postdoc

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)

01
Apr

The One Letter to Rule Them All

THE ONE LETTER TO RULE THEM ALL  how to help your research mentor write the strongest recommendation letter. Ask early. Update your CV. Write a self-assessment statement. Send everything in a single email. Stick around. Remember the thank you.

— from the PI’s desk

Why this letter matters so much

As an undergrad, one of the reasons you devoted so much time to a research experience was to earn an epic letter of recommendation--one that speaks to your strengths, resilience, character, self-reliance, cultural competencies, ability to solve problems, and contribute to a group effort.

This letter will be a comprehensive endorsement of your graduate, medical, preprofessional school application, or for a job complete with specific examples that influenced your PI's opinion. This one letter has the potential to outweigh all other letters from a professor whose class you attended, or from someone who oversaw a volunteer program you participated in for a semester.

12
Nov

Your Guide for Considering a Gap or Personal Year

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

Exploring the Process

Figuring out if you should take a year off between finishing your undergrad experience and enrolling in a graduate, medical, or professional program isn't always an easy path. So, if you're feeling stressed out about the uncertainly of it all, know that it's part of the process. Deciding what to do, wondering if taking a break will be worth it, if you should even consider it, (or feeling frustrated because a gap year wasn't part of your 10 -year plan) is stressful.

—from the Lab Manager's bench

I originally wrote this post to answer the question, "What tips do you have for a student with 6 months left for PhD thesis submission?" However, this version is slightly different from the one I posted on Quora. Many of the tips were also adapted from my Instagram account

Whether you love or hate them writing and editing in some form are probably part of the science communication responsibilities that accompany your research position. When writing journal articles on a collaborative research project, you might be responsible for creating the majority of a manuscript (with co-authors and your PI weighing in) or your PI might write the bulk of it but require your input. But if you're writing a student thesis (undergrad or graduate) the bulk of the writing will come from you.

—from the Researcher’s bench

The big motivation killers get top billing--and for good reason. If a labmate has created a toxic working environment, your PI is unsupportive, you're struggling to manage a disability (invisible or obvious), your mental and physical health are all put at risk. These are all serious issues and it's critical that you find support in navigating through them.

However, it's also important to recognize that there are issues or work habits that can destroy your motivation but they do so in such a subtle way that you might not be aware of what's happening until you're burning out. Many of these don't seem serious and it's easy to think "Oh, I'm just being sensitive. I shouldn't complain because others have real problems."

But a motivation barrier--even a small one--doesn't take much to grow into a much larger issue. It's dealing with these sneaky motivation killers that are the subject of this article.

15
Jun

5 Survival Tips for Summer Research

—from the Lab Manager's bench

After publishing the blog post “10 Things to Expect” I received requests for some summer research “survival tips.” I’m happy to provide the same tips I give my new undergrads at the start of a summer experience.

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