Eigen

Our lab has had two postdocs (and an 18 month stint with none) in the time I've been here. Most of the time, we take all of the "general" responsibilities, and divide them up. One person takes safety and inventory, another takes over ordering of general lab supplies, other (senior) members do the upkeep on each of the instrument facilities. It works out pretty well most of the time, and while it can take focus away from "your" research, it means you come out a little broader and a little more able to manage a lab when you're done, which is likely to be the end goal someday. Similarly, undergrads work "under" a specific grad student, so we get the experience of managing their projects early on. I don't think any personel are "needed" beyond a PI and students (PhD, MS, undergrad), but what you're trying to do and how fast you can move is definitely effected by who you have to work with. When we're without a post-doc, we either go to our PI, or other grad students (in other groups) for help branching out into new areas/learning techniques. That, and read a lot of technique-type papers.

Find out what platform your PI/Research Group/New Department use. That's what system the software will be available for, you'll be writing drafts in, and past members data will be stored in. Even on a personal computer, you'll be amazed at how often you end up using it for work, or want to be able to pull things up on it. And free software is always a good thing. Can you get along on a different system? Sure. But it's much easier, if you have the chance, if your stuff syncs up well with everyone elses. If you had to pick ahead of time, I'd go with a Mac, mostly because you can dual boot OSX and Win on one, whereas you can't boot OSX (easily) on a PC. Hence, a Mac gives you the best range of options.

I didn't get to post this weekend, I just wanted to say I very much appreciated this post, and the discussion in general. It's very interesting to hear different perspectives. I think you hit the nail on the head with students being paid like faculty members. Here, it's considered basically a "salaried" position- you do what you have to do to get the work done, and you aren't paid on an hourly basis. Along with that come both pro's and con's- more freedom and flexibility, but less set hours/time committments. At least here, however, we're not paid that much less than (some) faculty positions. Pay rises by about 10k from a PhD to a Post-Doc, and then *maybe* another 10k going to an assistant professor gig, depending on where you're going. My undergrad, the salary for a full time TT "instructor" was about 35k. The starting salary for an assistant professor was between 45k and 55k. Compare that to stipends in the same area that are between 25k (low end, TAships) and 35k (high end, RA and Fellowships), depending on school. Similarly, most post-docs I know are salaried about 40-50k, depending (again) on school. I consider the relative pay-grades to be quite respectable for full time, non-hourly work, especially considering health benefits tacked on, not to mention free tuition. With that in mind, I think it's not a bad thing to look at the position as a full time, salaried job. At least at my university, pay-scales are generally adjusted to provide a reasonable standard of living in the city, since the program doesn't want grad students to have to "worry" about finances. The same was true at all of the other places I visited. I think this is one of the places that field does play a very strong role, as I know this is not true everywhere, and not even in every field at my institution.

The institutional culture is something to keep in mind as well, and the mindset of your PI. Sadly, a lot of bench sciences have the 60-80 hours of research mentality, with the idea that coursework and everything else is separate. I try to keep regular schedules, like TakeruK, so I can spend evenings with my wife, work around he house, etc. I'm past coursework and exams, so it's just research for me. I work about 50-60 hours a week, mostly 9-6 or 7, and then some weekend time. Personal choice is also a huge thing. I prefer more moderate hours during the week, but I also consistently work on weekends, as well as a number of holidays.

You seem to be making a large number of assumptions with your post relative to my situation, as do several others. But then, there's one thing that's repeated quite often on these fora, and that's that in the end you have to do what's best for you. Whether that's burning bridges in choosing a school, or something else. Similarly, my ability to get teaching experience to make myself a viable candidate is my first priority. If down the road conditions degrade for TAs, then I will do the same thing I do for other bad conditions for grad students on campus, and push back. I'm the president of our graduate student association, I'm already the one that is our liason to the administration and pushes for changes for graduate students. That said, TA positions at my university aren't nearly as codified as positions seem to be at yours. One semester you might have to oversee 3 labs per week, the next you might just be grading for one 20 student course. Similarly, there's no written contract for number of hours per week for any of our positions, RA or TA. I can say with quite a bit of certainty that our department won't have any problems with too few TA positions in the near future. We're already having to hire grad students from other related departments and even senior undergrads to cover all of our courses, not to mention branching out to hiring adjuncts, something our school rarely does at all. Too many of our faculty have grant money to move grad students to RAships, and we're really lacking for TAs. But again, I don't TA any courses normally in the pool. I either work out something to split lectures with one of our facutly members, or take some of the smaller courses off of their hands. It gives me actual lecture experience and control over an entire course, which is something that is quite rare in my discipline. And by doing so, there's no chance I'll take away current or future TA positions from other grad students, because they wheren't hiring TAs for these courses to begin with.

Why do you keep assuming I'm taking a position away from someone by TAing? None of the classes I TA for are normally on the list of available positions, anyway. And there's no one in my department that isn't fully funded on a TA or an RA. A TAship is something that you get given when you're taken on, and you are garunteed that position (or a better RA/fellowship position) for the rest of your PhD program. There's no way for it to get re-shuffled and given to someone else, leaving you without funding. You might get a semester with a really light load, but that's more a benefit than a loss. If we have fewer classes that need to be TA'd in a given semester, all TAs just get the number of courses they have to teach lowered and their funding stays the same, so it's never the case that someone TAing for free would "take away" a position from someone that needs it.

I agree that the social benefits of having a roommate can be nice. There are also tangible benefits with a good room-mate past rent reduction. For instance, all three of us cook, and we all try to cook a "communal" meal once a week, which at least gets us 3 good meals with minimal effort. We all play instruments, and we get together and play semi-regularly. Additionally, it's someone to look after our pets when my wife and I go out of town. That said, I think one really important thing is how the house/apartment is set up, whether or not its easy to share, or you get in each others ways all the time.

I can't imagine any schools being happy with this move. For adcom's, it was one of the nice things about the GRE- you got to see all of someone's scores. Now, applicants can cherry-pick their best set. I'm sure this will be brought up in relation to admissions around here (my school) quite soon. Of course, from the perspective of ETS, this is a way to get more money from people. Seeing all of the past scores was something to weigh when it came to multiple tests (and multiple payments). Now, there's going to be much more incentive for people who felt like their scores were too low to fork over another large sum of money to them.

My wife and I had our own apartment when we first started off, and stayed there for two years. The past year, we went in with one of our friends on a much nicer place, for less. We were able to go from a triplex house to a nice house all to ourselves, and it was definitely worth it. On the other side, though, I wouldn't have wanted to get a roommate off the bat. It was much easier to navigate after I'd been here long enough to have good friends to move in with.

I use a lot of different things. I'm in a bench science, so lots of data to organize in addition to writings and readings. I use Endnote for all my literature, and either annotate the files directly or attach a word file with summaries and thoughts to the paper and citation in Endnote. I use Scrivener to write, especially longer pieces. I use Onenote to keep an organized collection of data that I need to reference regularly an in a highly presentable fashion. I also keep a large moleskin notebook for fleshing out future directions for papers and research ideas. I'm also a fan of very, very organized Dropbox folders for all of my work.

We have a volume subscription in our department, I use it on my work desktop as well as my personal laptop. I don't use my home desktop for work. I'll probably buy the Mac version for myself when I upgrade. A student license is only $100, so not particularly expensive.

A lot of this is can be much harder once you're already in grad school and a research group. If you really want to go into industry, it's something that you really want to consider before you join, while you're looking for schools. Similarly, you want to be as up front about it as possible with your PI, so they can help you do as much work as possible in the direction of industrial applications.

Industry salaries vary from 50ish to well over 100, depending on the position starting out. A postdoc is a training position, hence it doesn't pay much more than a PhD.

I might adjunct my last year, but I know my advisor would not be thrilled with me doing it now. I think a lot of this thread also captures discipline specific differences- In the sciences, since we're predominately paid a very fair living wage that kind-of encapsulates all of the work we do, it's not as big of a deal to take on something like this "for free". Since in reality, what it means is that I'll be taking time away from my research to teach, while I'm not getting paid more to teach, I'm still getting the same stipend for the research, even though I'm in effect doing less of it. Hence, it balances out. But then, especially in the lab sciences, assistantships are way more all encompassing, since an RAship is basically you getting paid for whatever work you're doing towards your dissertation, rather than the more restrictive RAships some other disciplines might have. In addition to the more general points above, in my specific case I've got an NSF fellowship, which pretty explicitly forbids taking external work while you're being funded. Although I'm sure my program officer would approve me adjuncting during my last year to really get that extra bit of teaching experience. I also should add, that while not generalizable, my department's (and my) experience has been that people who have been working extra jobs really, really cut down on their hours in the lab. I'm sure not everyone is like this, but the handful of people who have been waiting tables, teaching gymnastics, etc. have done so by cutting 20+ hours out of their "productive" work week, and it really shows. There are people who work smaller jobs under the table, but the majority of those who are working other jobs have severely altered career trajectories.

See, in our program, if you're already on a full stipend, you can't get paid extra for TAing, since it goes to people who actually need a TAship. That said, the chances of landing a decent job on graduation at any school that has a strong teaching fous is nearly nill if you don't have teaching experience. TAing for free allows me the choice over what classes I want to teach, as well as how many and at what times. I don't get paid, but I'm already on a full stipend anyway.

You'd probably get better responses on the CHE forums- there's even a specific section devoted to the two-body problem. My understanding is that it's exceptionally hard to find a decent teaching job if you're very geographically constrained.

Having done the relationship and grad school thing both with and without my wife in grad school (she took a gap year and I started straight), there are different stresses to each. Before, the stress came from the fact that we were on very different schedules. Now, the stress comes from the fact that we're both in grad school- both working long hours, exhausted, etc. Since we're both going through the same thing, though, there's a lot more to share and it's easier to be supportive.

I'm confused, are you interested in grad school in chemistry or molecular biology? You say you want to pursue a PhD in chemistry, but your major is molecular biology. Also, what area of chemistry you want to go into will make a difference. I got acceptances to top-10 schools in Chemistry from a Louisiana system school, so don't worry too much about that... But you'll have a much harder time getting into grad school in chemistry with just a minor, I would think.ULM may not be a sexy name, but there are good faculty there, and the program certainly isn't bad, by any stretch.

Because otherwise they're poaching off of another school, and that would earn them a bad reputation in the field? I understand the frustration, but at the same time, I know we'd be pissed if another school e-mailed one of our students who had already accepted (after the 15th) to try to lure them away. And that's definitely not in the spirit of the CGS resolution.

I guess that was my point, there are lots of things that several of the programs are listed as not being able to do that they can. But my post was more to anyone else that reads it looking for a decent comparison between the two. Here is a nice comparison of a lot of different packages.

I have to say, that list is horribly biased to the point of being blatantly incorrect, from a perspective of Mendeley vs. Endnote. And I don't think it's updated to include features from the current version (X5) of Endnote. Similarly, a lot of the points are phrased just so that it knocks another "out", when a slight tweak would make it a feature one of the others have.

Unless the school is paying your taxes, whoever you talked to was probably not correct. There is no way for a school to "exempt" you from federal income tax other than by paying it themselves. If you didn't owe anything after reporting all of your income, that's different, but your stipend would have to be really, really small- under 18,000 if you're supporting a spouse who has no income, or under about 9500 if you're single. Graduate students are exempt from FICA and Medicare while you are full time. You are not, however, exempt from federal income tax. The cut and pasted portion provided above is a good starter, but the IRS also has a very nice publication on Fellowships and Scholarships that should answer all of your questions. The school does not have to report it as wages paid to you (many don't), but that doesn't mean you don't have to report it. You have to report every source of income, whether it's wages, a fellowship, or a nice sized cash gift. There are a very few sources of school funding that are not taxable (most mentioned above). The likihood is that you are not on one of those sources. I'll emphasize the "don't trust your school" line, as the first few people I talked to at my school were incorrect in how my fellowship was taxed (they told me it wasn't, and it was), and had I listened to them I could have incurred quite hefty penalites for non-payment.

Mallow: At many schools, there's a non-research based course called "Dissertation Research". Once you complete all requirements but the dissertation and defense, you register for that- it usually confers full time status at reduced tuition, and minimial fees. This isn't the same as just a research unit, and at our school is even a 0 credit course. It just holds you as registered full time, working on your dissertation (and the accompanying research). Ask, but my guess is that your school has something similar.

Either that, or lines got crossed. I had a fellowship offer for one school arrive the day after I declined. It wasn't an attempt to get me to reconsider, but rather the person sending out the offer hadn't heard that I'd declined yet.

Heh, I'm actually still on the 30 day free trial. It's one of the best 30 day trials I've used... It actually counts down 30 days of use, not 30 days since registering.