feedback from some faculty listeners proved us wrong.  At some universities, mentorship is measured and counts toward tenure decisions.

One school handles the tenure situation cleverly: they weight student-published papers more heavily than those that the PI published alone or in collaboration with other labs.  If your students are publishing, you’re probably doing a decent job at mentoring!  If you publish on your own, you’re not taking the time to include them in your research.

On a broader scale, the Future of Research Group is working to grade institutions on mentorship, support, career development opportunities, benefits, and other criteria that make a training program successful.  

Step 2: Mentor the mentors

Faculty can learn to be better mentors, and some schools offer training to improve advisor-student relations.

For example, the University of Wisconsin – Madison offers resources and mentorship training to all faculty through the Mentor Training Core of the National Research Mentoring Network.

Check with a student affairs or postdoc affairs group on campus, or any faculty member to see if similar training opportunities are available at your university.

From Table to Brain

And first but not least, we pop the cork on Mystic Brewery’s Table Beer from Chelsea, Mass.  Don’t let the light golden color fool you – it’s bottle conditioned and full of flavor.  Even after a careful pour, we got a little more foam than we bargained for…

We also got a look a the elusive hippocampus in this week’s show.