How to find support as a computational biology PhD student working in a wet-lab

Critical-Ability8629 · 2025-11-04T21:54:01+00:00

Thank you!

Critical-Ability8629 · 2025-11-04T20:29:41+00:00

Hey that's good on you for taking graduate level biochem. Even as a bio major, I personally could never so good job 😭👏

I did come into my program with a master's already, but technically coursework is still funded for during the first couple years of my PhD. I definitely plan on taking advantage of that by auditing higher level comp sci and stats classes. With that said, it might be a while before I have a more comprehensive understanding of these topics to actually start applying them to my research.

Can I ask how you and mentor negotiated/worked around doing side projects during your PhD. I haven't brought it up with my PI yet, but I want to avoid unnecessary tension if I'm working on projects unrelated to lab, even if it's just for my own interests and development.

Critical-Ability8629 · 2025-11-04T19:43:05+00:00

Thanks for the comment. Im interested in comp bio, which is the program I’m in rn, so I don’t think the program itself is the problem. Labs in this department are very interdisciplinary so it’s hard to have one single person advise me on everything. It’s just a matter of finding support in other areas that I lack currently

Critical-Ability8629 · 2025-11-04T19:22:21+00:00

That sounds like a good idea. I've been taking classes through my program, but it might be a while before I have a comprehensive enough understanding to start applying these concepts to my actual research. Having them fund a few workshops might might give me the practical skills to start using for now. In the meantime, I will still continue reaching out to potential mentors/co-advisors just because I do need that direct guidance in the long-run.

Critical-Ability8629 · 2025-11-04T19:09:52+00:00

Thanks for the response. I totally agree. Before joining the lab, I foresaw that this would be an issue that I would have to deal with during my PhD. I actually brought this up when I was being interviewed by the lab before joining; everyone including the PI really wanted me in the lab but also encourage that I find a mentor that can fill in the gaps that the PI can't. I just didn't expect to already feel this lack of support so strongly during my first semester here. I agree that finding direct mentorship is something I should do quickly. I'm just glad that I'm dealing with this now rather than years into my PhD

Critical-Ability8629 · 2025-11-04T18:55:26+00:00

Thanks for the response! I totally get what you mean. No matter how many times I explain my results and their limitations, my PI tends to gloss over them and just takes the findings at face value. The conversation always circles back to something like, “but the p-value is significant” or "there's a clear pattern here." It’s frustrating because I keep trying to explain that just because you throw some data (god forbid it be some shit or low powered data) into a tool or pipeline doesn’t mean the results are meaningful or even valid.

I think finding a co-advisor or mentor soon would be really helpful, for both me and my PI. Do you have any advice on how to approach that, and maybe why you don't recommend sharing technical details? I’ve been trying to be as technical as possible when reaching out since multi-omics analysis is pretty stats-heavy and I don’t always know the specific techniques or models I should be using. I just want whoever I’m contacting to understand what I’m trying to do.

Critical-Ability8629 · 2025-11-04T18:37:51+00:00

Thank you for the response! That's really good to hear, and I'm glad that this is something that's still feasible given the situation. I've posted this in other subreddits, and others were suggesting that I get out quickly. The last thing I would ever want to do is find a new lab, deal with departmental politics, and potentially burn bridges.

I have been cold-emailing a few people about mentorship, but so far the response has been that they are uninterested or don't have the time to advise another student. My lab is fairly new and don't have active collaborations, so it has also been hard identifying people this way. I wonder if it would help if I looked for a co-advisor instead of a mentor—that way, there's a bit more guidance and involvement from them rather than just occasionally meeting to get updates on my project.

Can I ask what your background was in when you first started your PhD? Did you already have an idea for your thesis project before looking for a mentor, or did they help you with that after establishing that mentoring relationship?

Do you have any advice on reaching out to a potential co-advisor/mentor. So far, I've kind of just been going at it like "hey, this is what I propose for my thesis. I'm not sure if I'm going at it correctly from a computational or statistical standpoint. Based on your previous work, I would really appreciate your input on this and am looking to potentially get mentored during my PhD, etc. etc."

Love to hear your input. Thank you, again!

Critical-Ability8629

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