My chances at a Biochemistry PhD program

[TakeruK]

1 hour ago, samman1994 said:

Damn, now I have to go back through all my schools and try that. I usually just type the school name and structural biology and biophysics department and just go from there. Thnkas again!

This is a common scenario for interdisciplinary fields. When I was applying to grad schools, I was in a similar situation for the two subfields that I was interested in (outer solar system rocks and exoplanets). The profs/groups that do this work are often in Astronomy or Planetary Science departments, but sometimes in Earth Science, or Physics, or Geology, depending on how each school organizes the fields. So it's far more important to search for the topic rather than the department name.

Thinking about your next step: after you find the profs, then it's a good idea to talk to them about whether or not you must apply to the department of their primary affiliation, or if you could still work with them if you are technically a student in a different department. If it's not required to be in their department, or if they are in multiple departments, then you should determine which department is a better fit for you. Some things to consider are:

- Does your undergrad degree / experience matter to the department? Example from my PhD dept: You can study Mars either as a geology student or a planetary science student, but far more geology undergrads enter through Geology than Planetary Science and vice-versa for physics/astro undergrads. This is not to say that you can't enter a grad dept without an undergrad degree in the same, but it could make it more difficult.

- What are the course requirements of the departments you're considering? It might be better to choose the department with more elective/flexibility in courses so that you can take many courses in the other dept. Also, going back to the above example, a lot of Planetary Science required courses are very math heavy, often using math that isn't typically part of a Geology undergrad degree. Having a non-ideal background might mean you need to take some extra undergrad courses to catch up.

- What are your interests beyond your core research interests? Good scientists should be well-rounded and have interests beyond their dissertation. So, what are the kinds of science do you want to think about when you're not thinking about your dissertation? For exoplanets (my current subfield), I chose planetary science because I am interested in the other planets in our solar system, and how we could apply the techniques used to study Earth to study other planets. However, some of my colleagues chose Astronomy because they are interested in learning about how stars form, how galaxies work, etc.

- Where are these departments physically located? In some places, related departments are next door or maybe even just different floors of the same building. In others, two similar departments can be on opposite sides of campus (or maybe even in opposite sides of the city if the University is distributed through a city. You might want to be in the same place as your advisor, cohort-mates, classes, etc.

Hope these are helpful things to think about!

[samman1994]

Well in regards to my field, it could be either in Chemistry, Medicine, or Bio from what I've seen. I have not yet looked at the programs, nor maps of the schools themselves (still just trying to get a list of schools and faculty I'd be interested in), but those are all good things to keep in mind so thank you! Also, I know you guys said go based off papers (and I have for some of the schools), but would you just reccomend then typing protein NMR schoolname when I'm searching for faculty? Like I said, my previous technique was just typing in schoolname dept. of structural biology/biophysics and looking up faculty, but that apparently doesn't seem to work to well, and now I don't know how many faculty I've actually missed. 

[TakeruK]

23 minutes ago, samman1994 said:

Well in regards to my field, it could be either in Chemistry, Medicine, or Bio from what I've seen. I have not yet looked at the programs, nor maps of the schools themselves (still just trying to get a list of schools and faculty I'd be interested in), but those are all good things to keep in mind so thank you! Also, I know you guys said go based off papers (and I have for some of the schools), but would you just reccomend then typing protein NMR schoolname when I'm searching for faculty? Like I said, my previous technique was just typing in schoolname dept. of structural biology/biophysics and looking up faculty, but that apparently doesn't seem to work to well, and now I don't know how many faculty I've actually missed. 

Why not do both? It's a feedback loop anyways, for example:

1. Find an article related to your interests. Read abstract / skim paper to determine if it's related to what you want to be doing. If so, note the name of the principal authors.
2. Search for author school + topic
3.   Find more names. Look up their papers. Go back to step 1.  

Keep repeating until you feel that you have a good feel for who's doing what in your field. You'll build a large list of schools and faculty and what they're doing (I summarized their research in 1 sentence or like 4-5 keywords). From there, you can then create shortlist of where you'll be interested in. It's a good idea to get feedback on the shortlist from your undergrad advisors or other mentors. They might ask if you have considered X or Y and if you have but ruled them out for some reason (location, lack of funding, etc.) then that's fine, but if you haven't, then add them to your list and do the above steps to see if you add any more names to consider.

[samman1994]

8 hours ago, TakeruK said:

Why not do both? It's a feedback loop anyways, for example:

1. Find an article related to your interests. Read abstract / skim paper to determine if it's related to what you want to be doing. If so, note the name of the principal authors.
2. Search for author school + topic
3.   Find more names. Look up their papers. Go back to step 1.  

Keep repeating until you feel that you have a good feel for who's doing what in your field. You'll build a large list of schools and faculty and what they're doing (I summarized their research in 1 sentence or like 4-5 keywords). From there, you can then create shortlist of where you'll be interested in. It's a good idea to get feedback on the shortlist from your undergrad advisors or other mentors. They might ask if you have considered X or Y and if you have but ruled them out for some reason (location, lack of funding, etc.) then that's fine, but if you haven't, then add them to your list and do the above steps to see if you add any more names to consider.

Well in regards to the short list, I was going to make a list of 10 schools from all the schools i've looked at (3+ faculties each), and then email them. From how many have room and funding, then I'd narrow it down to 5 and apply then (rather than make a shortlist now and add more later). But thank you both for your help by the way! It has really helped give me new ideas and methods to finding the ideal future PhD program for me!

[AD]

hey, how good is LSU??? for Ph.D.?????appreciate your response... thanks ...

[samman1994]

12 hours ago, AD said:

hey, how good is LSU??? for Ph.D.?????appreciate your response... thanks ...

sorry never looked up lsu, can't help you there.

[aberrant]

I'm even more surprised that you have no mentioned of Florida State University (FSU), where they basically home to the mag lab, or NHMFL (National High Magnetic Field Laboratory) -- if NMR is what you are going after.

[samman1994]

I actually did look them up. I think the majority of their work was primarily solid state, or something like that. I can't remember the details, but I recall looking up their structural biology and program, and didn't really like it that much.