Insights From Grad School: A Little Discovery.

In this blog post, I list my recent insights from grad school: on academic structure, team work, and effective networking at conferences. I hope that in case you are an early-stage researcher, these insights turn out to be helpful to you!

Firstly, the best ideas come to mind effortlessly and out of the blue. Recently — quite by accident.

While playing with the parameters of my digital networks pretending to be real fMRI data, I got a suspicious and unexpected result. And when you get an unexpected result in science, it is either a mistake or a discovery…

After an in-depth look, it indeed turned out to be a discovery… And material for a separate, perhaps quite impactful, paper.

I was speechless, because I hadn’t even thought about dealing with this particular subject-matter. But I guess I will, because it calls for publication.

It is a pity that I cannot share more information here in public but you know how it is. Intellectual Property, confidentiality of the scientific publication process, et cetera.

Insights From Grad School: What Is the Structure of Academia and My Research Environment Like?

Secondly, the best-performing labs tend to have a cloud structure. Which is not surprising when you think about it.

 My former lab was a kind of dictatorship where every student, every graduate student, and every postdoctoral researcher had one and only master whom they had to serve. It was very toxic and unproductive.

Many other labs have such a pyramidal structure, where the Postdocs reports directly to the boss. There, each doctoral student has one Postdoc to work with. They only meet the boss once in a while, for instance, once a week.

And, each undergraduate student has a doctoral student to look after them. They also meet the boss only once in a while, for instance, once per month.

My current research environment is different. It is rather a kind of commune where you don’t know what’s going on and who is doing what with whom.

Ideas arise spontaneously, and basically everyone works with anyone who is suitable for it. It must be quite a sport.

Or an art, to keep the balance so that people collaborate. But at the same time do not step onto each other’s projects.

So far, I am not complaining, although it may get tight in a while once we get more students onboard. I am really happy with what my environment looks like.

Insights From Grad School: What Did I Learn About Team Work?

Thirdly, I highly enjoy working in a team even if, de facto, there are no results for a long time. I’ve always known that I like brainstorming. But I didn’t know it was that crucial.

 In my first year, I saw clear benefits over my previous contract with the naked eye.

However, it was somehow difficult and sad for me, because I had a difficult topic and I was alone with it.

Now the topic hasn’t gotten any simpler, but my team has grown. According to Wuchty, Jones and Uzzi (2007), team-authored research papers are cited more often than solo-authored ones. And this advantage has grown over time.

Four months ago, a new Postdoc was co-opted to help out with the project, a month ago the second, today the third … and I can already feel that my project started to roll.

Two weeks ago, I showed my underdeveloped results at a student conference at our institute. In December I will show it at a small conference in London, and the paper is under construction.

 I do not know what is more fun for me: the fact that I produce something slowly for myself. Or the fact that I am dealing with great minds, but both give me great joy.

Insights From Grad School: On Postdocs.

Fourthly, there is a huge leap between PhDs and Postdocs in terms of skill and experience. We now have four Postdocs in the lab.

And I don’t know if it’s a regularity at all or just a local fluctuation. But all of these postdocs are extremely sharp.

Admittedly, three of them do the methodology, and the fourth one is more oriented at processing and handling large data sets. But it is definitely a lot of work as well.

 The Postdoc in our lab finished his doctorate just six months ago and started his first postdoctoral contract. I have the impression that he is three years better than the best doctoral student who will finish in six months.

This makes me realize how hard it is to find a good postdoctoral contract today, and that the market is staggeringly competitive… and that even if I’m doing better than most graduate students around, my personal goals are still far away.

And in general, PhD contracts seem easy to get in the Netherlands. Postdoctoral contracts are much harder.

It feels like they lure you into this system. And then leave you alone to fight for survival for life and death.

PhD students are the cheapest labor and they produce 80% of all publications in the Netherlands. No wonder that there is no control over the number of PhD students admitted to grad schools every year. Capitalism in its purest form.

According to Levecque, Anseel, De Beuckelaer, Van der Heyden, and Gisle (2017), PhD students face a significantly higher risk of mental health problems than other highly educated groups, a pattern linked in part to this kind of precarious work organization.

Insights From Grad School: What Should You Know About Conferences?

Lastly: a conference is not a vacation. I recently had a poster at a small local conference at my institute.

I must admit that I was surprised at how most PhD students treated their presentations. We had two poster sessions, at noon and in the evening, accompanied by drinks (it is the Netherlands after all).

I must say that most of the posters were deserted in the evenings. It seemed inconceivable to me not to stand there until the end and not answer the questions. Most students abandoned their posters midway and went for the drinks.

Then, we went to dinner and it was all the same. I sat at a table with my new friends from other institutes, trying to learn as much as possible.

Meanwhile, most of my friends from my institute were sitting in their own little circle and their comfort zone. According to Granovetter (1973), “weak ties” to people outside one’s immediate circle are often the source of new opportunities and information.

And now I am facing a more serious challenge than a little conference at our institute.

 For the third time, I am going to the largest conference in Neuroscience in the world. It brings together 30,000 presenters in one place, namely the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting. This time, in Washington.

Contrary to appearances, such an escapade is a real challenge, if you want to use your chance for networking to the maximum. And since you are traveling on your own account, first you have to get a room in a cheap hostel.

Criteria? Low price, wifi, and proximity to the conference center. It can stink and there can be cockroaches, whatever.

Insights From Grad School: Conference Prep Checklist

Then you have to dig out a list of all the students and teachers from the three summer schools you have been to so far to keep old contacts. Write to everyone and additionally search their names in the conference search engine to check if they are presenting a poster or even a speech.

Insights From Grad School: How to Prepare For a Conference

Then you have to review all the key names in neuroscience as such: Nobel Prize winners, top professors, the authors of groundbreaking publications, and the like. Then all the key researchers in my current discipline, namely causal discovery in fMRI.

According to Smith et al. (2011), network modelling methods for fMRI remain an active methodological challenge, since different analysis approaches can yield conflicting conclusions about brain connectivity from the same data. Then, in the discipline I’m thinking of for the future: calcium imaging in mice.

Additionally, you should look for keywords like “resting state,” “ICA,” or whatever else is related to your project. Lastly, you should search the conference program for reviewers and journal editors to which you intend to send your nearest paper. To be able to smile at the right person.

Insights From Grad School: The Conference Itself

But the fun doesn’t stop there. Once you have listed all the talks and posters you want to see, the second phase, namely the selection, follows.

Of course, most of what you choose overlaps in time, and the conference center is huge. So, when choosing, use the map of the center and evaluate if you can run from one presentation to another in a given time.

It is also necessary to arrange the numbers of the posters selected for each of the ten sessions. Put them in the correct order so that the slalom between them is done only once.

 And then make a plan of action minute by minute. Remember to reserve the time for lunches and for socializing with friends in the evenings. Otherwise, you waste opportunities and valuable friendships.

Conferences can be a hard time. And yet I am very glad that I am going. Good times are coming.