Oops! I did it again – made it through first year of graduate school and landed myself in a lab. NOW WHAT?
Yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah
I think I did it again
I made you believe I’m more than just a trainee
Oh, Project No 2226
It might seem like a crush
But it doesn’t mean that I’m serious
‘Cause to lose all my senses
That is just so typically me
Oh trouble shoot-ing!
Oops, I did it again
I played with my heart, got lost in the literature
Oh quals committee
Oops, you think I’m in love
That I’m attached to project No 2336
I’m not that innocent
You see my problem is this
I’m dreaming away
Wishing that the right reagents truly exist
I cry, watching the centrifuge spin
Can’t you see I’m a fool in so many ways
But to lose all my n=1 phenotypes
That is just so typically me
Oh science, oh
Oops I did it again!
I found a lab this past year,
But now, apparently, I’m supposed to do science.
Finding a home at UCSF this past year was an incredible adventure. Having found a home, one is now expected to charge headfirst into everything: picking a project, complete classes (apparently you have to take an elective! Heard through the pipeline electing to not take the elective despite what the name suggests is not an option. I might have asked.), convince a committee of distinguished faculty (who never cry watching the centrifuge spin) that you are ready to challenge the unknowns by submitting yourself to an interrogation (also known as the qualifying exam) and try to practice teaching on the side.
Suddenly people ask you questions like:
- Where things are kept in the lab
- What concentration of the X is present in protocol Y published by your lab in year Z
- What someone mentioned in lab meeting three months ago (before you joined the lab even).
And somehow, you are expected to have answers?
They say that second year is for “fun” and is for searching. While you search, you may get lost, you may forget what you set out to search for but you keep searching till something shines out to you.
So, I have to go search now for something – maybe for my thesis project but probably (and realistically) on what next to write about.
