I’ve been meaning to share the latest news for a few days now, but just haven’t taken the time to sit down and think of how to phrase everything. I suppose now, while I sit in lab after finishing up experiments for the day with nothing to do until the Jewish Medical Student Association Shabbat in an hour and a half, would be the ideal time.
It’s been a tough week. After finishing up midterms last week, we were all looking forward to a nice, relaxing, exam-free week of classes and lab… and we’re still waiting for that relaxation part. As for me, personally, there have been a lot of negatives – both program related, personal related, and football related (Big Ben’s knee surgery means he is out for 1 – 3 games, and since we all know I bleed Steelers black and gold, it is sad, sad news indeed). But since this isn’t intended to be a place for my own personal or football related problems, we’ll stick with the program.
When I decided to start writing this blog, my original intention was to discuss all the ridiculous aspects of my graduate school experiences. This summer during my first rotation, I found myself in a slew of absurd situations that I wasn’t quite expecting in graduate school – be it the time the lab tech accidentally spilled my long-awaited buccal cell mouthwash samples all over me or the time the crazy lady in the elevator literally whacked me across the shins with her cane because I didn’t start off every morning in the chapel praying to Jesus for help with finding a cure for cancer (yes, that really did happen), or the day I was so focused on troubleshooting my non-working PCR that I obliviously stepped onto the elevator without realizing that it was actually a foot and a half below the normal level, causing me to fall completely sprawled out into the elevator in front of a chuckling audience of rather attractive oncology residents. I guess the way I saw it was that if so much happened in just a summer, then imagine the possibilities over the next seven years, and if I was going to suffer through these situations for the next too many years to come, then someone (i.e., you) should at least get some entertainment and laughs out of my misery and humiliation.
Sometimes, however, things that go wrong are completely and totally outside of your control. Sometimes, it’s not just accidentally using 1M hydrochloric acid instead of 1N (oops – I learned my lesson). This week has had an unanticipated seriousness and graveness to it, first with the announcement that the proposed $100 million cut to cancer research funding is official, and second with the official news that the head of our cancer center is leaving. The funding cut is just terrible news for the field as a whole, as investigators are already scrambling to try to obtain grant money, and now there is $100 million less to dish out for vital research. That, however, has been pushed aside by the more eminent news of the cancer center/chair of oncology’s decision to leave and move on elsewhere. The irony is that I interviewed at the school to which he will be going, and the program kept emphasizing how their cancer center was in the process of deciding between two top-quality well-known individuals to come take over the position of director. When I chose not to attend that university, I promptly forgot about the issue. Funny how the same issue is now coming back to haunt me. The loss of the director itself hardly impacts me – but the problem comes from the sudden rumors flying left and right through the program about the number of faculty who are already definitely or are attempting to follow the director to his new location (we can only hope that these are indeed only rumors, and are not all true). These investigators lead all the big-name, large-grant labs, and I cannot imagine what will happen to the program if they are all successful in their attempts to follow the director. While it may give an opportunity for smaller PI’s to move up the ladder, the actual number of labs will drastically decrease until a new director brings in his own researchers, but that process could take upwards of year to happen. Lab space is already hard to come by – I have been turned down by several PIs already in my attempts to rotate with them – and I can only assume that now it will be very challenging indeed to find someone with enough space to take me on a thesis student. This just adds in a whole new difficulty factor which I was not expecting to encounter during my attempts at a PhD. There are a lot of questions now and while we all continue to study diligently for our classes and focus on our lab work, deep down we are all questioning what will happen to us and our program over the coming months.
Don't worry- you've got a lot of grad school ahead of you, and the humiliation and anxiety you've been through already is nothing compared to what's to come. By 7th year, you probably won't remember any of it, and by the time you get into a postdoc, you probably won't care anymore.
ReplyDeleteA little humility, a warped sense of humor, and grad school will pass in the blink of an eye. But the funding anxiety only gets worse.