Reader Blog TakeOVAH: Training your n00b Grad

Apr 05 2012 Published by under Uncategorized

A reader asked me to write a guide on how to crush the n00b monk(tress)’s minds. Instead, I will reframe this as a ‘how not to incur the wrath of your elders post’. Listen the fuck up, young’uns!

Figure 1: Do you really want a lab full of experienced engineers, scientists, and the like trying to plot your demise? I'll answer for you, oh gods in teh name of baby pandas no!

A small enough differential element allows you to assume curvature is insignificant, just sayin'. *Shove*

You’re a fuck up

“Excuuuuuuse me,” you may say. “I was a straight A student who was also the volleyball captain that won all four years I was in college, AND I engineered a self-propulsion robot.” Guess what? The era of N00b Who was Pro at All the Things is OVER. You are going to fuck up, in abundance, and at the worst times. You will spend years banging your head against the wall trying to get a hypothesis, any hypothesis, to work. This is what graduate school is all about, so gird your loins. Additionally, do not walk up to your elder monktresses after two weeks, two months, or two years bitching about “how hard science is, waaaaaah!” because they have been miserable a lot fucking longer than you. STFU (srsly).

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Vintage Hermitage: Advice to the n00bs

Dec 12 2011 Published by under Uncategorized

Hermitage: I posted this shit like 3 years ago and it's all totes still true.

So when I'm not on top of the world, joking about porn, or sonicating things in deadly chemicals I like to give advice about getting into grad school. Not because I know so much about it but because I am an atypical student. And by atypical I mean 'has made every letter under the rainbow, dammit.' And the great shiny tower of academia would have you think that you can burn incense, chant prayers, bake admissions cookies and write over-the-top essays and they will simply laugh at your imputence. That is, if they don't smite you.

I remember when I was applying I got my google-fu on daily to see if there was ANYONE and I mean ANYONE out there who was as Stupid As I Was and still got into Holy Graduate School. The advice I received came in 3 varieties:

  1. You wish
  2. Get a job in industry as backup
  3. omg like I iz applying too wit a bad GPA!!! let me kno how it goes, kthxbai

I think the first two demonstrate how a lot of academically minded people are A) arses, B) cracked out of their freaking minds. Industry? Backup? Industrial reps are on much of an ego trip as Academics, let me tell you. That and reps all knew my declarations of love for industry were filthy lies when they saw the CV I crammed onto one page and called a Resume and saw continuous academic research since I was a fetus. But I made it into the ego-filled tower and I have the secret weapon, the move that make academics submit and cry for mercy (tehehe) and it is:

*drumroll* (who said I was mature?)

*no really, drumroll*

RESEARCH!!

Well, duh, seriously. Nothing can compensate for sucking at classes like rocking at benchwork. An important part of this endeavor is not exhibiting what I call 'stereotypical pre-med behavior' (Stereotypical because it's not always true people! I love watching Hopkins as much as anyone!!) Symptoms of which include:

  1. Declarations of how much harder pre-med/med school is than grad school
  2. Goofing off at work because you only want the name on your resume
  3. Rolling your eyes when you do have to do work because you were posting a Very Important Message on the future professional arseholes forum
  4. Attempting to bully your PI to work his/her connections to let you shadow a doctor and/or more famous PI

All of these will cause your PI and your labmates to hate your guts. And if PI did not hate your guts previously he/she will due to the sheer inundation of spleen venting that will occur in their office from his/her student's when they even HEAR you so much as THOUGHT about asking for a recommendation. Because having your PI like you is very, very important.

Remember the 3-way Mexican standoff at Club Hel in the Matrix? Think how screwed Trinity would have been if she'd gone solo? Being an atypical student is like being Trinity, having PIs that love you and work their butts off for you is like having Morpheus and Seraph watching your back. But Love is not all you need. You also need to articulate your awesomeness at every opportunity, especially to PIs. Oh, let me use my handy all caps to reinforce:

TALK TO PIs BEFORE YOU APPLY!!!

If they don't like you they just won't answer, there will be no lightning bolt that comes crashing through your ceiling because you interrupted the Holy Ones. More likely they will be 1) ignore you 2) send you a blow-off email such as: refer to my website 3) inundate you with all their papers from the last 20 yrs and ask what you think about them. In all cases they will still recall your name favorably when looking at your application as long as it well-written (no form letter bullshit) and had enough gratuitous flattery about their work. This is very important for Atypical Students because you want as many people to think as many nice things about you as possible before they see The GPA. It's like how SOs do nice things before informing their spouses they are deadly assassins, had an affair, or didn't do the laundry last night. Even then you will still get rejected. I even had one Super University refer me to the local community college. But doing all these things increase you chances of sneaking in the back door. In conclusion:

YES, YES I AM JUST AS STUPID AS YOU. AND I GOT INTO GRAD SCHOOL. AND IT IS AWESOME!!*

*3 years older Hermtiage: For the record, yes I still think grad school is awesome
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No-Snitches

Dec 09 2011 Published by under Uncategorized

It is no secret that academia has a ‘no-snitches’ policy…one that is eerily reminiscent of the attitudes of impoverished URMs when faced with providing evidence to violent crimes. This issue, when combined with the total ineptitude of academia’s interpretation of human resources, can lead to situations where bad things happen, but no one wants the blowback from reporting it through official channels. This can be a combination of fearing blackballing within the profession (snitches can never be trusted) and a cynical knowledge that reporting shit rarely results in any official action.

Figure 1: Hermitage has been aware from a young age that snitches sleep in ditches, metaphorical or otherwise

Snitch break!
This issue has been bouncing around in my head for a while due to recent shenanigans where clearly inappropriate shenanigans were had, but due to the situation and context in which it happened, is a total hir-said, hir-said situation. Your cynical D-List Monktress was firmly of the opinion that dwelling on it was a waste of time, while her more idealistic friends were firmly of the ‘Report it! It’s wrong!’ mentality. Ignoring the fact that knowing who to even complain to, and to what purpose, is not always clear, how bad does something have to be before you are compelled to take a stand? Should the criteria be severity, or simply how easy something is to prove? Should you always do the right thing, or should your career come first?

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Teh Emailz

Nov 10 2011 Published by under Uncategorized

Emailing folks can be a situation fraught with anxiety. Written exchanges are intrinsically more challenging than verbal; written words do not convey the inflections of speech and facial expressions that are critical to face-to-face communication. So your favorite D-List Monktress is here to drop some knowledge on your n00b asses.

Proper Salutation
If this is your first time emailing an elder monk, always err on the side of caution and use their proper title (e.g. Hello Prof. So & So, Dear Dr. Bigwig). If they later tell you to call them by their first name, obviously you should comply. However, don’t make the automatic assumption that because they sign their reply email with their first name that you can become more casual. In the age of the internetz automatic signatures are all the rage, and 99% of their emails will be to their fellow peers, not peons like you. Hence, most will not bother to edit their shit for the 1%. If you can’t take the easy way out of addressing a woman as Doctor, Professor, etc do not just assume they are Mrs. That shit’s fucking annoying.

Don’t be too casual
Just because you’ve taken a class with a professor for two semesters in a row doesn’t make you buddies. Just because you have borrowed Secretary Johnson’s stapler every Thursday before orthopedic biomechanics doesn’t mean you can email ‘hey, can you do this thing by Friday? Thanks Janey!’ Asking people to do shit for you in a respectful manner can make things 100x easier than they would be otherwise. And for those of you mewling ‘but that’s their job, why do I need to kiss their ass?’ stfu. I know you’ve spent several times in your life bitching that someone ordered you around like a peon without so much as a please or thank you, so pay that shit forward.

Write every email for elder monk eyes
Why? You may ask, why can’t I jet off a quick email to my boss saying ‘yo, collaborator Y’s samples ran SUPER AWESOME with my Epicsauce Technique’? Because oftentimes, rather than rewrite your info more eloquently so you don’t look like a hippy nerd, your boss or co-worker will forward that shit out to relevant folks with nothing more than an ‘FYI’ slapped on it. Moral of the story: write every email as if it were going to be forwarded to a Relatively Important Person. Consistently sounding sharp over email makes more of a difference than you’d think.

Figure 1: Some people don't speak fluent LOLCats, mmkay?

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Vintage Hermitage: Learning to Say Le Hells No

Aug 23 2011 Published by under Uncategorized

I've learned a lot of lessons in my short graduate school trials. Don't wear heels if you live on Mount Everest, don't crack Shakespearean sex jokes when passing by faculty offices, don't let your minions get too comfortable, and so on and so forth. But the most important thing I learned (the hard way), and my mini muffin PhD cadettes should learn right now, is How to Say No.

Not just no, hell no.

Hells to the No.

Hell raised to the Motherfucking No Power.

Figure 1: Read it, live it, love it

Blootiy Bloot
What I learned with a quickness upon engaging in PhD hijinks, is that if you are in any way capable, if you don't screw the pooch at least 40% of the time, if you even hint at having some common sense, so much extracurricular bullshit will pile into your lap it's not even funny. And since I liked feeling needed and capable I generally lapped that shit up. I was sooooooo speshul because I was basically the lab bitch...except getting work done was incredibly onerous (on top of the whole 'Hermitage enjoys eviscerating herself as a sport' issue).

And you know what? That was a glorious waste of time. No one (except Professor Positive) was going 'Oh damn, thank goodness we have Hermitage on top of reordering this shit, and being the instrument manager on Godawful Expensive Help me Jesus equipment, and running Godawful Specialized Technique Room.' No, no one gave a shit. I didn't get an award, or a placard, or even liquor. All I got was a lot of stress not related to what I was hired to do. I found myself taking care of shit that wasn't my job but was left in my lap because everyone knew Hermitage was Captain Save a Hoe when stuff was broken. And my PI finally had to start saying no for me because I was too much of a wuss to do it for myself.

Until one day I was decompressing about stuff I had to fix the last week and an outside user was all 'when were you nominated to be the lab mom?'. And then I hit the Le Hells No button. When the PhD nooblets came asking me for crap I was all 'Look that shit up and get the flookity floo out of my face, fools'. I might have repeated verbatim lectures my mom delivered to me along the lines of 'your goddamn fingers are not fucking broken go do it yourself'. I had to go burn a Bible just to make sure the transformation into Parental Unit did not go to completion (Omg, I'm fucking kidding, calm the fuck down, have some communion wine. Shit.).

And it was glorious because I had a lot more free time and was a lot less grumpsauce and more time to think about my Awesometacular Science. Which impressed my PI when I could communicate in words other than 'rarrrghhhbleh'. And is also, you know, my job.

Moral of the Story: Do not be afraid to say no. Your professor should respect you for it and no one's crying hot tears of joy that you're there to clean up their shit. And even if they were it's not really worth it.

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Choosing Your Epicsauce Laboratory: Part IV

Aug 18 2011 Published by under Uncategorized

The zombie topic shambles on, looking for unsuspecting n00bs to maul, spreading the D-List n00b virus knowledge to the masses.

What is the departmental culture?
The answer to this question is almost as important as anything on this list. The culture of a department drives the personality of profs hired to work there, whether having a life outside the office (and admitting to it) is acceptable, if you get paid on time, and getting access to resources without department politics coming into play. There are exceptional laboratories that are little islands of sanity in the face of departmental cray-cray, but do you really want to be in a department where the only people you talk to at happy hour are your lab mates?


Figure 1: Hordak kept trying to force She-Ra into being a model employee even though she clearly failed at the Horde's tenants of tyranny and brutality

By the power of Linebreakskull!

Will you get to write your own papers?
Learning to write a compelling document detailing the science you’ve done, and how it fits into the bigger picture, is a critical skill to learn whether you plan on staying in academia or not. But many people despise writing up their work and will avoid it with the fire of a thousand suns (the hardest part of graduating is writing your thesis!)…which may make having a PI who will whip your work into a Nature paper for you sound really tempting. However, ultimately you are a BIG loser if you never learn how to write a compelling story about your work.

Listen to what your potential adviser has to say
There is the age old cliché about dating that states ‘when someone shows you who they are, believe them’. As I have said previously, some people are so tied up in impressing a professor that they let what hir says in return fly in one ear and straight out the other. If a PI states that they’re a micro-managing dick, but that it’s an excellent chance to ‘prove yourself’ or some other bullshittery, get thine ass the fuck out. If a PI bemoans all their students are idiots, so they really really need someone bright like you, stuff your ego back in your fanny pack and gtfo. This is even more important when the PI is new, and you have no grad students to try and scry the truth from.

Do you like the students that are already there?
This is a point that, surprisingly, is often not considered by people choosing a lab. It’s true that in many cases you will eventually end up solo on your own project and may not have to interact closely with other people in your lab. But the people who staff the lab, especially senior members, really drive the personality and culture of the group, sometimes even more so than the PI. Do you really want to be the only apolitical person in a lab of Beltway junkies? Do you want to be the only introvert teetotaler in a lab of noon happy hour extroverts? I’m not saying the answer to these questions is always a resounding NO, but they are important things to consider for your future sanity.

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In Which the Monktress is Grumpysauce

Aug 02 2011 Published by under Uncategorized

Your favorite D-List Monktress is emerging from her central-AC cave to yell at the n00bs on her lawn. Today’s topic is about idea ownership, and how it doesn’t mean what n00bs think it means. I am really only speaking about the S&E part of STEM, there have already been kerfluffles amongst our nerdy brethren about different conventions for intellectual property and I do not want to go there. I don’t know what mathematicians do and I don’t know what field goes in ‘T’, so disclaimer: This ain’t about you, fool.

First grumble is about the eternal battle of I Came Up with This Awesome Idea and Now My PI Talks About it Like it’s Hir’s. Listen to the D-List monktress when I say you probably did not conceive and formulate the research in question all by yourself. I know, I know, you totally came up with this idea way outside your prof’s area of expertise and hir doesn’t know hir ass from hir elbow anyway, so how could they have helped you? Bullshit. Even if your PI doesn’t know shit for beans about the problem, your PI knows how to sell it. There are always exceptions, but most PI’s know how to get shit published and how to get money to get shit published. This requires a certain amount of salesmanship and political maneuvering you don’t know a thing about. Your PI knows how to paint a big picture question compelling enough so that hir colleagues will be interested in it, and furthermore so that funding agencies want to hand over the monies to see it come to fruition. Even if you come up with the solution to cold fusion, you probably do not know how to obtain institutional support and money for said project.

Figure 1: I mean, your PI clearly lies in wait outside your office just drooling for your brilliant idea fruit to ripen so he can win a Nobel Prize. Clearly

Line break!

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On when your data's an asshole

Jul 22 2011 Published by under Uncategorized

Today, I will ruminate on an issue even your favorite D-List Monktress struggles with… taking your experiments personally. As in, all bad results are a personal affront to your abilities as a researcher, and ever goof is proof that you should just cut your losses and become a magician’s assistant.

Unfortunately, failure is an integral part of the scientific process. Even more unfortunately, I do not handle long-term failure well AT ALL. It had gotten to the point I would intentionally schedule experiments in the dead of night when there were no witnesses to my infantile rages. The final result was I was sleep-deprived, I was stressed, and my fists looked like a bare-knuckle boxer’s from my punching walls, tables, and various other hard surfaces.

 
Figure 1: I wish I could Mangekyo Sharingan my results sometimes

Line break karate chop!

Clearly something had to change, because your D-List Monktress does not have an adamantium endoskeleton and walls are really fucking hard. So I ran around trying to find something that would help detach me from the outcome of my work. And I finally figured out two things (neither of which are yoga or deep breathing): exercise, and telling myself it wasn’t my fault.

Exercise became a reward system for me, and was a constructive way to deal with frustration. It became some sort of physiological side experiment in contrast to my thesis project, hey my srs business experiment didn’t work but I totally picked up heavier shit than I did the day before! The euphoria of your body being able to do things it wasn’t able to before can help buoy you through shit data. And exercise apparently makes you less likely to die and stuff, so it’s a win-win situation.

In addition to exercise was my cheesy mantra that it wasn’t my fault. All I could do was prepare everything to the best of my ability, and whatever happened, happened. This of course sounds fantastic in theory but usually goes to shit when you are in the weeds trying to get through an epicfail experiment. There are still times when I literally need to get up, walk away for a moment and repeat my mantra, before coming back to the task at hand.

I am certainly not perfect, but I no longer swear for several minutes at a time when something goes awry, nor do I punch hard surfaces*.  Hopefully my tale shall make my fellow data ragers feel not so alone, and maybe get some tips on how to get over that shit. Any of my minions and muffins have stories and/or advice to share?

 *No, that does not mean I punch people instead now. Harrumph.
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Choosing Your Epicsauce Laboratory: Part III

Jun 27 2011 Published by under Uncategorized

It's the post series that never ends, muffins and minions! Your favorite D-List Monktress is back, dropping more n00b wisdom (and click-bait) on choosing your very own epicsauce laboratory.

Ask about work hours
You should never feel shy about inquiring about a PI’s philosophy regarding work hours.  I find a  lot of n00b PhDs feel nervous about appearing lazy by asking this question…but there’s a difference between asking ‘how many hours do I have spend in lab?’ versus ‘what is your lab’s work schedule philosophy?’.  Also corner some current grad students to get the real story about how many hours they work. However, be aware there are those grad students who count every minute they’re watching the Cricket world cup or they're on coffee break as ‘work hours’.

Do people graduate on time?
You want your time in the coop to be the best possible, but you also want to make sure you can also escape the coop. When you hit the home stretch, even the bestest, most amazing lab in the world will seem somewhat excruciating. Don’t join a lab where being awesome means your PI loves you so much they never let you go.

Figure 1: Not everyone can call up their trusty flying stead to escape imprisonment
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Collaborations for n00bs

Jun 07 2011 Published by under Uncategorized

Collaborations are important in academic science, the exchange of ideas and cross-disciplinary interaction can lead to some badass shenanigans. Grownup PI bloggers have discussed such things in much detail, how to choose collaborators, how to deal with collaborations once they get going, etc. But there’s not a lot of talk from the n00b grunt side of the equation. D-List Monktress to the rescue!

My first experience with ‘collaboration’ was as a wee little undergraduate engineering taking Mechatronics. Which consisted entirely of ECEs wailing at the ebil Mech Es who insisted on building a system with rotation rather than a tiered gantry system while the Mech Es growled that they had just spent 2000000000 gajillion hours in the machine shop and all the ECEs had to do was sit on their ass and code stuff for a little while. Of course we were mostly civil and at the end of the class we little nerdling veterans for life. But for much of the class there was a fundamental lack of respect and understanding between the two disciplines.

I learned some things from this, and from my actual collaborations in Sciencez, so I decided to make a list. Because that’s basically all I post now, bulleted lists. Fuck.

Respect the other’s work
They’re doing something you don’t know how to do, which is why you’re collaborating in the first place. And since you do not know how to do it, you furthermore do not understand the amount of hard work it takes, or the infinite number of ways it could go wrong. In my experience, this problem is exacerbated the further apart the interacting disciplines are. No one’s getting a free lunch in this economy, so trust that what they do is hard.

Provide comically detailed instructions
You’ve spent four, five, ten, etc years working with your system, to the point you can do it at 2am, even when the coffee has run out. This makes you the worst possible person to write instructions on how to do anything, yes it does stfu. Therefore you must be extremely conscious of detail when you do provide instructions to your collaborators. You need to spell out every reagent, every tool, every assembly step, and even which side is up. Because…

Both of you will fuck up
It’s inevitable that you are going to take a sample that your collaborator put days/months of blood, sweat, and tears into and fuck it up. And they probably will not even be respectable fuck ups at first, they will be comically incompetent fuck ups that will cause your collaborator to stab a kimwipe voodoo doll of you, repeatedly. And they will do the same to you.

Figure 1: You didn't know that Hoozit liqueifies Bajondong at 400C? IDIOT

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