What's your thought on ....

[Quantum Buckyball]

those who decided to stay in the same lab for their PhDs after they graduate from undergrad? I feel like this would do them more harm than good in the future. We had a guest speaker from pharma industry three weeks ago and he mentioned something about how they disfavor applicants like them, most of time they don't even look at their applications  .

[St Andrews Lynx]

Try to go elsewhere. I've heard someone in industry say the same thing: staying in the same place for undergrad and PhD doesn't look great in your CV.

 

But I think it can be partially mitigated by going elsewhere for your postdoc. 

[loginofpscl]

I can see how personal circumstances can motivate someone to pursue such a path, but I can't see your stereotypical old-guard o-chemist taking that positively. They would simply think: "This person might have had personal problems that he prioritized over being a better scientist." This implies that academia thinks that transplanting yourself elsewhere grows you as a scientist, and I think this is a very widely held view.

 

Ultimately though, I think it can be mitigated strongly by a lot of factors. I know a student who stayed on for his PhD, and he obviously wasn't a bad scientist with a first-author Science paper, among many other pubs in high-impact journals.

Edited May 21, 2014 by loginofpscl

[aberrant]

The only reason this is bad is not directly related to ones' CV, but the probability that "staying in the same lab" means that specific individual did not take his/her chance to expose oneself to work in a different culture, environment, work with different people, expand ones network, etc. for a good couple years after finishing undergrad studies.

 

As far as I'm concern, it has little to do with scientific knowledge but interpersonal skills that cannot be taught -- only improved by personal experience. Therefore, the "CV assumption" is quite accurately reflect someone's interpersonal skills, unless the individual able to demonstrate oneself has extensive collaboration with other people in the field, experience in working at different location, etc.

 

It is not the end of the world, but it generally is detrimental for competitive positions after graduate school, as far as I know.

[TakeruK]

I can see how personal circumstances can motivate someone to pursue such a path, but I can't see your stereotypical old-guard o-chemist taking that positively. They would simply think: "This person might have had personal problems that he prioritized over being a better scientist." This implies that academia thinks that transplanting yourself elsewhere grows you as a scientist, and I think this is a very widely held view.

 

I don't think this view is as widely held anymore in the past decade. I've talked to professors who said they used to think this way but has now adjusted their point of view. I think this is a healthy change for academia--the old-guard view puts people who are able to transplant themselves at an unfair/unearned advantage, in my opinion.

 

I agree that there are lots of ways to mitigate this!