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groverj3

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Arizona
  • Application Season
    2015 Fall
  • Program
    Molecular Biology

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  1. I thought I would post my stuff. It might help future students make decisions and whatnot. My situation is kind of unique. I graduated from undergrad in 2011, worked in biotech for about 2 years, applied to PhD programs, didn't get in, ended up doing a masters instead, re-applied to PhD programs, had much better results this time around. Undergrad Institution: Michigan State Major(s): Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Chemistry GPA in Major: Never calculated, but probably not much higher than 3.1 Overall GPA: 3.23 Type of Student: domestic, male Grad Institution: University of Arizona Major(s): Applied Biosciences Professional Science Masters - Molecular and Cellular Biology Specialization Coursework: Grad-level Cell Bio, Molecular Bio, Nucleic Acid Biochem, Bioinformatics, Some business classes (finance, project management) Overall GPA: 3.70 Thesis/No Thesis: The PSM program is designed for students to do internships and write a report on the internship experience. However, I negotiated with them to do my "internship" in an on-campus research lab and found one that fit my interests in regulation of gene expression and epigenetics. So, I'll be writing up my results in more of a manuscript format, rather than a thesis. GRE Scores (2010): Q: 630 (54%) V: 560 (78%) W: 5.0 (84%) GRE Scores (2014): Q: 156 (64%) V: 168 (98%) W: 5.0 (93%) I don't know if anyone else out there took the old and new versions, but I found the new one much easier. My quant score is probably what landed my application in trash heap at some places, but I don't really think it's bad. You'd think really high scores in the other sections would make up somewhat, but I guess not. Davis told me, specifically, that my GRE scores weren't high enough. Kind of silly, I think. Also, by the time I applied the first time around my percentile rankings for my 2010 test had dropped a lot (Q - 10%). Probably didn't help matters. Research Experience: 4 years during undergrad working with Arabidopsis genomics, finding genes related to metabolism. Lots of GS/MS, genotyping, some mapping of mutant phenotypes, etc. A summer at Notre Dame working with malaria. I didn't really do anything more than extract DNA and genotype some stuff though. 2 years at a biotech company. Did biodistribution studies of gene therapy vectors and stem cell stuff using qPCR. Mostly I just extracted DNA a lot, never loaded very many plates. Did some stuff with lab automation, and wrote experimental methods, trained people in the lab, ordered supplies, reviewed data. Everything was under FDA regulations, which means tons of paperwork. It was a bit of a departure, being animal-work. I couldn't have survived any longer at the place though. About a year in my current lab at Arizona studying epigenetics in Arabidopsis. Mostly looking at DNA methylation effectors. Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Dean's list until 2nd semester junior year at MSU, Dean's tuition scholarship at Arizona. Special Bonus Points: I really get along well with my PI at Arizona, as well as several other faculty members. I probably have a lot more lab experience than some other applicants, although not all of it was very exciting, and I didn't get any publications. Any Other Info That Shows Up On Your App and Might Matter: qPCR, some very basic Python programming. My GPA tanked at the end of undergrad, but I have done very well in my master's coursework. Applications: Arizona - ABBS (MCB) - Admitted Purdue - PULSe (Chromatin and Regulation of Gene Expression) - Admitted UC Riverside - CMDB - Admitted + Fellowship (Only marginally higher than the stipend at AZ and PU, requires teaching in the first year, I think) UC Davis - BMCDB - Rejected Washington - MCB - Rejected WUSTL - Molecular Genetics and Genomics - Rejected Cornell - BMCB - Rejected UCSD - Biological Sciences (Molecular Biology) - Rejected Rutgers - Molecular Biosciences - Rejected So, I got rejected by most places. However, several were reaches. My PI was more surprised than I was, since there are groups doing very similar work to ours at many of these places. I'm not as competitive of an applicant as some of the people around here, and I'm fine with that. I did my best. Life has a way of sneaking up on you and screwing up your plans, as happened during the end of my undergrad. I hoped I could make up for all that with solid grad-level grades and lots of experience. It worked well enough, I suppose. I've been asked several times why I'm bothering with a PhD when I might be able to get a decent job with my masters. Well, partially because this is a strange business/science hybrid degree (PSM) and I'm not sure how respected it will be since I don't think it's very competitive to get into. It sounds marketable, but not many people know about it. Secondly, my goal has always been to gather as much knowledge in my area, and now that I've been introduced to epigenetics I'm really excited to keep working on it. Also, in doing my masters I've worked with undergrads and high school students in the lab, teaching them. I've found I want to be involved in teaching science. It's vitally important. My master's program allowed me to get experience on my OWN project. Despite my lab experience I'd never had one, just helped out with others'. Also, I realize that I could indeed do grad-level work, despite my lackluster undergrad performance near the end. I also developed good relationships with faculty and gained experience working in field I thought was interesting, rather than just whatever lab job I could find. It has been expensive though, so I will be paying student loans off for a long time. Some chastise me for this decision, but I had little choice in the matter if I didn't want to be a lab slave for the rest of my life. I would recommend this path to others having difficulty with rejections, but keep in mind it is costly. If you can, perhaps look for a lab tech job and get free tuition by being an employee (easier said than done). My point being, however, that it's not hopeless for you if you don't think you're that competitive but know you're capable. Now it's essentially down to a decision between staying at Arizona vs going to Purdue. Purdue is a better ranked university, with lots of really good faculty, many epigenetics labs, and plenty of funding in those labs for me. Arizona has the advantage of allowing me to continue working on a project I'm already familiar with, and I know isn't a dead end, with a PI who is very supportive and other faculty that I really get along with, plus the fact that my coursework will transfer in from my master's. Purdue has minimal coursework requirements and several faculty are very interested in me though. A tough decision for sure, especially since our lab at Arizona has much less funding and I'll likely have to do more teaching and apply for grants myself. It may come down to deciding if I really want to pack everything I own in my car again and drive back to essentially where I came from, haha. Sorry for the novel, but it might help someone out there. Good luck!
  2. My advice is not to take any of these subject tests unless you're required to. I don't know of too many programs that require it, it's expensive, and pretty difficult. I took it a while back when I was trying to decide what I was doing with my life and did abysmally. Since then I've gone to a masters program and taken the same coursework in biochem/molecular bio and not only did better than I did in the subjects while in undergrad, but better than many of the PhD students. The test is difficult to study for because there's almost no way to know what is going to be on it. Then again, this thread is old so you've probably already taken it. Hopefully you did better than I did, haha.
  3. This is obviously waaaay late, but I did my undergrad at MSU and likely know most of the professors in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology department. I also worked in a lab there during undergrad. If you want a sort of inside opinion on professors shoot me a message. I loved the campus and city while I was there. Not sure how grad student life is there, but I can confirm that it's a great choice if you want to do plant biochemistry/molecular biology stuff! There are a lot of good professors there working in that area.
  4. Yeah, I guess I didn't have much to worry about. Told the boss today, she was cool with me sticking around until July 19th like I planned.
  5. Yeah, people with M.S.s usually do ok in industry. If you're fine with moving out of the lab eventually and into something management-related you might even end up managing several people with PhDs. I've seen it happen many times.
  6. You all probably know this already, but the U.S. system has a few differences that weren't already mentioned. 1. In most fields, an MS is not necessary for admission to a PhD program. 2. Schools often award MS degrees to people unable to finish their PhD, but this is not necessarily always the case and they are not obligated to. 3. Many schools simply do not offer MS degrees in certain fields (many sciences) due to the above reasons. 4. It's pretty rare for someone to finish a PhD in 4 years, I'd say the average is more like 5-7 years. Subject dependent, of course. 5. The government simultaneous believes that it shouldn't fund students, and that everyone should go to college... 6. By the way, "college" and "university" are often interchangeable in common usage here. Although technically a university often has many colleges (or "schools") within it (College of Engineering, Natural Science, etc.). A 2-year school from which students often transfer to a 4-year school (or one that often only grants Associates degrees, and the occasional BA/BS) is usually referred to as a "Community College" or "Junior College" (not in common usage). 6. Funding for public universities is mostly from the state, not federal level. So, depending on the political climate or economy of that state, tuition varies widely. Ex: Michigan has a particularly poor economy, so it cuts funding for education due to lack of funds. States which tend to be conservative in political nature tend to cut funding regardless of their economy. 7. Private colleges/universities have drastically higher tuition in most cases. They tend to be filled with people with rich families, or really bright students that have large amounts of scholarship or financial aid money. A high cost private college does not necessarily equate to a more prestigious degree, but it can. 8. It costs much more money to attend a public university in a different state. Student loans are completely out of control due to cost of higher education rising constantly. Most students just don't see another way to finance anything. It's practically impossible for a person to save the money required for education and pay for it out of pocket. Decent public schools (4 year university) typically cost anywhere from $12-25k a year (only tuition, and that's in-state!). So, the old strategy of saving money over a year or two, just isn't realistic. Neither is having parents pay (most of the time). There are savings plans that some people take advantage of, to put money away for their children starting from an early age. Many people attend community colleges for a year or two, and then transfer to a larger school. This can actually cause problems, because classes taken at the smaller school are not guaranteed to transfer, so they can end up having to re-take things (which is why I find that strategy to be a waste of time if you can get into a 4 year school). Personally, I think they should be funding education a lot more. However, it's unlikely to happen. It's not a perfect system, and no country's is. There are pros (most people can get a college education if they want it) and cons (student loan debt is a problem, but with good planning can be minimized).
  7. Well, from the simple perspective that there are more and better paying jobs outside academia... I probably wouldn't stay. In lots of scientific fields it isn't uncommon for people to do post-doc after post-doc for ~10 years before getting a real job in academia. If they're unsuccessful they end up in industry anyway. Not the way it works in every field, but there are just too few positions in academia to support the demand.
  8. Depending on how badly you want to go to this particular program, is it possible it may be easier to be funded in future years? If you'd be willing to take out student loans to cover the first year, and then could get funding after that it may be worth doing.
  9. Good posts, everyone. I don't really feel guilty about leaving, because the company isn't giving me much of a reason to stick around. Although, I don't want someone else to be stuck with my extremely monotonous and never-ending duties without warning. Plus, I'd be perfectly willing to help train a replacement (if they even decide to hire one). Part of the issue with waiting much longer is that I've been told to work on some stuff that I won't be around to finish. Also, they've asked me to attend training sessions for some other things which will eat up a large amount of time. All of which are a complete waste of time, seeing as I won't be around long enough for this to be useful. There is always the issue of being asked to leave right away, or at least not being allowed to stay on as long as I plan. Being an "at will employee," from my understanding, means essentially they can fire me for practically any reason (including no reason at all) at any time. I can also leave whenever I want, 2 weeks notice not necessary. It's still a nice courtesy to give notice, obviously. However, neither I or the company have any obligation to a certain time-frame. The fact that this is such a dilemma says something about the place
  10. Hello everyone, I've been trying to figure out when I should inform my employer of my plans to leave for school. I currently work at a large CRO in a molecular biology lab, the department itself is pretty small. My manager also wrote me several letters of recommendation during the application process. I was finally accepted into a professional science masters program, after not getting into PhD programs. Even though I will not be funded I still feel like doing the masters will be a good move. The second year of the program is a paid internship rather than the typical lab work for a degree in cell/molecular biology. If I'm still feeling ambitious, then this could be a way to transition to a PhD program in the future. Even if I don't continue on, I'll still have some more job options with an MS. My current job involves extracting DNA, all day... every day. Not exactly intellectually stimulating. Plus, the company has already decided that our department won't be growing (which seems like a soft way of saying "layoffs ahead"). They also revised their requirements for advancement... making it require something like 10 years experience to move up to a "Scientist" position. Based on this, there's very little incentive to stick around. Anyway, I found out at the beginning of the month that I had been accepted. I've already heard from my adviser, sent them notice that I plan to attend, picked out a few classes, etc. I've also requested time off to fly there, see the campus, and look for an apartment (although I didn't tell my employer the reason for my time off request). My current lease is up on the last day of July. Everything is pretty well set up. I plan on working until July 12th or 19th, which would give me time to move and have about a month to acclimate to Tucson (I'll be attending the University of Arizona). I was planning on telling our manager on Monday, that I will be leaving for school, and hoping to stay on until mid-July. I've heard mixed things about this plan. Some people tell me this is a great move, to allow them time to get a replacement for me and have me train them on stuff. Others say I should keep it to myself and only give them 2 weeks notice. I have a fairly good relationship with my boss here, despite how much I hate the job. She's aware that I was applying to places (having written several letters for my apps). We're fairly busy right now, so I don't think they're just going to tell me to leave right away. What would you do?
  11. I haven't done this. However, if your technical skills in the lab are good you can probably get a job just fine. You might actually have more options than someone with a PhD. You'll definitely have more options and better advancement than someone with a B.S. Most industry jobs say something along the lines of "MS with x years experience" "PhD with y years experience." You're going to have to look hard, but that's because the science job market sucks right now for everyone. You just need to spin your leaving early in a positive way. "I was spending most of my time teaching and working on theoretical problems, rather than doing anything with practical applications" etc. I work at a CRO (avoid contract research organizations if possible) and lots of management and scientist level people are MS-educated. They're a lot less concerned with whether you have a PhD in industry.
  12. groverj3

    East Lansing, MI

    This isn't something I've ever investigated. However, one thing to be aware of with mobile home communities (aka, Trailer Parks) is that they are mostly a low-income housing option. While this isn't bad in and of itself, this does mean that many of the problems affecting low-income/unemployed people will be more prevalent. Things such as property crime/vandalism, drugs, etc... Now, just like anything else there are better communities which probably don't have these problems. It is possible you could make a small profit, but the value of mobile homes usually goes down over time. It could be a good option, just make sure you do your homework on it before-hand. This may seem counter-intuitive, but I've always preferred living in apartments that cater to students. It might be loud sometimes, but usually complexes that cater to students do a better job with maintenace. Plus there are fewer shady people there, usually. Depending on your age though, this may not be all that appealing. As far as heating costs, you'll probably run the heater constantly from November-April. However, heating a small place isn't that expensive. I usually spend about $65 for combined electricity and gas in the winter here. Most companies include your gas for heating, and electricity in one bill. Some apartments include heat in your monthly rent, so you can just set it comfortably and not worry about paying for it. There are tons of decent apartments in EL that I could steer you toward, and a few to avoid. Send me a message and I'll try to help you out, if interested. Don't worry about tornadoes. I believe that one of two touched down there while I was in Lansing. None were big enough to cause any real damage, just knocked some tree branches down. Michigan doesn't have bad tornadoes, and while it's still a possibility, it would be very unlikely.
  13. groverj3

    East Lansing, MI

    Hello all, I'm about 2 years removed from my time in EL, but I did all 4 years of my undergrad there and can say a few things about the city. Probably nothing ground-breaking, but the perspective of a Spartan may be helpful. Transportation: CATA runs the MSU buses, and connects to a station in the middle of campus. The MSU bus lines are very convenient, and you will become accustomed to taking them. The campus is literally the largest by sheer physical size in the US. Parking can be an issue, passes are expensive, and spots on the interior of campus are hard to come by. Plenty of parking on the outside of the campus, but it is a giant block of a campus. Not spread out over the city. So, taking the bus or biking is often the best solution. Weather: If you're moving to the northern midwest from somewhere warm... I'm sorry. You'll be in MI. Expect below 0 F weather several times December-February. Generally, summer may not be "hot" in terms of raw degrees, but it's going to be humid. The joy of being surrounded by the great lakes. It will still get up to 100 F on occasion in the summer, yes, with high humidity.Generally, it stays below 90 though. Autumn and Spring are wonderful, very comfortable. Winter doesn't bother me, and mid-MI actually gets much less snow than other parts of the state since it's farther inland and gets less "lake effect snow". You'll become familiar with totally unpredictable weather due to the lakes. There's a certain charm to the unpredictability. I'm a Michigander and I'm used to it. Campus: Most of it is tree-covered. Literally, a giant park. You'll love it, I promise. People: Michiganders are kind of odd compared to what preconceptions about midwestern people usually are. Decades of high unemployment and a depressed economy have taken away a lot of "the friendly midwestern feel." We're perhaps a little more "east coast" than you may think. Very much a "what have you done for me lately" sort of feel. EL/Lansing is a pretty liberal area of the state. This doesn't mean that we aren't friendly, just not in the profusely polite sort of way. The students pretty friendly and definitely feel that they share a common bond. The student environment is generally a cooperative one, rather than a competitive one. If you shout "Go Green!" you will always get a "Go White!" back... regardless of where you say it around town. The students have a reputation as crazy partiers. This is only as true as you want it to be. It's a university with 45,000 students. Some are serious about school, some aren't. The same as anywhere else. Sports/Campus Activities: MSU football and basketball is a huge boon to the local economy. The football games usually are sellouts. Basketball ALWAYS is. The fans are diehards. We were always quite mean to the opposing teams as well. Very much standard Big 10 in that respect. They usually get great entertainment at the Wharton Center as well (broadway plays, symphonies, etc.) Nightlife: Most of the campus bars are dives. I like that sort of thing rather than clubs. They have those as well though. Food is affordable, drinks are usually cheap. Michigan has an incredible beer selection. Housing: Rent is cheap, but the nicest places are taken really really early every year. 6 months or so before move-ins. The area north of campus is actually a nice area. As opposed to most "Student ghettos" Lansing has some rough areas, but EL is quite a nice town. I have no complaints from my time there. Loved every minute of it. I can answer any questions you might have.
  14. Apparently I was being totally irrational. It's a good feeling to finally have a destination. Moving to the desert in the middle of the summer sounds rough! However, it's nice to get admitted somewhere finally!
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