(In honor of the beginning of the academic year, we’re revisiting our Graduate School Survival Guide Series that was previously posted.)

All over the country this week a new crop of eager young scientists begin their journey of discovery.  Graduate school is a great time of learning and exploration, but it can also be stressful – especially the beginning.  Perhaps the hardest part about the transition to grad school is the uncertainty involved.  When will I graduate?  Who should I work for?  What’s expected of me?  Can I drink the lab ethanol?

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Dear Dora,

Is it wrong to intentionally mislabel buffer bottles to keep people from stealing them?

– WV, grad student

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Many of us may recognize Chuck Norris as a late-night exercise equipment peddler.  In fact, he was the undefeated Professional Middleweight Karate champion title for six consecutive years, before retiring with a karate record of 183-10-2.  He was the only man in the western hemisphere ever to be awarded an 8th degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do.  That’s serious.

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Anyone who’s ever been to a wedding or listened to an oldies radio station for more than five minutes recognizes the lyrics to the Sister Sledge classic We are Family.  “We are family / I got all my sisters with me / We are family / Get up ev’rybody and sing.”  It’s probably unlikely that we’ve ever huddled around with our labmates to sing the words “We are the ___ Lab / I got all my labmates with me / We are the ___ Lab / Get up ev’rybody and work”… but should we?

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It’s been over twenty years since Stephen Covey first published his best-selling self-help book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  That means it’s also been over twenty years that we’ve been pushing “reading it” to the bottom of our to-do list (“Let’s see, I could either set up another experiment or read some cheesy self-help book…”). But 15 million copies don’t sell themselves, so we figured it was time to take a look under the cover.  In the interest of your to-do list (and wallet), we’ve adapted Covey’s principles to create The Seven Habits of a Highly Successful Scientist…

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At BenchFly, we love science.  In fact, our mission is to make science a better career for current and future generations of researchers.  Within the larger profession, careers in science may fall into one of two categories, non-research or research-oriented, although the distinction between the two is not always black or white.  While those in non-research careers may not physically stand at the bench, their roles in the research process are often just as important.  Therefore, as a profession, it is to our advantage to make sure that the best and brightest scientific minds stay in the field in some capacity- whether in a non-research or research capacity.

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Dear Dora,

My PhD boss does not trust me at all and according to him I am a thief who is selling his lab work to others, but of course I am not doing that.  He checks my results five times – keeping watch on me.  It’s really bothering me…please help.

– Rohit, grad student

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My career path over the years has veered in directions I never would have guessed. As an undergraduate, majoring in chemistry, I thought that engineering sounded completely unappealing because of all the math involved. I also refused to take a single biology class because my mother taught high school biology, and it amused me that my dislike of biology irked her. (That totally counts as rebellion, right?)

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When pursuing research as a profession, it often seems our options distill down to two choices: 1) a career in academics, or 2) a career in anything else.  While ‘anything else’ includes a tremendous number of exciting opportunities, it’s not unusual that researchers might feel a bias towards academics – especially early in their careers.  After all, the academic environment is where most of us start out and as a result, our professional role models are likely academics.

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Work is filled with moments where our minds drift off on vacation, leaving the body carelessly going through the motions in autopilot mode.  Nowhere are the consequences of a poorly-trained autopilot more damaging than in email.   Mess up an experiment, you can repeat it.  Send an angry email to your boss, you can start browsing the classifieds.

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