Making a Case for Lab Rotations
23/08/10 15:25 Filed in: GenomeWeb Daily Scan
Submitted by S. Pelech - Kinexus on Mon, 08/23/2010 - 15:25.
In principal, lab rotations for 3 to 6 months would be an excellent opportunity for new graduate students to learn more about various academic laboratories that might be more copasetic for their interests. However, this would add an extra year to their graduate training, and the host laboratory supervisor would probably not be willing to provide financial support and be less inclined to invest a lot of time for a transient student. Studentship awards are also be more difficult to procure as granting agencies generally want to know more about the lab and project that a graduate student applicant is proposing to work in for 3 or more years with their support.
At the University of British Columbia, in the Experimental Medicine Graduate Program, for many years, we have been offering a mandatory core course for our new graduate students that involves visiting and researching in host labs. Entry into first year graduate studies directly with a B.Sc. degree requires starting in a M.Sc. degree program. In their first year, new M.Sc. graduate students spend about a full day per week for 6 weeks in a host lab, and then undertake a second rotation 6 week rotation in another host lab. During these periods, the graduate students meet the various personnel in the host labs, are introduced to their research programs and learn about the special techniques applied in these labs. The trainees still retain the original graduate thesis supervisor that agreed to accept them into the graduate program before, during and after the lab rotations. As first graduate students are also required to take a few other courses in parallel, the actual interaction time in the host lab is still relatively short. However, it can foster opportunities for collaboration between labs, with the graduate students acting as liaisons. If a trainee desires to continue their future Ph.D. training in a host lab after they complete a short M.Sc. degree program, then he or she has a much better sense of what it will be like to work there. Likewise, the new Ph.D. supervisor would have a better sense of the capabilities of the trainee.
Link to the original blog post.
In principal, lab rotations for 3 to 6 months would be an excellent opportunity for new graduate students to learn more about various academic laboratories that might be more copasetic for their interests. However, this would add an extra year to their graduate training, and the host laboratory supervisor would probably not be willing to provide financial support and be less inclined to invest a lot of time for a transient student. Studentship awards are also be more difficult to procure as granting agencies generally want to know more about the lab and project that a graduate student applicant is proposing to work in for 3 or more years with their support.
At the University of British Columbia, in the Experimental Medicine Graduate Program, for many years, we have been offering a mandatory core course for our new graduate students that involves visiting and researching in host labs. Entry into first year graduate studies directly with a B.Sc. degree requires starting in a M.Sc. degree program. In their first year, new M.Sc. graduate students spend about a full day per week for 6 weeks in a host lab, and then undertake a second rotation 6 week rotation in another host lab. During these periods, the graduate students meet the various personnel in the host labs, are introduced to their research programs and learn about the special techniques applied in these labs. The trainees still retain the original graduate thesis supervisor that agreed to accept them into the graduate program before, during and after the lab rotations. As first graduate students are also required to take a few other courses in parallel, the actual interaction time in the host lab is still relatively short. However, it can foster opportunities for collaboration between labs, with the graduate students acting as liaisons. If a trainee desires to continue their future Ph.D. training in a host lab after they complete a short M.Sc. degree program, then he or she has a much better sense of what it will be like to work there. Likewise, the new Ph.D. supervisor would have a better sense of the capabilities of the trainee.
Link to the original blog post.