Lab 1: Clark Kent Lab / My Fit Grade For This Lab: B
Pros
about this lab? / Cons
about this lab? / Neutrals, Unknowns & Concerns
about this lab?
  1. PI clearly supportive of teaching career path – supported students who wanted to teach at USF
  2. PI encouraged people to plan and supported breaks – international postdocs got time to travel home, people who were sick were encouraged to stay home and ‘not infect the lab’
  3. PI really supportive of people having ‘a plan with milestones.
/
  1. PI access not great – they are really busy; when I got feedback was kind of general – not in depth. Postdocs helped more but they were also busy.
  2. Students/postdocs couldn’t articulate clear way that authorship was decided - sort of ‘go with the flow/it depends’ answers
  3. Postdoc and tech got into a bit of a yelling match once in PIs absence. Felt really tense for a few days after that.
/
  1. Couldn’t get feel if PI was interested in my research interests – Couldn’t tell me if it would make a good thesis project

Lab 2: Diana Prince Lab / My Fit Grade For This Lab: B-
Pros
about this lab? / Cons
about this lab? / Neutrals, Unknowns & Concerns
about this lab?
  1. My undergrad advisor impressed with them
  2. Well established PI
  3. Student have lots of opportunities: write papers, present at journal clubs and international meetings, write the literature review section on grant submissions. (if that was the intended gist of this section…it didn’t seem to fit with the point above)
  4. Super well funded: multiple R01 grants.
  5. PI has strategic plan for the lab (I’m not sure first years will know what a strategic plan is or have asked about one?)
  6. PI available – has set time for drop ins
/
  1. Students/postdocs all pretty much said aiming for R01 (I don’t think all students will know the classification of “R1” institutions…and also I think it’s pretty uncommon for a first year to have asked lab members about their career goals, though they should! Also, “R01” refers to NIH grants, “R1” refers to research institutions, right?)
  2. Spoke to former student – said they had bad experience in lab, but it might be because they were a bad fit for such a competitive lab.
  3. Seems like there’s no intervention when students are flailing
  4. Lab meeting – people super aggressive with questions
  5. PI sets vibe of people competing with each other, not collaborating. Some cool with this, but I found it demotivating.
/
  1. What happened to the non-R1 people in this lab? Unclear if supportive of Teaching career – would I get to take time to learn how to teach?
  2. Really felt awkward saying I didn’t ‘get’ something or I disagreed – felt kind of stupid. Everyone seems to be genius on the cusp of publishing in Cell’ sort of feel.

Lab 3: Bruce Wayne Lab / My Fit Grade For This Lab: A-
Pros
about this lab? / Cons
about this lab? / Neutrals, Unknowns & Concerns
about this lab?
  1. Like vibe of lab; really social – spend time together & brainstorming ideas
  2. Really like lab philosophy – we’re here to ask interesting questions
  3. PI really cares about lab culture & development – people gave examples of PI proactively stopping unnecessarily aggressive behavior & letting people choose projects and encouraging people to consider side projects to broaden scope
/
  1. PI maybe a little micromanage-y: weekly meetings (what if I have nothing to report?), format to agenda, specific open door hrs. rather than drop in.
  2. PI expects everyone to be there when they are there: focus on community – little flexibility to set own hours unless sick.
  3. Hours seem a little exhausting – 9pm! Close knit lab: lab was life/life was lab.
/
  1. Like vibe of lab; really social – spend time together & brainstorming ideas
  2. Really like lab philosophy – “we’re here to ask interesting questions”

What’s Important to Me & My Long-Term Career Goals?
What’s Important to me? / What are my long-term career goals?
  1. Advisor who is interested in my success
  2. Someone who is willing to mentor me towards an academic career
  3. Working with interesting people doing interesting work.
  4. Advisor who I respect and can communicate with
  5. I’m okay with competition, but no yelling, no drama like Prof. Zod’s lab
  6. Want to develop strong publication record as quickly as possible, so would like to focus on cell or in vitro work
/
  1. Faculty career path: Not sure teaching-focused or R1
  2. Want a “work hard with breaks” life style, not a ‘work til I burn out’ life style

Lab 1: Hal Jordan Lab / My Fit Grade For This Lab: C
Pros
about this lab? / Cons
about this lab? / Neutrals, Unknowns & Concerns
about this lab?
  1. PI doing work I am passionate about - infectious disease
  2. 3 students/3 techs – lots of support
  3. Really detailed and fair answer w/examples to: “How do you let students know if they are failing to progress to your standards?”
  4. People actually spoke about exploring career options
/
  1. There were times when we were all jockeying for access to equipment
  2. Didn’t really click with PI – outgoing, but our conversations felt really strained at times. I don’t know why. On paper, I should really get along with this guy.
  3. Lab’s really social; little loud and a little messy – I’m used to a much quieter lab.
/
  1. Is the shared interested enough to overcome the awkwardness? For 5 years?
  2. One late stage student person depressed and another one said that they feel like they are never working enough – can’t tell if that’s a ‘them’ thing or something that comes from the lab.
  3. Not really sure PI has a plan

Lab 2: Barbara Gordon Lab / My Fit Grade For This Lab: A-
Pros
about this lab? / Cons
about this lab? / Neutrals, Unknowns & Concerns
about this lab?
  1. Clicked with PI. Felt I could talk to him.
  2. Everyone seemed really happy and proud to be a part of this lab
  3. Well-funded, productive in terms of publications.
  4. People seem to do well – timely graduation, wide range of career paths (someone did internship in the tech transfer office!)
/
  1. Not clear there is a lot of autonomy around picking project - everyone seemed really glad to ’work with PI’ in choosing project – but that suggests that PI knows their work.
/
  1. Never found out about funding situation.
  1. Don’t know if I’m excited about research area in lab – PI’s expertise doesn’t really overlap with what I am interested in.….but appreciate what people are saying about choosing the PI over the research, because there is always interesting work to do.

Lab 3: Oliver Queen Lab / My Fit Grade For This Lab: A
Pros
about this lab? / Cons
about this lab? / Neutrals, Unknowns & Concerns
about this lab?
  1. Clicked with PI – Really nice guy
  2. PI has strategic plan for her lab & seems really invested in professional development/success of people in lab
  3. People seemed collaborative – invested in success of lab
  4. Doing some really innovated work – would learn a lot
  5. Really like the low-key feel of this lab; resembles my previous lab
/
  1. PI not yet tenured
  2. Not a lot of funding/not a lot of publications (yet)
/
  1. New PI – no other students, 2 postdocs/1 tech. Do I want to be first? Does it matter if the lab isn’t well known yet? How much autonomy will I have?
  2. If I don’t work in this lab, would really like PI to be on my thesis committee/have some sort of mentorship from them

What’s Important to Me & My Long-Term Career Goals?
What’s Important to me? / What are my long-term career goals?
  1. To like the people I work with.
  2. To get support in framing and exploring interesting areas of research.
  3. To put myself in situations where I can tackle interesting questions.
  4. Would really like access to my PI like I had in my undergraduate
  5. To have enough time to work out
  6. To work in a lab that’s okay with me doing an internship/career exploration.
  7. To be able to talk to my PI
/
  1. Really, I don’t know. I need a lab that’s okay with me taking time to explore careers, I guess.

Which lab is the best fit for me based on my current and long-term goals?

Name of Lab # 1?______My Grade for This Lab: ______

PROMPTS / Pros
about this lab? / Cons
about this lab? / Neutrals, Unknowns & Concerns
about this lab?
How You Work Best:
  • Is this an environment where you feel you can be productive?
  • When you imagine yourself in this lab, how does that make you feel? Why?
Opportunities & Progress
  • What projects will you get to work on?
  • What skills will you learn: new research areas or techniques, working on papers, grants, etc.
  • What development opportunities are supported: attending conferences/courses, mentoring students, teaching, etc
The PI
  • How skillful is the PI at supervising: (Do they set expectations, delegate, give feedback and address conflicts in the lab effectively?)
  • How often will you interact w/ PI?
  • What are the expectations to graduate?
  • Do you know how a PI might address progression issues?
  • Whatevidence of support for career goals like yours?
The People & The Lab
  • Is the funding outlook good?
  • Can you work with the people in the lab?
  • Do people have time to take care of themselves (dr. appts, vacation, etc.)
  • What’s the time to graduation for other students?

Which lab is the best fit for me based on my current and long-term goals?

Name of Lab # 2?______My Grade for This Lab: ______

PROMPTS / Pros
about this lab? / Cons
about this lab? / Neutrals, Unknowns & Concerns
about this lab?
How You Work Best:
  • Is this an environment where you feel you can be productive?
  • When you imagine yourself in this lab, how does that make you feel? Why?
Opportunities & Progress
  • What projects will you get to work on?
  • What skills will you learn: new research areas or techniques, working on papers, grants, etc.
  • What development opportunities are supported: attending conferences/courses, mentoring students, teaching, etc
The PI
  • How skillful is the PI at supervising: (Do they set expectations, delegate, give feedback and address conflicts in the lab effectively?)
  • How often will you interact w/ PI?
  • What are the expectations to graduate?
  • Do you know how a PI might address progression issues?
  • What evidence of support for career goals like yours?
The People & The Lab
  • Is the funding outlook good?
  • Can you work with the people in the lab?
  • Do people have time to take care of themselves (dr. appts, vacation, etc.)
  • What’s the time to graduation for other students?

Which lab is the best fit for me based on my current and long-term goals?

Name of Lab # 3?______My Grade for This Lab: ______

PROMPTS / Pros
about this lab? / Cons
about this lab? / Neutrals, Unknowns & Concerns
about this lab?
How You Work Best:
  • Is this an environment where you feel you can be productive?
  • When you imagine yourself in this lab, how does that make you feel? Why?
Opportunities & Progress
  • What projects will you get to work on?
  • What skills will you learn: new research areas or techniques, working on papers, grants, etc.
  • What development opportunities are supported: attending conferences/courses, mentoring students, teaching, etc
The PI
  • How skillful is the PI at supervising: (Do they set expectations, delegate, give feedback and address conflicts in the lab effectively?)
  • How often will you interact w/ PI?
  • What are the expectations to graduate?
  • Do you know how a PI might address progression issues?
  • What evidence of support for career goals like yours?
The People & The Lab
  • Is the funding outlook good?
  • Can you work with the people in the lab?
  • Do people have time to take care of themselves (dr. appts, vacation, etc.)
  • What’s the time to graduation for other students?

Which lab is the best fit for me based on my current and long-term goals?

What’s Important to Me & My Long-Term Career Goals?

PROMPTS / What’s important to me? / What are my long-term career goals?
Tip: Think back to what you liked best about your previous lab experiences:
  • What kind of working relationship would you like to have with your PI? (weekly check ins or monthly, helping you develop projects or giving you the autonomy to develop your own, etc.)
  • Your career goals and path? (academia, biotech, business, government, sci-comm, politics/policy, tech transfer, don’t know/would need to explore, etc.)
  • What research areas would you like to work in?
  • What skills do you want to develop during your PhD: expertise in a research area or new technique, presentation, publication or grantsmanship skills.
  • What networking opportunitiesdo you want to have (conferences, internships, etc.)
  • What work life integration do you want to have time for? exercise, friends, family, etc.
  • What environment is important to you: quiet, boisterous, competitive, collaborative, etc.