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Posts Tagged ‘Look after yourself’

How to Get Over Impostor Syndrome as a New Graduate Student

You made it. You got into the grad school of your dreams! You worked hard, you spent hours working on your application, bravely navigated your way through the interview and you now are here. So, why do you feel like maybe you shouldn’t be? Why You Might Suffer From Impostor Syndrome The dreaded impostor syndrome:…

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How to Foster Lab Cooperation

Research isn’t easy. Not only do you deal with experimental failures and demanding supervisors, you also work with other lab members — people who are under the same pressures and stresses as you. Staff, postdocs, PhD students, and undergrads are often given bench space and a desk and encouraged to sort out the personal side…

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Defend Science Funding! A Brief Guide

With the scientific community potentially facing deep cuts to grant-awarding agencies, like the NIH, advocacy for funding research efforts has been re-ignited. Not only does science funding provide financial support for academic and government scientists, it fuels product development and collaboration opportunities for scientists in industry and scientists abroad. Engaging in the advocacy process and…

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The Night Shift: Experiences at a National Synchrotron

Pulling an over-nighter is a common theme for many of my college friends. I, however, like my sleep—particularly between midnight and 7 am. Therefore, I tend not to stay up late to study and avoided jobs that required me to work a night shift. Then, I went to grad school and had to put in…

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Networking – You Know It’s a Thing

A supportive network is important for your mental health and happiness. This is particularly true during stressful times, like grad school and career transitions. Networking – meeting people in the science community is important for professional development and meeting people outside of science is good for balance. At every transition after grad school, you start…

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How to Pick a Great Postdoc Position

Are you finishing up your PhD and starting to think about the next step? It can be overwhelming to consider all of the personal and professional aspects involved in deciding and beginning this next stage of your career journey. With personal perspective from someone who has been there, here are some tips on how you…

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Lactation in the Lab: What You Need to Know About Pumping at Work

When you think about having a baby, you picture all kinds of things. The good: cute baby clothes, new baby smell, unlimited cuddles. The bad: sleepless nights, bodily fluids, being on-call 24-7. You probably also give some thought to coming back to work. You planned out your maternity leave, paid or not, and figured out…

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Why You Should Apply to Science Jobs Early and Often

There are many reasons to apply for jobs. You might be in the latter stages of grad school, busy getting those last experiments done so you can focus on writing your thesis. You might already have a job, but want to move to a different location or step into a new field. Or maybe you’re…

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How to Focus When Your Colleagues Are Wreaking Havoc Around You

Now, we all love our colleagues – true, some are more loveable than others, but still. However, sometimes they can be very noisy. Especially when you need to focus.  For example, when you are in the middle of some important breakthrough, or trying to decipher a cryptic, but important paper. If you work in a…

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Are You any Less of a Scientist after You Transition to Non-Bench Science?: Opinion

In this ever-evolving world, scientists in “alternative”, non-academic positions are more commonplace than ever. Gone are the days where ideas of leaving bench science would label you as a “sell-out”. Now there is a push to support every scientist, regardless of their goals. Whatever the reason for this shift in opinion, be it the realization…

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Advocacy for Scientists – Why and How

Advocating for the research that scientists perform is important.  Your advocacy helps politicians and the general public understand why funding is needed. In fact, many funding agencies require a disease to be associated with the research, because citizens and politicians do not typically care to fund projects unless they foresee a cure or treatment. Scientific advocacy…

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Reaching Out – How to Get Started in Science Outreach

Science outreach is a great way to energize yourself to work better at the bench. If you are curious about doing outreach and want to know how to get the ball rolling, I can suggest places to look for people and events to connect with. Like a knitted sweater, you only have to find one…

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Making the Most of Quiet Days in the Lab: From Gloomy to Glorious

It’s Monday morning. You arrive in the lab armed with a large coffee and feeling rested after a non-lab weekend. You check your email and calendar and peek into your PI’s office. Today will be a rare non-experimental day, a day that some love and others dread: a day to clean up and get ready…

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How to Avoid Feeling Isolated During Graduate School

Try to recall the last time you were not alone in the lab at 11pm on a Friday night running an experiment. If you found that to be difficult, then this article is definitely for you. Here are ways to avoid feeling isolated during your Ph.D. studies. Build a Network of Friends and Colleagues Building a…

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How Taking Time Off Can Prepare You For Grad School

Halfway through college I decided I wanted to go to grad school. But for a little while, I entertained the idea of taking time off after graduation. So, I asked around for advice – I wanted to cover all my bases before committing to another five years of school. But with what I know now,…

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PhD: Staying Positively Headstrong and Determined

Hello, my name is Emilee and it’s been 5 months since I last yelled “That’s it, I quit graduate school!” It comes in waves, like the build-up of ripples at the beach followed by the crash against the shore’s rocks, or the slow and steady climb up a rail on a roller coaster followed by…

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Reframing – A Way to Cope With Stress in Graduate School

I’m an anxiety-ridden stress ball 90% of the time. Graduate school only amplifies my nervous energy, and it’s a struggle. However, recently, while I rushed to catch a bus, I had a life altering experience using a mental technique called “reframing” From “Flipping Out” to Flipping the Switch to “Cool” It rained heavily. I balanced…

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Ten Phrases Uttered by the Unethical Advisor

A good scientist must see to believe… but if you just landed in the lab and things aren’t working, maybe it’s not you. We all love to try and save our hypothesis, but in this publish or perish climate, looking the other way during truth bending happens, and it happens a lot. Here are some…

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How to be Proactive in Your Career Planning

Nowadays, it is no longer absolutely true that applying for a PhD means that you are striving for an academic position in the future. Although a majority of graduate students are certainly still aiming for a career in academia, and will thus benefit from doing a postdoc or two, more and more graduates are pursuing…

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How to Increase Your Productivity in the Lab

Lab work, as we are all aware, comes with many pressures: one of which is productivity. You want to generate as much quality data as possible to meet publication deadlines or perhaps the elusive thesis. Sometimes it may feel like hours spent in the lab don’t match the amount of data produced: for some this…

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Questions You Should Ask During Your Lab Rotations

Graduate students in the United States are privileged when it comes to picking their prospective labs: most programs have student rotate through several laboratories to help them choose their PhD lab. Here are some suggestions for questions to ask.

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Learn from Microbes: Tips for a Postdoc Transition

This article is not about adaptive laboratory evolution of your model organism. It is about your adaptive laboratory evolution. We could take a few tips from bacteria to survive in fluctuating conditions of the lab and have a successful post transition.

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Aliens from Outerspace: Navigating a Lab in the West

If you find it very difficult to call your boss by her first name, feel obligated to wear business casual clothes to the lab, or reckon that it’s slightly weird that your fellow PhD candidates are inviting you to a casual night out instead of to the library to study, then like me, you just…

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How to Choose a PhD Topic

Choosing a PhD topic can be very hard. There are a lot of things to consider from the subject to the supervisor. Here are some tips to help you choose. Find out what you really like This is the first topic because it is the most important. My first advice would be to get some…

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5 Things I Would’ve Told Myself Before Starting Graduate School

Having just finished graduate school, I have been given the privilege of nearly unlimited time to reflect (Yay! Unpaid, Boo!). Graduate school was, for me, a juxtaposition of intellectual growth, real-world learning and great fun. An introduction to adulthood with training wheels—while simultaneously being a blur of anxiety, work, sleepless nights and existential crises. I…

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Survival as a PhD Student: Keep the Post Docs on Your Side

From one lowly PhD student to another: we need post doctoral scientists. From their ability to seemingly do everything right to their moral support after a weekend of failed experiments and questioning the decisions that led you up to this moment * clears throat *. The list of support post docs offer is endless. So…

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7 Helpful Tips to Get You Through Your First Grad School Week

It’s official. You’ve signed on the dotted line and you are about to begin the most exciting and frustrating journey into the depths of the unknown: a journey otherwise known as a PhD. You’ve heard the horror stories from previous students; the cloning that wouldn’t work for reasons unknown to man, the data that indicates…

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How to Switch PhD Advisors

You’ll know when it’s time to go. Maybe it was when she changed your project for the sixth time in six months, though your thesis proposal deadline was rapidly approaching and you had nothing to present. Or maybe it was when he screamed at you for not updating the lab Facebook page, even when he…

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Tips for Dealing with Research Failures

“It didn’t WORK!” The panic was tangible. Anyone who performs PCR on a regular basis is used to the ups and downs involved, but it occurred to me that this might be the first time in the student’s academic life where he had actually failed at something.

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Time to Think

Spare a thought for your poor over-worked neurons. In the information age, they are bombarded with input from the moment they are dragged into consciousness by the radio alarm clock each morning then throughout the day by e-mail, Google searches, RSS feeds, mobile phones, newspapers, books, blogs and more. In the post genomic era, it’s…

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