#biology grad school

[the-amethyst-artist]

Some non-fanart for you all! Thought all the wildlife enjoyers might like this! It’s going to be hung in my lab space to make my windowless room a little more pretty 🐟🦋

[greenteacology]

why did they name it PNAS. who thought that was a good name for a scientific journal.

[stemcellee]

january 12 2023

I went to a talk where a radiologist was explaining burnout and after the talk we chatted on the side and he said burnout comes from when you care too much and people around you don’t care enough and that has been living rent free in my head all week

[dirty-bosmer]

Applied for my first Big Girl job after five years of grinding at this PhD (the end is in sight!!), and guess what folks— my degree actually supplied me with skills relevant to the job posting. My skills are needed. There’s a place out there for me. The utter shock of it all!!

[inheritance-beyond-genes]

17.05.24

After a depressive episode i decided to reromantisize my relationship with living things. One thing i used to enjoy a lot is fielwork which i am not doing anymore so i sneaked into other's people projects yesterday. Felt so energised and passionate even for short time!

[lichenaday]

One of the things I really like about being a PhD student is that I don't really have average days. I don't have any teaching commitments at the moment so I can kinda just plan my own work schedule. This takes A LOT of self discipline which I don't have tons of so it can be challenging at times, but also means I get to work at my own pace. Since I don't have an average day, here's a peak at what I am up to today.

I wake up around 7:30/8. That's the time my cats have decided is wake up time, so I have little choice. Today we have a lab meeting over zoom at 10, so after running to the store to pick up cat litter and cat food, I head into the office.

I live about an hour away from my lab via train (I can't afford a place in the city), so my long commute is taken up listening to podcasts and staring out the window.

The lab meeting goes long today (as it does most weeks) and then it's on to EMAILS. I have a lot going on at the moment as I am planning my field work in Iceland in 2 WEEKS jeez how did it get here so fast! I also have to submit a presentation abstract for a botany conference I am attending in a few months. Luckily my supervisor was able to edit it last night so I can submit it today.

Then I go for a walk because the weather is nice and I need it.

My office is at the botanical garden so it is hard to resist. Spring is here! My misery can end!

Then it's lab work time.

They are doing construction on our normal lab so I have to go use the one in the creepy basement. I get a stern talking to from one of the other lab folks for not signing up for a scheduled time slot, which I didn't realize was a thing since it is my first time working in this lab. So I scurry away to figure out how to do that.

It's a lot of running up and down this grand stair case back and forth between my office upstairs and the lab in the basement.

I am running an agarose gel on some PCR products to see if I was able to amplify fungal DNA in some rest samples. I have to do this using ethidium bromide which is a hazardous chemical™. The German "danger" skull and crossbones doesn't have teeth for some reason?

My gel results are not good and so it is back to the drawing board on that one, but this was just a test anyway.

I am also working on extracting spores from lichen apothecia, which involves sticking apothecia on the lid of a petri dish, watering them every day for a week, and praying that they rain down spores into the dish below. Pipetting a drop of water onto each apothecia is tedious, but also satisfying.

Now I just have to kill time until I head out to choir rehearsal @ 7:00PM. So I go back to emails, annoying my coworkers, and my side hustle editing for an academic blog.

And that's what my day looked like. Some days I do more lab work, most days I do a lot of writing, and soon I will be doing LOTS of field work which is my favorite!

[dannygpino]

I bet Nick donated/sold most of his belongings right before he moved to California. Clothes, furniture, accessories like ties, watches, etc, books, little knick knacks. Most of his remaining dinnerware cause he had donated the others after his divorce was finalized and he didn't think he needed all of it. While this was clouded by his anger and his sense of defeat, he also really felt like he needed to have a clean slate. He needed to let go of the past. Maybe he donated even more things after he moved that he had placed on a "purgatory" list because he thought he wanted to keep them then found he would be fine without them. He would find new things in California that didn't have memories attached to them. He would buy new clothes. He would keep looking ahead.

When he first moved, his apartment was very minimalist but he liked it. Over time, he filled it with things he picked up and bought that held new memories, that did not hurt to look at. Things that did not remind him of what he lost. Maybe it was easier to move on by doing this. Maybe it wasn't. He was glad he did it either way.

Maybe one day, he realizes being a PI isn't feeding his soul or his spirit. He wants more. He wants to feel like he's making a difference again. He wants to help people. A friend mentions how their girlfriend works as a geneticist on cold cases. Nick asks to speak with her and she gives him all of the information he could possibly need. He applies to graduate programs, briefly wonders if he'll have to temporarily relocate to Sacramento to go to UC Davis. Fortunately, he's able to stay in Southern California. He chooses a forensic science program at San Diego State and a genetics program at UC San Diego, and he's on his way.

When he thinks about New York, the sting isn't there as much as it used to be. He feels settled. He feels okay. When he sits on the beach to watch the sunset, wearing a SDSU hoodie and feeling like a college freshman rather than a graduate student, he smiles. California was a blessing in disguise.

Even when life and the job knock him down, Nick will find a way to get back up again. He always does.

[linstudy]

17.12.2023, sunday

im still working on the same tasks, my sickness has become more impeding than anticipated

i really really don't like reading cell articles and this one is not an exception whatsoever, hopefully i can finish on time and present it

also im really nervous about seeing my PI tomorrow

[flavit-sc]

This is in one of the figures of the paper I'm reading. Love this man inspired by the triangular shape of an antibody

[amelia-j217]

I love science

[the-amethyst-artist]

How to memorize taxonomy fast no borax no glue

[carbon-cyanide]

☆ Grad school life ☆

Had a rough day on campus trying to navigate these steep hills with my cane. Even with an umbrella and a neck fan, I still had to sit and rest every few minutes from heat exhaustion. Being chronically ill and disabled makes everything about grad school more frustrating, but I know it's worth sticking through the program so I can help figure out questions about genetic diseases like EDS.

After stopping by the clinic for more meds I finally made it to the lab to do some work. I just keep reminding myself this is a marathon, not a sprint. Take everything one step at a time and don't burnout.

[th3wizardoz]

Pros of doing your undergrad at a small university

• Getting invited to help with field work by your old professors after you graduate

Cons of doing your undergrad at a small university

• Having to get up at 5:30 AM to drive an hour to your old campus for said field work

[quicksilversquared]

love that there was a seminar today by someone hoping to be a professor here and not only did only three grad students show up (one of which left halfway through), my advisor didn't show up and neither did the other two people on my thesis committee.

Like, yes, they did just get around to mentioning that it was happening this morning, but surely we can do better than three grad students showing up when there's closer to 50 of us in the department.

[dirty-bosmer]

Being an organismal biologist is so wacky. You meet someone new, shake their hand, then have to explain that you're a doctor of fish.

[petchystudies]

welcome to my studyblr!

i'm peach, i'm 27, last fall i successfully defended my master's thesis and this spring i submitted my thesis with all revisions completed! i took two years off between my bsc and my msc, and also had a sort of weird situation applying to grad school that made me anxious but it all worked out, so i'm happy to talk to people with application anxiety surrounding grad school. i'm also the first person in my family to go into academia like this so i'm figuring a lot out on my own!

i've been navigating being out as a nonbinary lesbian (they/he/fae pronouns, tho i only really use they irl) in grad school and got lucky to have an amazingly supportive supervisor and lab

currently: getting ready to apply for an NSERC doctoral scholarship this fall. this is going to involve a lot of reading up on my intended research topic to figure out what my project is going to look like. i'll be talking a lot about this i think.

i also have a job in biology outreach right now, which i may talk and post about here as well!

my main blog: @farcillesbian (i follow from there)

i also have an academia twitter that i'm thinking of reviving, if anyone is interested in following me there send me a message or an ask off anon!