Genomic Repairman

I may be days late to this party but honestly in the biomedical science field, grades don't really matter too much. The only things grades can do is hurt you not help you. Your reputation and what you are judged on is primarily your productivity in the lab, that should be your focal concern. A 4.0 really doesn't help you if you spend a ton of time away from the lab studying and don't get a lot of stuff done. So take the gentleman's B and don't waste too much time studying for an exam. The only exam to buckle down and take the time to study for is your quals or candidacy exam because that matters, everything else is noise. Boring ass noise. So buck the hell up kid and get right back in there.

We blogged about this last week over on our blog page. Recently a case against a postdoc at Michigan who was sabotaging a grad student in his lab was settled. They had to pay over eight grand in damages and are on six months probation. Retards like this are wasting time (yours, theirs, PI's) and resources (read government money), if you really want to get this solve. Report this to your health and safety folks, they won't play when it comes to stuff like swapping reagents. This will also usually get the DGS involved and then you can bring up any harassment issues as well. This will at least force your boss's hand one way or another. Grad school is already hard enough, you don't need this crap.

What kind of shit-hole program do you attend that takes a year-long break from teaching you guys? So we have already established that the dean is about as useful as a burlap sack rubbing on a hemorrhoid. Do you have a VP of student affairs or an ombudsman that you can talk to. The former are the ones that usually will stick up for you and the latter can act as a mediator or navigate you where to go next. And despite what someone said above, an MS degree should not take 3-4 years, more like 2-2.5 tops. At some point you have to give yourself a hard deadline of when you have suffered enough bullshit and you decide to cut bait and run. If there is no clear end to this, then you need to get out of there ASAP, you are wasting too much precious time and resources on these fools. Email me if you need more advice.

I run a hybrid of Endnote and Papers. All references are dumped into endnote but I keep my pdfs in Papers. This software also allows me to enter notes that I make the aritcles into the software and be stored in the program which also allows me to access my papers and notes from my iPod Touch.

You put both because you did the work at the former institution but you are currently at the present one as well. Authors can have multiple affiliations.

And you don't think MD admission committees won't hold quitting a PhD program against you? Think long and hard, you better have a plan C to your plan B in case med schools say no. At some point in time, everyone has ideas of quitting in their mind. EVERYONE. If they don't admit to it, they are either fools or liars. You have to dig deep and pull yourself through. But if you can't forsee working in research, get out now. Best of luck.

Not currently but we always keep our eyes out for new talent.

Hey guys, I am a blogger at the LabSpaces, a science blog site that features mostly life science bloggers but a few physicists as well too. We feature people of all walks of life: grad students, postdocs, administrators, PIs, people in the biotech industries. Last month we put a series of theme post on work life balance which may be of interest to you guys and today we put out another set of posts along the theme of "I wish I knew" to give advice. So stop by and take a look.

Simple, you contact the journal editor, its actually quite easy to remove your name from a paper. The usual response is "Oh, we'll go ahead and take you off right now." In fact some journals have the authors either sign an authorship form and attest to the research through an e-form.

Informally bring up your concerns to another professor who you are on good terms with and who is not too close to your advisor or maybe talk to the department chairman. Be wary of the second option because they have to take it seriously and it will unleash quite a shit storm. The question of do it now or do it later. Lets see, you get your PhD in their lab and then they get busted for misconduct people will not only take a harsh view to them but you also, "I mean you were a trainee of theirs and you did your work underneath them, you might be a scumbag too." Better sooner than later as this will rot your conscience and always be in the back of your mind. Besides what if you bite your lip and the dude gets caught and fired while you are in the middle of your program. Take the hit early rather than later when more is on the line and restarting is much harder.

I swiped my institutional logo, put my title (grad research asst), the lab and department I belong to and my official contact information. I have one set with a blank back and another that specifies my field of work and what gene I work on.

I have a friend in a similar position and what she did was take his name, but when publishing she hyphenated her last names so she can link her old publications to her new name anytime anyone searches for them.

Man I shill out a shit-ton of business cards at conference. People (vendors, PI's, grad students, etc.) just write down what I'm working on the back of it and they have all my contact info. And I do the same with their cards, so at the end of the day I have a stack of cards with why information pertaining to why they may be applicable to me written on the back. Get some business cards. You can get them cheap from places like vistaprint.

Most programs care more about your research experience versus your GRE score. They just want to make sure you aren't some illiterate hillbilly. How long have you been employed at the company and what have you done? Also a strong letter of rec from your boss will go a long way towards bolstering your case for admission.

You can send four LORs, but they are not obligated to read all four but they probably will. Most AdComms are looking for lab experience from PI's, so those are way more important than someone that taught you for a semester.

I agree with fuzzy, if its not glowing with personal references, then it comes off just like another stock LOR that says this individual does exist, they showed up to my class, but I have no heart-warming stories of adoration about them. Also another thing to look at is this politician of the same political persuasion and mindset as those who might be reviewing your application. It might sound petty but politicians and academics sometimes are.

Merrell shoes are pretty comfy and I sport those when I don't wear tennis shoes. And I'm on my feet all day running around working in the lab and these things just feel great.

Don't worry about organic, see if you can take an analytical chemistry course instead, it will be more beneficial. Unlikely is correct. But once you get in you need to get good LOR's from your advisor and another faculty member who is familiar with your work. Also publishing never hurts, so shoot for a paper. I did an M.S. as a bridge to getting my Ph.D. and in my two year masters, I was able to publish 3 manuscripts (1st author, 3rd author, somewhere knee-deep in the middle of the authorship orgy). Since you are mainly social science it is crucial that you do well in any remaining science courses that you have so that you don't appear to have holes in your scientific knowledge.

Include college-related accolades and experiences, high school is irrelevant.

I support my grad schools sports. And its not an issue during football season as my SLAC-undergrad did not have a football team so it doesn't matter and I got my M.S. at a medical university (no teams)!