Hello PhD - Page 2 of 26 - A podcast for scientists, and the people who love them.

059: Simple Tricks for Time Management – The Focus Funnel (R)

July 21, 2019September 23, 2019 Daniel Leave a comment

In some jobs, one day at the office looks a lot like the next. You could look through your calendar and optimize your meeting schedule and to-do list without much thought.

But working in a lab is different: your projects are in constant flux, experiments lead to other experiments, and you need to balance bench work with meetings, mentoring, and writing.

That busyness can lead to inefficiency as you tackle the items on your list one after another. Worse, you’re forced to plan overlapping activities to fill the ‘downtime’ during incubations and time points.

This week, we encourage you to take a step back, look over your list of competing priorities, and ask some hard questions about what’s really important.

You might find you have more free time on your hands than you ever imagined…

117: Bridging The Gap as a Medical Science Liaison

July 4, 2019July 4, 2019 Daniel Leave a comment

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For most graduate students, the list of potential careers runs something like this:

Research Faculty
Teaching Faculty
Industry Researcher
Science Writer
…. ummmm…

But the truth is that there are other, less talked-about careers that can be a perfect fit for scientists who may love learning but not working at the bench.

116: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Summer Students

June 17, 2019June 17, 2019 Daniel Leave a comment

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Ten weeks is not a long time. It feels even shorter when you’re tossed into the deep-end of a top-tier research lab.

If you’re spending your summer as a Research Assistant between semesters, or you’ve graduated and want to get some summer experience before grad school, we have ideas to help you hit the ground running.

115: PhDown Under – 4 Ways a PhD is Better in Australia

June 2, 2019June 2, 2019 Daniel Leave a comment

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It’s no secret that post-secondary education is a rough road to walk. Graduate students rack up debt for the privilege of working long hours for an unpredictable number of years with very little faculty support.

Well, that might be true in much of the Northern hemisphere, but in a land where mammals lay eggs and snakes eat crocodiles, all bets are off.

114: Grad School Should Have a Time Limit

May 17, 2019June 2, 2019 Daniel 2 Comments

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Here’s a controversial idea: what if graduate school finished on a predictable schedule the way (checks notes) every other academic training program does!

Since kindergarten, your education has had fixed milestones. You knew it would take 12 years to graduate from high school, 4 for college, and 2 for a masters or an associates degree.

Even medical school takes a predictable 4 years, with an additional 3-6 for residency and fellowship, depending on the field.

So why does graduate school take between 4 and 10 years, with a lot of discretion, uncertainty, and mental anguish in between?