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As a second-year grad student, Craig was making progress on an exciting project in a new lab.
Then, one morning, the PI called Craig into his office.
“I got a really generous offer to move the lab to Sweden. Do you want to come with me?”
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The good news is that your research project has gone well over the last few years, and you got your paper published.
The bad news is that you published everything in that one paper, and you’re out of ideas.
And you’re five years into the program.
And your PI doesn’t want to help you anymore.
How, exactly, are you supposed to get your research project out of the rut and back on track so you can graduate?
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Sometimes, we use the words ‘research advisor’ and ‘research mentor’ interchangeably, but be careful – they’re not the same thing.
When you join the lab of a research faculty member in your second year of grad school, you’ve chosen a research advisor. Whether that person turns out to be a ‘mentor’ remains to be seen.
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You’ve either heard the stories, or worse, you’ve lived them.
They’re stories of the research advisors who scream at their students in front of the whole department.
The PIs who put two or three postdocs on the same project, expecting only one to succeed.
The ‘mentor’ who makes you feel like you’re not even qualified to wash the glassware.
So why do academic institutions allow such bad behavior to continue year in, and year out? Why aren’t bad PIs accountable?