Monday, July 31, 2006

Conference: over!

I made it back from Princeton last night. I was so glad to get home. I ended up being sick for much of the meeting, but luckily I wasn't feeling too bad when I had to give my talk.

Princeton lived up to expectations. It's a very nice campus. Thinking about the people who have learned and taught there in years past (and present) is inspiring.

I think the most interesting part of the meeting was a discussion I had with a guy at lunch who works in industry. I suppose that that's a good indicator that I'm headed in the right direction with my plan to apply for industry jobs in the coming months. Of course, when I've been ignored and rejected over and over (during the job search), I'll probably come crawling back to academia to take me back.

But I hope not.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Conferences

Well, I'm about 2 hours away from leaving with my boss for a meeting at Princeton University. I think I mentioned before that I've never been to Princeton before, and I'm anxious to check out the campus firsthand.

I think this is about the 5th major conference that I've attended--about one per year since I've been involved in science as either a technician or a grad student. I've left some with increased enthusiasm for my work, others with a sinking feeling that everyone else is doing better science than I am, and still others with little more than a headache.

You can definitely suffer from information overload at these things. Especially at meetings like this where you sit through about a million 12 minute talks in each session. Add to that the posters that you'll see, and the people you'll talk with, and you end up with more information than can sink in in 5 days. I guess that's why you take all those notes. Of course, I don't know that I've ever opened up my notebook from a conference more than once or twice after getting home.

The good thing is that my advisor is going to this meeting. That lets me off the hook for having to give a dreaded "meeting summary" to the lab at our next lab meeting. Can you imagine trying to fit the contents of 5 days of meetings into a 45 minute presentation? Just hitting the highlights can be a challenge.

A few summers ago, I was at a meeting at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island. It was held the same week that the power went out in New York (and much of the Northeast, I think). For a while, we were all mulling around outside (since it was too dark indoors), and I remember thinking to myself, "this sure is a strange group of people that I'm associated with." So many of them fit the classic mad scientist/absent minded professor stereotypes. I left that meeting wondering if I was really fit to be a scientist. Unfortunately, that question has still not been answered.

Meetings can be a great place to build ties with other scientists. I've definitely had a few good conversations with people and felt like I grew from my association with them. While I'm not a very social person, I recognize that the social aspect of meetings is probably just as important as the presentations. Afterall, the technology exists to have virtual meetings over the internet, but I bet that no one would substitute those for seeing people in person. It will be a challenge to get myself past my shyness and build some bridges at this meeting.

I'll have to follow up with a post in a few days with my impressions of Princeton, the meeting, and the people I meet.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

No More Ummms.

Last year I gave a talk to the first and second year grad students as part of a seminar series that they're required to take. Each year in our department, the older grad students present their research, have their talk videotaped, and then receive feedback from the audience on their presentation. The benefits to the junior and senior grad students are obvious.

One of the things I found amazing when I watched the tape of myself was just how often I said "ummm" during my talk. I didn't think I had said it once, but I was saying it at least a couple of times a minutes.

With my talk at Princeton less than a week away, it's funny that I came across this website suggesting an approach to eliminating the umms from one's speech (at least when delivering a talk). I'll have to see if I can dig up that old videotape and force myself to watch it a few more times.

Receiving Criticism

This morning, I asked a post-doc in the lab to look over the poster I've been working on this week. I made this request because I consider this guy smart, and I knew that printing a poster without having a second pair of (fresh) eyes look it over is a mistake.

15 minutes later, he came over with the mini-poster I had given him and it was covered in markings. The first things out of his mouth were, "This was just a rough draft, right?" and "This really needs to be sharpened up." We proceeded to walk through his critique point by point until we reached the end.

I have to admit that I was put off by his initial comments and it really did make it hard to be open-minded to his other comments. I'll have to remember to not take the same approach when offering my thoughts about other people's work to them.

I was also reminded that getting other people's comments/criticisms is a tricky game. If you do everything they suggest, then it becomes their work more than your own. However, if you don't do anything they say then you've wasted their time and your own time. The solution appears to be that you have to carefully weigh their suggestions and admit it when you're wrong and their right. Since some things come down to a matter of opinion, you can choose to leave it your way so don't feel like you're losing ownership of your work.

Later this afternoon, I'll give my advisor a copy of the mini-poster when he gets back into town. I'm curious to see how he sees things, and if his comments are consistent with the earlier ones then I'll have to take them even more seriously. That's the other key to getting comments on something, the more the better. If everyone points out a problem then you can be pretty sure that you're wrong and they're right. You wouldn't think that democracy would have power in the editing process, but it really does.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Making posters (still)

I was hoping to finish my poster up yesterday so I could get the slides for my talk prepared during the latter half of the week. Unfortunately, I had to change some figures around, and create a few new ones to fill in the voids. I've just about got it done now, but I have to go back and add a few figure labels and then go back through it all and make sure everything is nicely aligned.

One of the most important skills you (should) pick up in grad school is the ability to design and lay out your data into meaningful figures. You have to know which data to include and which data to skip. You have to be able to pick out representative examples of your data (pick the prettiest data that accurately represents the conclusions your making). You have to make sure that everything is labelled clearly so that the poster viewers know what they're looking at (just in case they come to check out your poster when you're not there). Lastly, you have to double-check for spelling errors, poor grammar, and misalignment. Nothing says you do sloppy work louder than when you have a mis-spelled word or a panel in a figure doesn't line up with the other panels.

Since your peers and possibly future employer will be looking your poster over, it pays to be careful and give close attention to the details.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Making Posters

Attending meetings can be a very good thing. It gives you a break from the daily grind. It gives you a chance to meet new people. It gives you a chance to establish collaborations. It gives you a chance to bounce ideas off people you admire.

The downside to meetings is that they generally require you to make a poster (dread) or a powerpoint presentation (double dread). Next week, I'll be attending the 2006 Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology Meeting at Princeton. While I'm looking forward to my first chance to explore Princeton and get a feel for New Jersey, I'm not too excited about giving a poster and a talk during the meeting.

So, I'll be spending the bulk of this week in front of my computer in an effort to wrap my project up into a 10 minute talk and a 30 x 40 inch poster. My upper back is already upset with the time I've spent at my desk and it's only Tuesday.

One of the perks of going to a meeting is that you have a chance to see how other people present their data. I've seen posters that royally stank, and posters that drew me in even though I wasn't that keen on the topic. My own poster-making approach is to keep it simple and keep it graphic. Words are your enemy, especially if there are too many of them in a row. As much as possible, I let the data speak for themselves. I use white space rather than lines or boxes as much as possible to delineate the borders between the sections of the poster. I know that this drives some people crazy, but personally I can't stand boxes within boxes within boxes.

So, for the rest of today and part of tomorrow, I'll be assembling figures, sizing them, and adding a few words of description to each figure. As I near completion, I'll do my best to pretend that I'm seeing the poster for the first time, and try to imagine what concepts/terms/diagrams/whatevers might be confusing to someone visiting my poster.

I've been told over and over during my education that it doesn't matter how great your work is if you can't communicate it clearly to others. Designing a poster and presenting it is one of the ways to find out just how good you are (or aren't) at communicating your results. If you get no questions, no interaction, and a lot of blank stares, it's time to find help. No need to torture yourself and others for the next 30 years as you bumble your way through explaining your work.

Friday, July 07, 2006

Summers in Grad School

During the first couple of years in grad school, the summers are great because of the break from classes and teaching. Finally, you can focus on your research without those distractions. The other nice thing that summer brings is a sense of freedom. I'm not sure if it's the sunshine, the lack of undergrads, or the travel schedules of labmates, but the overall lab environment tends to flow a little more freely than the rest of the year.

This summer, my advisor and I are both doing a lot of travelling (for both work and leisure). The trips that line up with each other are nice because (to him) it doesn't feel like I've been gone for a week when I take a week off in the middle of his two week trip. At the same time, sometimes you need a break from your advisor, and you can schedule your travel to fall adjacent to his on the calendar. This might allow you to get 2, 3, or even 4 weeks of a break from him if you play your cards right (and I've seen this done successfully by some of my labmates).

They say that while the cat's away, the mice will play. This can be true in the research labs as well. I've seen some labs that are empty until 11am, and then empty out again by 3pm when the boss is out of town. Other labs crank up the music, take long lab lunches, or even skip out altogether for a lab trip to the movie theater. In our lab this year, many of us were watching soccer matches at work during the time our advisor was in Europe.

Summer isn't all about playtime, though. It's a great time to make serious strides in your research. With the longer days, you can work longer hours at work and still go home before the sun goes down. If the weather is too warm, you can seek refuge at your bench in your air conditioned lab. Without any classes to take, you can get more done and carry out more demanding experiments (the ones that need constant monitoring for many consecutive hours). Without your advisor around, you might enjoy a little more freedom to try experiments that you think he would veto if he were there.

So, enjoy your summers in grad school, and enjoy the work you can get done in the summers!