April 17, 2007

Why Grad School?

Posted by Eric at 3:33 pm | Category: Personal, Science

There’s a discussion on In the Pipeline about the value of going to get a Ph.D., and one of the big questions being raised is why people want one in the first place.

For me, I don’t know what I’m going to do in the future (i.e. after graduate school). That’s several years down the line; I might do a post-doc, go into academia, maybe go for industry, go into business, I don’t know.

What I do know, right now, is that I want to do research in biology. When I look into a microscope and see a nemotode slithering around, munching on bacteria, that’s fascinating. Finding a visible colony that’s replicated overnight from a single, invisible bacterium is really amazing. And transforming bacteria with new genes that make them do things is completely awesome!

The theory side of things is really amazing, too. I love how enzyme cascades make switches possible. I like that feedback can create oscillations. I wonder why organisms evolved to be the way they are. It’s really neat that mathematics actually works to describe biological systems and find new things out, even if we don’t exactly have the universal laws to do so.

There are some really cool questions to be answered from all sorts of angles, mathematically and experimentally. I want to get a Ph.D. because I want to spend my time (getting paid!) to study this stuff. It sure isn’t about the money or future job prospects right now. It’s all about the science!

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4 Responses to “Why Grad School?”

  1. Brian Says:
    April 17th, 2007 at 6:01 pm

    Ahhh, to be young and carefree (not that I’m that much older than you). It’s super easy to get a postdoc out of graduate school in biology. Getting a job after that is a little more of a challenge.

    My main reason for going to grad school was that I did a summer internship at a biotech company. By the end of the summer, I had basically mastered my bachelor level supervisor’s job. It was at that point I realized I needed a little more challenge than doing “grunt” work 8 hours a day.
    Now that I have my PhD, the difference is that I get to decide which grunt work I do. :)

  2. Betsy Says:
    April 18th, 2007 at 1:09 pm

    I too went to grad school because I loved science. Everyday, I would marvel at how lucky I was to be doing what I was doing. I had a great grad school experience, and came out thinking that I could conquer the world.

    Then I did a postdoc. A very long, somewhat productive postdoc. I saw many smart, talented people linger in their postdocs, unable to get academic jobs. The ones who did get jobs were miserable, and were struggling to get funding. The whole experience made me very bitter and jaded about science, particularly as it is done in academia. I’ve since gone into biotech, and am much happier, though not any less stressed or busy.

    Would I do it again? Probably, though I’d do it differently.

    Pick your labs wisely, and only go places that have a history of putting students/postdocs into jobs. Pick a lab that works collaboratively, so you can publish more quickly. Make an effort to learn about science outside of academia, since in all likelihood, that is where you’ll end up. I think it’s great to love science, and enjoy the process, but you really have to stay focused on your long-term goal (i.e. getting a job). It’s way too easy to get stuck in the academic science machine.

    Lecture over now, carry on. :)

  3. Eric Says:
    April 18th, 2007 at 5:52 pm

    Definitely when I’m looking for a post-doc, I will be much more conscious of my career and life goals. I’ve heard many, many horror stories about post-doc-hood such that I don’t think I can ignore it. But for grad school, I feel like I can afford to let my science-love take control a bit. I’m still young, I don’t have a family to take care of, so I can have a bit of fun.

  4. Apollo Says:
    April 18th, 2007 at 9:21 pm

    I think you should go about things with the mindset of enjoying them and doing good work: you’re extremely talented and interested in what you do, which is not something that can be said about all training scientists. I think their subjective (bad) experiences might not always apply to you and your future, though it isn’t a bad idea to be informed by the truth in their experiences (and others) in your pathfinding.

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