Originally written November 2011
Hello all,
At this point in the year, with grad
applications closing and the waiting process beginning (or continuing
for some of us), this post might not seem all that relevant to the
seniors who have hopefully figured out how to apply for graduate
schools. This post may seem early for juniors who are interested in grad
school but figure they have time before they apply. Maybe the
occasional freshman or sophomore who stumbles across this blog will
think that grad school is so far in the distance it's not even worth
thinking about right now. However, the following advice I'll share is to
help you figure out what about biology interests you, a good
thing to know for grad school or not, but will also help you get in if
you want to go there. Also, some of these points have applications for
grant writing and collaborations for those of us who have already sent
our applications in and are nervously checking admissions websites too
many times a day (or is that just me?).
1. Skim articles
There's
a lot of research going on out there. The awesome thing about biology
is how diverse it is: on one end of the size spectrum, we have DNA
sequences and neurotransmitters; on the other, we have global ecological
processes and evolutionary time scales. A surprisingly small number of
people research cute mammals; fascinating biological questions can
frequently be more easily answered by looking at fish, invertebrates,
plants, fungi, microbes, and/or viruses. Even with the organism and
field of interest set, the amount of radically different questions you
can ask is astonishing.
If you're a freshman or
sophomore, most of the literature (the body of scientific articles on
the web and in textbooks) might seem pretty dense. Pick up Scientific American or browse online journals (e.g. the Journal of Young Investigators,
www.jyi.org). What interests you? Are you gung ho about curing
diseases? Are mangrove trees the coolest and weirdest thing? Are all the
most interesting animals the ones that have been dead for millions of
years? Figure out what your general interests are and read as much as
you can.
2. E-mail a professor at your university to help with their research
Browse
faculty web pages to see what kind of research is going on at your
school. If you find something that seems pretty cool, send them an
e-mail. Here's the format I always use when sending "hello" e-mails:
Dear Dr. ______,
My
name is _____. I am a (your year in school) in (your major) and am very
interested in (specific area within the general area the professor
researches). I would like to help with (specific project the lab is
working on) and am able to dedicate ___ hours a week to the project. Would you be free to meet with me sometime this week?
Best,
(Your name)
Details
are crucial. Professors get lots of e-mails from students and a lot of
them say, "I'd like to help out in the lab." This tells the professor
nothing about your interests and makes them have to take more time out
of their day to dig and find out what you're interested in before
helping you get into a project. Make it easy for them! My undergraduate advisor, Dr.
Alison Bell, studies three-spine stickleback personality. Saying "I'm
interested in animal personality" in an e-mail to her is like going up
to someone at a party wearing a Deftones t-shirt and saying, "I like rock music." In both cases,
the answer is technically okay but... you could do so much better! Be
specific. Most professors' websites list the projects they're working
on, so find one that sounds cool and mention it in the e-mail. You might
be redirected to a graduate student, which is fine. The point is to
start helping out with actual research.
You'd
be amazed at how things change when you actually start doing research.
Dr. Cheeseman, the former head of the Integrative Biology Honors program at the University of Illinois, once told me that finding the
research you like the most is all about finding the research you dislike
the least! Everyone loves the big results that get published and
advance our understanding of science. To find that big result, though,
many hours were spent hunched over a microscope late at night in a
windowless room, monotonously counting the number of ants in Petri
dishes in scorching weather, and/or fiddling with statistical programs
and Excel. In every case, the amount of failure before that result
probably led to some very frustrating days. If you don't like research, I
don't blame you! And yet, in the middle of all that, you sometimes get a
result that, if you're lucky, no one in the world but you knows yet.
When you publish that result and people around the world read about it,
they have you to thank for discovering it. That's prestige! Of course,
don't get a big head if you happen to find a cool result... all we're
doing is discovering patterns that already exist in nature. Yet, you get
to live with the fact that you contributed to one of humanity's biggest
drives: our desire to understand how the world around us works.
3. Do consistent work
Back
to reality. If you've made it this far, you're probably helping a
graduate student with his or her project. Sure, this part of research
might not be that exciting (but remember that last paragraph!). Stick
with it, though. Look at yourself from the professor's perspective. Your
professor wants you to do well. They're where they are at in life right
now because one of their professors' kindness however many years
ago. However, there are lots of students who want to be famous
researchers one day. 1-10 students e-mail your professor every month
asking to do research with them (minor side note: it took me three tries over the course of two years before I got to work in the Bell lab!). Your professor wants students
to do well (and of course help with the lab), but a lot of students
will drop out once they realize the research doesn't interest them, they
become too busy, etc. If you stick around, you're showing the professor
that you're investing in the lab for, right now, minimal return. If
you're with the lab for longer than a semester, you'll start to get
sweeter deals thrown your way. This means authoring a poster at a
research conference, being included on a paper, or eventually getting a
project of your own. Keep it up! Even if you don't get published by the
time you graduate, your professor won't forget how much you've invested
into the lab. For someone who's writing you a letter of recommendation,
that's pretty important!
4. Read!
Once
you start doing research, ask your graduate student or professor for
articles that pertain to what you're doing. This will put your work in
context and save you a lot of time in looking for/through articles. Talk
to a grad student or post-doc (preferably not your professor... they're
busy people!) if you don't understand something in an article.
Outside
of lab, set aside a little time every week to read an article on your
own. It can seem intimidating to think how you can contribute to science
when everyone seems so smart. Well, the best thing to do is just read
as much as you can. Push through it, even if you don't understand
everything. When I started reading scientific articles, it would take
over an hour to chew through a few pages. The authors always referenced
so much that I'd never heard of, or had perhaps heard once in a class
but wasn't sure I knew all that well. I kept it up, though, and over
time the concepts had popped up frequently enough that I'd learned a
good number of them. When I first started reading behavioral literature,
for example, I had a hard time remembering what the word "latency"
(similar to "delay," usually before the onset of a behavior) meant.
Every few behavioral articles I read, though, the authors mentioned
latency to shoal, or latency to approach a novel stimulus, or latency to
eat. Slowly but surely, I felt like I learned another language.
You'll
find some articles a lot easier to read than others. The articles that
come easiest to you probably cover topics you'd be interested doing
research in! Check out what else the authors have written. If you come
across a cool section in the article, look up the articles the authors
cite and read those too. Over time, you'll get ideas for projects you
think would be pretty cool. Look for gaps in the literature you could
potentially fill with some of your own research. These gaps are usually
manifested with the phrases, "...is not well-documented," "... poorly
understood," or "... yet to be shown." Future Directions sections of
articles are goldmines for potential research.
5. Do your own project
Once
you've found something that looks pretty cool, run it by your graduate
student. There might be a way for him or her to help you with your own
project, or for you to use the research you've already helped with. Once
he/she gives you the green light, bring it up to your professor. If
you've shown that you're committed to the lab, the professor should be
willing to set aside some resources for you. Be thankful! Hammer out a
protocol (reading articles is also good for getting ideas on this),
check it with a few people, and then start! Even if you don't get
significant results, the experience of doing your own project will prove
invaluable for later. Again... if you find that you liked working for
someone else but you're getting lost or don't like doing independent
work... that's completely fine. Industry research is less independent
than academia (i.e. someone's probably telling you what to do) but
usually pays a lot better :-)
6. Start looking for researchers to work with
By
now, you're probably a junior or senior and have a decent idea if
you're interested in graduate school. Before you run off to Harvard's
faculty page to find a potential advisor, remember that in graduate
school you'll be spending most of your day in your lab space working
with your professor and the other students in the lab. Getting into an
Ivy League school will look great for your CV, sure, but if you're
working with someone whose work doesn't really interest you, or you just
don't get along with anybody around you, you're in for a miserable 5-7
years (if you don't change your mind and drop before then). Consider
your potential advisor as a potential parent. Is this person so busy
that he or she can't devote time to you? Is the lab so big you're lucky
if you ever see your advisor? It's easy to brush those things aside for
the thought of working in a prestigious university or a big-name
researcher's lab, but when you're in year 3 of your studies and
desperately running experiments and preparing for upcoming preliminary
examinations, you don't want to be left on your own.
7. Introduce yourself via e-mail
This
is a crucial step a lot of applicants to graduate school skip. Place
yourself in the head of a professor at a lab who gets an e-mail from
graduate admissions about Applicant A who has applied to work in your
lab. You've never heard of Applicant A. Maybe he's qualified enough to
get into the university. But what if he's a total psycho? What if you
let him into the lab and he just creates problems with everyone around
him and hinders, instead of helps, the lab's research? Applying to
someone's lab without contacting them first is like asking someone who
doesn't know you on a date through one of their friends. Sure, it could
work out... but probably not. Here's a template I adhered to when
sending out my e-mails:
Dear Dr. _____,
My
name is _____. I am a (your year) at (your university) studying (your
major. Throw in 'honors' here if you've got it). I work with (head of
your lab), researching (what you've been doing). I am very interested in
(specific project the professor you're e-mailing is working on),
specifically (specific details. Referencing papers the professor has
published will look awesome here and shows that you're serious about
this).
I was curious if you are
taking on graduate students for the following year. I am currently
applying for the NSF-GRFP and have included my CV and transcript for
your convenience.
Best,
(your name)
I'll explain the bit about the NSF-GRFP in a bit. Anyway, be specific.
You want them to be able to perfectly visualize you working in the lab
and how awesome that would be. Some professors won't respond to your
e-mail... that's fine, just move on. Some will say right away that they
don't have openings for grad students. Oh well. Some, though, will
e-mail you back fairly soon and will want to hear more about your ideas
for a project. You have your foot in the door! Keep pushing. Read more
articles, and feel out what the professor thinks is reasonable. One
professor I e-mailed wanted me to have essentially an entire proposal by
our next e-mail. Another took the approach of "so you're interested in
this general topic. Here are some ideas about potential projects based
on what resources the lab has. What do you think?" and had a bigger hand
in helping me get to our final agreement. If you're not camera shy, I'd
recommend requesting a Skype interview. Don't dress up, but look
presentable. Come with plenty of questions about the lab (how big is it?
Can the professor meet with you one hour per week? What resources does
the lab have? Does the lab collaborate with anyone else at the
university?). Remember, a good connection with a lab is a two-way
street; maybe the lab isn't right for you! Attaching a face to the
applicant, and really talking through your ideas in real time, can make
the professor much more interested in getting you into his/her lab.
8. Apply to the graduate school and apply for funding
Science
majors are pretty lucky when it comes to grad school. Humanities majors
have to pay for the knowledge they acquire in these extra years of
schooling, while science majors usually don't have to pay. There are a
few reasons for this. In grad school, a huge chunk of your time will be
spent doing research, and usually that research contributes to the lab
and helps your advisor. When advisors write grants, they include asking
for money for graduate students. Sometimes an advisor can pay for you to
work in their lab, which is great. Other times, the university will let
you be a TA for a class and will consider that as your payment.
But,
sometimes an advisor would love to have you work with them but he/she
doesn't have money. Or, the university gave you an offer but you'd barely have any time to actually do research because you'd be spending 30 hours a week giving lectures and grading exams for the Intro to Bio class you're TA'ing. In any case, you should apply for external funding. Not only
does it give you the possibility of coming into grad school with lots of
money and the ability to focus on the research that interests you, it
shows potential advisors that you have initiative and want to pull your
own weight. The NSF-GRFP and EPA STAR fellowships are two big ones to
keep an eye out for.
9. E-mail other potential advisors, apply
Self-explanatory. Don't put all your eggs in one basket! Applying to 4-6 schools is usually a good idea.
10. (Optional) Consider one-year alternative programs
Do
you have to go to grad school right away? One great option to consider
is the Fulbright, a one-year scholarship to do research or teach English
in any non-US country in the world. The Fulbright has to be done with a
"local" university, research institution, or NGO. Here's more
information on that: http://us.fulbrightonline.org/home.html.
The application process is similar to graduate school. You e-mail
researchers you're interested in working with (though navigating web
pages in another language can get tricky!). Tell them that you're applying for a scholarship that would pay for essentially everything.
Over half of your e-mails won't get responses. That's fine, you
wouldn't want to work with them anyway. Be nice to those who do
respond... they're taking a chance! Be humble, upfront, and
enthusiastic. Talk about the research you would like to do, how it fits
with what they do, and hopefully you'll come to an agreement on a cool
project. This adviser has to write a letter of affiliation for you,
essentially saying, "This person and I have talked, it would be great
for him/her to come here, he/she just needs the money." Then... apply
for the Fulbright. If you're interested, google "Fulbright" and the name of your university; there's most likely a scholarships office you didn't know about with enthusiastic advisers eager to help.
11. Wait unbearably long for decisions to come back. Keep reading.
Self-explanatory.
In March or April, if the decisions that come back aren't exactly what
you wanted, consider looking at job boards like the Texas A&M board (http://wfsc.tamu.edu/jobboard/)
to work as a field assistant for someone. You'll get experience, money,
a better idea on what you're interested in, and hopefully get to travel
somewhere cool. Then... reapply to grad programs! Or try something
else.
It's been a very long process but it's been incredibly rewarding. If you're earnest, upfront, and motivated, there's little
doubt you will do well.
-Matt
, or even end up in Australia watching fairy wrens through binoculars. Tasmanian devils (right) need research love, too. The options are out there! A Fulbright alumna I know did the ‘fieldwork rock star’ lifestyle for a year, where she hopped from field project to field project. She barely broke even financially, but she got to spend a year traveling the world while simultaneously advancing her career. This is a great way to get exposed to a lot of types of research, too, and see what you like the best.