#postbac

[ckameley]

Received an email from the post-doc looking for a research assistant in the [redacted] Lab at [redacted] that studies [redacted]. Gonna respond tomorrow to schedule a time to chat. Hopefully it's a good fit 🤞🏾😬

[horsemage]

oh god. grad school apps imminent. any words of wisdom?

[dooxliss]

CONGRATS ON THE BACHELOR'S DEGREE !!! i hope the rest of your career is smooth sailing !!!

oops forgot to answer this early but tysm marb 🩵🩵

[threecheersforsuccess]

20241002 I went to a research talk conference today, and I'm amazed how much the education I recieved from my postbac helped with my understanding of both wetlab and clinical trials. I seldom had to use google for terms and concepts. Knowledge is power lol. My sticker is from @morilatte 🩷

[zodiacsea]

i already have one useless degree so should i do a postbac in poetry and get another

[borrelia]

gal is here from a lab that doesn't normally do our kind of research, and shes ony a postbac so its okay she doesn't know things. but she put on her poster that it was 'concerning' that their lab mice were dying from borrelia bc 'mice are the natural reservoirs of lyme.' and i stopped her and said erm no. lab mice are literally our disease model for lyme. they are not the new world rodents that ARE the reservoirs. and the guy next to me was like "PSSSH give her a BREAK! btw how often did you say you were doing your behavioral expwriments with your mice?" and proceeded to spend the next couple minutes just ABSOLUTELY eviscerating her for her experimental design 😭😭😭

[mixelation]

Hi so I’m sorry if this question comes of as strange, but what is it like working in a lab??? Currently majoring in bio in undergrad and I’m thinking maybe I wanna go for my PhD but I’ve had people tell me working in a lab can be boring. Just curious bc you’re kind of the only person I know of who seems to be working in a lab?? Sorry just an internet stranger looking for advice 🙃

yeah, man!

i actually really like working in a lab, but i don't think it's for everyone, and not every lab experience is the same. i like what i do now because i run my own experiments, which allows me control over what i do, and also i get to do different stuff everyday. a lot of the individual tasks are like... pipetting clear liquids together, or centrifuging and then washing stuff and a bunch of times, which I can see a lot of people finding boring. some assays/techniques are really frustrating. i get annoyed with misuse of communal equipment pretty frequently (but not enough that i like... go home mad very often lmao). i like most of the people i interact with.

some of the biggest complaints i've heard from people looking to transition away from lab work are things like... sometimes you put in a lot of work for something that doesn't work and doesn't get you publishable data, and that's just science. the funding landscape can make labs that are really competitive or have toxic work cultures. i used to work with vertebrates and i was constantly coming in on the weekend just to care for them, which i hated. (i still work on the weekends pretty frequently but it feels less soul-destroying when it's an experiment you designed yourself?) some lab jobs are literally just doing the same assay all day everyday, and some people like that and some people hate it.

if you're not sure about going for a PhD (which is a HUGE commitment), i do highly recommend either getting a tech job or a postbac for a year or two to see if you like research full time! i don't think research is for everyone, but i personally find it rewarding, and even if you find out it's really boring... well, then you'll know that

[studyingdisorderlyconduct]

hoping my professor says yes to being my faculty mentor for this postbac TA fellowship wish me luck yall

[jobrxiv]

Intramural NIAID Research Opportunities (INRO) 2025 Postbac Fellowship National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Seeking recent grads for Intramural NIAID Research Opportunities, a unique paid postbac fellowship in #allergic, #immunologic, and #InfectiousDiseases See the full job description on jobRxiv: https://jobrxiv.org/job/national-institutes-of-health-national-institute-of-allergy-and-infectious-diseases-27778-intramural-niaid-research-opportunities-inro-postbac-fellowship/?feed_id=86661 #allergies #biology #biomedical_sciences #immunology #infectious_diseases #ScienceJobs #hiring #research

[travelwithezz]

#visafrance #a #visa #campusfrance #etudessuperieures #etudiantsetrangers #visaetudiant #etudiantinternationaux #etudierenfrance #etudianteafricaine #afriquedelouest #coachingscolaire #etudiantsafricains #etudesenfrance #reussiteprofessionnelle #tudiant #visabisnis #visanewzealand #visaturis #visainggris #l #tudier #tranger #tudierenafrique #visaturki #visaamerika #boursedetudes #postbac #etudiantcongolais #etudierausenegal

[amelioratewell]

The theme in our postbac cohort this semester is “Good to know, sad to hear” 😂

[horsemage]

I wonder how much of my stress over impending grad school apps comes down to only ever having been surrounded by other overachievers and not having a reference for what the average astrophysics major’s resume looks like

[dooxliss]

get the doopliss keychain so we can match, i have one on my purse

working on it! o7

decided i’ll buy in may as a self graduation gift/congratulatory gift for whatever postbac i get into (wish me luck 🙏🏽)

[threecheersforsuccess]

Alright pals, updates on life: I'm still trying to find more expansive clinical (last minute-ish) experiences to up my patient interactions, but on the good end, I'm gonna be able to shadow a chronic anesthesiologist this week! I'm excited! More pain medicine less goooooo On the other hand, I have been making good progress on my MCAT- I have finished all of my standalone UWorld questions, and I will begin redoing them soon. I have flashcards of all the questions I got wrong in which I will hang in my room. I have finished the JS biology ANKI cards, which gave me the fastest review on physiology known to man (aside from kidneys but a video can remedy that). The gameplan is to go over my flashcards and then patch up my weaknesses in-depth. I have my first full mock exam with my postbac cohort on the 20th. #studygram #cafe #food

[broomswept-thoughts]

I don’t know how I’m really feeling. i don’t feel motivated to do anything... at all. I don’t have the energy to do cooking, to do any hobbies, barely to talk to people... being with Maya pushed me to want to go out today, but I’m. So tired. When I’m back home, I just feel like there’re loads of things I gotta do... cook and meal prep, laundry, prepare for my interviews... Get my life together. And of course, prepare to go back to work on Monday. Ugh, god, I don’t want to go so bad.

I guess the good thing about these interviews is the external validation is super real lol. Like being indirectly told oh the program director does a good job recruiting a lot of good people to the program, as well as being directly told that I have a broad research experience and being told by another person who’s a PI that I’ve been doing things that show that I like science... It’s validating in that sense after being told and used as a research technician that doesn’t do anything at all other than what I’m told to and being placed in a high pressure environment where I want to shrivel up and die inside. It’s almost/ is surprising when people are encouraging to me, it’s almost just. I’ve gotten so used to associating work with being hell and emotionally strained, scary, and worthless as an experience, as well as seeing my time as a postbac as being a waste of time where I can talk about shit without doing anything that I find truly meaningful. I’m so burned out and hate my lab environment so much it’s hard for me to remember a time when I didn’t hate everything and anything that happens at work. It feels like a waste of the days and weeks and months that I have to be alive to be at this horrible workplace where I’m filled with anxiety and disgust and hatred. I hate it so much.

I feel like it doesn’t matter how much time off I get when I’m filled with exhaustion no matter how long I take off... Although to be fair I only really took a 5 day holiday (2 actual work days off). But I feel sick inside and it’s also not like interviews are a total walk in the park that I can do with my eyes closed. I just feel tired emotionally and I want to give up and cry. I’m filled with self-loathing at my work ethic but also to the lab that I’m in. I’m filled with bitterness, regret, and sadness all of the time. And the tiredness never seems to leave me, and that makes me so sad that my days are filled with leaden heaviness. I can’t even get hungry much anymore, and I just want to starve myself into dust. I just want to die inside, I hate it, I hate that I can’t get better and it’s not ending. I hate that I can’t cope well, and that I can barely cope at all.

I guess there’s generally a sense that the only thing I have to look forward to is for this godforsaken program to end in May. I’ve come so far, it’s only 5 more months (more like 4.5 months). Since August, I’ve come 4 months, and since May I’ve come 5 months. Since April, which was the start to the real hell of it all, it’s been 8 months and I’ve overcome so many emotional difficulties since then. The next few months, January, February, March, April, then May, will hopefully go by quickly. So many programs start in June, I’m going to leave start of May. This month will go by quickly with all of these interviews... and February will have one or two interviews, maybe hearing back from schools and figuring out where I’ll be and hopefully getting tickets for Japan plus it’s a shorter month, March is just a shitty month to wait for things to settle x2, and maybe I’ll leave in April or May I don’t care. I can’t care, I hate it so much, I feel like I’m about to choke. I might really ask Professor Newman if it would be a bad idea to leave at that time and maybe some other people because I can’t take it. It’s so horrible here. I can’t take it, I’m either going to leave the lab or like, leave this life, I’m so sick of this place. Maybe not life, but at least everything here is going to be dead to me, I can’t. I honest to god can NOT, I hate it with every fiber of my being. I can’t take it, it’s so horrible. It’s so horrible. I hate it, and I feel like I’m being sucked away as a person and even my interest in science is just. Like a joke. And I’m tired of being in a place where I’m expected to fight constantly as opposed to a place where you’re nurtured.

I hate it. I hate it so much. It hurts so much to be here, I hate it so much.

But as of now, I know that the cost/ benefit comes down to me staying and enduring. I think it’s always hard to come back to lab when I’ve been away for a long(er) period of time because it makes me anxious and terrified when I come back. But I know it’ll be fine since the postbacs are at least welcoming and kind to me, as with the postdocs. And that in itself will be a relief. I don’t have to hate it because they will at least be kind, and my day to day life will be fine. It will all be fine...

I can use the amount of dumb time I have if any to work on cryostat sectioning... reading more papers that I’m interested in and want to learn more about for neuroscience, and generally doing what I can to tolerate and endure living in that hellscape the best I can, each day. It’s not that each day will be the most fun and it’ll be more survival than ~thriving~, but again, 0 expectations for this to change and I’m going to make the best of this horrible time as much as possible. I officially give up relying on anyone beyond the people I really like in the lab, like I seriously could not care anymore.

I think I will try to exercise, cut my nails, and read and maybe do more music. I think these things will reduce my insanity and make me happier. Especially music, although I’m not sure how or where to start. But maybe just playing around on the ukulele will give me some insights, I don’t know.

Tomorrow will have enough time for me to make granola and go grocery shopping, get stuff for cheesecake, maybe make soup. It will be possible, I know it will be. And maybe I’ll go out with the other postbacs and not feel too stressed and anxious. I shall see.