How much does PhD work dictate career trajectory?

[behavioral_ecology]

There is an EEB program that I have interviewed at and have thoroughly loved. The grad students seem happy, the faculty are crazy smart and very friendly, there is a guaranteed funding all 5 years, and the program just seems like a great fit.

 

The one caveat is that my POI does work different than what I kind of imagined myself doing. We are interested in many of the same research questions which is why working with him is a great prospect. My worry, however, is that he does mostly modeling work, using genetic data sets that someone else sequenced and has shared with him. I love fieldwork and the fact that this POI doesn't really do fieldwork (and doesn't have a wet lab of any sorts) does worry me a bit. He has said that possibilities of collaborating with other faculty and getting some of those opportunities are possible. But, especially from talking to his post-doc, I can tell that he really values the modelling work above all else and can maybe be so focused on that that he forgets how many interesting and cool science things are done before he gets his data sets.

 

I guess where my mind is at is that this is an amazing opportunity for me to answer research questions I am interested in, while mastering skillsets in popgen and stats modeling work (which are important in basically any subfield ofEEB). But I don't know if this will paint me as only "the stats and popgen guy" when, after graduation, I would ideally want to go do more fieldwork. Do people move from purely modeling work easily? Or would I find it hard to get research opportunities outside of heavy modelling work?

[FishNerd]

I'm not an expert of academia by any means but it sounds like I am in a similar position of being a PhD applicant of EEB labs and would like to gain more field and wet lab experience during my PhD and thought I might throw out what I have been told by my current MS advisor. I don't think that if you decided to join this lab you would be "the stats and popgen guy" forever because I have asked a similar question to my advisor and she said no one is indefinitely defined by what they do during their PhD. However it is important to remember that your post-docs, advisor (and maybe committee members?) and other lab members are likely going to be the people that will help you with networking in the future. If their network is solely made up of mainly modeling folks then it might be hard to find potential next steps outside of modeling through those you have networked with previously. But if you make an effort to include people on your committee of diverse research interests (or just make a point to network with people of more diverse backgrounds) then you could maybe go to them to help get experience or future possibilities of doing more fieldwork and wet lab experience possibly. You may very well have to be the one to do this networking though so you don't only have possible connections with only modeling folks. Also I think if you decided to pursue this lab (which as you said will really be an amazing opportunity since modeling experience is highly valued in EEB) it wouldn't hurt to maybe pursue side projects that allow you to do the fieldwork (and wet lab work if you desire to) that it seems like you really want to be able to do in your career. A PhD is a big commitment and you want to be happy so if you would really be upset not being able to do fieldwork during your PhD and decided to go to this lab I think you should look into the possibility of pursuing a side project with fieldwork. Also if you already have a decent amount of previous research experience and connections with those that do fieldwork I really don't think you wouldn't be able to incorporate fieldwork and modeling into your career after your PhD.

To just throw in a couple of my experiences you might find useful when I started my masters I had only ever done research that was very fieldwork intensive and I really wanted to continue that into my masters; however, I took on a project that was 10% fieldwork and 90% lab work (population genetics) and at first I really struggled with finding the motivation to want to do my lab work since I really wasn't sure what I was working towards (I had no popgen experience previously and my only experience with genetics was a very human oriented genetics course) so it was hard to be motivated at times. But once I started getting data back I really started to enjoy my project and even found ways to enjoy lab work quite a bit (listening to podcasts helped a lot haha!) and now I am trying to get into labs where I can do molecular ecology and evolutionary/conservation genomics work because I have enjoyed my projects so much. So I guess what I am trying to say sometimes going into a project you know could be very beneficial career-wise (that's why I ended up in my masters project-I knew popgen work could be very beneficial to my career just as you say modeling could be for yours) is that you may really enjoy it and may even want to stick with it. Also my advice on the networking comes from personal experience - my current advisor has been extraordinary and extremely helpful in so many ways but because she is mainly a taxonomist in background and training I haven't been able to network through her too much to find potential PhD opportunities in what I want to do just because she doesn't really have too many connections with people who do that kind of work. But I have been able to still find opportunities even without that networking connection so while I know I mention the networking stuff above (because I know networking can go a long way - it is how I got my masters position) I don't think without networking you would be in a bad place either.

Sorry for the long response but I hope it's helpful and if you would like me to clarify anything let me know.

[behavioral_ecology]

That is an incredibly helpful and encouraging response. Thank you!

[hurryskurry]

People often switch fields. One of the professors I interviewed with did his phd in mammalian development, and his post-doc in plants. A lot of people will switch model organisms. Some people switch whole fields. You want to change it up ideally, because the key is to learn how to do science, rather than to learn a specific skill set.

http://www.sciencemag.org/features/2015/08/transitioning-fields-between-phd-and-postdoc

 

Edited February 4, 2018 by hurryskurry

[FishNerd]

2 hours ago, behavioral_ecology said:

That is an incredibly helpful and encouraging response. Thank you!

Glad I could help!

I also agree with @hurryskurry because I also have interviewed with professors who have switched model organisms and that kind of switch seems to be super common because they basically can transfer the research areas they're familiar with into other model organisms. However, I do think learning specific skill-sets is necessary and common part of science at least in the fields I have been exposed to. I really like applying genetics/genomics to questions of spatial ecology and conservation but am still learning genomic methods and to be able to do that in the future I will need to continue learning those methods. I unfortunately couldn't apply to a lab I was excited about because I don't know genomic approaches to the extent some of the other potential applicants did. So if in the future you are applying to positions you are interested in you will want to ensure that you gain the type of research experience you need to gain the type of positions you want (which is why I am planning on furthering my education into genomic approaches at the PhD level). But as said above sometimes just showing that you can do science (in whatever field) is enough to get you where you need to be.