graduate education
sciencewoman | October 5, 2009Remember this summer when I was working on the course design for my new prep on Experimental Design and Data Analysis? We're now a month into the class, and while it has had its rough moments, I think it will ultimately be quite useful to the students enrolled in it.
I'm currently avoiding grading, so I thought I'd take a moment to show the results of an exercise we did the first week. I gave groups of students two sheets of paper. On one I asked them to diagram the scientific method as they understood it. On the other, I asked them to diagram their experience with how scientific research is…
terrasig | July 28, 2009[This 23rd July entry is being reposted today under the ScienceBlogs "Education" channel as its original categorization there fell victim to gremlins in the upgraded Movable Type script.]
At the outset, let me say that I have immense respect and admiration for a special commenter.
In last week's Friday Fermentable post, we took the 40th anniversary of the Apollo XI mission as an opportunity to draw attention to Buzz Aldrin's newly-released autobiography, Magnificent Desolation. In it, Aldrin describes his lifelong battle with depression and alcoholism and how he has managed both challenges.…
sciencewoman | July 14, 2009After articulating that my most dire need is to get funded, it may seem disjointed to embark on a series of blog posts about teaching, but there you have it, the life of a professor at a place that requires both research and teaching. I still contend that I will get fired from my job much more quickly for failure to teach a course than failure to get funded, so I must do something about the new preparation I have for the fall.
The new course, "Experimental Design and Data Analysis," is a graduate-only course with only a loose definition in the course catalog. It hasn't been taught for the…
terrasig | April 28, 2009Several of my blogging colleagues have been discussing over the last few days whether there is value in cultivating fellow scientists as readers of science blogs. While some find this a waste of time, others recognize that blogs provide a useful, real-time platform for disseminating information and discussing current issues and career development challenges that cannot be done well in print format. The informality of the blog also allows for frank discussion to be had between senior scientists, trainees, and the general public that do not often (if at all) occur at one's home institution.…
terrasig | January 31, 2009I've been terribly behind on a billion things lately, most importantly spending time with my family and calling PharmSis and PharmMom.
However, DrugMonkey's post on Mentoring 101: Let's Talk About the Money drew from me a comment I feel I should post here despite coming after 60+ other comments there.
The bulk of the discussion was on 1) what do you do to educate your lab on the actual budget of running the show, 2) do NIH research grants really support graduate and postgraduate education? and 3) does recovery of indirect costs (ICRs) represent a boondoggle for university administration, an…
terrasig | November 25, 2008We had one of our most active comment threads the other day when I posted my thoughts on drdrA's own superb post about what is most important to her in being a woman in science. I noted my own desire to listen to and understand as completely as possible the issues of my women colleagues and discuss, in an upcoming ScienceOnline'09 session with Zuska and Alice Pawley (Sat 17 Jan, 11:30 am, session C), how they can enlist academic allies who have the traditional power and resource structure (i.e., white guys like me) to establish partnerships in working toward fair and equitable treatment of…
terrasig | November 13, 2008For whatever reason, I woke up really depressed and exhausted today - pretty much for no reason, I think.
I checked my schedule on my Treo - today marks 19 years since my dissertation defense.
I remember being really depressed throughout writing my dissertation thinking, "is this all I have to show for this many years of public support for my training?"
My defense was on a Monday so I spent most of Sunday practicing my seminar in the room where I'd give it - it sucked so badly that I couldn't even get through it once.
When the time came, it was the most incoherent performance I had ever…
terrasig | August 16, 2008CORRECTION: The following was to be a part-sincere/part-serious sendup of my buddy Bora's penchant for monitoring the entire Internet. Bora did indeed host the first edition of Praxis, the new blog carnival of academic life.
However.
The Praxis experimental carnival of "the experience of living the scientific" was established, founded, and otherwise continues to be led by Martin, author of The Lay Scientist blog.
Mini Bio:
Well I'm Martin, I live in Cambridge, England, and this is me on the Amazon in 2007. I did a frankly weird Ph.D. looking at the relationship between models from ecology,…
terrasig | April 25, 2008MD/PhD student Jake Young at Pure Pedantry came up with a great idea and is collecting recipes for cheap, grad student/med student meals. (We of Eastern European heritage love a kid who suggests an inventive application of kielbasa.).
The submissions in the comment thread remind me that our food supply system is so screwed up that the most nutritious foods are the most expensive. When one is living on a student stipend, paying your own way, or , more seriously, if you are one of millions of US citizens living in abject poverty, one usually purchases the most calories per dollar. In our…
terrasig | January 18, 2008We're a little bit late here in wishing the DrugMonkey blog a happy 1st blogiversary. Contributors DrugMonkey, BikeMonkey, and PhysioProf have had a very productive year of offering valuable career advice for graduate and postgraduate trainees in the biomedical sciences, general discussions on NIH grant funding, and various topics in neuroscience.
The sci/med blogosphere is populated quite heavily by graduate students, medical students, and postdoctoral fellows. This situation is perhaps easy to explain in that most of these trainees are of an age that is comfortable with social networking…
terrasig | October 29, 2007The always-insightful blog commenter, PhysioProf, had a terrific post yesterday on DrugMonkey about managing the various types of trainees in a research laboratory.
Some are focused on just doing interesting science. Some are working towards the goal of eventually achieving scientific independence and becoming independent PIs themselves. Some don't know why they are doing what they are doing, and may not even have ever asked themselves. Some are preparing themselves for working as scientists in industry. Some may be preparing themselves for non-scientific careers in which they make use of…
terrasig | October 12, 2007Vote for Shelley!
Welcome readers, I am Dr John Jacob Abel, namesake of the proprietor of this blog and The Father of American Pharmacology. Among my many scientific and educational accomplishments was my establishment of the first American Department of Pharmacology at the University of Michigan in 1891.
It has come to my attention through something called a "blog" that a fellow Wolverine and neuroscience trainee, Dr-to-be Shelley Batts of Retrospectacle!, is competing for a student blogging scholarship worth $10,000 offered by CollegeScholarships.org (vote here). Shelley was very kind to…