Hey guys! Just to let you all know, my blog has relocated. I’m now with Nature Network. Check me out over here.
Photo by Simon Music
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Let’s face it, most research projects don’t work. No matter how hard we try, how many gels we run, how many Western blots we develop, sometimes, the science just isn’t there. This can be very frustrating, especially if you’ve spent years on a project, only to realize later that your hypothesis was wrong. Therefore, to prevent students from remaining on the PI’s payroll for 10 years, most students will work on multiple projects at one time.
Most projects can easily take a year to complete. Of course, each project is composed of multiple experiments. Likewise, each experiment is going to have to be standardized. If you’re one who really doesn’t like to waste time (and you should be), then you’ll probably do multiple experiments per day for different projects. At the end of the week, you would have probably completed about 10-15 different experiments (or several steps of experiments) from 2-3 projects. Come Monday morning, your experiments may be a bit of a blur, and you may not know what you should be doing next. When your next lab experiment comes around, although you’ve been working hard, it may seem as if you’ve done much of nothing if you can’t express your results and current projects in an organized manner.
How do you stay on top of this stuff?
1. Set up your folders
You should keep a folder on your computer for each project that you are undertaking. All the data that you generate for each project should be stored in its particular folder. For example, one of my project folders has Excel file sheets (for number crunching), Word documents or txt files for protocols or experiment details (sometimes this information is included in the Excel files), and graphs of my data. Anything relating to this project should go into the same folder.
2. Keep a list
Furthermore, I keep a running list of my projects in a txt file along with some brief information regarding the status of my projects (how many mice/group, list of experiments in those projects, how many times it was repeated, etc.). This allows me to quickly overview the status of my projects and determine what I should do next.
3. Next Actions
Daily, I write down a list of Next Actions (see GTD by David Allen). This list holds all of the things that I need to do next for all of my projects. When one thing is completed, it is crossed out and another Next Action, from the same project, is placed on the list. This helps me to continuously move all of my projects forward. However, by having this list, this does not mean that I work on all of my projects at the same pace. On the contrary, I tend to focus on one project at a time until it is completed or there is another reason that I cannot move the project forward. At one point, I used to write these actions on index cards and hang them over my bench. I’m not sure exactly why, but I stopped doing that and I am now keeping it attached to my hipster PDA in my pocket.
4. Most Important Tasks (MITs)
Here is a trick I learned over at Zen Habits. Everyday, make a list of no more than three items that you must accomplish. These tasks should be the most important tasks on your Next Actions list and you should begin working on them first thing in the morning. As soon as you get to the lab, just knock out these tasks and spend the rest of the day however you want. By the evening, even if you goof-off all afternoon, you’ll still feel good about yourself knowing that you have accomplished your MITs.
These are tips that I’m currently using to complete my PhD. I’m sure that many others will have different, probably better, ways of managing projects. Please share them in the comments.
Photo by Jim Purbrick
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During your first and second years as a Ph.D. student, your brain will be challenged to its maximum. You’ll be forced to learn new information faster than Neo in the Matrix when he was programmed to learn Kung Fu. In your classes, the subject matter that you are being presented with is probably somewhat familiar to you; however, you’ll be learning a lot more details. Furthermore, many of the details were not available in your college textbooks because now, you’ll be learning directly from peer-reviewed journal articles. Not only will you learn how the science works, but you’ll also learn the experiments that were used to prove such facts. Also, if you’re really insightful, you’ll begin to question the research, see what’s missing, and have some idea about what experiments should be done next. This is the biggest difference that I could see between college and graduate school. You’re not only expected to learn the material, but you’re also expected to learn how this material was discovered. This is the ultimate goal of Ph.D. training, to teach you to think critically and analytically, like a scientist, and learn how to solve scientific problems. That’s the career you are being prepared for…to be a scientific problem solver.
Lab work is yet another challenging feat that you are bombarded with upon entering graduate school. I know you’ve worked in a lab before, but not like this. No one’s gonna hold your hand this time. You’ll probably be given some keys to the dungeon and an older student’s lab notebook and told to get to work. Well, it probably won’t be that bad. Besides, there are several labs to choose from, and each one is different. However, you will be expected to function independently at some point during your graduate school years. You will have to learn many new techniques, some of which will take a few tries before you can grasp them. With that in mind, be prepared to do a lot of experiments that probably won’t work the way you want them to. Remember this, the faster you standardize these techniques, the faster you’ll graduate.
Here are 3 general tips to help you pass successfully through these stages:
- Immerse yourself in graduate school
This is going to be your life for the next few years so you must learn to love it. Try your best to enjoy being a student doing cutting edge research. Train yourself to love reading, writing, studying, and doing lab work. - Read as much as you can
This cannot be overstated. For everyone in the world, reading is a good thing to do. But for scientists, it’s almost an obligation. If needed, go back to those old college textbooks to brush up on the basics. Also, and probably more importantly, you have to read journal articles. I know that upon first glance, most journal articles look terribly boring and tough to understand, and that’s normal, because if you don’t understand the paper, it’s probably not going to be very interesting. The more you read them, the better you’ll become at understanding them. One professor told me that I should read at least one article everyday. - Ask for help
Most people aren’t jerks. If you need help, ask someone, and 9 times out of 10, they will help you. In your lab, when you need help on some technique, go to the friendly, smart post-doc. If you’re having trouble with a concept presented in class, go and visit the professor. It’s their job to help you.
This is definitely not an exhaustive list. If you have found other tips that were helpful to you, please post them in the comments.
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Ok, so you just joined the lab. You’ve rotated here before, so you have a good idea about what goes on around here. You know the type of research that is going on (and apparently you must like it). You’ve seen the type of techniques that are done often in the lab and you’ve probably done some of this stuff already. However, some of it, you’ve never even heard of until now. You probably also have a good idea of who will help you, and who won’t. You know just which post-doc you can bother and which ones will bite your hand if you tap them on the shoulder. You should also know, by now, that when the boss has his door closed, you shouldn’t bother him…and if it’s opened, you probably still shouldn’t bother him unless you can’t find the answer anywhere else (this is not always true though…). You may even have keys to this place. If you don’t, get some because you’re gonna need them. Welcome to your place of residence for the next five years (if all goes extremely well)! Read the rest of this entry »
Image by Amodiovalerio Verde
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All of us know how to read, write, think, and work with our hands. We’ve be in school for practically all of our lives, and we’ve done bench research before. However, some people can do these things much better than others. For example, why is it that some people can finish their PhD’s in 3.5 years, while others (probably most of us) can take as long as 7 years (that’s twice as much!). Why is that? Is it because they are smarter (probably)? Is it because they work 20 hours/day (most likely)? Or do they know some type of black magic where all of their experiments work the first time they perform them? I believe that the key to successfully finishing your PhD in a feasable amount of time is to work more efficiently, be more organized, and become fully engaged in your work. This is certainly not all that matters…of course, if you do all these things wonderfully and your experiments still don’t work, then you won’t be graduating any time soon. However, by tweaking a few things here and there, changing a few habits, and learning a few tricks, one can really speed things up. Read the rest of this entry »
Don’t worry guys. I’m sure all of you are dying to take a break from reading all those journal articles. I bet your thumb is going numb from all that pipetting! Just give me a few days to get to my things in order (aka: run some more gels). In the words of Arnold, “I’ll be back!”
