Pick your Poison: How to pick "the right" thesis lab
You've been finding reagents, scrambling to get a grip of a brand new field, hustling to get experiments done, and stretching the limits of your mind just so you can keep up with your rotation mentor who has been doing this stuff for years now. You have been trying your damnedest to impress the lab and to secure a spot in your desired thesis lab. Well done!
But now comes the hard part.
One of the most stressful parts of the first year of grad school is picking a thesis lab. Oftentimes we have at least a few options in front of us and the decision can be overwhelming or even straight-up scary.
For those of you with *real* jobs (cough cough) this is kind of like committing to your first job for upwards of 4 years after completing a short summer internship. The lab you pick has an undeniable impact on what science you will be thinking about and doing, the scientific community that you will participate in, and the experience that you have during graduate school. Not to mention, it will set the stage for your future career.
Or at least that's what I thought when I was faced with picking a thesis lab. Turns out things are never set in stone. I have known plenty of people who switch labs, change fields, or even make a career shift right in the middle of the program - nothing is permanent. So while it's important to remember that you are not trapped in your decision, doing some hard thinking about which lab to chose can save you time and pain in the long-run. Because grad school is the definition of a long run.
During my rotations, I used tricks I picked up navigating work-place politics to figure out the lab environment and to contemplate future problems that I may run into. For me, if I am honest with myself about what kinds of conflicts could potentially arise in a particular lab and whether I can deal with them or not, when those conflicts unavoidably come up future-Jenna is both prepared and free of regrets. Every lab environment poses its own unique set of advantages and challenges. Since I am a glass-half-empty kind of person, the best way for me to make a decision is to assess whether the advantages are worth the challenges and whether my personality lends itself to overcoming those challenges.
The first step in this process is to figure out exactly what those challenges are. Every PI (aka boss) is (probably) a person and therefore possess a mixture of good and not-so-good qualities that contribute to lab environment. Your job is to identify those qualities and grapple with them.
"But I love my rotation lab in every way", you say? Official Grad Tip 1: Talk to older grad students in the lab.
You may not realize it now, but one day you will walk into your lab, look at the benches littered with pipettes and spilled buffers and desks piled high with papers and day-old coffee cups and say "this lab is not for me anymore". PhD programs are like apprenticeships... long, low-paid apprenticeships where we learn how to be "independent" and "fully functional scientists". Nature papers not included. This means that while you may start off heavily reliant upon your thesis mentor, by the time you enter your last thesis committee meeting, (ideally) your relationship will have dramatically changed - from student-teacher to scientific peers. This is probably not so true anymore (yay 10 year post-docs).... but that was the original idea.
So you are not only picking your thesis mentor, you are also picking your closest scientific peer and professional advocate in your future endeavors. So how do you make the right choice for both the person you are now and the person you will become? Since time-travel is still in the works, I recommend talking to the oldest graduate student in the lab.
They might be hard to find, be disgruntled, or shriek when exposed to direct sunlight but take them out to coffee (optimally somewhere their boss won't hear) and they will gladly spill the dirt. If they don't want to talk, that is a Red Flag (see below). Ask them the hard questions: What was the hardest moment of grad school? What would you change about the lab environment? Would you join this lab again? The last question is often the most difficult to answer but I find it the most informative. Also keep in mind there is actually no right answer here. A sixth year from the thesis lab I ended up joining told me they wouldn't have joined if they could do it again because they realized that our boss's mentorship style was not right for them. However, I decided that the same style was right for me. You don't need to necessarily follow in their footsteps, but you can use their experiences and wisdom to identify potential challenges.
Official Grad Tip 2: Keep an eye out for Red Flags.
Hopefully during your rotation you talked to some lab mates, assessed the PI's mentorship style, and maybe even managed to crank out a result or two (ha) - but (arguably) the most important part of your rotation is to collect red flags. Red flags are seemingly insignificant signs of much bigger problems. The more you can spot now, the less you will be surprised by later.
These things will be small - but a sharp eye can see them. For example, that time you wanted to ask your advisor a question but couldn't find them until the following Wednesday? That small inconvenience will become a big problem when you need your thesis paperwork signed or your paper resubmitted on-time. How about when your mentor appeared at your bench literally out of nowhere to ask about you work? Sure now you want that extra attention but what about when you are facing a deadline and you need to do 100 RNA extractions by the end of the week? Not so much. 9pm on a Saturday and the lab is still hopping? While an "immersive" experience might seem great to you now, it might become a big problem if life happens you need to leave for a few weeks to help with family.
At this point you might be freaking out a little bit. "All my options are bad?! What do I do?" Every lab has red flags and challenges. The purpose of this exercise isn't to find the place with the fewest but to go with the place where you are best equipped to deal with them.
Official Grad Tip 3: Play to your strengths.
Everyone has strengths but knowing what yours are can sometimes take some reflection and honesty. I need to assess my strengths as they are today, not what I want them to be tomorrow. I am very self-motivated and I put a lot of pressure on myself. This makes a lot of outside pressure difficult to manage. So I decided that a lab where the PI isn't around that often and students are largely independent is a challenge I am better equipped to handle than a lab where the PI is under a lot of pressure get results quickly.
But what about the science? Of course the work that the lab does matters in this decision. Hopefully you picked rotation labs that are doing science that interests you already. I personally view lab fit, or how well your personal strengths fit into the lab challenges, as being equally as important as scientific fit. So if you are choosing between a lab that's a good fit that is doing science you find moderately interesting with a lab that is a poor fit doing science you find the most interesting I would pick the one with the better fit. Even the coolest science doesn't work at some point or another - having a supportive environment can make all the difference.
________________________________________________________________________
Have your own Official Grad Tips? Have questions or comments about this post? Feel free to comment below! All advice is from my own personal experience and definitely isn't for everyone.
But now comes the hard part.
One of the most stressful parts of the first year of grad school is picking a thesis lab. Oftentimes we have at least a few options in front of us and the decision can be overwhelming or even straight-up scary.
For those of you with *real* jobs (cough cough) this is kind of like committing to your first job for upwards of 4 years after completing a short summer internship. The lab you pick has an undeniable impact on what science you will be thinking about and doing, the scientific community that you will participate in, and the experience that you have during graduate school. Not to mention, it will set the stage for your future career.
Or at least that's what I thought when I was faced with picking a thesis lab. Turns out things are never set in stone. I have known plenty of people who switch labs, change fields, or even make a career shift right in the middle of the program - nothing is permanent. So while it's important to remember that you are not trapped in your decision, doing some hard thinking about which lab to chose can save you time and pain in the long-run. Because grad school is the definition of a long run.
During my rotations, I used tricks I picked up navigating work-place politics to figure out the lab environment and to contemplate future problems that I may run into. For me, if I am honest with myself about what kinds of conflicts could potentially arise in a particular lab and whether I can deal with them or not, when those conflicts unavoidably come up future-Jenna is both prepared and free of regrets. Every lab environment poses its own unique set of advantages and challenges. Since I am a glass-half-empty kind of person, the best way for me to make a decision is to assess whether the advantages are worth the challenges and whether my personality lends itself to overcoming those challenges.
The first step in this process is to figure out exactly what those challenges are. Every PI (aka boss) is (probably) a person and therefore possess a mixture of good and not-so-good qualities that contribute to lab environment. Your job is to identify those qualities and grapple with them.
"But I love my rotation lab in every way", you say? Official Grad Tip 1: Talk to older grad students in the lab.
You may not realize it now, but one day you will walk into your lab, look at the benches littered with pipettes and spilled buffers and desks piled high with papers and day-old coffee cups and say "this lab is not for me anymore". PhD programs are like apprenticeships... long, low-paid apprenticeships where we learn how to be "independent" and "fully functional scientists". Nature papers not included. This means that while you may start off heavily reliant upon your thesis mentor, by the time you enter your last thesis committee meeting, (ideally) your relationship will have dramatically changed - from student-teacher to scientific peers. This is probably not so true anymore (yay 10 year post-docs).... but that was the original idea.
So you are not only picking your thesis mentor, you are also picking your closest scientific peer and professional advocate in your future endeavors. So how do you make the right choice for both the person you are now and the person you will become? Since time-travel is still in the works, I recommend talking to the oldest graduate student in the lab.
They might be hard to find, be disgruntled, or shriek when exposed to direct sunlight but take them out to coffee (optimally somewhere their boss won't hear) and they will gladly spill the dirt. If they don't want to talk, that is a Red Flag (see below). Ask them the hard questions: What was the hardest moment of grad school? What would you change about the lab environment? Would you join this lab again? The last question is often the most difficult to answer but I find it the most informative. Also keep in mind there is actually no right answer here. A sixth year from the thesis lab I ended up joining told me they wouldn't have joined if they could do it again because they realized that our boss's mentorship style was not right for them. However, I decided that the same style was right for me. You don't need to necessarily follow in their footsteps, but you can use their experiences and wisdom to identify potential challenges.
Official Grad Tip 2: Keep an eye out for Red Flags.
Hopefully during your rotation you talked to some lab mates, assessed the PI's mentorship style, and maybe even managed to crank out a result or two (ha) - but (arguably) the most important part of your rotation is to collect red flags. Red flags are seemingly insignificant signs of much bigger problems. The more you can spot now, the less you will be surprised by later.
These things will be small - but a sharp eye can see them. For example, that time you wanted to ask your advisor a question but couldn't find them until the following Wednesday? That small inconvenience will become a big problem when you need your thesis paperwork signed or your paper resubmitted on-time. How about when your mentor appeared at your bench literally out of nowhere to ask about you work? Sure now you want that extra attention but what about when you are facing a deadline and you need to do 100 RNA extractions by the end of the week? Not so much. 9pm on a Saturday and the lab is still hopping? While an "immersive" experience might seem great to you now, it might become a big problem if life happens you need to leave for a few weeks to help with family.
At this point you might be freaking out a little bit. "All my options are bad?! What do I do?" Every lab has red flags and challenges. The purpose of this exercise isn't to find the place with the fewest but to go with the place where you are best equipped to deal with them.
Official Grad Tip 3: Play to your strengths.
Everyone has strengths but knowing what yours are can sometimes take some reflection and honesty. I need to assess my strengths as they are today, not what I want them to be tomorrow. I am very self-motivated and I put a lot of pressure on myself. This makes a lot of outside pressure difficult to manage. So I decided that a lab where the PI isn't around that often and students are largely independent is a challenge I am better equipped to handle than a lab where the PI is under a lot of pressure get results quickly.
But what about the science? Of course the work that the lab does matters in this decision. Hopefully you picked rotation labs that are doing science that interests you already. I personally view lab fit, or how well your personal strengths fit into the lab challenges, as being equally as important as scientific fit. So if you are choosing between a lab that's a good fit that is doing science you find moderately interesting with a lab that is a poor fit doing science you find the most interesting I would pick the one with the better fit. Even the coolest science doesn't work at some point or another - having a supportive environment can make all the difference.
________________________________________________________________________
Have your own Official Grad Tips? Have questions or comments about this post? Feel free to comment below! All advice is from my own personal experience and definitely isn't for everyone.
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