All grad students should be required to read your blog before choosing a lab or an advisor. Everything you wrote couldn't be more true.
yes. yes. yes.
This is all sooooooo true. It would be very good to just avoid bad labs (or even labs that are not a good match) from the beginning. Senior grad students will tell you the real deal (several did when I was visiting grad schools). Post-docs are generally clueless (I was) since their interactions with the PI can be quite different. I was much more of an equal.
Have you read Allegra Goodman's Intuition? It is so scary.right.on about what it's like to be in a biomed research lab (it's all postdocs but still!). She does such a great job of capturing the dysfunctional nature of it all that it makes me a little queasy to read it! Apparantly, Nature reviewed it and said, [paraphrasing] Goodman is not a scientist but she fooled me. Count me in that category too.
Being your female advisor's first grad student is the riskiest thing you will ever do. It can turn out to be a glorious experience where you are adequately funded and mentored superbly in a gender-aware environment, or you can end up in a totally fucked-up situation where your advisor:
- constantly discourages you about your prospects in academia.
- decides to dislike you because you are 'too feminine'.
- writes the male student's first-author paper for him but will not so much as offer timely feedback on yours.
- gets the technician to help the male student with his research but you, not only have to do your research but help the technician set up the lab.
- foists off a complicated project on you and finds a co-advisor for you and then argues and fights with the co-advisor on every small detail of your thesis.
- gets mighty pissy when she sees you talking to her husband at a conference dinner and then proceeds to ignore you for the remaining 4 days of the conference. The husband ignores you too. Keep in mind that they have been married 12 years by this time.
The only warning I had was from a MS student who did her project work with her. But I was proud and naive and ambitious and decided that of course if wouldn't happen to me because I was not as femme as the MS student. I guess I got what I deserved.
I sometimes fantasize about a secret network of grad students who share information about their PIs anonymously.
oy, angry grad, that's a pretty horrible situation! To say the least. I always (somehow or other) ended up with female advisors but got really lucky, I think. They were all strong, independent, opinionated people, as well as really good scientists. But since my field tends towards the more being independent side of things (ie, advisors never give anyone any project whatsoever, except for master's projects), I think we avoid that potential problem. And ack! writing someone's paper for them? My advisors were much too busy writing their own papers (a consequence or cause of the fact that grad students have their own projects, the faculty actually have their OWN projects that they do with post-docs or undergrads or techs) to write my papers (if only...). It's always a problem- some women in academia see it as they goal to make it as hard for other women in academia instead of subverting the dominant male-biased culture. Annoying as hell.
great advice!
just dont do it in a super crazy way like a student who was looking into a lab of a friend of mine, he actually went as far as to set up an email address that the students in the lab could use to send him an anonymous email as to what they thought about the lab, and then if that wasn't bad enough, he actually set up 3 in case the first ones were being used while someone else wanted to send the email. I think they sent him an email telling them they hated it just so that they wouldn't end up with this guy.
Nicole, thank you. So many bad experiences, so little time! I think the main problem is that first-years are (largely) too naive to know to ask; I certainly was. I give this advice unsolicited to each one I run across, but they never believe me.
Turtlebella, I haven't read it yet. It sounded too much like real life to be amusing, and for depressing, I have work! And I totally would have trashed the PI to that dude too. Urgh.
Angrygrad, I've seen some of that too. (And no, I don't think anyone deserves that, regardless of the naive illusions we all start grad schoool with!) I see it as female PIs who've drunk the Kool-Aid: they've bought into this system that puts them down, and because they accept their own belittlement, they're unable to step back and break out of the pattern.
Titania (Mr. S's advisor) sits all her female members down at the beginning and says 'You're going to have to work twice as hard as the men to get ahead, and that's just how it is now; you can help change it when you're in power. I will do my best to help you achieve your goals, but it won't be easy.' Which is the most realistic starting warning I've heard.
It can be tricky, though, because Good Lab can morph into Bad Lab in a number of ways...
My husband picked a great lab. Great advisor, up and coming in her field, someone who gave good guidance in selecting projects and really *mentored* students. And then he watched as someone who joined *after* him tore the lab apart with interpersonal issues, separating it into whispering, backbiting, factions ... while his supportive, helpful, adviser started putting up roadblocks to his defending because she didn't want him to leave and leave her stuck with the others.
By the end, he was that senior grad student, subtly shaking his head at fresh-faced newbies. HE's heard that things improved after Fractious Student left, but it seems to have permanently affected Nurturing Advisor's career...
On a similar note, we found that most new graduate students are guilty of "it will be different for me" syndrome. You speak with a potential mentor who is vibrant and appears supportive. However, their students stagnate and are bitter. The newbies convince themselves that they will work harder and do better, that it will be different. Ahhh, No! If the majority of a profs students tell you to run, please listen.
Where was this advice when I began grad school? I lucked into a great group, my husband had the group from hell-the year he graduated his advisor openly declared that he woul never take another domestic student.
Good times-we have been out for five years now-I wonder when we will begin to perpetuate the "grad school was the best time of my life" myth. Postdoc appointments were significantly better.
Being the first grad student of a new PI is always a bit of a gamble, I learned. Even though you may have worked with them before, you don't know how they will handle all their new tasks, like perhaps now mainly advising and writing and leaving the "real science" to students (and be disappointed with the results, or lack thereof). Also missing: experienced lab members who could help in one way or another.
A different issue is "stress" between one lab member and the boss. Misunderstandings, lack of discussions, results, etc. Which drags down the mood and productivity of everyone else as well. Fortunately it is being recognized, and I hope it will be solved.
Sara, that's terrible- and not avoidable. Though of course I don't know the advisor, I would rather think it should affect her career: it's her job to fire people like that, and to support her students' work above her personal mental health! And that said, let me tell you about Smelly Guy From Bulgaria in the next lab over who took a good two years to get fired... Truly a pity for your husband, though.
Strugi, I promise to never, ever pretend it was the best time of my life. A friend ran into a recent grad who said 'You're at Snooty U? I hated every minute!' Yep.
Amelie, that's definitely a rough one. They probably don't know how they're going to handle it either. And lots of problem-solving karma in your lab's direction.
A belated thanks for sending the good karma over (I wanted to post ages ago!) Not sure if it has worked, though, but there have been some longer talks at least in attempt to improve the situation...
Commenting by HaloScan
