How to Succeed in Grad School: maximizing your grad school experience

1. How to Succeed in Grad School:maximizing your grad school experience Iris Lindberg, University of Maryland School of Medicine 2019

2. First, the take-home message: Personal initiative underlies ALL successful careers. - you must actively, continuously pursue your opportunities to succeed!

3. What’s “Success”? Operational: the ability to graduate and move on to the next phase of your life (with choices!) with all of the skills you need – and within a reasonable time frame (4-6 years)

4. What’s “Basic” (Common)Success? • One good publication, in a specialty journal • At least a 3.0 GPA in graduate school • Mastery of bench science • Mastering specific techniques in your field and peripheral but related fields • Experimental design- some independence and some analytical skills • Ability to communicate: write proposals and papers, give talks • Acquisition of people resources (network) and information resources • Two good recommendations from faculty familiar with your work

5. What’s “Excellent” Success? • Three good publications (on important topics, in widely-read, higher-impact journals) • Complete mastery of bench science • Independence at the bench; ability to design new projects from the literature; troubleshooting • Complete mastery of a specific field • Excellent ability to communicate: to write proposals and papers, give talks, work with others • Honors- support grants,travel awards etc • Stellar recommendations (top 5%) from three or more faculty familiar with your work

6. How to Succeed? • You must connect your stated goals with your actual effort • There are hundreds of applicants for every good academic position • Biotech companies want the same excellent credentials as academia • Your competition willhave those credentials • There is no substitute for hard work • Most successful scientists say they put in 50-60h weeks as students • If it always feels like work, this may be the wrong job for you!

7. Personal Qualities Required for Success • Passion for science, enjoyment of intellectual challenge, viewing bench science as “fun”: CURIOSITY • Tenacity, persistence= DRIVE • Ability to visualize and work for a long-term goal (drive to finish): VISION • Positive outlook: OPTIMISM • Vast intelligence and brilliant coursework are less important than the above qualities

8. This Presentation • Efficiency at the bench • Obtaining, organizing, and presenting information • Maximizing your grad school experience

9. Efficiency at the Bench

10. How to Succeed? • While you should always work within the framework of a hypothesis, much experimental success/discovery is just luck • You can increase your chances of being lucky if you perform A LOT of different experiments • As you mature scientifically, you will be able to run several projects concurrently (and test many predictions in a single experiment) • Increase your odds of being lucky by doing more! Be ambitious at the bench.

11. Maximize Your Efficiency at the Bench • Start with a daily list of things to do, and • Prioritize this list: do the most important things first • Interleave work items so that the most get done • Plan for the next day’s work before you leave • Put a date on EVERYTHING! It’s a locator device! • Do something on at least one weekend day (this will actually save you months over the course of your graduate career!) • Read/search literature mostly in the evenings (or while waiting for a process to finish) • Watch out for inefficient use of computer/web time

12. Always Do Feasibility Estimates • Many experiments (especially assays) benefit from preliminary calculations prior to starting • These estimates need not be exact- ballpark it! • Example: a band on a gel like the standard is 2 ug. What is your yield of protein? (i.e., is it *really worth* proceeding?) • Saves you time!

13. Experimental Design: Thinking vs Doing • Think about the actual figure in your eventual paper- how should it look? • Run all appropriate controls and standards together with samples • The sample data should always fall in the middle of the standard curve! • More controls are better than fewer: positive AND negative • Ahead of time, think hard about potential sources of error and ambiguity in data interpretation

14. Experimental Analysis • Be your own worst critic: do the right number of replicates you need (or more) • If error bars overlap, are results really significant? What does a power analysis show? • Is this a generally accepted method in the field? Are there alternative experimental approaches which could confirm your results? • Is there any way you could have obtained your results through artifact? (position on a plate, etc). (be your own worst critic!) • Do not EVER give results to more than 3 figures since no one can pipet this well! • Do not routinely “normalize” or take out “errant” points

15. Establish Conventions(just examples: you should make your own) • Put standards on same side of gel • Set up the control samples first, then experimental (always in the same order) • When labeling tubes use the same color for control, and a different color for experimental • Try to make data analysis as easy as possible (for example, by using the same percentages of medium and lysate)

16. Experimental Analysis, II • Do not keep repeating an experiment again and again in the hopes of getting a different answer. • You must change something! (get advice!) • Do not be afraid to change your entire approach/project if you have really tried your best and you have not been able to get an unambiguous answer to your experimental question

18. You Need to Know How it Works • Make sure you understand the theoretical basis for all: • Kits you are using • Equipment you are using • Techniques you are using • You can’t troubleshoot if you don’t know what is happening • Ask your advisor first when having problems • Company literature and internet can help- Google and ResearchGate

19. How to Develop Analytical Skills • Critique your own experiments before you ask for advice: • locate possible sources of artifact and error- identify all changes from previously successful experiments • compare your quantitative results to published data (they should match) • Read the literature in your area • Thinking vs Doing: remember to balance

20. Reading the Literature • You are responsible for finding and digesting all papers relevant to your projects • Your mentor will love it if you provide them with hot new references related to your project! • Be ACTIVELY intellectually engaged with your work • Learn to read papers critically. Were enough controls done? What is really new in the paper? What would be the next step? • Not all papers in Cell or Nature are true… • Take a cue from Michael Pollan: “Read papers, mostly in your field, and not too much.”

21. How to Organize a Project • Plan a paper! (aim for a top journal) • Make a flow diagram of what you would like to put into this paper assuming your hypothesis is true (things will change) • Set up a timeline for accomplishing the various parts of the project (specifics) • Line up all reagents and people you need well in advance

22. When You Have Problems • Again, first analyze the experiment yourself, then take this analysis and get help • You must show you have actually mastered the technique before you can claim that the line of work is unprofitable- e.g. can you obtain reproducible results? • Investigate/propose the use of alternative techniques • Depending on the importance of the problem, you might want to use several approaches simultaneously

23. Other Problems in Grad School • Your mentor is not available to you • Pros and cons- you will become independent; however, everything will take more time • Most mentors meet at least once a week with students • Courses vs lab work- reach a balance • Troublesome interpersonal dynamics in the lab • Go to your mentor and discuss privately

24. What to do if you have fallen out of love with your project • Think about why the experiments no longer interest you • Personal reasons? • Constant ambiguity in results? Hypothesis wrong? • Too small a question? • No existing context for the question? • Decide with your mentor if it is time to switch projects; if not: • Read more papers in the general area • Go to a meeting and present your results to the group of people who work in this particular area

25. Ideas • “The best way to have a really good idea is to have lots of ideas”- Linus Pauling • Reading papers in your field generates ideas, so do this regularly • Ask your mentor if you can branch out to explore potentially interesting side areas which always pop up • Do not be afraid to pursue the most important problems • Do not continue a line of work indefinitely if unproductive, time-consuming and/or costly (risk-benefit analyses!) • Focus on questions, not on techniques • You will get better at generating ideas over time!

26. Obtaining, Organizing, and Presenting Information

27. Obtaining and Organizing Information • Lab protocols- always use these first • Technique books (Current Protocols etc) • Online manuals and lab websites • Google and Research Gate as technical aids • PubMed – search for papers • Company technical information and equipment manuals • People: seminars, emails and phone calls

28. Obtaining and Organizing Information • Never let your experimental data pile up without filing. YOU WILL FORGET HOW YOU DID IT! • Summarize your conclusions on the first page of your experiment; bind each experiment together and file in a dated order • Go look at previous lab members’ notebooks. Which ones are helpful? Which ones are useless? Why? • Organize your computer files- papers, techniques, letters, coursework. Back up!! • Computers break: do not store primary data only on a computer without multiple backups and superb indexing. Ask: could your professor find it in five years? • Never throw out primary data! It must always be in your notebook. (If there is a question regarding fraud, you are protected only if you can find the primary data) • Tag all published primary data with a sticker for easy location.

29. Obtaining and Organizing Information • Databases- learn how to access NIHReporter, PubMed- and any other databases specifically pertinent to your research • Every year new and interesting databases are posted- BioGPS, Allen Brain Atlas, dbSNPs etc. Ask around! • Programs- learn very early on how to use a scientific graphing program (not Excel) and any other specialized programs your lab uses (references etc)

30. People Resources • Your mentor should be your primary resource • Mentors are like movie producers- they organize the outside reagents and collaborations you need • Other faculty members are nearly always willing to help- especially your committee • Colleagues - students, postdocs, technicians • Seminar speakers • High school and college friends! (why not?) • (eventually- anyone you have ever met, at meetings and other scientific venues!)

31. Giving talks and writing papers and grants • The more often you practice, the better you get • Take every opportunity to present; to write reviews; and to write grants • Research local and national meetings in your field • Which ones offer TRAVEL AWARDS?When are the deadlines? Can you meet them?

32. Cartoon here

33. Maximizing Your Grad School Experience

34. Choosing A Thesis Advisor • Does interesting work (to you)? • Has a history of productivity? • Search Pubmed • Is funded? • Search projectreporter.nih.gov • Has a history of graduating students within 5 years? • Check this! • Personnel from the lab have done well in the past (see papers; ask them; Google them)? • Look for successful outcomes, not a “great lab atmosphere”. This can change rapidly depending on the particular personnel at the time

35. Funding Your Graduate Work • F32 awards for US citizens- always try for one! • Disease foundations for citizens and non-citizens • Ineligible if you apply too early or too late during graduate school- during the first committed year is best • Again, be proactive! Look up the deadlines your first year, and aim to apply for something by the end of your second!

36. Mentors are Impressed by Grad Students Who… • Set their own deadlines (projects, papers, grant applications, meeting abstract deadlines, grad school exams) and actually meet them • Are aware of meeting deadlines and apply for travel grants • Read the literature on their own • Contribute to (and suggest!) reviews • Think critically about their own experiments and those of others • Contribute intellectually during lab meetings • And of course, work hard! (more than your advisor..)

37. Consider Taking on Multiple Projects • Discuss with mentor if you are ready to take on side projects • Offer collaborations with other lab members, if mentor approves • Collaborations with groups within and outside the university can provide additional publications -as well as valuable letters of reference

38. Attending Seminars • Stay awake, listen, look • Try to anticipate where speaker is going • Weigh the data- are conclusions supported? • Mentally critique the speaker- could he/she have given a better talk? How? • Think of questions to ask • Take notes

39. Seminar Speakers • Use your time with seminar speakers wisely • Ask about merits of various techniques • Ask for feedback about your research • Ask about postdoctoral opportunities or grant opportunities • Driving seminar speakers to and from the airport provides valuable one-on-one time

40. Attending a National Meeting • Meet as many new people as possible • Learn about as many new techniques relevant to your work as possible; learn about refinements, improvements • Learn about possibly useful reagents (antisera, plasmids, viruses) - suggest possible collaborators to your mentor? • Look at the style of presentations as well as raw data and conclusions- what style/field/technique/ question impresses you most? • Try to get something out of every talk you attend and every poster you visit

41. Funding Meeting Travel • Many meetings offer travel support for students who are presenting as first authors • WCBR; Endocrine Society; ASCB; SfN • See meeting websites and plan ahead • Looks very good on your resume

42. Try to Accumulate Honors:this will distinguish you from others • Poster awards • Travel awards • Training awards • Fellowships • People with honors are statistically likely to get more honors – so start early If you never apply, you will never get any awards

43. For Non-native English Speakers • Try to take speaking and writing courses • If this is not possible, get a native English speaker to correct a half page of your writing several times a week • There are no jobs for Ph.D.s who cannot formulate reasonable sentences in English

44. Meeting Your Deadlines • Personal vs official deadlines • You should have both! (writing up papers vs proposal defense). Make your own deadline and stick to it by working hard with focus • Procrastination • “The best enemy of achievement” • “The difference between your priorities and your results” (Barker, “At the Helm”) • Perfectionism • Sometimes valuable (quality product)- but not if it keeps you from finishing a task

45. Program Expectations • Meet all of the program deadlines on time (or early) regardless of what others are doing • Organize your committee meetings WAY ahead of time, as faculty schedules will fill up • Meet with your committee every six to twelve months: THIS IS IMPORTANT!

46. Qualifying and Preliminary Exams • Vary by program- learn your requirements in the first year AND MEET THE DEADLINES • Do not put off the thesis proposal! It is just a proposal! You should not wait until shortly before you graduate. At the latest, do it in the summer between your second and third years • If you are required to write an NIH proposal, do not be afraid to contact faculty for help • Committee- literature, technique tips, examples • Mentor- general suggestions for improvement • Ask fellow students for example proposals

47. Learn To Multi-Task • It is neither necessary nor desirable to take 2-3 months off from the lab to prepare for your exams • You can devote some time each day to benchwork and some to literature analysis

48. Call On Your Committee! • To help with experimental design and supply references for techniques • To outline a game plan and keep you on track • If your advisor won’t let you leave • Once again, a yearly meeting (or more often) is required! More frequent meetings are better.

49. Taking Initiative and Assuming Personal Responsibility • You must seek out help when you need it • Be proactive in other areas too- in suggesting seminar speakers, in locating new papers relevant to your research, in outlining planned papers, taking on extra projects, suggesting collaborators • You must become THE go-to expert in your field! • You should know MORE than your mentor by the time you leave

50. Taking Initiative and Assuming Personal Responsibility • Your mentor may identify meetings for you, but you can also identify meetings in the field - and try to get travel funds! • Pre- and postdoctoral fellowships all have deadlines; you have to identify and meet them! • Do not leave the lab before finishing/ submitting your manuscripts • If submission is not feasible, prepare the final figure to be used in the manuscript