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PhD Biology Program (Advice Wanted)
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Dear Help / Advice,
I am currently a Master's Biology international student in the USA. My Canadian undergraduate GPA is 3.12 (higher later on) while my current graduate GPA is maintained at 4.0. My undergraduate research experience is slim, and i am getting some research experience now during this Master's program I am in.
I had originally planned to complete my Master's thesis at this university. However, due to time restraints caused by a financial situation, I may have to decide to switch to a non-thesis degree. This, to me, severely cuts my competitiveness in my application to good PhD programs after i graduate. My resume seem to pale in comparison to others who have been published, or have grants and funding.
My original dream was to complete my thesis and attend an ivy league or Ucalifornia school to complete my PhD
. I am wondering if anyone thinks this is still a possibility? Would anyone also have suggestions on how i may improve my application? I am going to try to get as much research experience as possible in the next several months.
Thank You-
I am currently a Master's Biology international student in the USA. My Canadian undergraduate GPA is 3.12 (higher later on) while my current graduate GPA is maintained at 4.0. My undergraduate research experience is slim, and i am getting some research experience now during this Master's program I am in.
I had originally planned to complete my Master's thesis at this university. However, due to time restraints caused by a financial situation, I may have to decide to switch to a non-thesis degree. This, to me, severely cuts my competitiveness in my application to good PhD programs after i graduate. My resume seem to pale in comparison to others who have been published, or have grants and funding.
My original dream was to complete my thesis and attend an ivy league or Ucalifornia school to complete my PhD
. I am wondering if anyone thinks this is still a possibility? Would anyone also have suggestions on how i may improve my application? I am going to try to get as much research experience as possible in the next several months.Thank You-
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your biggest hurdle is not the thesis vs non thesis. its going to be that you are canadian/international.
as an international you can't ever get in state tutition/fees so you cost like twice as much as a domestic who gains residency. because of that the number of internationals a program takes is usually quite diminished relative to domestic students. if you are serious try and identify a professor you would want to work with and see if they will sponsor/agree to pay for you basically. it is a long shot but that seems to be the best way for internationals from my experience. either that or hope you are thest best international applicant. what is your gre score?
this is my experience from UCD physiology
550 verbal (74%)
760 quantitative (86%)
4.6 analytical writing (58%)
This was 2 years ago, and i am probably going to retake the test. I could have easily gotten perfect on the quantitative. One question was asking about the resonance of something and i completely blanked out
1) The international thing is completely true; as far as I've been told, NIH training grants (the grants that most basic biology dept's use for most grad student funding) can only fund US citizens, so funding for international students has to come from other sources (which there are many of, but certainly more limited); if you can get your own funding it would be an immediate huge boost
2) For applications, it basically comes down to research experience / personal recommendation letters from faculty you worked with > general recommendations / grades / GRE scores. So I'd definitely try to get as much research done as you can, and also try to ensure that you can get an awesome recommendation letter from whoever you're working with (p.i., possibly even additionally a postdoc you're working with)
I don't really think the "degree" makes that big of a difference (honestly, I don't think anyone that I know in any of the biological sciences program here has a Masters), it's really all about whether you have experience doing GOOD research, and if not, show your intelligence and abilities through grades/etc.
I would definitely try to retake the GRE's, especially if you can improve across the board - quantitatve would be nice to get perfect, but good writing scores (I think) have a sneaky way of making you stand out vs other people that have generally good grades in science but can't communicate well
i am currently getting a little research experience from my PI. but since his lab is not too well funded, when i told him about my intentions of not completing a thesis today, he basically said that he would just let me hang around the lab and do random tasks. so the GOOD research portion might not be that great.
I am thinking of applying this year as soon as the fall applications open to get in early. Hopefully i can do something good between now and then, but it looks a bit grim. Especially with the barrier of being an international student.
What does everyone think of me mailing people at this point of my M.Sc. and attachment to my PI to ask them for lab positions to get more research experience?
also, anyone know good funding opportunities a Canadian may apply to?
And what is the process of this application? I assume that i apply to it before i select the school i want to go to?
Like, really, really sure?
Because you can do the following with a PhD
- Run a lab
- Help run a lab
- Teach classes while running a lab or helping to run a lab
Anything else involves a very, very minor subset of PhD holders. You have a lot more freedom with a master's degree, and your income has, perversely, a much higher upper bound in most cases.
defintiely try to milk as much research out of the lab as you can. try and learn as much as possible from anyone who will teach you. then see if you can identify a professor at the schools you are applying too and try and contact them and maintain communication.
if you were thinking of UC Davis, you can shoot me a pm about your interests and i can see if i know anyone. i was in the molecular physiology program and still keep in contact with some people
Also it will depend on the Phd program you are looking at. Some of them expect people to come in with masters and others expect people straight out of college.
And I'm seconding the being very very very sure. Because if there is even a little bit of doubt in your mind, doing a PhD will only make you hate the subject matter you are studying.
edit: a more succinct way of putting the problem of the field is thus -- there is a lot of money available for training positions, such as grad students and post docs. These pay poorly and offer very terrible benefits, as they're training positions. There are essentially no other positions available. So entering biology means that you would work as a grad student for about 6 years, then graduate and take a post doc earning about 40k a year in a top-level school (less for others) based on your ability to write your own grants (and get them). You work as a post doc in 2 or 3 different labs for about 10 to 20 years until you realize you hate your life and will not be able to retire as you're now in your 40s and still earning 40k a year without vacation time, shitty health insurance, and 80 hour work weeks. You then realize you are too old to change careers as you will never get a faculty position.
Alternatively, you get a faculty position, you work on something that is eventually turned into a Nobel Prize -- but not for you. Because your lab's funding dried up and you now drive a car dealership shuttle van for $10/hr. (that's Douglas Prasher, btw)
Biotech isn't booming at all. There are some senior level jobs, but it's one of the more depressed R+D industries in North America at the moment. Europe is much hotter right now.
Also, programs here are starting to switch gears and change their introductory level coursework with "rotations" in labs to help you figure out where the hell you want to focus your work. Just, be sure. Though, PhD is nowhere near as bad a "call" to deal with as other things. You're paid to do this, not like people who go to undergrad and rack up 100k in damage for a major they can't even use to find a job in. Or Med School where you're in the hole 200k.
I have a Biochem major and a Cell/MolBio Specialist undergrad honors degree :S
So i was looking at salaries yesterday night, and got slightly discouraged from the 70k/year only after 20 years as a research assistant thing for postdocs -_-. 10 years of vigorous studying for 35k starting <_<?
A PhD makes no economic sense. You will make less money overall over the course of your life going for a PhD then if you don't in almost every circumstance. That's just the way that it is set up right now.
Unless you strike solid fucking gold on a patent (and I mean churning out the next billion dollar molecule) you aren't going to earn shit all in R+D. I mean, there's always some exceptions, like senior management jobs within R+D or some specialized MD positions (some surgeons can earn upwards of 500k/annum) but overall it's not a high paying degree.
That's why I said that if you're at all interested in earning money, you should stick to your masters - master's degrees will let you go into clinical/lab sales, which is where the real money is for grunt workers in biotech.
the idea i am getting is that the added years from working up a phd/postdoc is not worth the time and money since i would be making just as much as a grunt worker with a master's degree?
and it is not exactly profitable as a postdoc/faculty member unless you somehow strike gold, i assume?
Yeah, five years working in business will leave you with a far, far higher salary then you'd make as a post-doc. You'd also have that time being employed with a full time job instead of living on a PhD student stipend, which is shit money.
And yes, professors have secure, comfortable jobs where they get to do what they love, but they don't make that much money. Unless you discover/invent the next aspirin or prozac, you're going to earn far less money as a PhD compared to going out into the workforce with your MSc.
You really, really should only, only do a PhD if you've found a subject you're absolutely nuts about, and want to ask probing questions about for the rest of your life.
You want to be a badass professor? Well too bad, bitch, now start cranking out studies and put our college on the front cover of Newsweek. What? You're crying that our couches makes more money in a year then you do in your life time? Too fucking bad; his players jersey sells for $80 a pop. What? You though you're clever and you're going to be a full time professor at a Community College? ROFLMAO, good luck with that. You'll end up being part time faculty till the day you're dead.
You want to be a badass researcher? Well too bad, bitch, now start lecturing to a bunch of lazy fucks who doesn't give a damn about the subject. Go ahead and try to find time to do research when you're reading 200 student essays.
as much as i do not want to be a mindless grunt, it seems that either i will be one anyways or that becoming one is just as good if not better than loving your work?
Being a PhD isn't about making money. Being a PhD is about getting to run your own lab and (theoretically) having complete control over the direction of the studying that your lab does.
Unfortunately that is getting harder and harder as the funding situation is getting tighter and grants are practically requiring you to plan out every single experiment for the next five years in order to get funding. And if you don't show enough progress on the experiements that you planned you will lose the grant.
And unfortunately doing a PhD and post doc does make a lot of people hate actual bench work. There are very very few faculty that actually do research any more (as opposed to manage the lab and direct other people's reasearch activities) and it is partly by choice.
you shouldn't get a PhD since you think you will make cazy money. you do it since you dont want to be the lab bitch and actually run your own studies and/or lab
there are different positions for different people.
1. Prof at a tier 1 school. publish or perish, you are heavily research focused and will only teach maybe 2 classes a year depending on status
2 teaching schools where you basically just teach all the time with very little research at all
these are the two biggies but its a sliding scale. really up to the individual what they want. i got my PhD since i want to run my own lab and teach. it is what i enjoy. the person i mentor only wants to teach and doesn't want to research.
if you get a Phd and are still a mindless grunt, well that is your fault and you probably shouldn't have gotten a Phd in the first place.
yes it is semi true that the higher up you are the less actual benchwork you do since a lot of time you are writing grants/papers but you are also planning and thinking about experiments. some people like that, some people just want to get their hands dirty on the bench. again you need to find the right position for you. i used to only really want to do experiments, but going through grad school made me start enjoying the planning aspect of science.
its a personal choice really. I certainly don't make that much money as a post doc. hell i made more my first year as a research assistant. but i make enough to be comfortable, and i will certainly make more in the future, but i enjoy my job a hell of alot more now than when i was just doing what people told me.
Money is not a giant issue if i am doing something i love, but the idea of going through undergrad, grad, postdoc and end up with 40k starting as a postdoc research assistant is slightly discouraging. Of course, i would only become a research assistant if i am unable to attain a faculty position and do my own thing. That would take work and effort on my hand, i am certain, to evade having a limit of only being a postdoc research assistant.
Regardless, I think i would still like to aim for PhD/postdoc, as i want to do something significant with my life. Even if i risk not succeed and end up as an assistant the rest of my days. If i had wanted to make money i would have chose a different path a long time ago.
Best case scenario would be going to a university that has a surplus of retirement-track profs, so that you're groomed for the tenure track there throughout your PhD. I know my alma mater likes to groom PhD candidates for professorships, because they had a lot of older profs who were heading out to pasture.
After everyone who's currently a post-doc (and therefore has significantly more experience) gets their shot at it first.
Not necessarily. You've got to keep in mind how much politics there are in academia... if the department head goes to the dean and says "I want this guy to get the AP position", the dean will go to the faculty selection committee and say "I am laying this file down. Take that as you will." and that person will generally be hired.
It's nice to say it's about the potential grants, the number of papers written, etc., but really as with everything else it's who you know and how they know you.
Get a PhD in Toxicology at Rochester and get an insta job in industry for 80k minimum
For your PhD, the lab environment is far far more important than the specific topic. If you get a PhD in something like cell biology you can always do a post-doc on cancer or stem cells even if that isn't the specific topic of your PhD.
Right, which goes the other way -- if a PI is out to get you because you didn't join their lab, they can make your life hell if they're in your field. Not to mention that it's generally frowned upon to pursue a postdoc or faculty position at the same university you did your PhD, because it smacks of obvious favoritism.