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Ask Slashdot: Advice For Summer Before Ph.D. Program?
First time accepted submitter tookul03 writes "I'm a graduating senior from a small New England liberal arts college, and have secured a spot in a Biological Science Ph.D. program for the next five years. I realize this coming summer will be my last out of the lab for a long time and am not sure If I am interested in doing something related to my research interests or use it as an opportunity to find some new hobbies/interests. I figured the Slashdot community had a number of individuals who were/are in a similar position (albeit different fields) and could shed some light on things they (or others) had done. Thanks."
It's a pretty awesome experience.
A lot...
Sex, drugs, rock & roll. Next!
The sooner you start, the sooner you will finish and get a job that pays better or is more prestigious.
Simon's Rock College
Travel! Don't do research but travel and charge your batteries for what comes ahead.
(Currently writing up PhD thesis and in desperate need for a vacation)
I travelled across the country going from music festival to music festival the summer before I went to grad school. You will have plenty of time to do something research related. Just relax and have a great fucking time, you've earned it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Turn back while you still can.
I recently completed my PhD so I can offer some very recently acquired information for (hopefully useful) advice.
First of all, you need to find something else when you finish your PhD. Usually, academics went for a post-doc and non-academics went to industry. The game is a little different now, though, and pretty well everyone needs an academic post-doc, even to go to an industry position. Hence you should be thinking now about what you want to do when you finish, figuring out how to get there from where you are about to go. It really is never too early to start thinking about that. Some people say that the most important thing you do in grad school is line up a post-doc position.
Second, networking is critical. I highly recommend that you try to get to as many conferences as you can manage when you are a grad student.
Third, the job market for post-docs right now is terrible, unless you are in the right field at the right time. Right now it seems structural biologists are in high demand but in 5 years it could be something else entirely. Keep an eye on where the job market is going and know how to market yourself to the demand.
Fourth, start thinking right away about your committees for your time in grad school. You'll probably have a qualifying committee, an advisory committee, and a thesis exam committee. Obviously your advisor will be on all three but the rest might or might not carry over much between the three. Know how to deal with those people, how to keep them happy, and how to get them to help you graduate and network.
Fifth, if you don't have an adviser already, start talking to current students in the labs of advisers who are looking to pick up students. You want to know what your life will be like, and how long potential advisers generally keep their students around for before they graduate.
In other words, don't take this summer to escape academia. Take it to prepare for it. If your school graduates most PhDs in 5 years you really don't want to be the person who takes 7 due to lack of preparation.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
As someone that has completed their PhD in Physics. I recommend training your liver for heavy drinking.
Trust me I'm a Doctor.
Build something with your hands. Travel. Trek. Try something you've never done before. Do something out of doors.
I didn't, I wish I had.
P.S. Graduate as soon as possible. You don't get more points for doing more work as a graduate student. Your post-doc record is way more important if you are trying for the academic track.
Backpack Europe or somewhere more exotic if you're so inclined. Get some world perspective, have some adventures, experience other cultures. Don't forget to get laid.
PhD is brutal, and the labor market for PhD graduates afterwards is even worse. If you don't want to spend this summer before your PhD to do your research, you don't have enough drive to get through the toughest days ahead and exit from it unharmed.
Why not? The appalachian trail is driveable relative to you, or if you want an even more amazing experience go out to California and stay a week or two in Yosemite. Or surfing, go somewhere where there's surfing! It's not hard to pick up if your even semi athletic. Whatever you do, you can try photography at the same time, it really lends itself to being a hobby while doing another hobby. Travel or hiking or whatever, wherever you are, you can be taking photos at the same time. Go on an adventure.
If plan to work in industry (private sector) or a national lab, then by all means, go ahead and blow off some steam before the slog. But if your plans include an tenure track position in academe, you've got no time for such frivolity. Competition for academic positions in the biological sciences has reached the highest levels ever. Expect between 150 and 250 competitors for each position you will apply for. With that kind of competition, only the shining stars become assistant professors. And current expectations have risen to ridiculous levels of productivity and achievement. So if it's a tenure track position you're after, better use your last summer to get started on a grant proposal and submit your first few manuscripts. That's what it takes these days to succeed in academia.
You mean there is something outside the lab?
TODO: create/find/steal funny sig.
http://disciplinedminds.com/
"In this riveting book about the world of professional work, Jeff Schmidt demonstrates that the workplace is a battleground for the very identity of the individual, as is graduate school, where professionals are trained. He shows that professional work is inherently political, and that professionals are hired to subordinate their own vision and maintain strict "ideological discipline."
The hidden root of much career dissatisfaction, argues Schmidt, is the professional's lack of control over the political component of his or her creative work. Many professionals set out to make a contribution to society and add meaning to their lives. Yet our system of professional education and employment abusively inculcates an acceptance of politically subordinate roles in which professionals typically do not make a significant difference, undermining the creative potential of individuals, organizations and even democracy."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
In almost every case it is acceptable to use a comma before "and". In the case of a series, it's a Harvard/Oxford/serial comma (and is either present or absent, depending on the editorial style of whoever you're writing for). In the case of a compound sentence, it is required. And in the case of a compound predicate (as in this sentence), it is considered optional. As a rule, you should not use a comma in a compound predicate unless the sentence is fairly complex. I probably would not have put in that comma, but I also probably would not have objected if someone else had put it in.
The only situation I can think of in which it is actually wrong (as opposed to being required or being a style issue) to use a comma before the word "and" is when you're writing a simple series of two things, e.g. "The boy, and girl went to the store."
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Move to your new university and use the summer to do (at least one) research rotation.
Here's why: you said "for the next 5 years." I'm not sure where you got that time period from, but if you're doing your PhD in the US, you're going to find that it's a completely open ended process. This is *really* important to internalize, because every other form of education that you've had experience with has a fixed term: you do what they tell you to for the prescribed time period and at the end they hand you the diploma. You can't run down the clock on a PhD. You don't graduate until you can convince your advisor that you've done enough to merit the degree. And it's generally against your advisor's personal interests to let you graduate.
So, if you want to complete your degree in a reasonable period of time (e.g. 5 years), you have two tasks: 1) Find a lab with a research advisor who you like and trust, because you're putting your life in his or her hands. If you wouldn't give him/her copies of your keys and your ATM PIN, you shouldn't be in that lab. 2) Get established in that lab so you can start organizing and taking charge of your own project and working toward first-author publications.
The first step towards this is doing lab rotations. Summer is often a good time to do these, because your first year is likely to be filled up with classes which will make it difficult to spend enough time in a lab to really get a feel for it. Just make sure that the PI in whichever lab you're rotating in is going to be around (sometimes they are gone for months at a time in the summer) because the most important thing you need to get out of the rotation is deciding whether you trust the PI.
I suspect there will be several threads of people recommending various voyages of self-discovery or self-education. If you had something that you really *wanted* to do, I wouldn't try to talk you out of it, but from the way you've phrased your question it doesn't really sound like there is, and there's no point finding a new hobby this summer that you won't have time to continue once you start your program.
Best of luck with your program.
re: commas don't go before "and."
.
There are three types of rules: rules meant to be followed, rules meant to be broken, and rules that fuck with your mind. [see the example of what I did there?] When you have a list with multiple items separated by commas, it is permissible to put the "and" prefacing the last item even though it will be preceded by a comma.
;>)
Just to be persnickety is why I point this out. Now that particular rule does not apply to the ask-slashdot-author's sentence, but I thought I'd point out that the simple rule of commas not going before "&" is not as clear-cut as it seems. [notice the comma before the ''but'']
If you are doing a PhD, your subject matter will have to become your hobby. it shouldn't be your only one, but you should be absolutely enraptured with what you're studying. You are guaranteed to run into a dichotomous moment in your 5-7 year program where you will honestly consider quitting. It will only be through your personal passion and drive that gets you through the 'salmon of doubt'.
Since your spot is secured, you either have obtained grants, you have an academic advisor, or both. Spend the summer reading everything your advisor has written, and read everything in your field. If you are coming into a new PhD program you will most likely have a comprehensive exam (ours is verbal) where your committee will test your knowledge in the field to the point they would be comfortable allowing you to research independently. If you have not formed a research committee, use the summer to select internal and external examiners for your project. Selecting your committee is like drafting for a hockey team: there are heavy hitters and there are marginal academics. you may even encounter, as i have, a committee member that will attempt to sabotage your research. that's all part of grad school, so investigate who you're working with through previous students. Your prospective committee's individual publications is a good first step.
Spend the summer reading to the level where you can converse with someone in your field and be able to drop first and last names of the most pertinent research done between the last 50-100 years ago; much of this research (at least in my field of fish larval development) will be in the stacks and in the library; it is incredibly irksome to encounter a PhD candidate that has no references out of what they could pull out of an online paywall. A lack of understanding the foundational research makes the researcher rootless; it is as if a leaf has no idea it is attached to a tree.
Don't stop reading. keep reading. you should be reading already, but keep reading throughout the summer. clearcut an entire state of trees if you need to; keep reading. This is a primary failure mode of the graduate student: not everyone can take graduate school because not everybody can stand having their brain physiologically rewired on a daily basis as they encounter conflicting research, bad research, obscure research, and science-related gossip. Read until you feel comfortable holding conflicting ideas in your head. read until you find yourself asking a question that leads to no answer, and begin to formulate your project from there.
Changing gears slightly, the second most important thing to knowing your pertinent research intimately is the ability to communicate science to non scientists. My program stresses and indoctrinates strong presentation skills. i would highly recommend reading a book like Randy Olson's Don't Be Such a Scientist. Learn the jargon, and learn to internalise the jargon and be able to speak to non-technical audiences. the more you can communicate your message and research, the better you will be.
Good luck!
Now is your chance.
In between my Ph.D. and first post-doctoral stint, I took three months off. Bicycle touring, surfing lessons, and visiting friends across the country. It was one of the best things I've ever done (even considering the credit card debt).
So whatever counts as an adventure for you, go and do it now. Unstructured time off is hard to come by in the sciences, except for the very few elite scientists and engineers who can manage their career on a 40 hour work week. I'm now in year 5 of my post-doctoral work, and I don't see another vacation like that any time soon.
And once again, the collective /. intelligence drops a little.
"What should I do the summer before I start my PhD program, party or work?"
Jebus, dude, it's simple. Here ya go (budget 6 weeks for this):
1. Buy/rent skis and a good road bike.
2. Obtain plane/train/bus tickets to Zermatt in early June.
3. Ski the glacier for a week.
4. Ship the skis home (you don't want to haul them around for the next month)
5. Bike down the Alps to the coast, meeting the water at or around Nice
6. Continue your bike trip from Nice, down the coast, until you hit Barcelona
7. Turn inland, through Zaragoza, Guadalajara, until you get to Madrid
8. In Madrid, find a little bar. It's kinda near the Plaza del Sol. Tell Nico that Pete (the weird American that used to go out with Asphen) sent you. He'll hook you up.
9. Party a couple more days.
10. Sell the bike and fly home
11. Continue with the rest of your life.
12. Profit!
Oh...you don't like doing that? Well then...find something else. (but don't blame me when you have a crappier time)
Go to Paris (not the one in Texas.) Seek out the company of amiable women (or whatever you're into.) Drink, eat, sleep, repeat. Do not take your laptop with you. Take the train to Barcelona of Brussels.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
It's never too late to go back to middle school; hopefully, this time they can teach you that commas don't go before "and." :p
Your use of semicolons is archaic; did you attend middle school in 1854? And there is nothing wrong with a comma before a conjunction. (Were you thinking of lists?) If you want to be picky, formal grammar would like an "I" pronoun in the second clause, but it is a slashdot question, not his thesis.
BTW, for us non-yanks (sic), hwo do you move from "liberal arts" to a science Ph.D. ? Have they lowered the entry requirements that much?
Counting from the start of my PhD program, I have spent over 15 years doing science (biology) -- most of my grown-up life. I'm still doing science, it's my life. And what I have to say to you, young padawan, is not nice.
You are about to do the most thrilling (awesome, exciting, depressing, frustrating, crazy, fulfilling, everything at once) thing on Earth, you will be doing bloody science, and you think about getting ...new hobbies? New interests? All that in a fashion of someone shopping for a new T-shirt? (ah, skydiving, seems nice, I'll take a pair).
How will you come up with ideas for your research if you have not enough curiosity and interest in the world around you, and you have to fish for interests / hobbies on Slashdot? This is how your question sounds for me: "I just got an apprenticeship at NASA, can someone give me an idea for a new hobby? 'cause I have none". If you need to ask a question like that, then better ask yourself whether PhD in science is really what you want.
Apart from that, if you already have anything that you like to do with your free time, plus you have some kind of relationship (or plan to have one), plus you will take your science seriously, you will have barely any time to pursue "new hobbies / interests". Go and read http://www.phdcomics.com/.
And get out of my lawn.
Find a teacher and learn tai chi.
You will never regret it and may well find the benefits profound.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Really, the only thing to do that makes sense is to spend your time enjoying yourself in the most hedonistic way possible.
Once your classes start you will be working 16 hour days 7 days a week until your dissertation is accepted.
And then if you choose an academic life it will start all over again until you get tenure.
This is your last chance for what could be more than a decade. Make the most of it.
Gee.... And I thought mowing lawns for 3 summers for minimum wage had no upside beyond the paycheck. You are right, I DON"T want to go back.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Because you're going to be busy.
I suggest hookers, a case of viagra and pounds of coke or ex.
He's attending a liberal arts college. He didn't say he was a liberal arts major.
Such places often have science curricula and grant science degrees.
Here is an example of such:
http://www.bates.edu/biology/
You don't want to pick up new interests unless they directly support your life/sanity as a PhD student. Things like learning to cook or getting into fitness, yes. Things like learning Haskell for a great good, picking up Arduino, not so much. Learning R, okay maybe that'll save you time down the road. You only have so many spare cycles for technical stuff, I've found, and any half-started projects will only linger around frustratingly.
If you have a qualifying exam in your program, find out what's on it and get an idea of how difficult it will be. Start studying; it doesn't have to be every day, but it'll do wonders to go into it with confidence.
I know people with Bio PhDs who became stay-at-home mothers, fathers, cafe workers, janitors and low level IT people. You should spend the summer thinking about what your job prospects will look like after getting no marketable skills after five years of graduate school.
They've only found a position until the preliminary exam process, sometime in year #2. They have to pass the exams in order to have the remaining time they seem to be thinking they have.
Just saying that maybe you should reconsider alternative things you could also do. I'm not saying that PhD is a wrong decision, but its a painful one. Research is hard and getting stuff published in respectable places is even harder. Make sure you are ready to spend the best years of your life doing that.
Like others, I recommend traveling, but internationally. Go somewhere beautiful, affordable, and that has a few world heritage locations. Europe is nice, but very expensive. Go to Peru, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam. Get out and see other cultures, eat interesting foods, struggle with foreign languages and communication. This will be scary and fun and exciting and stressful and will give you more perspective than simply doing the AT or getting drunk with other foreigners in hostels around EU. Any international traveling will give you perspective, but IME I prefer the less traveled path. Live cheap, travel light, take nice photos and have fun.
|plastic....or gasoline?|
Get a job first. Infiltrate this business; learn how things work. Then quit and start your own company. Read "How to Get Rich" by Felix Dennis.
No one has suggested this? Get yourself a wow account, huddle up in a basement somewhere and blow your year on a terrible addiction. Then you will not need your extra letters on your name, you will have a bloodelf that will do you proud!
...
I graduate from my PhD program this May (*epic sighs of relief*), and have a lot of friends who are going the PhD route.
Some of them have a good time, more of them have been having a bad time. PhD programs have something like 50% dropout rates, and if you finally do graduate the job market sucks.
Regardless of how well you like it, you will work your ass off. It will consume the next five years of your life, and that's before you even hit "real life".
I actually had a pretty easy time during most of the first or two of my program -- I didn't find the coursework difficult and the research load was not yet high. My then girlfriend (now wife) and I would go to restaurants as much as we could afford, do things outdoors, do things in the city; we just generally had an amazing time of it. Then, we both got slammed as I entered the heavy research phase and she started to get slammed in medical school. When we graduate I'll get a job and she'll go right into residency.
I told you all that to tell you that for a time, I worked less hard than I could have and did as much fun stuff as possible (within reason), and I don't regret it for a moment. The fond memories I have of the time still cheer me up today, and I wouldn't trade them for anything.
In almost every case it is acceptable to use a comma before "and". In the case of a series, it's a Harvard/Oxford/serial comma (and is either present or absent, depending on the editorial style of whoever you're writing for). In the case of a compound sentence, it is required. And in the case of a compound predicate (as in this sentence), it is considered optional. As a rule, you should not use a comma in a compound predicate unless the sentence is fairly complex. I probably would not have put in that comma, but I also probably would not have objected if someone else had put it in.
The only situation I can think of in which it is actually wrong (as opposed to being required or being a style issue) to use a comma before the word "and" is when you're writing a simple series of two things, e.g. "The boy, and girl went to the store."
English major or not, I bet you're really glad for those English classes you took.
Finally, a Liberal Arts smack down on Slashdot! This and the recent criticisms against Apple make me realize that times change - even here on Slashdot!
Or the World is coming to an end. Wait - criticism against Apple gets modded up. An English Major gets modd'ed +5 - OH GOD! THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END! WE'RE DOOMED!
The best advice you will ever get: Starting today, spend every single day studying for your PhD exams. Next summer, after you finish the exams, you can hike the Appalachians. Your professors will consider you a genius, or at worst hard-working, and they will write you great recommendations. Don't waste time while you're in graduate school.
I had a short summer, as my undergrad got out late and my grad school started early. Lucky for me, my little brother had just graduated from high school.
We started hiking the southern end of the Appalachian Trail, starting at Springer Mountain. After about three weeks, we managed to get to Clingman's Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
This experience changed my life. I absolutely loved it.
Brother and and I got struck by lightning. On separate occasions. (more like shocked)
We stopped for a full day about every week to rest and recover. At the start it was hard to do 10-12 miles per day with a full pack. At the end we were doing 20-25 with no trouble.
Out with nature, relaxing, nothing to really think about but getting to the next stopping point and feeding yourself.
Awesome experience!
Some (many?) programs will let you start doing rotations and projects the summer before you start your program. There are a whole heap of reasons for getting there early. Once school starts you'll be expected to be taking classes, doing research, selecting a lab/PI, and getting familiar with a new area (going from a small liberal arts college to a research university may involve a change of city in your case).
In your early years there is a lot pressure to do well in classes, and f you are coming out of undergrad there will be momentum to focus on your coursework, particularly as you get ready for quals. It is hard to get settled into a new lab and be productive, so your research suffers and it is hard to do well and impress potential advisors and be happy about your research work. If you start during the summer, you'll have some research momentum that will carry you through your classwork time. It also gives you time to learn the new area and all the little details you need for your life. Finally, many programs don't already have a PI picked out for you, so you can spend time going to any summer seminars are going on, sit in on different lab meetings (to learn about the culture of how the lab works), and generally start to learn about what is actually going on. Anything you are reading in papers or even on the lab website is about what the lab used to be doing, sometimes wildly out of date, and sometimes the projects that are already well established are precisely the ones you won't be able to work on or won't want to, because there is already an army of postdocs and grad students already working on them. You can scope out the landscape and find the interesting new research areas that are just emerging.
I wouldn't worry about starting a hobby right now. Once school starts, you can meet your no cohort of students. There will usually be some people who are into something new that you aren't into (rock climbing, wine tasting, soccer, skiing, distance biking, juggling, whatever). That's a good way to discover new hobbies and interests, and a good way to bond with your colleagues. Science is good about bringing together people from eclectic backgrounds, particularly globally/internationally, and it is good way to be exposed to different cultures, foods, ways of thinking, etc. One big transition from undergrad to grad school in science is that usually there is a big jump in the internationalized character of the grad students and postdocs you interact with. They will definitely be introducing you to new things. At the very least, your new university will have student groups, and usually there will be an activity fair (yeah, even for grad students), so you can have a chance to learn about new groups. You can even put together an intramural team (choose your sport) in your department.
A few years into school, you will have time and options to try something new. There is a big lull after you finish quals and classes (and hopefully finished TAing) while you are just doing your dissertation research, that is a sort of the long dark stretch. That's a good time that you will want to be getting out of the lab now and again so you don't go bonkers. Don't think about it being "my last out of the lab for a long time". Grad school is a long, indeterminate stretch of time. It's a marathon or endurance run not a sprint, so you will need to take breaks and vacations as you go. Once you are in the long research stretch, you will actually have some flexibility to take vacations and so forth. Most advisors are fine with you taking some away breaks now and again, as long as you are being really productive most of the time.
Good luck in grad school! It is can be really trying at times, but it is fun and worth it. The upcoming sequester is going to have big effects on how biological science is funded, good luck!
"Politics is for the moment, an equation lasts eternity" -A. Einstein
Get out. Breathe some fresh air. Go to some big events. Get some exercise. Live it up.
You're assuming that the poster is male (or a lesbian).
or should be.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Play video games, drink beer, and occasionally masturbate. I think that pretty much covers it, and it also covers things that you probably won't have time to do during grad school.
/Uni prof
You have a few months to experience life in another location and with another culture with few restrictions. Seize the day.
--Sam
Seriously, take drugs, sleep. when you're awake and sober, read anything that isn't in your academic field.
I found biking an excellent way to relax during graduate school as well.
screw the Appalachian Trail...well, not really. Don't let other people's idea of 'adventure' bias your decision.
The idea is, do something that requires alot of time and commitment that you truly enjoy. Something that the future you're going for may not allow the flexibility for. It can be something challenging like a long backpacking trip. That's a popular thing to do in this situation.
Let's say you're going to be an oceanographer. You're going to have all kinds of adventures in your program. You probably already have had some interesting research trips. You might want to try to see a baseball game in every stadium in the National League or something like that.
Don't be the kind of person who does things 'for the story' so you can look cool.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Many commenters have said 'party' or 'get laid a lot'...this guy gets +5 for 'start working early'...both seem like good options.
The point is, by this point in your life, you should have some idea of what kind of 'work/life' balance works for you, so now you execute.
What I'm saying is, do both: get involved in work you love and get out and have some fun. You will most likely be in your current town for awhile. Branch out, start making professional contacts, go to art gallery openings, go to 'meet ups' or happy hour networking bullshits...
For better or worse, 'work' and 'partying' overlap a lot more than some university students think. It is hard to provide evidence for such a claim beyond annecdotes...it's true. You don't have to mix work and pleasure, but you at least need to get an idea how you can fit into different situations.
Thank you Dave Raggett
if you don't already have one. And maybe try something out of your research area.
PhD students usually live their work, so you may be so used to not having hobbies that you don't realize it ;)
Anything that involves moving around is probably a good place to start.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Congrats on having your ego stroked by Slashdot. Who, except you, cares that you achieved a spot as a doctoral student. Big whoop. Must be a slow news day for this to be considered news for nerds.
I predict he'll spend the summer recovering after having broken his arm patting himself on the back.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
seriously...
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I got started early in the lab and I'm glad I did. So each to their own.
Do lots of drugs and enjoy yourself.
It's permitted whenever it reads well. It's a myth that one cannot start a sentence with "and" or "but", just as it's a myth that split infinitives are categorically forbidden.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
Name one example of a 'rule meant to be followed'? Not a law of physics.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
"am not sure If I am interested in doing something related to my research interests" ---- this is a warning sign!!!! You should not do it! You need to have passion and luck to succeed after you defend. It doesn't look like you have the first component. Also how are your writing, communication and marketing skills? - these are becoming more important than research when you plan to stay in academy. PhD in biol. sci., while fun to study, is a horrible choice career and life-style wise. I have one... Good luck anyway!
My recommendation would be to spend some time looking at what jobs are available to PhD graduates in your field. Then look at the salaries. Make sure that you are happy doing the job and making that salary.
If you aren't, it's not too late to switch to chemistry or bio-chem or whatever you want to be doing when you graduate.
I cannot stress how important it is that you think hard about it now, because this will be your last chance to change fields without a massive hit to your resume or your personal life, if at all.
Also, if you are thinking about taking the summer to get your ya-yas out before graduate school starts, you're still thinking like an undergrad and may not be ready to go to graduate school. Your peers (and future competitors) are probably pursuing research positions for the summer before they ship out. Jobs are tight right now and bio grad-students are plentiful and cheap. Work hard to set yourself apart from your peers or don't bother with the grind.
When you begin working on your PhD, you will continue working on your PhD until it is complete, at which time you will either directly enter industry or a postdoc. A gap in a resume is a serious concern to many employers, unfortunately. If you do a postdoc, you will continue doing postdocs until you get a job and then you will work for the rest of your life, with bills to pay and mouths to feed. A three-month vacation is not in your forecast at any other time in your life other than after you retire. Now would be a good time, not just to vacation, but to have the best vacation of your life. Go where you've always wanted to go with someone you'll have a great time with. The probability that you will ever have another opportunity like this is slim to nil. And go ahead and spend some money. It's okay. You won't be as poor being a grad student as you were when you were an undergrad.
That doesn't mean some preparation won't help. First of all, you should try to think about what kind of biologist you want to be. You should try to be good at it, whatever it is. It's going to require some planning and introspection. One thing to anticipate is that you're going to be very busy and under a lot of pressure. You should plan for ways to deal with that in advance. One way of dealing is to have some hobby or something as an occasional escape. Be careful though in choosing your hobby. Try to choose something that doesn't take much time, and that isn't intellectually taxing. My hobby was learning Japanese, a bad choice on both grounds. If I was to do it over, I would try a sport or something physical. That gets your mind off your work, and it can release a lot of stress. Another thing to prepare for is planning time for your own personal study. You're going to be terribly busy studying for exams and doing homework, etc. Find something that you're interested in, and look into that. Figure something out on your own that is not required work. This actually helped me a lot at the times when I felt overwhelmed. Another thing you're going to want to work into your schedule is some career planning. Do something once every few weeks. Look at indeed.com, craigslist, jobiology or whatever, and see what companies are looking for. As bad as it sounds for biologists, as I'm looking for jobs, there are many more options there than for physicists. If you're reading slashdot, you likely have some technical abilities. Programming often comes in handy. In physics, some programming was used in about 80% of PhD's, and I'd guess it's somewhere around 60-70% of biologists, but don't quote me on that. Anyway, if you like programming, it couldn't hurt to get a little more experience here. Scientific programming is different from sys-admin or soft-dev, so maybe look into some of the well-known programs in your field and get to know them. Chances are, these days, a lot of them will be open-source. At least many in physics are. Personally, I think it's a good idea to program in a language that is common in your field. If it's Fortran, then it's Fortran (it's not as bad as it used to be). But go with the group on this so you can cooperate with your colleagues.
In your PhD, the three keys to success are not location location location, it's Adviser Adviser Adviser. This is one of the big choices you will make in your life. Do it carefully. Your adviser will be your parent, prosecutor, parole officer, and savior (or destructor), all in one. There are some very excellent advisers out there and there are some real assholes too, and it's actually kind of hard to tell even after being there fore a couple of years. Other commentors have mentioned some useful ideas for selecting an adviser, so see those too. It's sometimes hard to get an honest comment from current students of some advisers because of the conflict of interest, so really ask around and talk through your ideas with some of the older grad students, but definitely more than one. One other point I'd like to make is that you should select someone as good/prestigious as possible. I opted not to go w
Jersey Shore
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Work to save up so you can pay back your loans faster.
You're going to attract women like a shoe sale. There's a bar here in town where guys in med school and chiropractor's school hang out and women are all over it trying to land one. VERY HOT women I might ad. Females here Dr. and biology in the same sentence and you're going to think Brad Pitt is standing behind you.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Nice, but citation needed.
The _last_ thing you want is to arrive to school already burned out. Realize that you will have plenty of opportunity for burn outs in school. Trying to look up and study something right now is probably a waste of time. Once in grad school, and under a watchful eye of your advisory, you will have the judgement on what to study and how to prepare yourself. For now, just take it easy and do something fun. I'd visit music festivals, national parks, travel abroad, etc. Enter the grad school well rested and ready.
But also, if you don't know how to program, you should learn, and quick. Not only will it help being able to create and run new simulations, it is also a fantastic fallback.
If you struggle to get a job in a lab afterwards, you could go for scientific/engineering developer with great domain knowledge. Think the guys that write software for bio-engineers.
Lose your virginity. Trust me, I have a Ph.D.
Semicolons are useful; some of us are sad we can't use regular colons more in everyday writing, and they let us pretend otherwise.
Boy are also a nice hobby, if you remember not to take them seriously or take over too much of your time or your life. ;>)
the college freshmen girls who think your hot shit cuz your going to graduate school.
You live in an amusing fantasy world.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I'm a graduating senior from a small New England liberal arts college, and have secured a spot in a Biological Science Ph.D. program for the next five years.
It's never too late to go back to middle school; hopefully, this time they can teach you that commas don't go before "and." :p
You should omit a comma before "and" when you're doing a list: apples, bananas, cherries and dates.
Otherwise, the normal rules apply, so that if it is a new clause, you can most certainly end the old one with a comma and start the new one with "and".
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
He's attending a liberal arts college. He didn't say he was a liberal arts major.
That is not helping! What does a "liberal arts college" mean? What is the point in calling something a "liberal arts college" if it also does science degrees?
Here in the UK most universities do courses in a wide variety of subjects, from hard science through to fine arts, so it doesn't really arise, although you do get ones specialising in science subjects e.g. Imperial College.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Just go out and enjoy life. I understand the desire to get prepared and be on your A game for the first day of your program. But we're talking about 5 years of your life that are going to be centered around your studies. Enjoy a couple solid months off.
Wow how about some advice that he actually asked for instead of a bunch of bitter, heres-the-reality PhD rants?
The summer between undergrad and my PhD I went on a 3 week road trip with another high school friend who was in the same position. We hit most of the southwestern US and visited several National Parks. It was a ton of fun and a great experience for both of us. We camped out a lot or stayed with friends/family which saves cash and was fun too. This was before digital cameras took off and I also got my first cell phone just before the trip. I have a ton of great memories and recently looked back at the pictures/video.
So my advice is travel. Once you get older you'll start having more and more commitments, enjoy this 3 month period where you really aren't beholden to anyone or anything (no work, no school, no family to support/care). Don't get me wrong, the later life stuff is great, it's that this is your best opportunity to enjoy this type of freedom.
The largest problem that most scientists face, is that most people get involved in Science because they are not good with people. LEARN HOW TO COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY! That is the best advice to give anyone going into any area of science. If you don't volunteer as a journalist, spend the time communicating in some productive way. Practice practice practice. The better you get, the more entertaining you are, the more likely you'll be pushed up to the very top of your profession and with it have more fun at your job then all the others stuck in a lab somewhere. Trust me, learn to communicate and your life will be more enriched, both financially and professionally.
NOAA runs the National Observer Program that puts Fisheries observers on commercial fishing vessels at sea. Being an observer on ships in the Pacific Northwest was, for me, an amazing education in applied biology. http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/observer-home/index
It also pays you a salary while you don't need to pay rent (you're on a ship). I'm specifically recommending Pacific Northwest because it's an amazing piece of ocean to spend some time in: you train in Seattle, fly to Alaska, then get on a ship where it can snow on you in July.
You'll have some good stories when you get back.
How best to explain this?
A liberal arts college (in the US) generally offers most of the same undergraduate majors that the larger universities do. They have the same or in some cases more stringent requirements to get that major. In almost all cases, liberal arts colleges are smaller schools that offer few if any advanced degrees. One advantage (in most cases) is that all classes are taught by actual professors and those professors are usually hired to teach first and do research second. They have actual office hours, and unless you're in a large intro level course, you can usually get one on one time with a professor.
Aside from size, just about all liberal arts colleges require that in addition to courses required for your major, you also take a number of courses in various other departments to round out your education and thinking. The exact requirements vary widely, but usually there are requirements for humanities (literature, history), hard sciences, softer sciences, etc. Many require writing and/or language courses.
One possible downside is that since these schools are smaller, they may not have quite the same resources as a large research university. On the other hand, the students in general are better prepared for higher education. They also often have stronger alumni networks.
As a final note, don't confuse a liberal arts college with a "liberal arts" major at large state universities. These are usually (with a few exceptions) just a renaming of "general studies" that sounds better and is offered for the less intelligent athletes on scholarship; no offense to any athletes who actually have a brain.
I would wager that the small liberal arts college did not have multiple offerings in many of the areas of modern biology. So why not consider being near the top of your new graduate cohorts by reviewing all the stuff you either did not cover in your UG courses, or never got to really learn the first time around? Read some textbooks on any of the sub-disciplines of biology. Approach what you do with a drive to be outstanding not some average dude who spent the summer ...........
When I did my PhD, I had to changed language and also move across the country. Before starting, I visited a bit with my family and old friends, but most of my spare time was spent working to earn dearly needed money. Many years later, I am now retired from a fruitful and very enjoyable carrier. No regrets there! However, there is only one thing that I feel sorry about, from time to time: I should have taken more time to be with and enjoy my family during the period preceding my departure.
Don't do ANYTHING related to it. You will have time for that. Go walk, spend a month in india, climb the andes, whatever. Those things you will miss.
Some classic biology papers are in available only in German or French.
Personally advise German rather than French.
-Current Biology Grad Student.
Chicago 14th ed., sections 5.29 and 5.33.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.