On teachers and teaching expectations

Recently I had a depressing conversation with someone who went back to school, with the goal of getting a new job in a different field.

She was saying how she felt like it wasn't worth the money at all, and the quality of teaching at her school was very disappointing. 

She came from a background in an education field, so although I've never seen her teach, I could understand her frustration. It's always hard when you've put a lot of effort into learning how to do something, like teaching, and then you're stuck in a situation where you're paying for someone to do it to you, and badly. 

I imagine this must be what it's like for former hairdressers to get a bad haircut. 

At the same time, I was struck by how she didn't seem to have any skills for self-instruction. She wasn't good at searching the internet, or reading example material that I thought was very clear, and she didn't seem to make good use of other people who had offered to help her. 

I was thinking back to how I learned all of these skills, mostly during grad school. In some ways, self-teaching is the most valuable thing I got out of doing research. 

Why couldn't undergrads do research?

A link via my last post led me to this article in the chronicle that says both the oversupply of PhDs and the shortage of scientists are myths.

And some really scary stuff about Bill Gates, H1B visas and Walmart. Definitely worth a read.

But there was one line in the article that caught my attention, because it implied that having students do research is a bad thing.

I'm not sure I agree. If anything, I felt like most of my structured education was inefficient at best, a huge waste of my young energy and time at worst.

Why couldn't we accelerate more students through required courses faster, and let them start doing research younger? Would that really be such a bad thing? They're curious, they have fresh ideas, and they ask good questions. Why not?

The idea that "casualization" of scientific jobs is okay is also lost on me. As I've written here before, I think it would make more sense to let younger people do scientific research like time in the Peace Corps, while they have the energy for the long hours, and before the creativity is beaten out of them by the conformity of too much school.

Having more older temporary staff is stupid. Have more adjunct/lecturer type positions is not the way to instruct students at the college level, and it's a complete waste of a PhD, not to mention postdoctoral research experience.

Between this kind of stuff, earthquakes, and generally crazy weather, it sure does seem like things are getting worse, not better.

But hey, Olympics, possibly healthcare of some kind.... oh whatever.

There's hope for you yet

Just finished reading a somewhat fatalistic post over at FSP about teaching science writing (and whether it can be taught).

One particular comment caught my eye, and I wanted to write a long response so I will copy that comment here (with apologies to the author, but hopefully my response will make it worthwhile):

Anonymous said...

Oh it would be so super helpful to get some tips on how to get a grip on all this writing.
If people have any suggestions on good books to teach yourself writing..... it would be grand to share those.

I am just in the process of writing / correcting my thesis and it is all done, but according to my supervisor, the quality of the writing (not the analysis) is not so good. And I need to seriously work on this because I will fail if I cannot manage to make myself understandable to other people.... (I know she has a point, but sometimes it is hard to improve, especially since the rest of our department is a bit more laissez-faire and never gives critical feedback) :(

I think for me it is not the grammar and the writing as such. But the following points:

1) What are the exact words/expressions one should use - I seem to memorize the broad concepts and the full story rather than single definitions and their respective relations. My brain just seems more wired like that, so it is sometimes hard to translate from one "language" to the other.

2) One of the main points of my supervisor is that I try to cramp to much information into one sentence or half sentence. I should rather keep it clear and short instead of crowded and too challenging.
The reason for this is (I think): I very often feel that what I did was fully trivial and not really that interesting. So that basically everybody would just be able to glance over it and think: "oh, yeah, sure, easy, so what is your point?". By cramping stuff in, I try to prove, that I actually do know my stuff.

3) And sometimes I am just helpless in separating the relevant bits from the not so relevant bits. Discussing the stuff with other people would help and actually does help, but only if I am not under major stress (because they are important people, because there is only little time, because I am having a major self-confidence crisis) :(

4) also, because I feel I should be able to do it just like that, I probably also spend far too little time on structuring and writing well formulated sentences than I should.... (well my fault really).

I'm going to start by saying, this comment is written very clearly. You got your points across very well. So I think you have all the right tools. Also, this comment really resonated with me because you sound a bit like me when I was a grad student.

1. What are the exact words/expressions one should use - I seem to memorize the broad concepts and the full story [...] so it is sometimes hard to translate from one "language" to the other.

I had this same problem, and sometimes have it even now (and probably always will).

The truth is, if you're working on something relatively established, then yes there is specific language, and it is used a certain way by convention. You can learn this by reading papers in your field. Many of the comments on FSPs site were spot-on with this kind of advice. I particularly liked the suggestion to pick a few good papers in your field and dissect them.

But if you are working on something new, or if you are on the edge of something old and venturing into something new, you might find examples of things that are poorly defined. In those cases, multiple people use the same words, but they are sloppy about it. That is confusing for you as a reader, and very confusing if you want to write about these things but you are not exactly sure what to call them.

I ran into this during my thesis work. I was working on something that had a name. It was very well established, so it was in the textbooks with this name and diagrams, etc. But as it turned out, nobody agreed on what that name meant at the molecular level.

It turns out that the secret to science writing is also the secret to science reading: most people are taught to avoid, at all costs, ever mentioning where their work raises more questions than it answers.

So if something is not known, we are taught to NEVER say at the end of the results section of a paper:"this is still not known and will require further investigation". That is the kiss of death if you want your work published!

We are also taught to NEVER say in the results section of a paper "this is controversial."

So if you really want to know what has been done and what hasn't, you have to learn to pay attention to what is NOT said. You have to figure out what was NOT DONE. What was NOT SHOWN?

It's part of human cognition that we fill in gaps using intuition. The trick is to get enough distance to know the difference between assumptions and testable hypotheses.

Also, another thing you might try that works well for me, is going back in time.

Go back to what you thought before you started your project - because it changed as you went along. "Before" is where you audience is. They don't know what you know.

I find it helpful to go back and ask myself that eternal question in a very serious way: what was I thinking when I started this project?

For my thesis, I had to take a step back, review the old data that came before my project, and decide:

a) what was really known before
b) what was really not spelled out about the missing bits
c) what do I know now that can help me fill in the missing bits
d) how do I say that clearly.

Note that the hard part comes BEFORE the "saying it clearly." I always say the hardest part of writing is the deciding.

This brings me to the next point you bring up.

2. By cramping stuff in, I try to prove, that I actually do know my stuff.

We intuitive types tend to make what others call "logical leaps" (I can tell from what you wrote that you are like me in this regard).

We have to learn how to slow down and spell things out, precisely because they are so obvious to us.

The secret here is: these "obvious" things are not obvious to most people. And you are probably making connections that others have not really made. It's hard to see this when you're inside your own head, so the only way I've found to get out of this trap is to take several steps back.

Students tend to assume that when you write as a professional, grownup scientist, you are writing for the other experts in your field. But this is almost never the case! The best scientists are always writing for experts in OTHER fields. Think about it this way: there are not enough people in your field for them all to serve on a study section dedicated only to your little subject area. No. Most of your grants will be reviewed by people who work on something else!

With that in mind, think of the audience for all of your scientific writing as other smart people who took the basic four AP/college-level science courses (intro bio, intro chem, intro physics, and calculus). That's about the common ground we have across fields.

So you don't have to spell out absolutely all the basics, but almost. I think at the beginning it is helpful to practice spelling out every single thing, if nothing else than to name the assumptions YOU are making, about what is obvious, and what is really known.

Yes, at the beginning you will feel like you are writing for 5th graders. Like you are writing a dictionary. You will feel as if you are being condescending. You will get over this feeling, but it might last a while. At the beginning, you are just aiming to be clear and not get ahead of yourself. It will be boring, and you will want to jump ahead. But you have to make yourself do it without skipping any steps. You know if you randomly skip steps in a protocol that your experiments don't work, right? It's the same thing with writing.

Eventually, as you become more practiced, you'll be more comfortable with thinking of it this way: you're writing for new grad students.

You want them to see why you like your topic, and why what you did is cool. It has to be accessible enough for them to understand it without looking up every reference you cite.

And it is good to over-write, at least in the first "vomit" draft. Write EVERYTHING at the beginning. That is what editing is for. Which brings me to your next point (which I am separating into 2 parts for clarity!).

3a. And sometimes I am just helpless in separating the relevant bits from the not so relevant bits. Discussing the stuff with other people would help and actually does help

Yes. This is where giving lab meetings is good. But if you don't get to do this very often, or don't want to do it yet, there are other ways to get where you want to go.

Talking to strangers about your project is great practice. And when I say strangers, I mean people on the subway. People you meet in the waiting room outside the dentist's office. Random people. Also, talking to friends from home who are not scientists is really useful.

You will find that even people who initially sound excited when you say you are a scientist get bored really fast, so you have to get to your point quickly and sound exciting (!), and/or you have to make a simple analogy with something in daily life. Even the most obscure things can be explained by a cute analogy.

Even if you can't use your cute analogy in a Very Formal Written Document, it is a useful exercise for focusing your thinking.

For example, for my work I have the "please ask me more" accessible answer, and the "please don't ask me more" inaccessible answer. I use them depending on my mood.

So if I want to be friendly and show what a generous martyr I am:

Me: "I work on X disease (which affects your grandmother and killed your cat last year)"
Them: "Really! What exactly do you do?"

If I want people to leave me alone:

Me: "I work on bloggedy-ology thing you've never heard of" and I make no effort to explain what that is.
Them: "Oh" (and then walk away).

So you see what I mean? The same thing happens with writing. You want people to understand enough that they feel engaged and want to know the answers to the obvious questions (which you fed them)!

So this "talking to strangers" exercise will help you answer the following questions:

1. What is the coolest thing I did in science
2. Why should anybody care
3. What is the one thing I want them to remember when I am done talking about this

Even better is to explain it to someone, say a non-scientist or a younger student (undergrads are great for this!) and then listen to them explain it to a third person.

Yes, it will be awkward and probably comical at first. But it will help you understand how to teach your subject, which is essentially what you're doing when you write about it.

You are teaching what you did, why it is cool, why they should care, and what is the take-home message.

You just happen to be doing it on paper in a relatively stylized and potentially soon-to-be-outdated format. ;-)

3b. but only if I am not under major stress (because they are important people, because there is only little time, because I am having a major self-confidence crisis)

Okay, this is a separate issue. Who are these so-called "important people"? Don't talk to them yet.

Like I said, find other people. Talk to your family, your dog, your neighbor. Talk to a tree. Seriously. I always practice my talks alone before I give them, and I always talk about my work before I write it up. This means my laptop monitor has heard a lot of my random babbling (and it still loves me! Awww).

It also means I get a lot of my awkwardness out before I talk to real people, especially before I talk to important people.

You think articulate people are always articulate? No way, no how. The best speakers and writers I know all practice, practice, practice what they will say, and they edit how they will say it.

Then, when you get some of that precious quality time with Important People, you won't be shy because you'll be well-rehearsed and comfortable talking about your work in a succinct little soundbite (theoretically, anyway).

4. also, because I feel I should be able to do it just like that, I probably also spend far too little time on structuring and writing well formulated sentences than I should.... (well my fault really).

This is not really how it's done. The best, most efficient writers I know all do a "vomit" draft, written conversationally just like you wrote this comment. Just the way you would talk to a friend.

Then you go back and see if the logic makes any sense. See if you skipped over things and didn't spell them out.

Then you go back and spell everything out.

Then you go back and see if all the missing bits are really filled in, or if you missed a few more. And then you fill those in.

At the VERY END, you go back and work on re-structuring your sentences.

But plan on several rounds of drafts and editing, editing and drafts.

Structuring your sentences will not help with the overall organization if you're getting ahead of yourself and not spelling things out. Gotta see the forest for the trees. Then you come back later and fill in the veins on the leaves.

Oh, and one final point, now that I've droned on and on and on.

There are many kinds of writers, but it is VERY hard to find good editors. If your advisor is saying "not so good", that is not constructive feedback. That is vague, negative criticism without specific suggestions for how to improve!

Personally, I am on the warpath against these PIs who think that re-writing every sentence is "teaching". ARGH!

There are some good books about how to be your own best editor, so I recommend starting there. Also, consider asking some other not-too-important but friendly people to give you feedback about where you're making sense and where you are going off on tangents.

There endeth the lecture. Go forth and scribble!

Worth a read: End the University

I'm not really into link-blogging per se, but if you do nothing else productive today, go read this.

Marc C. Taylor, department chair and professor of religion at Columbia, is proposing some old ideas for fixing higher education that we've been talking about for ages. Funnily enough, some of these are the same "solutions" that science curricula/med school departments/NIH program projects already use (with no obvious benefits, I might add).

Allow me to elaborate (after all, it's a blog).

1. Restructure the curriculum to get rid of overspecialization.

Great idea, Marc, but here's why it won't work in the absence of other changes you propose (see below).

The curriculum is not the same as the departments. I didn't understand this fundamental problem until I started looking for a faculty position of my own.

I was trained in a sort of "umbrella" graduate program, as these are becoming the norm in the biomedical sciences. However, departments still don't hire this way. If they can't figure out where to put you, forget about getting a job. So the structure of the university has to change first or in parallel for this suggestion to be of any use.

2. Abolish permanent departments and create problem-focused programs.

Great idea, Marc, but it would have to happen everywhere simultaneously for this to get any traction. Any idea how to make that happen?

Here's the thing. This suggestion suffers from the same problem as suggestion #1 up there, that some schools have already tried to start problem-focused programs as cross-departmental efforts. Again, the employment opportunities for the graduates of these programs rest on the assumption that employers will know what these programs are.

In addition, NIH has been funding problem-directed program projects for years. You know what happens? People apply for the money under the guise of doing something related to the problem at hand, and then they go right on doing what they've been doing.

To put a finer point on it, in the absence of forced retirement and abolishing tenure, as you propose below, this suggestion would amount to nothing more than the renaming of existing departments.

You're also missing a couple of critical points in your Op-Ed, Marc. You say even for undergraduate programs, you want to do this?

Here's the thing. The way education works now, you have to give grades. There is a clear differential between students who pay tuition, and faculty who get paid to teach. What you're proposing isn't going to sit well with people who insist on hierarchies, and who refuse to treat high school graduates as adults rather than children (even though they kinda are, actually, adults already).

What you're really proposing, from what I can tell, is to turn universities into giant think-tank research companies, where students are paying for the privilege of being interns?

Which is not necessarily bad. I'm against grading, personally, but how are you going to standardize evaluations? How are you going to justify it if you have to kick someone out? Are you going to fall back on the established rules and regulations used in industry? In which case, how are you going to avoid corruption from students offering to pay extra to get ahead? Since they're paying to be there anyway, this sets up a dangerous precedent, methinks.

Also, how are you going to distribute the money? Don't you think the departments that work directly on how to generate tangible, marketable products (chemistry, engineering) are going to have a hard time justifying inclusion and payment for departments who don't (like yours)?

3. Marc writes: Increase collaboration among institutions. All institutions do not need to do all things and technology makes it possible for schools to form partnerships to share students and faculty. Institutions will be able to expand while contracting. Let one college have a strong department in French, for example, and the other a strong department in German; through teleconferencing and the Internet both subjects can be taught at both places with half the staff.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, Marc. This suggestion is not helpful. Half the staff? Why? Shouldn't we, in the current economy, be looking for ways to GENERATE jobs, rather than cut them?

Your statement about one college having a strong department in one thing, and another in a different area... this already happens. You don't have to codify it.

What's interesting to me is that you're proposing to formalize something that students and postdocs already do: generate collaborations across institutions to get what we need. Even when our PIs/advisors/faculty won't speak to each other, or don't know about each other, we will and we do.

It doesn't mean there have to be fewer jobs. But I really don't see why you're trying to propose that anyway.

I won't claim to know the data on distance learning, but personally I don't really want to do it if I don't have to, and I don't really see why anyone would.

4.Transform the traditional dissertation.

Do it. I absolutely agree with this. Nobody reads them anyway, not even the thesis committees. Might as well make them in a format accessible and useful to the public.

But beware: this might encourage students by giving them a way to actually make a contribution to society!

I'm just sayin'.

5. Marc writes: Expand the range of professional options for graduate students. Most graduate students will never hold the kind of job for which they are being trained. It is, therefore, necessary to help them prepare for work in fields other than higher education.

This one cracks me up. He has NO idea how to do this.

What jobs, Marc?

Also, this is something we've been proposing for ages in the sciences, but nobody really listens to us. We've said for a while that there should be different tracks in graduate school for those who want to do science journalism vs. policy vs. product development vs. basic research vs. teaching.

So, great idea Marc. Not original, but always glad to see it mentioned. Wish somebody would start doing it already.

6. Impose mandatory retirement and abolish tenure

HAHAHAHAHA.

Well anyway. Yeah.

But what Marc then proposes is to replace tenure with 7-year renewable contracts.

Guess what that is, Marc? That's soft-money. That's the same thing that medical schools do already.

Do you know what complete lack of job security does to a person? I guess not, because here's what you said about it:This policy would enable colleges and universities to reward researchers, scholars and teachers who continue to evolve and remain productive while also making room for young people with new ideas and skills.

Um, yes in theory, but in practice here's what happens instead.

The rich get richer and step on the younger ones trying to make it up the ladder.

The internal politics get so much worse because of these kinds of policies. Just ask around. You have a big med school at Columbia. Ask over there.

Finally, Marc writes: For many years, I have told students, “Do not do what I do; rather, take whatever I have to offer and do with it what I could never imagine doing and then come back and tell me about it.”

Yeah, because it's impossible to tell students that it's a good idea to go to grad school, or that they'll have more than a 1 in 300 chance of getting a faculty position at the end of all of it.

--------------------------

I like that this guy has a conscience, and spoke out in such a public fashion. When I saw this article, there were already >400 comments on it.

Next question: do Op-Ed articles (or blogs) ever really lead to real change? We all wrote tons about Larry Summers, but look where he ended up.

Tell me what you think and how we can put this into action. I think this restructuring education thing could be a good career for me, if the university systems would just hurry up and collapse already.

More ways for research to die.

More atrocities from the trenches-

I'm hearing from young faculty at R1 or near-R1 universities that their departments are adding more (irrelevant) criteria to their tenure reviews and candidate searches because of a disturbing trend.

Apparently more and more of the last generation of hires are so burned out, that by the time they get tenure, they shut down their labs, stop doing research, and declare from now on that they will only be teaching.

Then the department is screwed, because they sank all this startup money into this person, and now they can't afford to hire anyone new, even if they have plenty of candidates who are actually doing research.

Of course, this 'backup plan' only works at places where your salary is covered by teaching a minimum courseload every year.

Still, I thought this was bizarre, and kind of funny in a horrible way, and I had never heard of it before.

I could just picture these newly tenured faculty, smoke still coming out of their ears they're so burned out, saying

Take that, stupid broken system! We're going to sit on our asses and to hell with this bullshit about a research career! Muahahaha!

(Not to say that teaching isn't hard work too, but assuming that they aren't taking on a double load of teaching now that they have no lab management or funding obligations.)

I've heard plenty of stories about people getting tenure and then quitting to go to industry.

You've heard of these people, they go to places like Genentech. Initially you wonder why, but then you think, $$$$$$. Oh, I get it.

But I thought this teaching-only solution was a new twist, especially at research universities.

Is this happening at your university? I haven't heard of it happening at mine, yet.

How, indeed.

kcsphil asked, [edited for typos by yours truly]

If the PI's don't keep current on lab techniques and then teach them to the grad students or post-docs, how do the PIs expect to get their science done? And what's the point in having them mentor the grad students or Post-docs if they have nothing to teach?

This question is really loaded with possibilities. I'm going to try to break it down in parts but I'm SURE the comments will pick up on anything I might miss.




1. If the PI's don't keep current on lab techniques

In general: they can't. They don't. "Current on lab techniques" to a PI is what they learn

a) at meetings, where they see data presented in a talk (that includes their own lab meetings)

b) from reading

c) in the ideal case, if they go on sabbatical.



"Current on lab techniques" to those of us in the trenches is

a) tried it
b) multiple ways
c) have seen all the things that can go wrong
d) know how to fix them.



2. how do the PIs expect to get their science done?

This makes me laugh.

The system right now is predicated on a hierarchy. All labs are different, but typically there are two types of lab members.

a) Senior members.

This includes the PI, lab managers who have been there more than a couple of years, grad students nearing the end of their PhD, and postdocs getting ready to leave.

The benefit of these people is that they serve as the 'institutional memory', if you will, of the lab.

The drawback is that they are usually very busy, often beyond the point of really learning the newest hottest techniques, and/or one foot out the door.



b) junior members.

That's you, new grad students and new postdocs. You don't know the history of the lab, and if you switched fields after your PhD, you might not know much about the history of the field (beyond what you've learned from your extensive reading!).

The old Apprenticeship model, upon which science is supposedly based, went something like this:

Master trains first Apprentice.
Apprentice becomes Journeyman.
Journeyman trains subsequent Apprentices.
Disputes and promotion decisions are resolved by the Master.
Only when the Master dies, or if a new position opens up in a faraway village, is the Journeyman promoted.

(sound familiar?)

The main problem with this system, you understand, is that it is at least in part a game of telephone. In each round, some of the original information gets lost or distorted.

The main advantage of this system is the division of labor. The Master supervises. Because the 'team', as it were, has grown, production can increase.




3. And what's the point in having them mentor the grad students or Post-docs if they have nothing to teach?

As many of us have written before, it's not that PIs have nothing to teach. It's just that they're not really taught how to be good mentors and/or don't want to, and there is nothing in the system now that really forces them to.

Mentoring and teaching are different things.

Once upon a time, in a different era, PIs spent more time with their grad students. Labs were not so big; publishing was very slow before the internet; there were no such thing as postdocs.

The main incentive to mentor AND teach was to create Journeymen.

The quickest way to get an Apprentice to the Journeyman level is to teach them how to design, execute, troubleshoot and interpret experiments.

PIs had to do this themselves if they wanted their lab to be productive.

As the postdoc position became more prevalent, PIs were able to stay farther and farther away from the Apprentices.

Good PIs take their senior Journey-people under their wing and help them learn how to write papers and grants, polish their talks, mediate collaborations and reagent requests, and help them figure out their next career step(s).

That's the kind of mentoring we're typically talking about. Career mentoring, which is really one step up from the actual day-to-day of getting experiments to work.

But essentially this means that Journeymen (postdocs) are the ones who are teaching the Apprentices (grad students) how to design, execute, troubleshoot, and interpret their experiments. It's not that the Master is not involved. In some labs, they are. But in most labs I've seen, the Master makes a 'suggestion' and the Apprentice makes a beeline for the Journeyman who has actually used that technique, to ask whether to do it and how. Some Masters know this, some do not.

Masters are often too busy to notice. There is plenty for PIs to do because the operations are much bigger now than they used to be. Grants are harder to get, and papers are harder to publish. Projects are bigger, longer, and way more expensive than they used to be. And it's all a lot more competitive than it once was.

Unfortunately, Journey-people are not rewarded for mentoring Apprentices. Many of us do it, generosity of spirit, mostly (or if we're lucky, for middle-authorship and brownie points with the Master). In the long run, we gain experience. So when we have our own labs (if), we will be able to mentor our first Apprentices until we can get some Journey-people of our own.




PIs are typically good mentors if

a) they like helping people or doing experiments (in which case they might suck at getting funding because they're not spending enough time writing grants or papers)

b) they don't want to be embarrassed at their students' committee meetings

c) they don't have postdocs to pick up the slack



But as you'll note,

(a) is dangerous and rare simply by natural selection;

(b) is not much of an incentive because grad students are cheap and plentiful, easily replaced, so the strategy is more of a screening than a cultivation;

(c) is rare in the current climate because postdocs are cheap, plentiful, productive, and terrified of demanding even the most basic maintenance level of mentoring.

There is the extremely rare case where the PIs is wildly successful AND a good mentor because they just like helping people.

But my strong impression is that in MOST of those cases, behind the scenes the postdocs are actually writing large parts of the grants and otherwise doing significantly more work to keep the lab afloat than they're getting credit for, out of sheer survival instinct.

You might think you're joining a lab to work with the (famous) Master. But it's not about the destination. It's about the Journey.

Response to comments on last post

This got to be pretty long and I think it's important so I'm putting it here.

Anonymous,

I think you're mostly right. It's sad but true. I'm definitely taking the hard, unrealistic road.

FSP and Dr. J,

Perhaps I misunderstood your post. I thought you said you had more than one bad experience where you'd had someone in your lab (or maybe you meant in class?) as an undergrad and then took them on as grad students only to find out they didn't have the right stuff.

I guess I think rotations are good for this if the students have already arrived.

If you have to judge them in writing, here's what I think.

I think you can tell a lot from the authenticity of written statements of research interests.

I had already been a co-author on two papers by the time I applied to grad school. I think this is a good way to tell if the students are really getting into the lab in college, they won't be able to get on publications without the passion, the street smarts, the work ethic, the communication skills. They should be writing about their research experience to date, and their future interests. At least one letter of reference should be from someone they worked with in a lab. To me, letters from people who taught them lectures are usually not informative, unless the main quality that stands out is, "They asked a lot of great questions." Anything other than that is not going to speak to their potential in research.

If the student can't say why they're interested in certain areas of research and convey a unique, thoughtful perspective, then they don't know why they're applying to grad school and you don't want them.

Grades:
While definitely more important than GREs, I'd take anyone with a B+ average and above. Grades are more important because it's the best reflection of work ethic in learning.

I'd also look at what they took. Did they take the default pathway to a major, or did they go out of their way to take relevant courses that fit in with their stated research interests? Did they pick challenging upper level courses and get lower grades in them, or did they pick easy courses and get straight A's? I'll always take the ones who are looking for the challenge, not the grade.

GREs:
If their grades are crappy but their GRE scores were overly good, you have someone who's smart but lazy. Then you go back to the research statement and the letters. Does this person have the drive to do research? Probably not. I would avoid these students.

If their grades are good but their GREs are bad, either they went to a school with extreme grade inflation (should be well known if that's the case) or they have test anxiety. Test anxiety is not an obstacle to doing well in research, so I would ignore bad GREs if that's the case. Otherwise it doesn't tell you much since most people do okay on the GRE. You're not going to differentiate good or bad researchers from those numbers.

Extracurriculars:
If you're really having a hard time choosing, and you don't get any applicants who did undergraduate research, look at what they did in the summers. You want the ones who had jobs or did volunteer charity work. Even better are the ones who worked all year, even while taking classes.

Another variation are the people who worked as technicians or in industry before they applied to grad school. Usually they really have the drive to get the PhD, but don't want to stay in academia. Most of the ones I've known have toyed with the idea for a while, maybe even did a postdoc, but ultimately ended up back in industry.

As ivory tower as academia is, the best researchers I know are not just smart, they're hard workers. They can definitely handle the commitment, they clearly have the drive, they're willing to make the sacrifices and take the risks. But also make sure they're aware of their future salary prospects. You don't want to bring them in for grad school and then have them leave because they can't stomach the low wages long term.

ScienceGirl,

I have this blog because I think advising is generally inadequate in the world.

If you read back through my posts, I've written quite extensively on the things I had to figure out the hard way because nobody told me.

I think I'd be a great advisor because I know what not to do.

So yes, I think advising is incredibly important and I take it very seriously.

Having said that, you can have all permutations.

Bad advisors whose students do pretty well anyway.

Fantastic advisors who get lazy, stupid students who don't take all the good advice they're offered. I think that's less common, but it happens.

Personally I think that with a bad advisor, it's impossible for even the best, brightest, most hard-working students to be superstars. Just impossible.

I think that with a good advisor, even mediocre students can do very well.

Take that as you may. Nobody's perfect, and it's very subjective. Some people like hands-on advising, some people like hands-off. What works well for me might be horrible for the guy at the bench next to me, or vice-versa.

On failure.

This post was inspired by FSP's post of the same title, about the difficulties of spotting future researchers at the early stages.

Basically, FSP says it's hard. I say it's not. But I'm also the kind of person who would rather have no one in my lab than have the wrong people.

Here's how I describe the qualities of good researchers. I think these qualities are evident good researchers of all ages, even pre-PhD (note the sarcasm).

1. Good bullshit detector. Critical thinking. Objective thinking. Unwillingness to take anything on faith.

How to spot it: Journal clubs. If a student at the undergraduate level can't stand up and critically assess a paper, it's unlikely they will suddenly acquire that ability in grad school. If you don't think undergraduates can handle journal club, think again. They can and should be reading and discussing primary literature.

2. Creativity. Someone who is looking for what hasn't been done, and how it might be done in the future.

How to spot it: Do they ask good questions in class? In lab meeting?

Yes, I think undergraduates should volunteer in labs or work there in the summer at least once before applying to grad school. I would NEVER take a grad student who had not worked in a lab at least for 1 summer before applying. EVER.

3. Spine. You want someone who has their own opinions, will stick up for themselves, and will persist through the usual level of obstacles.

The last thing you want is someone who is book-smart but caves at the slightest setback or panics when things don't match exactly with the textbooks/journal articles.

How to spot it: This is the kind of thing you can tell from two tests if you know what you're looking for.

First, the interview. Ask this person if they've had any obstacles in their life. It could be anything. It will be illuminating.

The best student I ever had came from a family that ran their own business. She had a fantastic work ethic, and a fabulous no-nonsense attitude about everything.

More recently I had a prep-school student who knew the value of hard work through her sports training. She wouldn't take any crap from anybody, and she was always willing to speak her mind.

Second is in the lab. I've written before about how I think it's absolutely necessary to give undergraduates real projects, not pre-cooked kits like in lab classes (I think lab classes are worthless, and have blogged about it before).

Real projects are the best. This will tell you how they handle problem-solving and give them a real taste of what grad school will be like. You might not expect them to actually be able to solve any problems on their own at this stage, but watch for their reaction to the inevitable setbacks.

If they want to do something only once and then move on, beware! If they want to quit after 1 try that doesn't work, there's your answer! And theirs, too. The ones who can't handle failure cannot handle research, and they usually figure this out once they've had a taste of it.

4. Street smarts. By this I mean, someone who has common sense, who already has basic study skills, is at least somewhat organized, pragmatic, and not likely to get hung up on doing something one way when there are a variety of tools within easy reach.

How to spot it: Do they take notes? I require my students to take notes. That is non-optional. If they are not okay with that, they don't work with me. And I check their notebooks. The good ones grasp the concept that they will not remember everything. Even better are the ones who care that their notebook is the only record I have of what they did. The notebook tells you a helluva lot.

Are they willing to go look things up if they don't know them? One student really impressed me with this. We had a long discussion about how to do a calculation, and my way just was not working for her. The next day she came back and told me she discussed it with one of her instructors and came up with another way that would also get the job done. Bravo! I say. This is exactly what you're looking for in a researcher.

I also file a certain amount of maturity in this category. Do they keep a calendar? Are they always late and always making excuses?

Experiments are not forgiving of sloppy time management, and you shouldn't be, either.

5. Attention span. Most of the people I know who left research quit because they got bored easily. They enjoy the constant flow of new ideas that they get in patent law and science journalism. They did not want to work on the same project, or aspects thereof, for the rest of their adult lives.

How to spot it: Extreme cases are obvious when you've had a student in the lab for the summer. Here again, as with the question of 'spine', they will usually self-select when given the experience of having a project and being told to work on it exclusively for 3 whole months (!).

Less extreme cases are harder to spot, but easier to treat. Sometimes they don't know it themselves until they're mostly done with graduate school and thoroughly sick of their thesis project. Vacations help. Meetings and positive feedback help. If they get through all of that and decide to stay in research, usually finding the right postdoc project will cure it. Again, most will self-select after grad school since they've had the experience and a glimpse of the road ahead: more long-term, delayed gratification projects.

6. Big picture, little picture. The best researchers understand that sometimes you can fudge it, and sometimes you can't. It's like the difference between stir fry and baking (respectively).

Ideally you want people who can grasp the big picture, but still pay attention to the little picture when it matters. You want someone who is meticulous, but you don't want the fantastic technician who doesn't see that she needs to be reading several journal articles a week now that she's in grad school.

How to spot it: This is the tricky one. I myself am not meticulous by nature but rather by training. I've worked with some who are meticulous by nature but who learned to appreciate the big picture during grad school.

The most successful researchers I know are big picture people who take care of the forest and hire little picture people to take care of the trees. Unfortunately most graduate schools are selecting on criteria (like grades and GRE scores) that have more to do with meticulously trimming the trees and nothing to do with locating the forest.

7. Politicians. I wasn't going to include this, but on second thought I think I should.

If you want your students to go on and be successful in academia, better to pick the ones who are charismatic, good at persuading others to do their work for them, good at self-promotion, and unlikely to burn bridges. You know the type I mean. And yes, you can spot them as undergraduates.

Hope for the future?

Maybe it's my idealistic streak coming out again, but last night I watched the 60 minutes report on what they call the Millenials, where they were talking about the New Generation.

You know, the kids.

Keep in mind, lately it seems like 60 minutes gets it name from the average age of their viewing audience, not from the length of the show.

So when they say kids, they mean the ones in their 20s now. The ones who hate sucky jobs and say so, because they actually want to have a life, not just a career.

Those crazy kids!

It was a very interesting report, and kind of related to what FSP blogged about ambition recently.

The part that gets my hopes up is where they talk about all the baby boomers who will be retiring and how there will be more jobs than people to fill them.

Can you imagine?? It sounds like utopia.

But that is 5-10 years down the line, and most academic scientists don't retire at 64 if they can help it, so it's probably longer before it would help someone like me get the kind of job I want.

Come on, old guys. RETIRE. You know you want to.

I have also been reading several articles on the new generation and new ways of teaching these kids who are real technophiles, the ones who grew up with Google and text messaging. The ones who aren't content to be spoon-fed information and actually want to direct their own education (that was me, wayyyy ahead of my time).

You know, the ones who would actually rather do real research than sit in a lecture and memorize, and then sit in an exam and spit back out "facts" that will turn out to be false by the time they graduate.

The good news is, we finally have the technology to be able to help students direct their own learning, instead of making them wait until grad school or postdoc or god forbid, until they have their own labs.

So it's pretty inspiring. And in theory this trend should only help me get a job, right??

Unfortunately I don't think most search committees are factoring these sorts of things into their searches.

I definitely don't know how to effectively highlight my techie bent in my applications. All I can think of is to try to work it into my teaching statement somehow (?).

Anyway if there's one thing I've always had faith in, it's nerdy kids. I especially liked the report I saw the other day about tv shows like Chuck and how geek is the new cool.