Quest Blog

Hello all. I just finished grad school and thought that my ideas on the extremely odd and time-consuming experience that is graduate education might help those who are thinking of going to or just starting grad school.

So, you are graduating/just graduated with a Bachelor’s and are thinking of/were just accepted to graduate school. You are probably smart. You have to be smart to go to grad school… but not as smart as some people think. Grad students do/say some pretty dumb stuff and we definitely don’t know

everything (try asking an organic chemist who the 4th president of the United States was). You really don’t have to be a genius to do well in grad school, just smart enough to learn a lot about a topic and contribute something original to it. The topic can be anything (e.g. physics, oceanography, English poetry, super hero studies, circus performance-ology etc.).

You may be asking yourself,
“if so  many people are smart enough to go to grad  school, why don’t more people hold advanced degrees?” Well, it is really time consuming. You don’t have much of a life for the 2 to 14 years you are in graduate school. You are taking classes, reading research paper after research paper, teaching, grading, conducting your own research, and, finally, writing out everything you did while making it sound meaningful to as many people as possible so that someone will decide it is interesting enough to publish. Also, you don’t get paid much for all this work (and in some disciplines it is standard to actually pay out of pocket to go to graduate school). So, if you want to have a life and a good paycheck after graduating with your Bachelor’s, graduate school isn’t for you. But for those that still feel that graduate school could help you obtain your life/employment goals, I have found that graduate school boils down to three main things.

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1) Sucking it up

As a graduate student you will have to suck it up and suck it up often. You are constantly going to be doing things that you don’t want to and you just have to do them. You also have to do them with a pleasant enough demeanor that you don’t piss off the people who decide whether or not you graduate.  If your research contains a field component you will be uncomfortable very often. Field work is really fun, but it is also really hard. Everyone doesn’t do field work for a reason. For example, if you just got to your study site and are jet lagged and sick—suck it up, get out there, and do your research. If a third of your body is covered in a rash from whatever poisonous tropical plant you had the misfortune of brushing up against—suck it up and do your research.        If every muscle in your body is screaming from carrying a backpack that weights 2/3rds your body weight through dense jungle for the last month—suck it up and do it. If it is pouring rain and you are freezing your ass off as you stand on a small boat—suck it up! 

You get the idea. You came to do a job and you can’t let anything get in your way.

Once you get back from the field (or if you finished some experiment in the lab) you will hopefully have a plethora of samples/data that would take you approximately 5.75 years to analyze if you worked a reasonable 40 hours per 

week. But those are just this season’s samples/data, so SUCK IT UP and analyze them in the 6 months you have before you go collect/generate more. Sleep can wait. It will get very, very, very monotonous as you do the exact same thing to each of those 8,000 samples, or as you spend more than a week simply formatting a data file so that it is in a usable form, or as you do any of the other countless repetitive and mind numbing tasks that are an integral part of research (this includes most field work as well). If you can’t stand doing the same thing over and over (and over and over and over), then science might not be for you. Suck it up!

You will often feel that you aren’t smart enough to be in grad school and will be constantly told that you are wrong. Suck it up. You are probably smart enough and sometimes you will be wrong and that is okay—I was once told that graduate school mostly exists to make graduate students feel dumb so 

that we aren’t complete asses about how much we know about our subject (humility=good, ego=bad). Other times the people who called you wrong will actually be wrong (but you probably shouldn’t call them wrong back because they have tenure). Additionally, I think that most graduate advisors have either forgotten what it was like to be in graduate school or think that feelings of inadequacy are a rite of passage. As a result, they have a tendency to pile on copious amounts of work or insinuate that you are either not working hard enough or are mentally lacking for not instantly understanding something or knowing what to do. Suck it up, prove them wrong, and remember that advisors can have bad days too (from what I have heard, being a graduate advisor can be pretty demanding too).

In general, you will constantly feel like you can’t do everything that you have to. Your graduate advisor will be demanding results/papers, your students will 

be demanding your time, the instructor of record for whatever class you are serving as a teaching assistant for will be demanding that something be graded immediately, and, on top of that, you have your own coursework and research to complete. Suck it up and do your best. At the end of the day you can only do so much and something might not get done. It won’t be the end of the world and you shouldn’t beat yourself up about it. But try and spread the thing that doesn’t get done around so you are not completely lacking in one area.

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2) Thinking on your feet

Graduate school/research will constantly be throwing you curveballs, spitballs, screwballs, fastballs, knuckleballs, Vulcan changeups, and any other pitch that exists (plus some that don’t). When these issues/opportunities arise you have to fix/take advantage of them. You will usually have to adapt to a situation without any notice and your ability to do so will determine your success in academia.

The obstacles that will directly impede your research are endless. Basically, if something can go wrong or break, it will. Essential equipment will break and you will have to figure out how to fix it when all you have are zip-ties (note: zip-ties were actually a very important part of my dissertation and saved me in so many tight spots that I probably should have dedicated my dissertation to the inventor of zip-ties); important things will accidentally be dropped over the side of the boat and you will have to figure out how to continue on without it (unless you can free dive 2000 m down to retrieve it); etc. So get a Swiss Army Knife, watch some old episodes of MacGyver, and keep telling yourself that you can do it.

But the things that you will have to adapt to aren’t always obstacles to be overcome. Sometimes you will be out conducting routine measurements at a field site and notice an anomaly that, if you keep tracking and measuring it, could make for a groundbreaking research article. Basically, you will have to be creative and flexible. Your dataset is never going to be perfect and you will have to troubleshoot what you actually managed to get anyway, so don’t be so rigid in your research plan that you don’t opportunistically sample interesting phenomenon or follow up on weird lab results that might lead to something original.

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3) Making sure you are happy

Grad school is very stressful and very hard (see above) and it can be easy to work so much that you forget to do things that make you happy. It is also important to find happiness in what you do and to surround yourself with people that you enjoy as you plod along the seemingly never-ending trek that is grad school.

Hopefully you pick/picked a project that is really interesting to you. If not, try and change your project or try to switch into a lab that studies something you are interested in. If you don’t love your research project (and I mean LOVE, as in having weird and confusing dreams about spending the rest of your lives together) it will be near

impossible to suck it up and you won’t be motivated to think on your feet. I am not saying you should just throw in the towel at the first sign of frustration or difficulty with your project, but remember that this is going to be your life for the next 2-89 years, so you better be passionate about it.

Remember to do things everyday that make you happy. Crank up your favorite tunes and sing along if you are working in the lab late at night, write code with friends to counteract the loneliness that can arise from endless days spent in front of your computer, watch cute puppy videos on YouTube in between classes. Whatever floats your boat (as long as it is legal). Also remember to get enough exercise as that increases happy thoughts. The only blues in your life should be the music that you crank up in lab.

I really think the most important thing is to periodically reflect on why you started grad school, if it is helping you reach your goals, and if you are still happy. Your life goals often change as you age (e.g. I was convinced I was going to be a garbage man when I was 4 and a comic book artist at 10) and

working 24×7 can interfere with other aspects of your life that you didn’t realize was important to you. If grad school is not helping you achieve your dreams or if it is permanently interfering with your happiness in such a way that changing up your project, lab, or routine can’t fix it, then it is okay to throw in the towel. That doesn’t make you weak, it makes you strong enough to change your situation to something that is healthier for you. Prioritizing your happiness is the most important thing and no one can say that you didn’t give it your best effort.

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Well, those are the three most important things I have found necessary to succeeding in graduate school (and life, really). There are a few other things that are helpful too (e.g. like making sure that you write professional and courteous emails), but those things tend to be in the typical advice lists for grad school and are just kind of common sense anyway. So as you find yourself drowning in graduate student responsibilities and don’t know how to make sense of the madness that is now your life, just remember that, while your smarts got you where you are, your ability to suck it up, think on your feet, and, most of all, make sure you are happy will determine your ultimate success in graduate school.

Stay tuned for how to navigate a postdoc.

Peace and puppies!

Jesse

This past weekend (August 19-21, 2017) Sarah, Mokey, and I drove 650 miles to view the solar eclipse from Monmouth, Oregon—one of the locations that experienced totality. Solar eclipses occur when the moon (which orbits around the Earth) happens to pass directly in between the Earth and the sun. If you are on the right side of the Earth when this happens (i.e. it is daytime for you) then you will be able to see an eclipse.

A partial eclipse is visible from many places, but totality (when the moon completely blocks the sun) is only visible from a narrow path—along the moon’s shadow as the Earth rotates on it axis with the moon orbiting it.

We arrived on Sunday afternoon and set up camp on a farm that had been turned into a viewing site by an industrious farmer. Other eclipse chasers set up tents alongside ours in addition to elaborate telescopes and camera equipment. The night was polished off by a terrific firework display in a neighboring town.

The next morning was wet with dew and abuzz with anticipation. We, along with all the other campers and probably all of Monmouth, were relieved to see that the slight haze of the previous day was gone. Our dog, Mokey, chased bugs in the grass while we packed up our tent and frequently checked the time and the sun (with the aid of our solar glasses). At last the show began and we settled down to watch the moon creep in front of the sun.

It took about an hour for the moon to reach totality. When the moon first started to cross in front of the sun you wouldn’t have known it if you didn’t have solar glasses. But as the moon covered more and more of the sun, the light around us significantly decreased. When the sun became a thin smile, it looked like pre-dusk and Venus, Jupiter, and Regulus became visible in the darkening sky. Sarah had to unpack her sleeping bag as the temperature had dropped a few degrees and Mokey, unsure of what was going on, anxiously quivered in Sarah’s arms. The entire field of people cheered as the last beam of light was blocked by the moon and we were able to take off our solar glasses and look directly at the moon ringed in light.

(Note: you can never take off your glasses during a partial solar eclipse.) While the sun was completely blocked, the sun’s corona (the ring of light that was surrounding the moon) was still visible and prevented the sky from getting as dark as night.

We sat in the half-light and awed at the corona for about 2 minutes before the moon uncovered an edge of the sun and a diamond like ray of light appeared

on the ring. We threw our glasses back on so we could see the sun slowly grow in size as the moon continued on its path across the sky.

All in all, it was an amazing experience and well worth the four days of travel. I will definitely try to go to a totality location for the next U.S. total eclipse in 2024. We won’t show you any of our fuzzy amateur photos of the eclipse, but we will show you some photos of us with our solar glasses on.

Peace and puppies,
Jesse

Water, it’s everywhere we are.
Why?
Because *we* are 55-70% water.

Everything on earth needs water to survive, clean/ healthy water.
Some things have interesting ways of obtaining it, but *everything* requires water.
And the earth itself needs water.
Water is kinda like the blood of the planet, it carries nutrients and waste products through the system and it ties the entire body of the earth together.

We’ll discuss loads more about water in other posts, but for *today*, plan something special… enjoy a glass of water and consider what would happen to our own health and that of the earth without clean/ healthy water.

…and here’s a link to the U.N. site for World Water Day… there is loads of info there and ideas for planning and/or participating in events!

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Happy Darwin Day!!!!

Charles Darwin presented the concept of evolution by natural selection to the world in 1859, when he published his classic On the Origin of Species. In honor of Darwin Day (February 12, 2016) I would like to discuss the evolution of (Darwin’s) evolution, and highlight some of the disparate influences in Darwin’s life that led to publication of one of the most powerful ideas in biology.

Evolution per se was not a new idea in Darwin’s time. In the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, several figures in particular developed concepts central to the current view of evolution.

• Georges Cuvier (1744-1829) –The notable natural historian Georges Cuvier (for whom the Cuvier’s beaked whale is named) was the first to establish extinction as a fact. Prior to Cuvier, those who studied fossils assumed that they represented anomalous versions of extant animals, or animals that still lived in other parts of the world. Cuvier found fossils that did not match any living animals, and determined that species did, indeed, go extinct.

• Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1769-1832) – Lamarck studied animals and fossils from around the world. This study led him to the same overall conclusion as Darwin. That is, that species vary over time in response to changes in the environment. With enough time, nature will develop species to fit every environment. He lacked the details to flesh out his ideas, and his theories were attacked by other scientist of the day. However, to Charles Darwin these concepts were so influential that in 1861 he wrote:

Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on the subject excited much attention. This justly celebrated naturalist first published his views in 1801. . . he first did the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all changes in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being the result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.

• Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) – Although Charles Darwin never met his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, he was strongly influenced by his work and read his papers and poetry. Erasmus was a social liberal and a free-thinker. A physician by trade, he refused an invitation by King George III to become the Royal Physician, preferring instead to work with the poor in his community. He promoted social equality, and proposed that women should receive a proper education, including studies in physical education, the sciences, and the arts. His ideas of evolution were so close to those of Lamarck that it’s hard to believe the two never met. He wrote his ideas in both prose and poetry. Yes, he set his evolutionary ideas to rhyme and verse. You can check out some of his poetry at www.poemhunter.com/erasmus-darwin/.

Charles Darwin was himself was born in 1809, the son of a physician. He was expected to become a physician himself, and entered medical school in Edinburgh in 1825. It was in medical school that his father gave him his grandfather’s papers to study, inadvertently exposing him to evolutionary ideas. He found he was too squeamish for the medicine of the day, however, and left medical school in 1827. His real passion was natural history, and in 1828 he enrolled in Christ’s College in Cambridge to pursue a degree in his chosen field. While in school, he spent his extra time hunting and collecting insects. These were skills he would put to good use later in life. He graduated in 1831.

Shortly after graduating, he was offered the position of ship’s naturalist on the HMS Beagle, a Royal Naval ship commissioned to study the biology and geology of South America. Darwin served on the Beagle from 1831 to 1836. The captain of the ship, Robert FitzRoy, introduced Darwin to the work of Charles Lyell, another great influence in Darwin’s life.

• Charles Lyell (1797-1875) – Lyell was a prominent geologist who wrote the book Principles of Geology. In this book, Lyell presented his idea that the world is not static, and that geology is the result of slow, continuous processes. At this time, fossil patterns and large scale geological features were explained largely by biblical events, such Noah’s flood. Lyell proposed instead that these features weren’t based on distinct biblical cataclysms, but on the cumulative effects of well-known processes. This planted in Darwin’s mind the idea that biological processes might also be based on slow cumulative changes, rather than cataclysmic events. In other words, large changes between species didn’t have to occur all at once, but could proceed through a slow series of continuous changes.

While on the Beagle, Darwin collected specimens, fossils, and notes that he would analyze and interpret for years to come. In the years between his return from the Beagle voyage and the publication of Origin of the Species, there were many factors that helped lead Darwin to his conclusions on evolution.  This article will only discuss a few of them.

• Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) – In 1798, Malthus published his Essay on the Principle of Population. In this article, Malthus observed that plants and animals produce more offspring than can survive naturally. Humans also have the capacity to overproduce, and left unchecked populations could grow unsustainably. Darwin came across this article in 1838 and applied it to his developing ideas on evolution. He reckoned that if animals produced more offspring than could survive, the offspring that survived should have some advantage over those that didn’t. That is, there had to be some force to determine which offspring lived and which ones died. He called this force natural selection.
• Artificial Selection – There was no way at that time for Darwin to test his ideas. Instead, he turned to the literature on selective breeding of plants and animals. He observed that different breeds of plants and animals could be produced by selectively breeding parents most strongly demonstrating the characteristics you want in the offspring.  He reckoned that there was some inherent variability for each characteristic available to each generation. By reinforcing desired characteristics by only breeding parents demonstrating that character, you could reduce the variability for that characteristic, thus creating specific breeds with specific characteristics. He coined the term Artificial Selection  to distinguish it from Natural Selection, which is the corresponding pressure nature exerts on species to help them adapt to changing conditions.

• Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) –
  In 1858, Wallace sent a letter to Darwin asking for him to review a manuscript he was preparing on the topic of evolution. As frequently happens in science, he developed a concept of evolution very similar to Darwin’s, and he wanted Darwin to review it and let him know if it was worth publishing. Wallace published his paper in 1858, alongside one of Darwin’s papers. The papers Darwin and Wallace published received little attention from the scientific community, but it was enough to prompt Darwin to write his seminal book, On the Origin of Species.

On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, 1859.

On the Origin of Species is one of the most influential books in biology, and underpins all modern research in ecology, natural history, medicine, and all other biological fields. As we honor Charles Darwin on this day, I think it’s important to remember that Darwin was not just a natural historian. He integrated ideas from natural history, geology, social economy, and more. The best science is truly an interdisciplinary endeavor!