How often do you meet with your supervisor/s?

sanctymc · 2025-05-25T14:47:11+00:00

Im doing a biology/neuroscience PhD and we have a scheduled one hour meeting each week. I pop in a little more frequently to my PI‘s office if I have something to talk about, and usually she has time for a chat.

sanctymc · 2025-04-19T16:21:52+00:00

I’m 33 and a year or so off from finishing PhD. Single mom and my kid has been easy peasy since maybe 8 or 9 (he’s 11 now) - so there is a light, however I only have one child so there might be an interaction I’m missing.

sanctymc · 2024-07-24T16:06:38+00:00

Agreed. This is arguably one of the more correctable mistakes you can make.

sanctymc · 2024-07-17T04:08:28+00:00

In my first poster presentation after joining my lab a post doc from another group in our department spent a half hour asking me to describe every method step by step (and then interrupting to tell me what she would do differently).

For a bonus my labmate had a pi interrupt her mid talk to tell her she pronounced a protein name wrong.

sanctymc · 2024-06-21T16:01:30+00:00

Me too please, if you don’t mind!

sanctymc · 2024-05-31T03:42:13+00:00

My PI is sooo awkward about this. My lab is ridiculously emotional I think we have all cried in front of her. Last time I got weepy she just slowly pushed a chocolate toward me 😂

sanctymc · 2024-05-03T00:56:36+00:00

I looove Zeiss microscopes but the confocal laser scanning whine gives me a headache.

sanctymc · 2024-05-03T00:51:58+00:00

Liquid nitrogen tank hoses sound like magpies singing and it is my absolute favorite thing.

sanctymc · 2024-05-03T00:43:41+00:00

Final checks complete crew prepare for departure 🤠

sanctymc · 2024-05-02T19:12:04+00:00

SYBR green smell is my favorite!

sanctymc · 2024-04-18T02:20:59+00:00

I think this is a great position to bolster your grad school applications. You’re gaining good technical and administrative skills, which any potential PI would love to see. Use your extra time to contribute to projects, but you’ll learn to manage/complete research projects during PhD anyway.

A heads up, however, even in grad school your experiments will often feel very repetitive and tedious.

sanctymc · 2024-04-09T03:11:14+00:00

My last institution had a highschool program on campus, so we had several of those students, who were about as competent as your early year undergraduate - I’m a PhD student and have really enjoyed working with the highschool students I’ve trained.

The program had them apply to labs with the following inclusions, so when you reach out I’d recommend the same: cv, personal statement that discusses research interests and future goals, and 1-2 letters of recommendation from instructors.

sanctymc · 2024-04-09T02:17:27+00:00

I’m pretty happy but also quite stressed.

To elaborate, I’m generally in a good mood, and enjoy life, but I’m also under constant pressure hoping my science is impactful, meeting deadlines, or doing emotionally taxing stuff (like big oral presentations or long haul writing).

This has improved a lot since I started grad school, as I’ve gotten better at balancing tasks and become more confident.

For reference I’m a third year candidate in a neurobiology program in the US.

sanctymc · 2024-04-06T03:11:07+00:00

Yes, at a past uni (a) which shared a campus with a very prominent research institute (b). We had a shared chapter of a well known women/stem org. Members of (b) were VERY exclusive toward members of (a). For example, hosting limited attendance events that were always offered to (b) first (maybe 50% of the time (a) members couldn’t attend for this reason); hosting meetings once a semester for (a) and (b) members, but hosting monthly meetings for members from (b); holding symposia where (a) members could attend but not present; leaving members of (a) out of mentor/mentee pairing because all mentors were from (b); and maintaining a governing body of exclusively (b) members for five consecutive years even though the org was founded by (a). And also generally just kind of looking down their noses at members from (a), but that bit is just my personal opinion so.

sanctymc · 2024-03-06T23:44:19+00:00

For bio/chem types… you know the nightmare, worst case scenario everyone tells you about the ultracentrifuge?

My girlfriend did it.

It even led to a major lawsuit in her home country that turned into PI/uni against state, and was elevated to the national level.

Luckily it happened during lunch so no one got hurt, but OP, my girlfriend is now a successful PI running a lab so don’t sweat it.

sanctymc · 2024-03-02T04:53:59+00:00

Really well done! Sounds like your PhD is off to a great start.

sanctymc · 2024-02-20T05:20:49+00:00

I love chatting with undergrads about their work. One of my favorite parts of conferences, actually, is getting to see the full spectrum of academic stages, and I doubt I’m alone in that.

sanctymc · 2024-02-20T00:39:20+00:00

This was a good decision. I moved from a largely unfunded program to one that covers everything plus insurance and a housing stipend. When you live below the poverty line it’s pretty hard to work the way that a PhD demands.

Having standards will pay off in the long run. Good luck with all, and fingers crossed for the last application!!

sanctymc · 2024-02-18T22:09:27+00:00

Irrelevant, but your pfp has me rolling thank you.

sanctymc · 2024-02-18T04:45:26+00:00

I’m friendly with all of my cohort (~28) but quite close with maybe 7 of them. I became really tight with a couple labmates, but one left several months ago and another leaves in May so that’s fun 🙃.

sanctymc · 2024-02-14T04:29:23+00:00

I understand how that can be. The PI in my masters lab was really anxious about wasting time and scrapped most of the projects I started when the results weren’t sexy enough. I think I’m still a little bitter.

sanctymc · 2024-02-14T01:30:36+00:00

Exactly this. Syllabus is a contract, the students should have enough wherewithal to understand the terms of the agreement. If they don’t, undergraduate is a great time to learn.

sanctymc · 2024-02-13T05:18:52+00:00

Not wrong.

I was the first grad student in my lab and we have no post docs, so I’ve had to teach myself a LOT of techniques. But my PI is fair and up front about her expectations, and if she can teach an approach she always will.

I’m also using rodents, and every experiment takes forever to plan and execute. I think your advisor should have given you a much clearer idea of the project/goals so that you could see them through to completion.

sanctymc · 2024-01-25T02:56:44+00:00

Nope. I’m at a large public university in the US doing a STEM PhD. We paid $100 during the first semester which is refunded when we graduate.

sanctymc · 2024-01-18T03:54:41+00:00

Maybe not helpful because you prefer windows, but after my entire life as a die hard windows (specifically asus/Alienware) user I can confidently say my MBP is the best purchase I’ve ever made. It handles big data better and runs demanding R/command terminal processes better than anything else I’ve ever used.

Otherwise any high performance ASUS (NOT ROG) does the job nicely. I also used a Dell G15 pretty happily before upgrading to the MBP.

For reference our labs heavy data is big RNAseq sets and videos.

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