Hedging My Bets.

It’s day 341 in the lab. And everything is the same. No, scratch that, it’s more like 1155 days. Hmm, man, I’ve been here a long time, I need to graduate. But it’s not as easy as it sounds because separating me from this goal is an extensive list of results yet to be obtained. This means to stay on schedule I either have to have a massive increase in successful efficiency or the stars need to align in my favour.  I’m not sure which option, if either, is more likely. 

So just in case neither of these events take place, like the typical PhD student that I am, I have started hedging my bets. Phase one of this process is what I like to think of as a Retrieval Mission. This mission is not dangerous (except potentially to morale) and will allow you to assess the, ahem, situation of your PhD. For me it involved flipping through 3 years of lab notebooks and making a summary of what I had actually done. Comfortingly, things were not as bad as I had once feared. Sadly, they were not as good as required either.   

The second phase is no longer about retrieval but a bit of healthy comparison. In this case you have two options. One, you can source an extremely successful, robotic PhD student who is only 6 months in but near to completion (with a Nature paper on the cards) and try to emulate them. Or two, find a PhD with an extremely mediocre, poorly done thesis which was passed!

There are several advantages to each of these options. In option one, while you may not be able to change your ways at this late stage, maybe some of the ‘science lucky’ will rub off on you, and your experimental work will miraculously yield results to awe and amaze even the most jaded supervisor.  If this doesn’t happen, never fear! Your successful peer is on the highway to scientific success and will no doubt be in a position to hire you as a research assistant in the near future. The final positive is that when you realise how much time that student spends in the lab, and how few friends they have, you will probably feel blessed to be you and not them in spite of the chasm that separates the quality of your research from theirs.* The advantage of finding a mediocre passed thesis is two-fold. Firstly, it provides a beacon of hope that if they could do it so can you. Secondly, it shows you what NOT to aim for. You don’t want to be someone whose science is remembered only as a comforting contrast during peoples moments of crisis.   

Phase three is a fun phase. I call it the Revolution, where you no longer believe in the ethics of the lab, and enlist several third years to help you complete your work. Sadly, things can go wrong, so proceed with caution here. While there are some disturbingly conscientious and talented undergraduate students potentially they are not the ones who want to work for you in your lab. This means that while it may appear you have been provided with a free work-force you could be the one doing most of the work as you demonstrate again and again how to do things you’ve spent 3 years optimising. The flipside to this is that one of these eager students could, by doing something weird and unusual when you’re not looking, accidentally pave the way to solving long term problems in your experiments! Such good fortune may only come once in a lifetime, so if this happens, enjoy the moment and do not stop to question why a third year with limited lab experience was able to do what you have battled with unsuccessfully for longer than they’ve been at uni!

Collectively each of these phases sum to what I like to think of as an activity whose air of desperation should be savoured if you cherish even small hopes of pursuing a career in the arts. As everyone knows angst and suffering is a valuable asset in many creative fields. As an aside it is probably best to keep your ‘arty’ side out of your thesis. From what I’ve heard examiners are not fond of flowery chapters full of emotion and wit, they seem to prefer results and concise interpretations. Boring.

So what now? Personally, I will continue desperately trying to scrape together enough world changing data for a thesis. Just give me a few more days/weeks/months (dependent on both the availability of funding and my supervisor’s ability to overlook my continued presence in the lab far, far, far beyond the expected timeframe of my candidacy).

 *This point does not apply to certain individuals who happen to be successful in ALL aspects of their life. It is recommended that you avoid these socially apt over-achievers as you may not recover from the encounter and all of your remaining motivation will wither away, paralysing you in front of your laptop never to type again. 

8 Years Later.

If, like me, you soldiered bravely on straight from an undergraduate degree to a postgraduate course then as things finally start to wrap up you may find yourself apprehensive and afraid. Apprehensive, because there’s a big world out there beyond the confines of the university campus, and afraid, because frankly speaking, alot of education without much practical experience can feel like a disadvantage rather than an advantage when trying to get a job.

Doing a PhD in science the main career choice promoted avidly by enthusiastic supervisors is the dreaded post-doc. But do not be fooled my friends! If you have not enjoyed your PhD lab experience, then you should consider your next move carefully. While the general consensus in the academic world seems to be, just try it out, this blasé attitude could end in tears, your tears, lots of them. Instead of an excuse to go overseas and work in exotic locations a post-doc should be seen as an amped up PhD. Let’s scratch that, let’s call it a PhD on amphetamines. 

Your drugged up post-doc will expect you to be more efficient and productive, suddenly entering the realm of a qualified scientist. Your studentship now behind you, you will embark on a journey which many begin and few end. The pinnacle of scientific life, professorship, an elusive but much coveted title, feels like a possibility in moments of euphoria but when your experiments lie in ruins around you climbing the academic pyramid feels like an insurmountable task. 

But for those set on seeing the view from the top, fear not! If something has been done before then being able to successfully emulate it is a possibility. I say possibility because, as anyone who has tried to repeat a protocol from a paper has found, often significant changes have to be made before it (hopefully) works for you in your lab.  But ranting and philosophising aside there must be more to life than academia? Surely, there is a world of possibilities for someone who has spent 8 years and extensive amounts of blood, sweat and money on tertiary education? The jury is out people and I will keep you posted on the ins and outs of my transition from the lab into the real world.