Comments on: The Hypomotivated Trainee

By: BugDoc

BugDoc — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:15:55 +0000

I have some really bright trainees that like doing science and contribute to an engaging atmosphere in the lab. However, I am trying to communicate to them that in addition to enjoying the work (very important), you also need to bring intensity to your experiments if you want to be successful. Some students don’t need to be told this and do experiments quickly because they really want to know the answer ASAP. Others do experiments whenever they get around it, and don’t distinguish between getting the result this week rather than in three weeks. For my part, I am committed to supporting them in whatever their career goals are, be they academia, industry, teaching, etc, but it seems to me that whatever job you are interviewing for, intensity and a strong work ethic make a big impact in addition to your research accomplishments.

By: bikemonkey

bikemonkey — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 14:10:52 +0000

Great one PhysioProf, gold nuggets throughout. With respect to the goal-dependent training track in the lab, the big thing this recommends is honest communication. Throughout the training stint. One to the biggest difficulties is going to be that people’s motivations change, even across a not-atypical 5 year posting in a lab. Also, as in that Chronicle piece on time “wasted” training anyone not going on to BigResearch or BigProfdom, one has to deal with the trainee being comfortable not maintaining a career fiction…

Abel Pharmboy “‘It’s very important to like the process,” Smithies says. “If you don’t, you will be disappointed because you only get exciting results occasionally. You get the process all the time.’”

It’s funny because there are many ways in which getting one’s daily fix from a particular model, or whatnot can be counter productive to the big picture of science. Model dependency is the “Small Town Grocer” in that cartoon and, while ok if well chosen, can lead to a life of funding and promotion stress. Still, the counter to this is captured in the quote passed along here. I tell trainees that it is okay to admit a substantial part of the motivation is “I get to work with [Model X}! whoo hoo!”. It has worked to get me through rough spots for sure…

By: Abel Pharmboy

Abel Pharmboy — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:26:48 +0000

A superb and insightful post, PhysioProf. I’ve often used the baseball analogy as well, modifying it to point out that hitting .400 is the most difficult feat in baseball and hasn’t been done since 1941.

For those in a slump, it also bears mentioning a quote from Oliver Smithies from an article written well before this year’s Nobel announcement:

“It’s very important to like the process,” Smithies says. “If you don’t, you will be disappointed because you only get exciting results occasionally. You get the process all the time.”

By: Thomas Robey

Thomas Robey — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 05:39:09 +0000

It is so nice to see you writing posts, physioprof! Although I must say you have posting quality content in your comments all along.

You say:

So trainees in an experimental slump need to be convinced that if they just relax and keep plugging away, experiments will start to work. Sometimes, stepping back from a difficult series of experiments and just doing some easy basic stuff can break a slump.

Whether this is possible is totally up to the environment set up by the PI, and if I ever have trainees – doctoral, medical or whatever – I hope I can facilitate this. You are right to set this apart from the having fun point. My experience in a ‘driven’ lab with a PI that also liked to have fun and encouraged trainees to do so was that having fun and successful experiments were too often conflated.