I'd say speak to any past or present students a PI has. You can tell if someone is a good PI or not by the way someone speaks about them; lot's of praise then yes, that PI is good. Being reserved to speak about them says a lot as well - the PI may not be that great. Maybe consider avoiding any 'superstars' or someone with a lot of phd students - these PIs may not have a lot of time to support you, which considering your last PI, you could do with support to boast your confidence

I asked my supervisor about this when I went for a Postdoc interview - she said you can't go wrong with shirt and smart trousers/skirt. Try and be comfortable, but first impressions do count

Hi all
I'm not sure if anyone else has experienced this, but here goes.
I've struggled with anxiety for most of my PhD, but it's got bad when my supervisors put a lot of pressure and guilt on me to write up completely in 3 months. Basically, it all came to a head where I just wanted to submit, but they felt my thesis wasn't ready. I was given another 3 months (until end of March). However, in that time, feedback has been very slow, to the point of non-existence, and I felt that I've hardly anything to do other than try give myself feedback. In the meantime, I was stressing about money, and although I was offered a part time job (which I thought ideal), I was told not to take the opportunity.
I am still waiting on feedback from my primary supervisor, after literally running out of things I can do for my thesis. I have been offered another job, of which the PI would like me to start earlier (maybe end of Feb) but I have the feeling my supervisor will say no again.
I appreciate that a thesis is hard to write, but I feel like I am holding up my end of the bargain without my supervisor holding up his, but he's still preventing me from moving on; he wants me to finish ASAP without actually helping, and also stopping me from actually looking for a job
anyone else experienced this?

PS I have to say, that other than this situation, all my supervisors have been helpful and supportive, and really do try to look out for me and my health, but I just feel a bit suffocated and not at all productive to my end go; submitting and moving on in the next few weeks

I'm in a similar situation; my dad made a huge scene at my masters graduation because I didn't make it about him. I decided there and then that he will not attend any more of my graduations because at the end of the day, I want to celebrate my achievement and not have to worry about him.

I've not yet discussed this with him as it doesn't seem the right time - I don't want to cause a lot of arguments when my concentration should be on finishing my lab work and writing my thesis. But I still think he's under the impression he is attending my PhD graduation, despite his behaviour at the last one. I haven't said anything as like I said, I don't want to cause an argument over something that isn't going to happen for another year or so.

Hi Selimonushka,
From your post, I assume you don't have a PhD? As you wont get a postdoctoral position without one. would you consider a more clinical post?
I would try get more experience in labs before trying to get a job in science, as even as a third year PhD student, I'm finding it hard to find any potential posts post-phd

Hi both

thanks for the tips. I've decided to just state ~30 mins in the methods, not the most scientific but as I'm not actually attending the conference, another Phd student is taking it for me, so hence a slight panic that I'm not able to discuss my work. The actual data point isn't obvious that it was left longer than the others, so only I'd know it was different but I think I'm very thorough about everything is correct and I'm not hiding anything!

But I do like the footnote idea, and may use it in my thesis

Hi All

I'm almost finished with a poster and I was just double checking some graphs i've put on the results. I realised that for one data set, I primed some neutrophils for a little longer than 30 mins that I have stated in the methods (this was due to having a few experiments going on at the same time and some time points clashing). The actual results are fine, but I don't want the methods to be misleading - is it best to stick with 'neutrophils were treated with TNF alpha for 30 mins' as that was the standard protocol, or try and imply some neutrophils were left a little longer?

Hi all

I'm having a bit of a lull with experiments, in that I feel I haven't done anything productive since October. I've had some issues with the flow cytometer (we have a relatively old one, and thus plays up quite frequently because of this, to the point it had a massive crash in October, and combined with a new annexin stain a new post doc ordered, all my apoptosis assays haven't been right since), and with picking up STAT1 on a western blot, so a lot of the experiments and data I need to collect have been put on hold. Combine with my secondary supervisor going on maternity leave, I've been given a tertiary advisor (who is really nice and approachable) but he, like my primary, is very busy and not been in the lab for a while. The new postdoc has also volunteered to help, which in one sense I am grateful for as she is more hands on lab wise, but I think on the work front we clash a bit as I do things quite differently to how she would do it, and sometimes it feels she's trying to help with stuff I didn't ask for help on, and I end up feeling a bit unnecessarily micromanaged when I don't need it, and she's trying to help so it reflects well on her but not necessarily for my benefit. I fully appreciate I'm maybe being a bit defensive as I'm not being as productive as I'd like and that because my secondary supervisor isn't available, also feeling a bit lost and deflated as she was really supportive last year.

Anyone have any tips for 'second year blues'?

Hi all,

My research group is very blood based, so we need a lot of blood donations from healthy adult controls.

We had new ethics drawn up in the last year, and thus have to be careful how we go about getting a blood donation. It's sometimes a little vague who you can ask, and what to do when someone volunteers who isn't consented.

Which is the main problem for me - I asked if I could have a blood sample on Tuesday, and someone volunteered and I only realised half way through the blood donation she wasn't consented and made a note. I spoke to a few others today who seem happy to donate, so I went to ask the lecturer who's involved in the ethics and he was quite abrupt about how to go about the consenting, even though I just asked if we could have some spare consent forms to sort things out.

Now he wants to come to our lab meeting on Monday, and I'm terrified that a) I'm going to get into massive trouble and b) the group is going to get into massive trouble because of it and we'll lose our ethics

I've emailed the group explaining what I know of the situation and apologising in advance if I've caused any problems but really don't know what else I can do

Hi Howodd

I was actually in a similar situation to you, didn't do overly well in my 2nd year Christmas exams. However, I think what helped me get my studentship is an internship I did before my masters year (I did a 4 year masters degree) and took a year out to gain some real life lab experience. If you can, I'd try do some lab experience in the area you are interested in, and if you took a year out it wouldn't be the end of world - plus PhD applications can be all year round. Most PhDs accept 2.1s, but obviously you have to consider how popular they are.

Hope this helps

Hi Angantyr

I'm sorry to hear you are having a bad time. But I do agree with the others on the forum that 9-5 in the office is completely reasonable.

Can I ask what type of PhD you are doing (science, humanities, engineering?) as this may be very fundemental to the issue - if, like me, you're in the science bit, then yes your supervisor will have a point.

I have two supervisors, and both, at one point or another, have critiqued my work that maybe I don't agree with - but I always remember that they are a lot more experienced than me, and that without that critiquing, I'll never improve. Plus, any work I do is a reflection on them as supervisors and scientists - if they let me produce sub-par work, then the university and the wider community would question how good at their jobs they are - and believe me, they are good!

I always think, try aim for the 'perfect' bit of work they expect, and if you do feel it's less than perfect, it may be actually better than it would have been

on a more symphathetic note, is there any other academics you can talk to? I've recently had a review with the other major academic in my department, to let me bring up such issues i may have with my own supervisors - its a good way to sort out issues before they snowball. Or is there a mentor you can talk to?

hope you feel better

Hi,

Thanks for the advice - turned out alright in the end! the only issue is some SEM - I have an n of 5 western blots, but two conditions on one western blot aren't applicable (basically I can't measure the ratio between two of my proteins as one isnt there). It doesnt change the average that much but these two are in one sense an n of 4, but in another an n of 5 so not sure which way to calculate the SEM (so i calculate it as Std deviatin/square root of repeats)

Hi,

I'm analysing a bit of data, and long story short i have slightly different n numbers for some of my conditions - 2 have 8 and the rest have five. I am adjusting for this, but is it okay to present if they aren't consistant?

Also with one western blot, I have 3 non applicable samples - they dont affect the mean as such but can affect the SEM due to how I'm calculating it. For example, I have an n of 5 westerns, and i calculate the SEM by Standard deviation/Square root of the number of repeats. So generally this is five, but with the 3 I have non applicable samples, should it be 4 or 5?

Thanks

Hi all,

I've been doing western blots for McL1 expression (which is 40kDa), stripping the membrane then reprobing for beta actin (which is 42 kda) as the proteins are quite close together I'm worried that my beta actin isn't beta actin but actually mcl1

However my mcl1 has always been faint or quite dirty, however beta actin is quite clean and strong - should I be worried?

Hi,

I've done a poster for a conference next week, and i've been looking over data as I want to submit an abstract for a summer school thats very similar. I've realised I've included a data set that has a couple of data points that aren't applicable (this result is technically correct) and now I'm worried i shouldn't have included them. it doesn't effect the graph that much but I'm worried I've represented wrong data