A Scientist's Life For Me

For all the lay people out there, I thought I'd take some time and describe the life of a mol-bio grad student in a little more detail.

The first year usually consists of taking a few classes while simultaneously doing rotations in a few research labs to see which is a good fit. Think speed dating, but the interviews last ten weeks and you're frustrated the whole time because your experiments don't work. Okay, maybe they're more similar than I thought. But I digress. Students usually approach rotations with much trepidation, because the lab we choose will be our second home for the next five years, on average. I refer to it as a "second home" because students usually keep 60-80 hour work weeks, give or take a few, visiting the lab most every day for varying amounts of time. In return, tuition is waived and they're given a stipend of roughly $20K per year, depending on institution. I try not to think too much about what that would work out to as an hourly wage.

Speaking of earning sweet moolah, students may also compete for fellowships, both within their institution and from external sources. This not only looks good on resumes, but sometimes leads to some extra cash in your pocket. Outside funding means you're off the payroll of your P.I. (Primary Investigator, aka Professor, aka Boss), which means he/she might throw you a few thousand more per year on top of your fellowship bucks. It's win-win all around.

At the beginning of the second year, students will pick a lab in which to stay and work on a long-term project that will eventually become their thesis. Students also usually finish their course requirements during their second year. Once the classes are done, a student does research full-time. Candidacy, or "quals" as it's sometimes called, occurs during the third year, after which students are considered full-fledged "Ph.D. Candidates," and the remaining time is spent working towards their dissertation.

Again, from start to finish, the whole process takes five years, give or take a few. I know people who've flown through in four years, and others who have taken as long as seven. There's really not an official point at which a master's degree is awarded. At least in America, the programs are designed around doctorates, but if a student decides to leave the program between candidacy and graduation, they can usually wrangle an M.S. for time served. Typically though, a student will spend the entire five or so years and graduate with their doctorate.


I'm getting toward the end of my second year now. I joined my lab in June '07 and jumped into an existing project investigating breast tumor metastasis. That's all I can really say in such a public forum without being disappeared in the night. Hopefully there'll be a paper out within the next few months, and then the game will really be afoot.