Why graduate students need to be seen and heard

Having grown up with parents who were PI’s in neuroscience themselves, I’ve seen a lot of graduate students over the years–besides having been one. One curious aspect of what I would call the “unspoken rules” of graduate student culture is the notion of the need to actually be in the lab. Why should that be–particularly during the early years of the doctoral education?

Or, to put it another way, why should that be true above and beyond doing the things that one is assigned to do in the lab as far as research and other tasks are concerned?

The first thing I would say is that even if there were no explanation for it, it’s definitely a really important unspoken rule. Most advisors and faculty members that I have met have a constant weather-eye for who is, and who isn’t in the lab. And furthermore, I would venture that such folks often factor that information into their general opinion of a graduate student.

But I think there is also reason behind this madness (smile). By immersing oneself in such a disciplined way within a tight community of scholars, there is an osmosis of knowledge that is quite independent of the more formal training that would normally be going on. Example: at 2 in the morning early in my doctoral education at Michigan, I remember learning a trick for producing buffer solutions more quickly from a fellow graduate student who had the laboratory bench opposite my own. I think there are countless such opportunities.

Where faculty members are coming from is the realization that becoming a productive scientist is so incredibly difficult, so challenging, that the student needs to deploy every possible channel for learning during those crucial years of graduate school (some call it gradual school for good reason).

But there is also a certain amount of “jumping through hoops”–no question. The attitude of “I did it, so you’ll do it too”. With regards to this aspect, I would only say that it’s very important to show one’s own personal motivation to one’s advisor.

Interestingly there is another field where this notion of “being in the lab” is an unspoken rule–that’s serving on Congressional staff up on the Hill. Perhaps similar reasons are in play there.

Jim