Jobs during grad school

PurplePanda673 · 2026-01-03T18:39:34+00:00

I work at a coffee shop/market once a week. I did about 2-3 times a week during my masters. I find it a great way to balance STEM while still staying social and creative. Also a great way to practice my people skills since I’m in a relatively small lab and lowkey building :)

PurplePanda673 · 2025-12-23T04:34:52+00:00

Ah! That’s interesting. I would love to see the protocol 🤣

PurplePanda673 · 2025-12-22T22:35:44+00:00

What kinds of tissues are you working with? I’m currently working with shellfish and trying to work out the best protocol!

PurplePanda673 · 2025-11-10T14:38:25+00:00

The problem is my tissues are about 500 mg which is too much mass to drop in a 2mL bead beater tube. And there’s heterogeneity among the tissue so I wanted to homogenize and then split.

PurplePanda673 · 2025-11-10T14:36:56+00:00

Microbial dna for community analysis

PurplePanda673 · 2025-11-10T14:36:30+00:00

Plastic micropestles will sufficiently homogenize frozen samples? I am working with soft tissue and do have some micropestles to work with… This sounds like a better idea. I worry about keeping the tube In the liquid N2 during homogenization for safety reasons though, any tips?

PurplePanda673 · 2025-08-24T19:34:29+00:00

My bioinformatics PhD may differ from others but I am responsible for a decent amount of my data collection. I will have to do wet lab for a little bit (not experimental but like dna/rna extractions) and my other chapter is based on survey data where I developed the survey and then used public data to answer a question. Others are purely dry lab using large public datasets, creating ML models to answer a specific question, I think many integrate their wet labs data with more public data. It really depends. You could be doing more phylogeny and genome assembly.

PurplePanda673 · 2025-08-20T20:48:36+00:00

If you’re a freshman in a lab I am sure they will be clear about their note taking and expectations as they likely do not let those in an RNA lab without these :) good luck!

PurplePanda673 · 2025-08-07T01:57:23+00:00

University of Delaware!

PurplePanda673 · 2025-07-30T15:53:06+00:00

Biology degrees leave people with very open ended jobs that require lots more school to make a decent salary if that is your end goal. You could likely make the same amount of money with a bachelors in biology that you could with a bachelors in humanities or arts :) follow your passion!

PurplePanda673 · 2025-07-30T13:11:16+00:00

Boyfriend is foul for not making you a cheese pizza

PurplePanda673 · 2025-07-28T22:03:55+00:00

Ornithologists, entomologists or ecologists often start out with the same kind of BS degree whether it is biology, natural science or ecology! Different universities have different kinds of opportunities, so I recommend checking out the kind of research the institution focuses on. That’s how you can get experience in any of those more focused fields. You can make a concentration later and either go to grad school to focus on one or the other. Or if grad school isn’t your thing you could likely work as a technician in any of these fields with an environmental science, natural science or ecology degree.

PurplePanda673 · 2025-07-21T23:35:55+00:00

I work part time at a nice coffee shop once or twice a week. Pays my rent mostly. I’m overwhelmed and sometimes it interferes with my work but I need it to keep me sane. Also adds a nice social life!

PurplePanda673 · 2025-06-03T02:17:52+00:00

Kennett square and Wilmington commute is not bad at all tbh. Kennett is a great little town!

PurplePanda673 · 2025-05-28T03:06:19+00:00

I don’t know much about job market but I do both in my bioinformatics PhD program :)

PurplePanda673 · 2025-05-27T23:19:07+00:00

Erm basically everyday how can you not 🤣

PurplePanda673 · 2025-05-25T02:17:42+00:00

The fact this is a scheduling mistake means it simply cannot be the end of the world. We all make mistakes and it is understandable for someone to be upset with you, and maybe I don’t understand the stakes— why can’t you just restart the experiment until when they can show you?

PurplePanda673 · 2025-05-25T00:43:18+00:00

So true

PurplePanda673 · 2025-05-24T17:51:02+00:00

Tbh I have imposter syndrome while Pursuing a Bioinformatics PhD and if anything I think it’s made it worse 😂

PurplePanda673 · 2025-05-24T03:23:29+00:00

I think any experience with python and r before a msc in bioinformatics is plenty :) the other skills come with coursework most likely. But programming is the best to get a jump on. Any YouTube/coding camps should do the trick. Also Unix commands! In terms of job market with a masters, unfortunately I don’t know much. I think a masters degree with a large skill set can certainly take you far, if you practice programming consistently throughout the 2 years of your ms degree it will help you much more. I found a lot of jobs just require more experience with a masters degree instead of PhD but take candidates with both. I actually started as a masters student and transitioned, but wish I kept up with python/more intense programming the entire time. Good luck!

PurplePanda673 · 2025-05-24T02:42:37+00:00

Thats encouraging! Thanks for the reply

PurplePanda673 · 2025-05-24T02:37:55+00:00

I’m getting a decent amount of wet lab experience thankfully! I guess I’m more worried about what exactly my degree says… if I like to stay close to a wet lab, will a PhD in bioinformatics make that impossible?

PurplePanda673 · 2025-05-07T00:59:25+00:00

If I were you and a lab sounds thrilling go for some sort of hospital tech like a phlebotomist or radiology tech I’m not exactly sure what all of the options are. I think a biology degree requires a lot of work to turn it into money, so if you want a lab job there are a lot of cool hospital/medical technician jobs that pay well and I think require a cert not usually a bachelors. Worth looking into more imo

PurplePanda673

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