I got my NSF comment sheets, and it sort of sent me into a set of blues. No, it's not that I'm bent out of shape about not winning an absurdly competitive fellowship...it's about the frustration with myself that I'm good but just not good enough to be excellent. I knew that in applying, seeing my friend who has done teach for America in rural Mississippi, has 2 papers and 2 poster presentations, a Goldwater, and an absurd GPA and reading her essays along with seeing her qualifications that I just am not that awesome. I don't know how to change the fact that I don't have any publications...I don't think this problem will persist throughout my graduate career, but I also don't have a project that's a hit and run with it project right now and it's going to take a little bit of patience to get some of my shit to work. Like maybe a year. I don't know. Maybe things will start rolling this summer after classes are done. But it's just not bam bam bam falling into place for me immediately. Immediacy is rewarded in science sometimes (at least for the $$$), even if some of the most meaningful results are on a longer timescale and you have to fight for them more.

I've never been a fit the mold awesome student, and I've always ridden off of giving people the impression that I am passionate, competent, and possess skills that don't manifest themselves in the classroom but are ultimately the skills a scientist needs. But even this has yet to manifest itself in a publication (in my first year of graduate school) and while I'm trying to keep this all in perspective...well... Perhaps it's the fact that I keep the company of too many over achievers. My best friend is submitting his first first-authored paper to a high impact journal in his second semester of grad school. It makes me feel like, well, WTF am I doing with my life?

For my reviews I got a Good/Very Good and Very Good/Good. I know in this game, Good isn't Good enough; you have to be Excellent and Very Good. Actually, my weak academic record and lack of a publication record wasn't even commented on (although one reviewer commented that I didn't have any abstract or poster presentations). Actually the reviewers really had nothing but nice, even glowing things to say in the comment sheet. The only negative thing (besides the comment about poster presentations) was that my previous research statement could have more details in it (how could I fit any more details in 2 pages?). All the rest of the comments were on how strong and well written my proposed research was; how I had varied research; how my research in natural products carried into my future research; how my personal statement was good; how strong my letters were (and how one in particular said that I had incredible enthusiasm for science and potential for future success); how I demonstrated a commitment to outreach to elementary schools; how I demonstrated a commitment to mentoring undergraduates; how my international research experience is a positive indicator for collaborative networks and broad dissemination in my field; how I explained how my work is relevant to the scientific community at large.

Really these rating sheets are pretty much useless. They say that I'm a good scientist and have a lot of potential, but I am just not awesome enough to be competitive for awesome people fellowships for awesome people who deserve to get awesome amounts of money. I guess I should take it as a complement that I got this far?

Oh my goodness, I cannot wait to be done with classes. It's spring break and I'm finally getting a chance to re-channel 100% of my focus to research, and it is glorious. Even if my experiments aren't working (yet).

First year graduate student

When I was in Germany, at no point of their education did people ever juggle the way they do in the US.

Take my senior thesis. While doing my senior thesis, I was applying to grad school, taking a few classes, TAing a section of o-chem, and doing individual tutoring at the tutoring center. Take the first year of grad school. I'm TAing, taking 2-3 classes, and doing research. For the past two years, I've had lab as a first priority, squeezed in (in nights, weekends, and mornings primarily) between taking classes, teaching classes, grading, doing homework, and attending meetings. It's only been summers where my whole and entire focus can be dedicated to research.

In Germany, people didn't do an undergrad thesis, but they did do a diploma thesis (sort of like masters). Their diploma thesis was done in 6-9 months after they finished all their coursework. Their PhD was nothing but research. There was none of this frantic racing around, setting up that reaction before you had to run off to TA, sending a text asking a labmate to induce your cells while you're in class.

I suppose some first years handle it differently, making research less of a priority until they hit their second year, mainly just focusing on their classes. That's not why I went to grad school.

And on top of all the trying to get that experiment in, trying to finish your group meeting presentation, trying to stay on top of classes, I also feel obligated (and want) to do all the things I know are good to do. I want to go to at least a seminar or two every week. I want to stay on top of the literature--both in my specific field, and broadly in chemistry. I want to go to lunch with seminar speakers. I did this as an undergrad...I should be able to do this now, right? Right?

I love knowledge. I know classes are giving me knowledge, and I appreciate that. I guess I won't appreciate the influence they have on me until later--in terms of how I think about chemistry as is the pattern with classes. I guess I definitely got something out of both of the classes I took last fall, one in particular. But I dunno, I've been taking classes for so long, and I know that I will never have a chance to take a class in every area of chemistry that I'm interested in. I think I'm ready to pick up knowledge in less structured formats, as I need/want to know it. Luckily after this summer, I will never need to take a class again.

I wonder if this juggling game they put you through in grad school as a first year PhD student prepares you better for modern academia. I watch my PI, and he's split between so many obligations...

And then there's teaching. I enjoy teaching. There was this moment in my office hour last week when I coached someone through an equilibrium expression, and I thought "wow, this is satisfying." I do think it's valuable to force me to recall very fundamental chemistry that I don't encounter day-to-day. But I also see my friends on RA and how much they are able to accomplish in lab without dividing their attention constantly, and it's frustrating.

I don't know which of my (too many) projects are going to hit.

What am I doing with my life, anyway?

These days I'm a graduate student, and I'm finding that I have less and less time to post.

I'm doing well; my research hasn't made any obvious, tangible progress yet, but I'm slowly getting there...working on it bit by bit. I have a great group and a great boss and really that seems to make all the difference. The classes are going ok and TAing is fine, but I'm just swamped with work to do all the time as is the graduate student lifestyle.

The more I read about the field I'm studying in grad school, the more I realize that my knowledge of this field is so ridiculously small.

It's not that I didn't expect this to be the case. Generally the more you learn, the more overwhelmed you are by how much you just don't know.

But these systems all have a lot of nuance, and it's a lot to wrap my head around. I assume much of the details will become second nature as I dive into projects and am surrounded by the terminology in lab meetings and have been reading these papers for many years...but as it stands I realize that I just don't know much at all.

In the past all my projects have been constrained by time; usually a summer, a semester, or (for my undergraduate thesis) an academic school year. This means that there is very little to loose, because it's obscene to expect that anyone gets results in 3-9 months. If you do, you're lucky. If you don't, you learn from the experience and that's what it's mainly about anyway at the undergraduate level.

Graduate school is going to be different, though. In graduate school, there's going to be time to see through a project to completion. I'm not going to abandon my babies half-finished. Of course, there's the whole idea of never really completing a project...and always having a follow-up project, but there will be five, maybe more years to make it work. And this is exciting and scary, because you never really have the excuse "oh I didn't have enough time to make it work."

It either gets finished or abandoned, I guess.

One of the few ways I know how to lift myself out of depression is to go to lab.

Of course, this strategy is somewhat less effective if you're working and working and never seeing any results...but even the act of working towards a result can help me sometimes.

I was feeling overwhelmed about various personal things in my life, many of them related to anxieties about moving and starting a new phase in my life. Right now I'm kind of still working in my undergrad lab in a very low-expectation, lackadaisical kind of way, and I very nearly didn't go in at all because I was feeling kind of shitty.

I finally got up the energy to go in at around 3 pm to check up on some stuff, and I realized a ligation had worked when I screened it by PCR. It was one of those surprise ligations where only one colony on the plate grows, but that one transformant is the right transformat. It was enough to lift me out of my funk.

So...after dinner I came back and started working on this more. Re-doing the ligation that didn't work, and transforming the miniprep of the ligation that did work into an expression strain. I'm going to be here until 10 pm. It's totally illogical for me to be working like this. I should be coming in at 9 like a normal person. And for that matter, even if I do get a soluble expression of this protein, I'm leaving town in less than two weeks. There's not enough time for me to play with this.

But I can't help myself. I have to do that transformation. I have to see.

It's an addiction.