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July 2022

Life and Research: A Survival Guide for Early-Career Biomedical Scientists

—from the Lab Manager's bench and the PI's desk

Life and Research is for grad students, postdocs, and staff scientists. However, advanced undergrad researchers, or students planning to do a postbac, planning to go to grad school, or planning to do research in med school will also benefit from applying the strategies in Life and Research. We also recommend Life and Research for principal investigators who mentor early-career researchers.

Why we wrote Life and Research as a researcher-centered book

It's generally presumed that most early-career researchers have the skill sets they need to succeed in their current position simply because they were successful enough to make it to that level. On the surface, this makes sense.

But in reality even two scientists working in the same lab at the same time won’t automatically receive equitable training, professional development opportunities, and mentorship or acquire the same transferable skill sets. As an early-career researcher, you can become a data-producing machine without developing essential communication or interpersonal skills, or you can spend days and nights overworking yourself in the lab making little progress because your approach to benchwork or time management is haphazard.

Regardless of the work culture you experience and the support you receive from labmates, we wrote Life and Research to empower grad students, postdocs, and staff scientists to identify and develop transferable skills and ward off common problems with labmates and the principal investigator by keeping the lines of communication open and building a network of mentors and advisors who are invested in your success. We also hope to persuade you to continually evaluate your nonwork goals holistically, so your life, wellbeing, and relationship goals don’t fall by the wayside.

Many strategies we suggest are inspired by failure or regret—some are ours and others are from colleagues who shared their experiences with us. Ultimately, we’ve created a guide on what we wish we had known when we were early-career researchers and strategies that we wish we had implemented far sooner in our careers.

How Life and Research is organized

Life and Research is divided into two parts. Part 1 contains strategies on achieving personal goals connected to an early-career researcher’s professional responsibilities, while Part 2 is focused on strategies directly related to accomplishing research objectives or conducting labwork.

Table of Contents (A partial list)

A laptop computer with the screen open. A coffee cup to the left of the computer and a stack of scientific magazines to the right.

—from the PI's desk

No matter if your long-term career goals include research, medicine, or using your STEMM degree primarily for science communication, policy, or another direction, participating in an undergrad research experience is a unparalleled opportunity. This is in no small part due to the personal and professional development you gain from the exposure to in-depth, experiential learning--especially one that takes places over the course of a summer.

In addition to learning new research skills, communicating your results, and making a discovery to solve a problem or answer a question, you have the opportunity to earn a recommendation letter to support future applications for grad, medical, or professional school, and graduate fellowships.

However, if you are early in your undergrad career, you may not need that letter until a few years after your summer research experience. Sure, you could come back to your mentor after that time and request a recommendation, but that approach has some major disadvantages. Most importantly, the more time that passes between when you leave the lab and when you ask for a recommendation letter, the fewer the specific details about your strengths and successes your mentor is likely to remember—and it’s those specific details that can turn a strong letter into an epic one.