Molecular biology PhD student discussing the good, the bad, and the ugly of grad school.
Hello, and welcome to my blog. To begin with I wanted to clear up a few things about what this blog is about and why I’m writing it. Graduate school is a weird place. You are overworked, overlooked, and underpaid. You are simultaneously expected to know everything and be learning your discipline at the same time. You spend every waking hour thinking about a research subject that none of your friends and family no anything about. After years of work and countless hours at the bench you often look back and think “have I actually achieved anything?”. Meanwhile you scroll academic Twitter and see post after post of people getting manuscripts published, getting jobs, post docs, and awards. So why do we do it? Unfortunately, I don’t have the answer to this question, but I will talk about some of the reasons that spring to mind. 1) We have a natural curiosity. Science is a good way to meet our need to understand more. I’m not sure if I fully agree with this one. While I don’t really give a shit why you used NMR instead of X-ray Crystallography to solve a structure, I ask during seminar, because it’s been a few weeks since I’ve asked a question. However, when it comes to my own research there is a point during your studies that you begin to want answers. 2) We need grad school to get the job we want. Again, I’m not so sure about this one. Most of my peers I speak to have no idea what they want to do after grad school. Some have kind of a plan, and other have a plan, but they probably could of started that job with a Masters. Some fall into the category I’m in, I had an idea of what I want to do, but I have no clue how I can realistically get to that job and pay bills and raise a family. Because here is what they don’t tell you about grad school at when you start, you might slog your guts out for 5 years and then get to the end and realize you still don’t qualify for a job. To that I say “WTF”. How is this possible? How can I have higher qualification than 95% of the population and still not get the job I want? How can I be so specialize in some areas of research and a complete novice in others? How can the institution I’ve worked for over the past 5 years not have better prepared me for this step? These are some of the questions I’ll be discussing in this blog. Hopefully, I’ll find some answers!
So here are some things to I should say before I get started. 1) The title of the blog “The good, the bad, and the ugly.” Is obviously not my words, I saw a fellow grad student use it in a presentation about his data and I thought it illustrates some of the problems I see with conversations in academia more generally. Publications are almost exclusively only the “good” results. Nobody wants to promote their bad and ugly work and nobody wants to publish it. This is a major floor in the way science operates, but other people have gone in to this subject more thoroughly so “google it” if you are interested in learning more. I will simply be highlight my own good, bad, and ugly experience to hopefully add to the conversation. 2) The blog page URL ding.science.blog, to my knowledge, I have no Asian heritage. “ding” was a nickname I had in high school and I thought why not use it for this blog. I am a white heterosexual cis-male and I am aware that that gives me many benefits and privileges that I have not necessarily earned. That being said, I want this to be an inclusive environment that people of all backgrounds can relate to and I am actively trying to educate myself on how I can be more anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic, and in general less of a prick. 3) I am no wordsmith, you will see typos, spelling mistakes, and generally shit grammar. I’m busy, so I’m mostly typing up bits I’ve thought about during the day, often on my phone. Also, I have fat thumbs and often hit the wrong key while writing. 4) I have depression, this doesn’t mean this blog will be exclusively about mental health, but I will touch on it from time to time, especially when I recognize how it is influencing my thoughts on the subject. It most certainly will effect my outlook on the situation, right now I’m feeling down and pessimistic about the grad school, a week from now that might be different. We will ride the highs and acknowledge the lows as they come. Recognizing depression does not make it go away, but it really does help when I go through a low period for me to be like “hi old friend, I know you, and soon you will leave.” 5) Finally, I’m trying to keep this anonymous, so that I can be more honest about certain opinions of my employers, so if I do share it with you or you figure out who I am, try not to publicize that. The only reason I could think of is my Mother being like “look at this blog my son is writing.”
My Latest Posts
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- Introduce Yourself (Example Post)
This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right. You’re going to publish a post…More - Introduce Yourself (Example Post)
This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right. You’re going to publish a post…More
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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly 