Need Advice/Opinions About Choosing a Lab (LoR # vs Interest in Topic)

[scientist410]

Hello all,

Lately I've been grappling with a dilemma as to what lab I will find myself in for the summer. I just came from a meeting with a potential PI (first time we met, let's say PI#1). He probed my interests in his lab/ why I want to get summer research experience and it came up that I was looking around with a variety of labs as it would help out a lot when it comes to graduate school applications because some need 3 reference letters. I also mentioned that the PI (PI#2) for this particular lab is already interested in taking me for the summer as well as being my thesis supervisor for my final year. The work PI#2 does also aligns with my grad school interests.

After some more discussion he immediately advised that I should basically forget his lab and go for the lab in which I was most interested in working. Now don't get me wrong, I met this professor because his work was something that also interested me as well. I get where he's coming from that I should go for the lab in which the topic is something I that I am most passionate about. But what's working against me going into PI#2's lab is that when it comes to applying to the grad school I'm shooting for, I might be short a reference letter. PI#1's workaround for that was to ask a professor in which I got an A in the class (and in this case I have taken a class in which I got an A and PI#1 is buddy's with and basically gave me a confirmation that he'd be down to give sort of a generic LoR). That brings me to another conundrum: I thought sort of generic LoRs from profs with which you simply took a class with are looked down on?

So working with the advice PI#1 gave me I find these pros/cons with going to PI#2 instead:

-Pros: lab is doing work in which something I am really interested in, I'll have a head start in working in this lab when I am going to do my thesis project

-Cons: I run the risk of being short reference letters, perhaps not have the opportunity to PI#1's type of work 

It's okay if some of you comment and tell me that I'm crazy and probably overthinking it all and to go with your gut instinct - PI#1 basically told me the same thing haha. Sometimes I feel like I might be answering my own questions but I think I just need some external opinions to help solidify my feelings about this so all opinions/ advice are welcome!

 

[fuzzylogician]

"Did well in class" letters won't hurt you per se, but they won't help. They're just short and generic letters that come from someone who doesn't know you very well. If you have two strong letters and one like that, it's usually fine. It can be hard for undergraduates to have strong relationships with three different faculty members. If you have two of those and one strong letter, I'd worry more. But hopefully you can find someone who knows more about than the grade you got in just one class, even if you didn't work in her/his lab, e.g. if you took more advanced courses with the prof and participated a lot or wrote a meaningful paper, went to office hours, etc.

As for your PI#1-PI#2 dilemma, I would have told you the same things if I were PI#1. I think it was clear from your conversation that you don't actually want to work with this PI, you are only using this opportunity to get a letter but you really want to work with PI#2. If so, why shouldn't PI#1 prefer to spend his time and lab resources on someone who actually wants to work with him? And you'd benefit more from actually working with the PI you want to work with--PI#2. So, I'm not sure you can walk this conversation back, but in the future if you talk to someone else, I think you want to concentrate on the actual reasons why you want to be in that person's lab, and "getting a letter (to do more of PI#2's type of work)" probably isn't what you want to say. Although PIs are fully aware that undergrads may want letters after working with them, having an undergrad around who is solely there for that and only cares about keeping up appearances for the letter isn't something many want around. They want someone who wants to learn what the lab has to offer and to contribute to ongoing projects. 

[scientist410]

12 minutes ago, fuzzylogician said:

"Did well in class" letters won't hurt you per se, but they won't help. They're just short and generic letters that come from someone who doesn't know you very well. If you have two strong letters and one like that, it's usually fine. It can be hard for undergraduates to have strong relationships with three different faculty members. If you have two of those and one strong letter, I'd worry more. But hopefully you can find someone who knows more about than the grade you got in just one class, even if you didn't work in her/his lab, e.g. if you took more advanced courses with the prof and participated a lot or wrote a meaningful paper, went to office hours, etc.

As for your PI#1-PI#2 dilemma, I would have told you the same things if I were PI#1. I think it was clear from your conversation that you don't actually want to work with this PI, you are only using this opportunity to get a letter but you really want to work with PI#2. If so, why shouldn't PI#1 prefer to spend his time and lab resources on someone who actually wants to work with him? And you'd benefit more from actually working with the PI you want to work with--PI#2. So, I'm not sure you can walk this conversation back, but in the future if you talk to someone else, I think you want to concentrate on the actual reasons why you want to be in that person's lab, and "getting a letter (to do more of PI#2's type of work)" probably isn't what you want to say. Although PIs are fully aware that undergrads may want letters after working with them, having an undergrad around who is solely there for that and only cares about keeping up appearances for the letter isn't something many want around. They want someone who wants to learn what the lab has to offer and to contribute to ongoing projects. 

As an addendum I will be taking another class with the third "generic letter" prof making it my third class with him (I got an A in one and a B in another so hopefully I can make the A again in this third class).

And yes I suppose you and PI#1 are right I guess I just needed to see it in words to synthesize it. Thanks!

[fuzzylogician]

19 minutes ago, scientist410 said:

As an addendum I will be taking another class with the third "generic letter" prof making it my third class with him (I got an A in one and a B in another so hopefully I can make the A again in this third class).

And yes I suppose you and PI#1 are right I guess I just needed to see it in words to synthesize it. Thanks!

Concentrate not only on getting the grade, but on making sure the prof knows who you are -- so, participating in class, coming to office hours, anything else that would help the prof write a letter that's beyond just the generic "scientist410 took classes ABC with me and got good grades."

[TakeruK]

Diversity in LORs is important and a good asset. However, you really do need to be interested in the lab too! It sounds like you are only interested in PI#1 because you want to have more reference letters and I don't think this is the best thing for you either. And, if you're not really into the work of a particular lab, you might not do as well and you might not get a great letter/experience after all.

There's also advantages to staying with the same lab---you can now develop an even better relationship with the professor/lab and you can do much more meaningful work when it comes time to do your final year thesis work. 

And you haven't worked with PI#2 yet. Maybe after this summer, you'll find that you have other interests for your thesis work!

Finally, to repeat what I said above, the purpose of summer/thesis research is not to acquire a LOR. The purpose is to develop research skills and experience. The good LOR will come as a result of doing good research--if you focus on only the LOR then you might end up missing out on some good experiences that will actually help you later. In general, graduate school applications are not a series of boxes to tick and achievements to collect---this approach may work in some cases, but I wouldn't recommend it.

[scientist410]

1 hour ago, TakeruK said:

Diversity in LORs is important and a good asset. However, you really do need to be interested in the lab too! It sounds like you are only interested in PI#1 because you want to have more reference letters and I don't think this is the best thing for you either. And, if you're not really into the work of a particular lab, you might not do as well and you might not get a great letter/experience after all.

There's also advantages to staying with the same lab---you can now develop an even better relationship with the professor/lab and you can do much more meaningful work when it comes time to do your final year thesis work. 

And you haven't worked with PI#2 yet. Maybe after this summer, you'll find that you have other interests for your thesis work!

Finally, to repeat what I said above, the purpose of summer/thesis research is not to acquire a LOR. The purpose is to develop research skills and experience. The good LOR will come as a result of doing good research--if you focus on only the LOR then you might end up missing out on some good experiences that will actually help you later. In general, graduate school applications are not a series of boxes to tick and achievements to collect---this approach may work in some cases, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Yeah I understand that the purpose of research was not to get a good LoR that was just me planning ahead. Sometimes I overthink and go too ahead of myself - things to work on for the new year haha.

Thank you everybody for your input!