A number of factors influence the stress levels we feel in lab including our project, boss, funding, spouse, kids, weight… the list goes on. In research, there are predictable periods of elevated stress, such as the Ph.D. qualifying exam and defense, which undoubtedly shaved years off the end of our lives. But are there global trends to the stress patterns we can anticipate through the early part of our career in research?
Flyceum: Your Science. Your Career.
We’re following in the tradition of open discussions among scientists that has resulted in important advances in both science and society.
A Degree of Stress
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The Importance of Side Projects
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Like food, water and deodorant, the importance of the side project cannot be overstated.
The rationale behind voluntarily piling extra experiments on to our already busy schedules can best be explained in gambling terms: the more bets on the table, the greater our chance of winning one.
The Shadow of the Ph.D.
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I recently had a long conversation with a colleague of mine regarding life after a PhD. It is interesting to see how your classmates progress after finishing the grueling free-form haul of graduate school. At first pass, you could categorize the career choices of most of your colleagues as follows:
How to Become a Successful Scientist
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Standing in the magazine section of Walgreen’s, I ran across a list of the “Top 10 ways to run a risky business”. As I read it, it became clear that the principles were arguably more relevant to creating a successful scientist! I’ve reworked the list and tailored it to the bench researcher and our experiments in the laboratory.
Interestingly, the title of the original list included the word “risky”. Considering the inherently risky nature of scientific research, I think the list is more appropriately titled:[Continue Reading…]
How to Make a Bacterial Spreader
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It was another late night in lab and we were looking to film a protocol that would demonstrate a common technique while using a minimal number of words. We quickly came up with a pretty large list of candidates, but decided on the spreader because it’s just plain fun…
It Worked Three Times…
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Out of how many? That should always be the next question. If your paycheck was deposited successfully into your bank account only once a year, I hope the conclusion would not be “Direct deposit works. It just works one out of twelve times…”
Returning to the basics, it’s important to remember this definition, from the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
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Your Career in a Sentence – How to Craft an Elevator Pitch
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An “Elevator Pitch” – the idea that you should be able to explain your idea, project or lab within a 20-30 second elevator ride – is like explaining your project in a Tweet. You’ve got to trim the fat and get to the point, or else you just get cut off. Never has the art of brevity been more important than in today’s society, where people face constant information and sensory overload. In every interaction, people are constantly forced to make a quick judgment call on whether what they’re hearing is worth their time.
Despite understanding the concept of the elevator pitch, it can often be very difficult to craft, especially when you’re working on a very specific problem that needs a few minutes of background to be put in context.
Or so you think….
Working at a Small Company, Part 2
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You’ve decided to join a small company, so you sign the contract and celebrate with some friends. The next day, amidst a pounding headache, the stress sets in. A new world awaits… what’s going to happen? What do they expect? Was that the right decision?
Working at a Small Company, Part 1
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One of the classic choices facing grad students or postdocs looking to move into industry is whether to join a large or small company. For most of us, who have only academic research experience when looking for that first job, there is little opportunity to understand what really goes on in companies. In many cases, it’s not until you accept the position and begin working that the consequences of the decision are finally apparent…for better or worse.
To shed some light on small company life, we interviewed Patrick Hillas, Ph.D. about the transition from academics to biotech, the pros and cons of the decision and the expectations placed upon new hires.
How to Remove Static from a Scale
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It was almost midnight at the end of a very long day and my friend Walter and I were sitting at our benches, half-delirious, joking about protocols to film. As if sent from above, our labmate, whose language would make the father from “A Christmas Story” blush, walked into the room right on cue.[Continue Reading…]
