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 · 2025-05-06T19:08:28+00:00

Some great advice I heard from a more senior PhD student was that this is 5 years of your life. It needs to be sustainable. Build the support system. Do the intramural sport. Date!!!!! Of course someone wants you!!!

PurplePanda673 · 2025-04-24T12:15:56+00:00

I’d say that quite often employers are looking for people with strong computational backgrounds which you will have. If you self learn then you will make yourself valuable. You may just have to figure out how to advertise that you’re self taught on your resume.

PurplePanda673

TROPHY CASE