I’m a bioinformatics scientist specializing in genetics and population biology. I research copy number variation in the human genome and develop genotyping products at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Before joining industry, I was a postdoctoral researcher in the Whitehead Lab at the University of California Davis affiliated with the Center for Population Biology. I received my PhD in biology from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill as a member of the Martin Lab.
These are my thoughts on choosing a PhD program and thesis lab based on my experiences. I studied evolution, genomics, and gene regulation in graduate school. Most of my advice will likely be most useful to students considering Biology programs, but some of it may apply to other STEM fields. If you were sent here by David Horber, then congratulations! You’re already getting great advice and everything below is just a bonus.
It’s best to begin by defining career goals broadly. There are three main career trajectories for biologists with PhDs: Academia, Industry, and Government work. You certainly don’t need to choose a specific career before starting graduate school, but having an idea of what type of job might interest you will help guide you in your search for the right program.
Your career goals will probably fluctuate throughout graduate school. After all, you’re trying to define your goals without any experience as a scientist yet! It’s ok for plans to change. I flirted with all three career trajectories during my PhD and postdoc years. I felt that I needed to gain more experience as a scientist before committing to a particular path, so my strategy was to be a generalist. I took on projects that would lead to several publications (to score academic points), help me learn bioinformatics (skills valuable in industry), and allow me to work with cool animal systems (also studied by US Fish and Wildlife agencies).
Some students begin graduate school with a very specific idea of the types of projects they want to pursue, while others just know that they are motivated to do research and want to continue their education at an advanced level. I considered myself in this latter category when I started applying to schools. Luckily, many universities offer some flexibility when it comes to choosing a curriculum.
If you’re like me and you want to explore your options before making big life decisions, you should look into joining an Umbrella Program. This is where many students are accepted to join a program (e.g. The Biological & Biomedical Sciences Program at UNC), but do not become affiliated with a specific program (e.g. Curriculum in Genetics and Molecular Biology) or a lab until the end of your first year. Instead, you rotate through multiple labs during your first year, spending a few months working on a short project. Umbrella programs are common in the biomedical sciences.
The ability to experience a lab before joining one was very important to me. It helped me better understand my scientific interests and feel out several mentorship styles by working with three PIs before committing to four years with one of them. The rotation projects also helped me build confidence as a first generation scientist coming straight into graduate school without a master’s degree.
If you’re not like me and you already have a solid understanding of the types of research projects you want to pursue, then you might be better off joining a lab directly instead of doing lab rotations. This is the more common program structure in evolution and ecology research.
Whether you choose to do rotations or not, I’d recommend doing extensive research online about the types of programs that align with your scientific interests. Ivy league universities have prestigious reputations, but may not rate highly within your particular field of study. I think that finding the right lab is generally more important than the university. However, labs at big R1 universities tend to have more advanced facilities and generate more opportunities for interdisciplinary research.
Choosing a mentor is the most important decision you make in the first year of graduate school – made more challenging by the fact that a mentor must also choose you! My postdoc advisor’s website is a great resource to help you understand the mentor-mentee relationship. See here to read how he describes his expectations for himself and his students. He also has a great section on his general mentorship philosophy. Choosing a mentor would be much easier if all PIs made this information available to prospective students!
Questions you should consider before choosing a lab and advisor:
How do current lab members view their PI?
What is the graduate student stipend and how does it compare with the cost of living in the city?
What is the lab’s funding situation? Is there funding available for research assistantships or will you need to be a teaching assistant every semester to earn your stipend?
How long does it generally take for students in the lab to graduate?
How many grad students and postdocs are in the lab?
Do graduate students normally work on the weekends?
Is the lab culture more supportive or more competitive?
Is the advisor’s mentoring style more based on positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement?
Does the PI have tenure or are they still working towards it? There can be pros and cons to both. When I joined my lab it was my PI’s first year as a professor and he was motivated to publish quickly. This worked out great for me because his motivation was contagious and he invested a lot of time in my projects. However, this could have led to a situation where I felt overly pressured causing me to burnout. More established professors might have less motivation or time to invest in students, but often have more resources and a larger professional network.
Is the PI a lumper or a splitter when it comes to publishing? That is, do they tend to publish each chapter of a student’s thesis or do they combine all of a student’s (or multiple students) projects into one big publication. There are advantages to both, but you should be aware of any bias. Lumping can lead to publication in high impact journals, while splitting can give you more writing experience and first author publications.
To answer some of these questions, you have to spend some time in the lab, which is why I am a big proponent of lab rotations. However, most can be answered by reaching out to the PI and their students (both current and past members). You’ll want to understand most of this before attending interviews.
My undergraduate advisor gave me great advice on choosing research projects in graduate school. After your first year or so, you should have an idea what questions you’d like to pursue. Sort your questions into three types of projects:
Some of your projects will not all work out. Failure is a defining feature of graduate school. When you inevitably feel demoralized about your research, remember what made you passionate about science in the first place and keep on chasing the questions that inspire your curiosity.
Applying to Graduate School by Catherine Alves
Nail the Inquiry Email by Jacquelyn Gill