A Guide for the Perplexed PhDs: Life After

First shared on LinkedIn.

If you are applying for graduate school, especially as an international student, you will realize that it will be hard to get to know each other in a lab before spending a few months. The best way to overcome this challenge would be a few months-long internship to familiarize yourself with the country and lab you intend to work in. However, this is usually a rare opportunity.

What if you have made a mistake? You thought the physical environment should not matter as long as you did your best, and did not choose the right lab for your future goals. For example, there is no one sharing your interest in open science, reproducibility, EDI(equity, diversity, inclusion), terrible communication inside the lab, no mentoring, low/high-level bullying of seniors, mobbing, no team feeling, limited collaboration opportunities, no conference support, micro-management, no respect until a publication and unequal budget pressure for projects.

Any of these might completely/partially happen. (If you think the school supports grad students to a certain degree, let me tell you a fact: it is usually a scam). You somewhat found your ideal peers somewhere else, got supported, survived the mess, and completed the degree. And you still consider academia as an option! Wow, this might come as a surprise; hey no worries, congratulations on your PhD, and here is a guide to not repeat the same mistake (or let’s say lower the odds)!

Although the post-doc option might be industry or academic, we will be focusing on an academic post-doc in the following sections.

I prepared a simple checklist based on my experience (personal observations, and what I heard from colleagues/peers during ~8yrs graduate student life). I applied these to my post-doc interviews. Apart from interviews with the PIs, I requested interviews with teams/members and -literally- asked these questions.

Before starting the checklist, I would like to emphasize a few important points.

• Do not be deceived by university rankings. You will be shocked when you realize that some of these top-ranked schools do not even have a basic philosophy class for a bachelor’s degree (In fact, those were the most fun lectures for me when I was taking humanity courses and discussing different philosophy concepts during my bachelor’s). After this, it will not be shocking why most of the department only focuses on showcase events, trend fields, and high-impact (popular) journal publications.
• If EDI is important for you, please note that some of the labs have showcase lab webpages having EDI figures (not updated members page to hide lower/no diversity). Check out/talk to current/past lab members. This might be an issue if you are an international student and the lab communication is terrible. Please be aware!
• CNS(Cell, Nature, Science) publications might not be a true indicator of lab success. If it is only CNS, I prefer to run away (I might be wrong but sadly there are several reasons for that).
• Do not forget to check out the publications/Google Scholar/Pubmed page. If they are focused on a specific person in a lab, this might indicate ‘favoritism’ in the lab. You do not want your hard work credit to be ignored or transferred to someone else. It might be harsh.
• Moreover, if there is no publication for 3+ years (research-wise and if it is a 5+ yrs old lab), this might not be good for your academic career if you still want to pursue one after the post-doc. Although everyone criticizes ‘publish or perish’ claiming lowering creativity and quality, publications- particularly CNS- remain one of the most important drivers of an academic career (the others might be networking and academic lineage).

1. Working hours
2. Meetings
3. Project Management Style
4. General Lab Environment
5. Personal queries

Working Hours

Whether it is fixed, flexible, or timeline-based.

You need to talk the details to learn if there is a micro-management issue.

The opposite might be true. If there is no leadership, this might be an issue as well. When I was interviewing members of a lab in the past, I realized that most of the team members were too relaxed and did not respect your time.

Meeting

How frequent in-person, whether they have general lab meetings, and what do they usually share during these meetings

I think it is important to be able to brainstorm ideas and get feedback and some help when necessary. In-person meetings are important for this purpose.

On the other hand, it is also important for lab members to be familiar with each other projects and support when necessary. General lab meetings contribute to these. It might also used to resolve general issues and improve lab communication and intra-lab collaboration if managed well.

It is rare yet you might need to explain personal issues (i.e., family, health, any urgency). These meetings might be a good indicator of how healthy the communication is in many ways.

Project Management Style

How to brainstorm, collaborations, industry partners, funding, pressure level, conferences

I usually ask about the way people brainstorm. If there is mutual respect, you can share your ideas, and everyone respects each other.

Finding a good collaborator might be difficult, but it contributes to a diversity of projects, networking opportunities, double-checking your work, and efficient timeline management. I want to know about in-lab collaborations as well. Why not combine the power of various expertise to achieve synergy?

If there is any industry partnership, I would like to learn the details of this. If it is a closed-loop project, without sharing the outcome as a research paper/conference, it might conflict with your open-access goals. It is important to have a balanced relationship between industry and academic partnerships.

Funding opportunities are crucial to maintain research activities. It would be super awesome if you apply for a grant and get support in the given lab (however, this is not the case for first-year post-docs in most cases).

Even if you are leading a project, the main manager is the PI. Budget management is a thing! If they pressure you at the beginning of a project and limit spending a lot, then force you to spend the remaining budget in the last month, this is a red flag.

Conferences are not mandatory, however, they provide networking opportunities, getting proper feedback for your work, public appearance and recognition, and having fun.

General Lab Environment

Reagent sharing, in-lab communication, experience sharing among the members, conflict resolution, technician/manager availability, ordering, undergraduate mentoring, paper writing, and authorship

These questions are especially for the team members. If there is an issue in the lab communication, oversharing or no sharing of the reagents can happen. If it is a big lab (9+) and there is no lab technician/lab manager, this will increase the number of conflicts in the lab. There should be a budget for this particular person to organize such labs. Otherwise, the duties are dumped on senior people in the lab, which prevents efficient research-focused work.

Mentorship is a natural part of the post-doc process since it helps you to be prepared for academia. Similarly above, if there are too many mentees for post-grad researcher in the lab/office, this affects work-life balance and productivity in academic research. The balance is the key here.

I think it is valuable to learn from each other. It is precious to recognize sharing one’s knowledge and experience when you/they request help (moderate). This might be one of the best gauges of communication in the lab.

Sometimes full professors are not interested in publications anymore as they do not need promotion. This is also selfish. You can inquire how you intend to complete the projects that you will be working on. Moreover, some PIs do not let you decide anything on the manuscript except providing data. They are more experienced for sure, yet we have the right to contribute our papers in our own way. Healthy discussions and mutual respect are the key here. On the other hand, some PIs add random people to your papers. Some PIs omit your name and contribution from colleagues’ main work (there are too many interesting stories that I will not share the details here). You can discuss all these to learn how writing goes with the main supervisor.

Personal Queries

Life in the city/country, life in the lab/institute/school, career prospects

It is important to have a work-life balance. Yet, most of us, PhDs, are not aware of what it is like to have a life outside.

I often ask how they enjoy the city, and whether they have time to spend time for their hobbies and personal life. You can ask about their favorite food and spots in the city/country if they are willing to share. I demand these for the work/lab environment as well. Lab retreats/activities together might be a good sign for this.

Even if some labs share this info on their website, I ask about alumni. A PI needs to respect their decision (whether industry, academic, scicomm, or something else). I ask the career prospects of current members if they want to share. I think the flexibility and diversity are the major drivers for me.

This is not the end of the story. It is important to read/hear everyone’s stories and decide it carefully considering your expectations and future directions.

I hope this post provides some hints. All the best!

Recommended reading: I think this guide is also useful in many ways, Guide to Post-Doc