- There are struggles on a daily basis in science.
Whether they be of a small magnitude,
such as, your PCR didn't work
or of a much larger magnitude,
when you realize the project that you've been working on
for the past six months is clearly coming to an end.
- It's either that experiment
that looked really great when you drew it out on the napkin
doesn't actually work like at all
or works so poorly that you don't think the data is reliable
or you are trying to do something
that someone else knows how to do
but you haven't been able to replicate it
or you're doing your experiments completely perfectly
but the data doesn't make any sense, right?
This happens to.
No one gets to avoid these things.
They happen to everybody in some proportion
and if you here a story where those things are not featured
it is because they are not being included in service
of the story.
It's not that they didn't happen.
They happen every time.
- I think it's important to remember
that hardship in grad school can be both technical
and conceptual and that there are ways around
or ways through both as long as you are open
to asking for help from many people
but especially from your advisor.
- We talk a lot
or students are told a lot
that they should have ownership of a project
but that doesn't mean that you can't take advice
from somebody else.
There are students who feel the can't take advice
from an advisor or from anyone else
because then they will be relinquishing that ownership
of the projects that's not usually something
that's going to be helpful to them.
- I've had students who feel like
they can't ask for anything
and they shouldn't get help from anyone
because that's part of graduate school
and really, trust me,
it's not part of graduate school.
It doesn't need to be part of graduate school.
The scientific discipline as a whole realizes
that you can't do everything
so we need to come toegtehr to solve these problems.
- There are different scales on which you can ask for help,
right?
When you learn to do something new in the lab,
at least the way I always was taught to do things,
was first I do it side by side with someone
while I like take down notes
then I do it by myself and if it doesn't work
then I go back to the person to sort of reassess
but that's already asking for help
like at the very earliest stages of figuring out
how to do something.
There's nothing wrong with asking for help,
it's called learning, right?
Then there's sort of larger scale stuff
like sometime cloning can look like this.
You've got a batch of constructs that you want to make
and there are some that like won't give way
and it's like super annoying.
There I think it's appropriate to sort of do things
independently through
the whole cycle a couple of times
and then there's something wrong with the design.
If it's not working you should be questioning why
something routine isn't working.
- My most difficult time in grad school
wasn't due to technical hardship,
it was due to conceptual hardship
and what got me through it was just being open
to verbalizing the problem to
as many people as I could possibly find
and taking in creative input in terms of people
who could broaden out my idea
of what would be a satisfying conclusion to that problem.
So, Angela and I worked on this for a long timea
dn it was basically her input that allowed me
to see a different type of approach
and actually an approach that I had taken much,
much earlier on in a slightly different way
was the answer to figuring out the way over that hurdle.
- So realizing that dependence can beget independence.
That the route to independence
is ususally through dependence.
- I think you need to be your biggest advocate.
So, when I say that it means
that ultimately you're in control of your future.
If something's not right,
if something doesn't feel like it should be going
in a certain direction,
it's up to you to come to the P.I.
or come to your colleagues
or your other mentors within the lab
and really bring that up.
I think so many times I've seen students,
again regardless of the reason,
think they just have to continue on a path until it works
or until they graduate,
not really realizing that
they can take charge of their pathway
within this project or within their graduate time.
- The responsibility you have as a trainee
is to be as diligent and as self-aware
in how you are executing stuff in the lab
such that when it doesn't work
you can talk about it in a meaningful way, right?
It's incredibly frustrating
to have somebody dump a pile of disorganized stuff
in front of you and tell you that it doesn't work
because you don't know to help
but if somebody's like,
I did this protocol this way
and the positive control looks okay
but the negative control doesn't
or whatever it is,
that is something specific that you can help with.
- There's this really pervasive
and really damaging idea in science
which is the myth of the lone genius.
That everybody should be able to to carry out their projects
or their research on their own
and that you have these brilliant people
somewhere in isolation coming up with these great ideas
and answers to problems and it's just never true.
- Being alone,
certainly you can show that you can do something
but it's a whole lot more fun to be a team member
and also, I think, it allows you to be more productive
and to really not feel like you, yourself
have to learn everything.
To learn from those around you.
- I learned from every one
and you can learn from every one.
You learn from people who are slightly ahead of you
in their career stage and you learn from people
who have come in right behind you
but I think one of the greatest things that you can do
is listen to advice.
Take in all the advice that you can
and gather it from everyone.
Some advice is going to fit you
and other advice is not at all
but if you can get guidance and mentorship
from kind of a committee of people
that you can surround yourself with.
You may be able to figure out what is the best path for you.