Tall Chai Latte

I've finally started working on my thesis projects! Things were fine until recently, I have a strong intention to quit grad school and research altogether. If you have followed my past postings, I am a student with structural biology background in a lab affiliated with cell biology-oriented department, and being the only person in the lab who perform protein crystallization/NMR. Besides me, there is one other lab (our collaborator) in the department that performs highly similar research from mine. The students (and occasionally the PI if he's around) there are my major go-to group for discussion. After a while, things start to get dull. Although I have this group I can go to for discussion, it's difficult communicate my science to people in my immediate surroundings, because our backgrounds are just too different. My PI understands enough to generate the big picture for my projects, but when it comes to obstacles, she sometimes doesn't understand why are we wasting this much time and make very little progress, which to me it's just the nature of structural biology. She's good in connecting me to other scientists she knows for advice, but I begin to question what is the purpose of me being here; why am I doing things that's totally different from everyone else? How come nobody gets it, no matter how I explain my science? I can't help feeling awkward... although small progress is being made from time to time.. Given the tough outlook of science PhDs, it's even harder to stay motivated. Sorry to sound whiny, I'm just looking for some moral support in the cyber space. Forum, what would you do in this situation?

I did 5 rotations, and amongst the five there were labs that I like but cannot accept students. While you are considering how many more rotations you need to do, think about your overall progression in the program: when do you need to finish your core classes? When is your prelim? If you find a lab that you like and can join (also, good for your career), move on with the choice!

I second Eigen's suggestion: transfer is a good alternative. You can go back and tell him that you are considering leaving if he doesn't take you on, but I wouldn't count on it -- since he has already reached his quota for students, he probably wouldn't fight further for you. This happened to me twice during my rotations, where I had decided to join a certain lab and the PI agreed. And then the department secretaries (from two different departments I was trying to join) came back saying that taking me on will result in some kind of administrative struggle between the PIs and the respective departments. I kept rotating and eventually joined some other lab.

I don't think grad students are more argumentative or opinionated, but rather we are just too busy to participate in many non-academic activities, as opposed to the non-academics. When you are working 70 hours a week including weekends, and your non-academic counterparts work 40 hours a week with free time after work, it's hard to find overlapping time and do something together. And hence your feeling of disconnected from the outside world.

Well, you are not really committed to the PI. While there's no need to be as formal as a two weeks notice, you do need to tell them that your rotation is coming to an end, that's when you bring it up politely. I suppose they should know when the rotation end? When it does, just send the PI an email thanking him/her giving you this opportunity to work with him/her and the lab, but you would like to experience more labs before officially commit to any one of them. Try not to burn bridges, because you never know how will your future rotations turn out.

My program required at least 2 rotations before you can commit to any lab. Doing rotations is good, like you mentioned, you can find out more about the lab and the PI. If you feel the lab is not for you, you can simply mention that you want to explore more options before making the final decision, and you don't necessarily have to say that you don't like them. Most PIs will understand and won't hold that against you.

Well, student evaluations aren't accurate sometimes, as people have concerns about speaking the truth. There are PIs who are so nice outside of lab, but once you are in, rotating or not, you see the ugly side. If people are outspoken about other PIs, how come your PI gets the nicest reviews? Are there other students in your lab whom you can talk to? It's probably just your PI. Every field has its own little thing, whether you come in experienced or not, you are bound to feel overwhelmed as a new graduate student. Don't give up! Although my current projects are based on 80% of my past trainings, I still feel I'm falling short knowledge-wise all over the place all the time. You are not alone!

Hey ImmunologyGrad, I went through a period like what you are experiencing right now. I had 4 unsuccessful rotations in a roll and was full of doubts. So I understand how you feel. Since you've only been in your program for a month, what you are experiencing right now is what new students experience: much faster pace, many more things to juggle at the same time, and feeling incompetent. You are not incompetent! Your program wouldn't have accepted you if you were really bad. I'm assuming this is your first rotation (and your program requires you to do rotations). If it is, I wouldn't worry too much on how your PI's reaction. This is a period of time for you to see if you can work with the guy, if the atmosphere of the lab suits you, and if the research is interesting. Some PIs are like that, rolling their eyes when students don't know something or answer something wrong. Just don't let that get to you. On your end, try your best to complete what you are asked to do. By the end of the rotation, you'll get to move on to a new lab. I ran into similar situation as yours during one of my rotations, where I just couldn't work well with the PI (one of the PIs basically called me lazy/a fraud, just because I didn't get the protein prep working the first couple tries!). Career prospect-wise, yea this is where everyone worries. To be honest, I'm on the same boat as you on this one, so I don't really have any good advice. With the prospect being bleak, I sometimes wonder if remaining in my program is worthy at all. But I suppose I'll roll with things.. I would suggest you to stick around for a little bit longer, and then evaluate. It could be impostor syndrome that's making you feel awful about everything. If you still feel miserable after, say, a semester or two, then it is time to look for other options. I know a couple students in my cohort who left the program after their first year and second year, though I'm not sure if the grad program asks for tuition back (I've heard some places that do). It's better to leave early than later on when you have devoted a significant number of years into your work, and your options outside of academia decrease as time goes on. With a B.S., you have more options than someone with a PhD. Once you become smart, you cannot dumb back down. Grad school is a long journey, with constant setbacks and obstacles. To counterbalance, you have to find something outside of work that you are passionate about. Exercise is great way to release all the negative energy, and don't throw away your old hobbies. Take baby steps and you'll be okay.

Mistakes aren't stupid as long as you know what you did wrong, and learn from them. It's a process of self-improvement. Even the professors make mistakes.

It could take a while before you start to feel you have a handle on things in grad school. Different people have different adaptation period, for me it lasted a long time (up to a year, but I'm in a PhD program). Every student who just started grad school feels overwhelmed and stressed out, your feelings are normal. Echoing what others have commented, you simply just cannot do everything perfect. Things were more structured in UG with a defined standard for you to achieve, but this is not the case in grad school. Expectations are higher, things are less structured, and you have to discover a lot of stuff on your own. Just learn how to do a "good enough" job is important to keep yourself sane, productive, and happy. Please don't compare yourself with others! Everyone is different. Hang in there! After this period of time, you will be right on track to productiveness.

'People' factor comes before the 'science' factor!

I found that back in my first year, I was able to save a lot more money than I am now. Maybe it's because I didn't know what's out there to do and with whom I do them.. Haha, now sticking to a budget is a bit difficult. (Recently went skydiving... It was awesome! But my bank account bled )

I moved away from home for grad school as well, and didn't really know anyone when I first arrived (well, I only know one person, and he is not in the same department as me). First year was difficult for me, but luckily I had another fellow student in my cohort to commiserate with, and gradually, our friend circle expended. Towards the end of my first year/beginning of my second, I picked up new hobbies such as running and rock climbing (outdoor activities seem to be what most people are into here), at that point things finally started to get smoother, feeling more fit in etc. The key here is: don't worry, and don't get too bitter too early on in your program. You'll experience setbacks, either in research or your social circle. If you get too beat down too early it'll be hard to preserver till dissertation.

I also overestimated my ability to handle graduate school course loads. During my first semester here, I signed up for 10 credits total with 9 credits of actual CREDITs (not research or seminar -- heck, didn't even get to take seminar at that point!), and it turned out to be a big time crunch through out the semester. It impacted the amount of time I can devote to my rotation project and individual courses, and my overall performance suffered. I would suggest you talk to senior grad students in your program, because they've been gone through the process and presumably took similar set of courses as you will be. And then judge based on the responses you get... You'll be just fine.

This is also two years old for me, and my experience was worse than I thought. In the beginning, I received conflicting advices on what courses to take, which resulted in overloaded course work. And then, I couldn't join the lab I wanted to due to funding crisis at the time. After being pushed around like a human pinball (like robot_hamster), I didn't settle in a thesis lab until the beginning of my second year and on a thesis project until half way through my second year. I was the last one to get a lab home in my cohort...

I heard conflicting opinions on this matter as well. Like Eigen, I'm also not my advisor's first graduate student (but the second), so far my experience is both good and bad, but I consider this common -- nobody is perfect, advisors are learning how to be a good advisor, especially these young faculty. I second what Dal PhDer's comment, that how well you get along with your advisor depends on multiple factors. I don't think you need to avoid joining a young faculty's lab, or thinking they won't provide you with good job prospect. Rather, put 'people' before 'science'. If you do join a new faculty's lab, remember that your PI is growing with you, and it could potentially be a beneficial process for both of you.

Here's mine: http://db.tt/oIcbedF9

Thanks for sharing, this is a great little book! I read it last night and found the obstacles he described as an early-stage grad student very similar to my situation (getting stuck, floundering, living-in-a-black-hole feeling), it seems like it does get better -- which is a relief for me.

Thanks Dal PhDer for the quick response! I just posted it this morning lol. Yes, I think PIs don't have a realistic sense of how much time it should take to complete things. But on the up side, at least she is (or at least willing to) using her network to solve the road blocks.

Hi everyone! TCL here again. There is some new development since my original post. RIght now, my PI has found me another prof (someone else other than our collaborator) to help me with all the technical stuff. During our discussion, this guy came off insisting that we do things his way or not doing it at all. While this could mean I get to learn from someone who is regarded as a true expert in the field, at the end of the day, I'm still working on the biological question that my lab set out to answer... Still being confined within the research boundary. I guess at my current stage (I'm will be a third-year starting September), I'm yet to be mature enough intellectually to proceed with my own new ideas and directions. With my PI's nature being somewhat impatient and wanting to do everything fast, it hasn't been easy for me to convey all the nitty-gritty obstacles related to a field she doesn't know well, without her thinking I'm just looking for excuses on why things didn't work the way she envisioned. Maybe Eigen can answer this from your experience: how do I (or how did you) get the PI on board to understand that things aren't as simple as she thought, just like her own expertise, without coming off as know-it-all? If she decides to pull the plug on this project, the lost may be small for the lab as a whole, but I'd lose my thesis project. I'm more than willing to learn everything else that my lab has to offer, but at the current stage, it looks like my PI just want to fully utilize my background. Sounds a little like a rant.

Instead of Craiglist, maybe it's a safer way to send out a mass email asking students in your program if anyone needs a roommate. At least these are students.. As for roommate experience, I'm the kind of person who likes to stay in my own room after I get off from lab... But it doesn't mean I don't want to communicate.

Hi all, I am a biochemist in a cell biology group, doing work very different from the rest of the lab (more specifically, my background is structural biology work, and what i do is important to answer the scientific question overall). When I need to run experiment, our collaborator handles all of the data acquisition because I am not allowed access to the instrument. Because the collaborator is quite busy with research from his other collaborations as well as research from his own lab, my experiments are often time pushed back/delayed. Majority of my thesis is based on this particular technique with this collaborator, I am afraid that this will become the rate-limiting step of my progress. While my PI fully supports me, structural biology is not her field of expertise, which leaves me to do all the sample preps/troubleshooting/data analyses alone. Occasionally the collaborator will provide some insights or answer questions that I have, but as I mentioned before, he is very busy, and the feedback I get is somewhat limited. In this situation, what can I do to ensure the smooth progression of my thesis work? I am eager to move forward and get my thesis off the ground, but this kind of delays/push-backs due to unanticipated schedule conflicts has happened many times. While I have some autonomy to some extend, I am really not in total control of how fast my project progress. What can I do?

I'm in a PhD program, and my advisor was an assistant professor when I joined the lab. Initially I wasn't comfortable working with assistant professors because of uncertainty in their tenure status, but once I started working with my current advisor, I didn't find any problem with professors who have yet to acquire tenure. If you are the first couple students of a professor, there are pros and cons: pros may include that you are working with someone who's closer to your age (I'm assuming that you attend grad school straight out of undergrad), and bonding is easier. They are also knowledgable enough for you to learn a lot from them, and they are ambitious in establishing themselves in the scientific community, which will benefit the student(s) if things work out well. The cons include that since they are under pressure to produce and establish themselves, the stress will be transferred to people working for them. They are also learning how to be a good advisor/mentor, and how to define good scientific problems for post docs/grad students. It will be a learning experience for both of you, and you will grow together. Basically, regardless professorial rank of the faculty you choose to work with, there will be pros and cons. In my case, I'm comfortable with my advisor and the rest of the lab, that's something I pay more attention to than the science or whether or not s/he is tenured. The tenure question did come up when I consider PhD advisors, and I've spoken to my program director about this, he basically said this is not something that grad students should worry about, and the program will take care of its students. At least at my department. If your PI is denied tenure and has to move elsewhere, as long as s/he move to another institute within United States, you can easily follow along if the advisor is willing to take you. Personality/working style match comes first, research interest mach comes second, and then professorial rank/tenure status/other things. Just my 0.02.