Lab compact
You want to do research. That’s great! But what does that really mean?
The detailed answer to this question can be found in the expectations and policies below. But before you dive into those, I want to provide context for the information in there*.
Research at the bench is vastly different from what you may have experienced in school where the map to success was perhaps well-defined and well-laid out, and as long as you followed the ‘rules’, you made it to the finish line with flying colors. Research is about revealing or generating knowledge, expanding the bubble of knowledge. It is taking a dive into the unknown using previous knowledge as a springboard. But neither you, the trainee, nor me, the mentor, can know what we are going to find. Our goal as a team is to make scientific discoveries that advance our collective knowledge. It is not easy, and it is not supposed to be easy. It takes patience and perseverance.
But it does not have to be at the expense of everything you love and enjoy. And you don’t have to do it alone, either. Research is collaborative; it must be. You will be surprised to find out how often you have all the help you need if only you ask for it. In the end, it is those moments when you discover something new that makes all the hard work worth it.
Lastly, you may have heard people talk about passion in science. I have often struggled to understand what that really means and if I believe it. Is passion about working 24/7 and sacrificing everything else? I am not sure. But if I were to define passion as the determination to come back to the lab and not give up despite numerous failures and setbacks, about not giving up, then yes, I’d say you need passion for science. But also equally important, passion for science should leave room for having fun and prioritizing things that are important to you while you pursue your career goals. Ultimately, you want to grow as a scientist and as a person. My thoughts on ‘passion’ are aptly expressed in this quote by Mary Shelly (from Frankenstein):
A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind.
I encourage you to keep this perspective in mind when you read the following documents and also remember that these documents are meant to evolve over time.
*I have drawn inspiration from my postdoctoral mentor, Andrea Page-McCaw, and Ondine Cleaver (who is a developmental biologist at UT Southwestern I met at a retreat during my postdoctoral training) to put this lab compact together.
The detailed answer to this question can be found in the expectations and policies below. But before you dive into those, I want to provide context for the information in there*.
Research at the bench is vastly different from what you may have experienced in school where the map to success was perhaps well-defined and well-laid out, and as long as you followed the ‘rules’, you made it to the finish line with flying colors. Research is about revealing or generating knowledge, expanding the bubble of knowledge. It is taking a dive into the unknown using previous knowledge as a springboard. But neither you, the trainee, nor me, the mentor, can know what we are going to find. Our goal as a team is to make scientific discoveries that advance our collective knowledge. It is not easy, and it is not supposed to be easy. It takes patience and perseverance.
But it does not have to be at the expense of everything you love and enjoy. And you don’t have to do it alone, either. Research is collaborative; it must be. You will be surprised to find out how often you have all the help you need if only you ask for it. In the end, it is those moments when you discover something new that makes all the hard work worth it.
Lastly, you may have heard people talk about passion in science. I have often struggled to understand what that really means and if I believe it. Is passion about working 24/7 and sacrificing everything else? I am not sure. But if I were to define passion as the determination to come back to the lab and not give up despite numerous failures and setbacks, about not giving up, then yes, I’d say you need passion for science. But also equally important, passion for science should leave room for having fun and prioritizing things that are important to you while you pursue your career goals. Ultimately, you want to grow as a scientist and as a person. My thoughts on ‘passion’ are aptly expressed in this quote by Mary Shelly (from Frankenstein):
A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind.
I encourage you to keep this perspective in mind when you read the following documents and also remember that these documents are meant to evolve over time.
*I have drawn inspiration from my postdoctoral mentor, Andrea Page-McCaw, and Ondine Cleaver (who is a developmental biologist at UT Southwestern I met at a retreat during my postdoctoral training) to put this lab compact together.