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So in the previous episode, we talked about how I chose the lab, oh no, the grad school program.
In this episode, I want to talk about how I chose lab. And yes, I think I talked a bit about
the research interest alignment and how I narrowed down the options. And that was all good. But I
think you shouldn't overemphasize the research interest alignment, because at least for me,
I started looking for a grad school program when I was 22, 23. You know, I didn't know
shit about ultrafast molecular dynamics. I did not know anything really about
physical chemistry beyond my undergrad exposure, which is the case for most people.
And that's okay. But it would have been very dangerous for me to go into grad school,
thinking I want to only do this one type of experiment and one type of research field.
And that's how I'm choosing it. Because let's be honest, yeah, you just don't know it. You're a baby
as far as scientist goes. You know, after a bachelor's degree in STEM field,
you could be useful, yeah, as a lab tech, as a research assistant in some other places.
But you still need a lot of guidance. You still need to know how the larger field works and how
to conduct research independently. And your idea of what a research is could be very, very far
from what it actually entails. To me, the biggest sort of surprise I had in research
is that things don't work most of the time. So I worked with both commercial instruments. So our
lasers were commercial instruments we bought from a vendor. But the other half of the experiment,
what we did with the laser, you know, like crossing the laser with molecular beam,
the molecular beam delivery system, the vacuum chambers, the detection system, all of that
were homemade. So I had about 50-50 consumer product and homemade instruments. And it was
just a big sort of very, very needy instruments. They were very sensitive to temperatures. They
were very sensitive to vibrations and a lot of other things. And because this instrument,
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the homemade part of the instruments, at least some parts of the instrument were built like
when my boss came to the university 20-25 years ago. So I, yeah, I didn't even
know anything about it. And it was very finicky. Some of the design choices were
made because that was the technology that was available at the time rather than whether it
makes sense or if it's a robust design that you can make today. So it was very finicky,
it was very sensitive. Some things were broken all of the time when you have a complex system
like that. You know, if your laser is working, maybe your detection system wasn't working.
If your detection system is working, maybe your chiller breaks. Or sometimes a random computer
error happens and you cannot move the optics that you thought you could move. And all of these
things were constantly happening. And I would say in five years that I spent my life doing PhD,
only time, like if I sum the days that all of these instrumental components are working together
as it should be, were maybe two to three weeks out of five years. All of the other time,
I was either trying to fix the problem with the instrument or analyzing the tiny,
analyzing the data that I did magically get. So yeah, all of my thesis, all of my papers came
out of those two to three weeks of magical moments where all of the lasers and stars were aligned,
you can say. And so that's the level of how things were not working. And nobody could have
prepared me for that as an undergrad looking for labs to join. What I did realize that my situation
is not unique to me, a lot of other physical chemistry experimental students had the similar
problem. Everyone had a different degree of homemade instrument versus consumer
instruments. But regardless of how much of that is homemade or consumer product,
machines break more often than you think it should. And you're going to spend a lot of time
fixing it. That's the good and bad part about being an experimentalist. I can never be
a simulation-based theorist type of researchers. I don't think I can be. But
being experimentalist, that's also not easy. But anywho, enough of that. My point is,
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is that as an undergrad, as a freshly joining PhD program, you just have no idea what to expect as a
research. So don't sort of pigeonhole yourself too much in specific research area or research
method or experiment types. I would say if the lab is 70, 80 percent aligned with your research
interest, I think that's good enough. So what do you worry so that the remaining 10, 15 percent,
what do you think about, you know, what becomes important?
To me, it was really important that I work with advisors who understands and who
is okay with how I work. So I like to work fairly independently.
And I don't like people asking me to come at like, you must be in the lab between 9 to 6 p.m.
or something. I want to be able to come in at 7 a.m. if I wanted to and leave at 2 p.m. if I wanted to
that day. And I also wanted someone who is a good research advisor, first of all,
who is available to the students. So I knew that my boss, even though he was very busy,
he was very good at responding to emails, making time for his students. And that's something I
liked about him because I know that some of my students, some of my fellow PhD students
in different labs had a hard time getting a hold of the job, of the boss, because,
you know, he was always traveling or he was too busy doing a dean of grad school or something.
And, you know, they only get to see him like once, once every two to three weeks.
And if that's you, that's fine. I wanted him to be available basically whenever I wanted him to
be available to. And I, there are times I needed his help every day. And there are times I needed
his help only once a month. And my boss was very, and we were on the same page from the day one.
He was like, when I decided to join, he was like, okay, Asami, here's one rule I have for all
students. You have to let me know whenever you're not thriving. So thriving means like you're doing
fabulous. You're doing excellent. Everything in the lab is working right. And as I told you,
that's not every day. That hardly is the case. So he's like, if you're not thriving in a lab
or writing papers or doing research, you have to tell me what's happening. And it's your
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responsibility to let me know how I can help you because I am not going to be able to sense
what sort of help you need. And I was like, okay, got it. You know, I was like, okay, I
now understood that it is my responsibility to let my boss know and bug him, right, with the
problems that I have, no matter how small. And that was a clear statement that I got from him
on the first day. And that was really helpful. The other green flag I had for my lab, which I
think I talked about in previous episode at some point, is when I was rotating and saw a senior
grad student of my lab giving a group meeting. He was giving like a practice conference talk
at the group meeting. And my boss asked him some questions about the way he handled the analysis.
And he was like, oh, those effect cancels out. So we don't really need to worry about this part.
And my boss was pressing. He's like, are you sure about that? And, you know, and my
the senior grad student was very confident and didn't have any problem
rebuttaling and defending his analysis, defending his paper and going against what my boss was
suggesting. And he held his ground. And this was done in such a professional and friendly way as
well. He, you know, nobody got upset. Nobody got nervous, agitated. It was done like it's an
everyday thing. You know, people argue about science. And I really like that about the lab.
So I saw that and be like, I know that I became a decent researcher when I can do that with my boss.
So that was a great role model, even though I only overlapped with him for maybe
less than a year because he was graduating. He was a great role model for me.
And I knew that this was extra important when I went to other group meetings from different labs.
Similar situation, you know, the boss started asking him why he did a certain thing in the
experiment. And basically, the guy only had his only answer was like, oh, but you told me to do
that. And that's never a good answer. You know, if you're a researcher, it's your research. It's
your experiment. You should know why you're doing the certain things. And if what your boss says
doesn't make sense, then don't do it. And you should know enough about your project to make
that kind of decision. So when I saw that, I was like, okay, I know which lab I'm joining.
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So yeah, and I guess that's how I chose my lab. I would have done something differently. I mean,
I'm generally very lucky. I'm very happy how my grad school turned out. What I would have
done differently is maybe involving a lot more people to my project
than like from earlier stage, you know, because I was doing in our lab, we individually had our
own research project. And we did whatever, pretty much working on our own experiment,
but like for the shared instrument stuff we took care of together. But if I had an older grad
student who was available and capable of helping me, advising me on top of my boss, I think,
and if I actually reached out for their help in a timely fashion, I think my research project
would have progressed a lot faster. Or perhaps if it needed to change, I think it would have
changed earlier. And just the whole thing may have been a bit more collaborative process.
Unfortunately, there was a bit of a gap between my, so the fifth year that was my role model
and me. There were a couple of years where there was no students because they were either
not in, not at the university because they were, you know, in different university for like
that semester or that year doing some different experiments or something. Like I just didn't have
a person I could talk to every day about my problems. And I think that was, so I had a lot
of self-teaching to do, which I feel kind of delayed my progress. But I mean, maybe that's
how I learned. So that's all good in the end. But I think it's very easy to feel like you don't
really know how to request help, especially if you work in a lab that encourages independent work,
which I liked. But as a baby researcher, I think I needed more help than I thought I needed.
And I wish I, I wish I realized that earlier. I wish I asked for help earlier. But when I realized
that I, my troubleshooting and my research and my learning process would have been so much
more efficient had I somebody who could, you know, who I could balance my ideas with, my research
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like was progressed a lot faster. And I also subsequently learned a lot quicker, I think.
So hopefully this helped in choosing your PhD program, how you want to start doing PhD.
I'm not sure how many of you listeners are at the stage of choosing PhD programs or labs,
but if you know somebody who is at that stage, or if you know somebody who's an undergrad,
who's like, I'm not sure if I want to do more school, share this episode. Hopefully it's helpful.
And we'll have Masako back for the next episode. Bye!
That's it for the show today. Thanks for listening and find us at EigoDeScience on
Twitter. That is E-I-G-O-D-E-S-C-I-E-N-C-E. See you next time!
