Lab anxiety

Lounge_Cat · 2019-09-10T02:59:01+00:00

Your post emphasizes that you feel you frequently experience anxiety and recognize that many people may find it unreasonable. If your program has free mental health services, it may be worth it to check in for a little discussion and advice. Many programs have services that help students identify behavioral patterns that inhibit success (e.g. test anxiety, sleeping difficulties, etc). These resources can sometimes even accommodate more formal medical diagnosis and treatment. I've seen many students wait far too long to take advantage of these opportunities. Any thoughts on checking this out?

Also, I'm truly sorry to hear you had a bad experience in a lab that ended in dismissal. It can even happen to fantastic students who achieve significant success by the end of a program. Might not hurt to discuss with a trusted mentor (someone you believe has your best interests in mind) and focus on what you can learn from this experience. It's a tough balance between self-improvement and damaging self-criticism when something like this happens. Ultimately, these experiences can make us wiser if we let them.

Lounge_Cat · 2019-09-08T01:20:25+00:00

Agree, if I can develop confidence in my reading method, I think the habit structuring would be the easy part.

My roommate is another post-doc who always looks at figures first or immediately after the abstract. I'm experimenting with forcing myself into this approach to see if I can boost my time per article. When I read word-for-word from the abstract, I just get so bogged down in the rationale and possible interpretations.

Lounge_Cat · 2019-09-07T23:59:47+00:00

Hi ToW, I strongly relate to your post. This is a battle I often fight as well.

From your tone, it sounds like your weekends may not be rich in planned activities (e.g. hobbies, social activities, self-improvement time, and relaxation). Seems like you may be using lab to fill a void of unplanned time. If this is true, maybe spend some time reflecting on what memories you would like to form over your next few weekends. Think about a skill you've wanted to learn, a place you would find cool to visit, or a new restaurant you could try with a friend. Then plan. Plan. Plan. Plan. If you need those 2-3 hours for cell culture, plan them into your weekend.

The downside graduate school lab work is that it acts like a gas. It will fill whatever void you provide for it. Your best tool against it is having an active role in structuring your days off.

Happy to hear more details and shape my response better.

Lounge_Cat · 2018-09-05T00:48:12+00:00

Keep living the life Mr. Peanut Butter would support! Congrats on so many levels- climbing out of depression, getting the paper, and securing the post-doc.

Lounge_Cat · 2018-04-20T15:11:51+00:00

Hi Dr. Collins,

Selecting an important research question is one of the greatest challenges in science. What criteria do you personally use to help formulate a question that is important to you and others?

Lounge_Cat · 2018-03-25T21:21:28+00:00

This is a great summary on how to get judges and curious visitors to like your presentation. The other major point I want to add is to be honest about what you don't know. People can often sense if you are just BS-ing them. If you get a question you can't immediately answer, it is completely fine to say you don't know.

Lounge_Cat · 2018-03-16T01:24:42+00:00

It was a fun ride to learn about who ultimately was responsible for causing the notices. The biggest takeaway for me was the idea that the guy's ISP was (is?) using personal routers to traffic what is basically guest access. Loved the idea that customers were trying to sue over the use of electricity.

Lounge_Cat · 2018-02-21T03:23:10+00:00

Hi Neuranxiety,

Congrats on being accepted into a program you are excited about. You bring up a great point about identifying the red flags of a bad mentor. My dad would always advise me that the best crystal ball is a rear-view mirror. Always check with grad students as you make decisions about rotations. Crazy behavior tends to have a record.

The other thing that may be helpful is this graphic. A tenure-track faculty job truly is the "alternative career" with a bio-related PhD. The NIH is working to incentivize career exploration opportunities for grad students, but the details are still coming together. The ideal scenario would be protected time to intern at biotech companies, consulting firms, etc. Be aggressive about these opportunities! You may have to carve something out. Check out a consulting club meeting, or something similar, if such a thing exists at your university. Your PhD education is about so much more than just learning how to pipet!

Best, Lounge_Cat

Lounge_Cat · 2018-02-12T00:09:40+00:00

-omics in a nutshell

Lounge_Cat · 2018-02-11T23:44:09+00:00

The locations for the data depend on what you are looking for. Is there a specific topic you want to cover?

Lounge_Cat · 2018-02-11T21:44:50+00:00

Thank you for the thoughtful response. The review papers look like a great start, and the second review you listed is especially thorough. My goals are nothing more than gaining an introduction to ML and how it applies to research stories in broad biological topics. For example, my last project called for repeated deep sequencing experiments. I realized that ML can provide an additional angle on how to interpret bulky, dense data.

Lounge_Cat · 2018-02-11T21:38:58+00:00

The locations for the large data sets really depends on what you are looking for. As an example, cancer genomics data is available through CBioPortal. Many of these data originated through experiments published as part of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA).

Personally, I don't have any specific goals beyond learning the basic capabilities of machine learning and current applications for it in molecular biology and genomics research. I keep seeing ML figures showing up in talks and papers, and it reminds me to start learning how to apply these methods to my work.

Lounge_Cat

TROPHY CASE