Top 3 Tips for Navigating Graduate School as a Lab Scientist

???? To all my lab science PhD and MS student friends out there... ????

Here are?3 tips?on how to choose the "right" research lab and succeed as a predoctoral researcher.

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First of all, there is no absolute "right" lab so don't put too much pressure on yourself. There are really no right or wrong decisions here. There's just the decision you make and then how you choose to act - this should actually be the first tip, I guess it's a freebie.

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No situation is perfect and you can most likely succeed in any setting. However, there are some things that you can do to increase the chances that you have a productive and (relatively) stable graduate school experience.

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Here are three tips to help you along the way.

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1. When choosing a lab, focus less on research interest and more on lab personnel ????

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This might be a bit controversial, but hear me out. While the specific research focus of the lab is important, it's not everything. In fact, I would say it's not even at the top of the list.

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After all, good scientists produce good research, not the other way around.

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You want to make sure that there are people in the lab that will be there, day in and day out, showing you the ropes, getting you familiar with the lab, showing you where stuff is, etc..

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It's no used to be in a lab that is doing EXACTLY what you're interested in if it's just you in there. This will leave you lost, helpless, and scrambling to get the most basic of things done.

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Nothing will kill your motivation more than being alone in a new lab, aimlessly rifling through the -20 degree for 3 hours so you can do a simple PCR reaction or something.

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2. Be sure your lab provides a viable path forward ??

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When picking a lab, talk with the PI, talk with senior lab members, and talk with former lab members to get a REALLY good idea of what the lab has already produced and how it benefited former members, what it's doing now, and what it plans to do in the future.

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You want to make sure that you're not walking into a start up, so to speak. As a postdoc, this might be a bit more acceptable because you already have the training and confidence under your belt and might be able to navigate the challenges of a new lab.

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As a MS or PhD student, odds are, your experience isn't strong enough to allow you to thrive in a lab that isn't very well established. Getting a PhD is difficult enough, you don't want to layer this with the complexities of establishing a new lab.

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3. Take the wheel and steer the car in your own direction, but do it methodically

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The ultimate goal of your PhD is to gain the skills, knowledge, and confidence to become a completely independent thinker and researcher. So, during your graduate school studies, you should aim to break free of your mentor's tutelage and start pursuing ideas of your own.

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Here's a good roadmap to accomplish this:

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1.?Spend the first 1.5 - 2 years working on some project that the lab already has ongoing. This presupposes the existence of such project. So, talk with the PI. Normally, they have some ideas in mind of projects that are "basically finished".

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They'll usually say something like, "the data is just sitting there, we just need someone to come in and finish it."

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JUMP ON THIS!

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This will not only get the rest of the lab members on your side because you're contributing to the success of the lab, it will also give you a chance to absorb as much information as possible, learning techniques, developing solid experimental design skills, becoming comfortable with proper data analysis, etc., etc...

If you start working on something that the lab already has a vested interest in, they're much more likely to help you. As opposed to you coming in with some super random idea that nobody is willing or able to help you with.

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Once this project is finished, you can stake your claim by writing the paper and helping to publish it. A moral and honest PI (many are, some are not) should offer you first authorship, even though you came in towards the end. You're the one that brought it over the finish line and deserve the credit - this can serve as your first publication.

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2.?Be thinking of ways that you can expand on the project and bring it in your own direction. To do this, start reading A LOT, I mean A LOTTTT, like over a hundred papers at least.

When you do this, something magical starts to happen: it will open your mind and ideas will begin pouring in like a levee breaking.

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You should have been reading a lot during the first step to get up to speed on the literature concerning the project you were working on, but this is where you can start to bring in your own research interests.

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This is also the perfect time to WRITE A REVIEW. Take all the knowledge you're gathering by reading all the new papers and start stockpiling notes. Once you've harbored enough knowledge, start molding your massive word document into a narrative. This could eventually be turned into a review and serve as your second publication.

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3.?Finally, around the beginning of your 3rd-4th year, start really carving your own path, testing your novel ideas, using the technical skills that you acquired in the first step to pose, perform, and interpret your own experiments.

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This is where you make your identity. This is what the PhD is truly about. Up to this point, you have been a true trainee. Now, take that knowledge and those skills and start showing the lab what you're truly made of.

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This shouldn't take THAT long...but nothing in science is quick.

Within a year and a half, maybe two and a half years, you should be able to accumulate enough of your own data that a THIRD publication is on the horizon.

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With these three things in mind, finding the right lab and the right path should be easy. But don't forget, this process is extremely difficult and many people choose to not do it. If it were easy, the world would be full of PhDs, and it's not.