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Journal of Caves and Karst Studies Volume 57

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this archive is dead. we moved off of rs to google drive. 

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1v82I6glWCoMthsvqCtljvMq3GKxnU4Td

Understanding Knowledge as a Commons

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programmer's log

Getting into academia as a young aspiring scientist is hard.

If you're anything like me, you won't know what you don't know. The competition is real. For every position that you apply for there are at least ten other equally qualified students applying for the same position. There is no transparency into why you don't hear back or why you are rejected. There is no feedback on how you can improve. It is easy to feel like you're on your own.

The bad news is the process is not going to get better. The good news is you can control your own destiny.

The story below covers my path of working under five different Professors during undergrad. I open up the actual email exchanges to show the raw side of the process of emailing Professors for the first time. Inside I include steps a young scientist can take to convincing a Professor to take them on as a student. This is an account of what worked for me and includes what I would do the same and differently.

If you want to make science your life's work whatever you do, don't give up. If you never give up, you will succeed. If you give up, well that's on you.

There are many ways an outsider can get into academia, this is just one story. 

Getting in trouble without getting caught

I spent my last year of high school doing what I think kids should do. In my opinion your youth should be spent getting in trouble without getting caught. It is hard to find time for trouble once you're an adult. It took me 28 years to finally come to terms that I am now an adult.

I got pretty good grades, but not the best. The best word to describe my 17 year old self is lazy. I did the minimum necessary to get the result that I wanted. This was frustrating for my teachers. I would fall asleep during my calculus tests and wake up to finish them in the last ten minutes of class. Still got an A. I got in a lot of trouble for filling out a pattern on my multiple choice test for AP Government test. I was often found in Saturday detention because of being tardy. During detention is where I finally solved a Rubik's cube under 50 seconds. I quickly found that rules were meant to be tested, but at the time it was in my best interest not to break them. If I did break them, I just made sure I didn't get caught.

I graduated from the best school district in Washington State. Many of my peers went to Harvard, Yale, Stanford. I applied to one college and one college only. I applied to the University of Washington not because I dreamed of going to this school. I applied because I was pretty sure I would get in. If I didn't get in, then maybe that's how the world wanted it. Senior year of high school was one of my best years. It involved a lot of Joose, Four Loko, and Smirinoff at the Factoria 7-Eleven. When I turned 18 I felt like if I died now that would be fine because I felt I had lived fully. I had fallen in love, watched my friends grow old, and made it to the ripe age of 18 which seemed like an accomplishment in itself.

You don't have to start out as a nerd to become a nerd

You don't have to start out as a nerd on paper to become a nerd. If you're not at the top of your class in high school, that can change at anytime in your life. It turns out I got the level of laziness just right during high school and got accepted to the one college I applied to.

My first year of college was a continuation of my last year of high school, but more extreme. And then my friends and I, we mellowed out. Well, some of us still haven't mellowed out. I mellowed out.

I set myself up for failure in the first year taking all the pre-med requirements. I realized late that I would never be a doctor because I would make a terrible doctor. I was never going to be studious enough to compete against my peers that were. I have an immense amount of respect for my friends who have now graduated from medical school. I admire their discipline and dedication to such a lifelong journey.

If you're destined to be a scientist you don't have to know that before you turn 18. Part of trying to get into medical school involved getting "experience". I started volunteering at the University of Washington Medical Center for "experience". I played Disney duets with a friend who is now in his first year of residency. I played the flute and my friend played the violin. Before this I had spent over a decade studying music and playing the flute. On top of volunteering at the medical center I applied to student helper positions at labs. After many applications to many student helper and research assistant job postings, I got hired me to feed zebrafish every day. That meant I didn't have to work the 4am shift at Starbucks anymore.

If you decide you want to try out science know this:

You decided that you want to science. Here are some reproducible steps you can take towards finding your ideal lab and landing your first research position.

Read research papers in your areas of interest. You don't have to understand everything in the paper and you likely won't. Even experienced scientists don't fully understand research papers. This is a topic I could talk about on and on, but that is topic for another time.

Narrow down your interests and go after what you're most curious about. Follow your curiosity. The good thing about asking questions, is they almost always lead to more questions.

Once you've narrowed down your interests start researching faculty in your school that have aligned research interests. And then, read their papers.

Once you've done your research email the faculty member. How is the faculty member going to know you exist if you don't contact them?

For me I applied for a lot of positions. If you apply directly to the faculty member they will often respond. If they don't respond either your email sounded spammy, they're disorganized or they are pretentious. If it is 2 or 3 you probably don't want to work for them anyways.

If you apply to a job posting through the school jobs website there is a lower likelihood that you'll get the job. If you apply directly to the faculty member or lab manager there is a higher likelihood your email will get read.

If you get a call back and the faculty member wants to meet here's how you can prepare for the interview.

You really don't need to wear anything special. Oftentimes when people wear "professional" clothes they feel uncomfortable and it is harder for you to be yourself. Look presentable, but there is no need to dress up.

Look at what the professor's graduate students are working on. Come with insightful questions. Come with ideas. Be ready to toss your ideas out and jump on one of the professor's current ideas. 

In a large university it is easy to get lost. Either go a day early and try to find the professor's office or budget an extra 20 minutes to make sure you aren't late. When you do go in for the interview budget at least an extra hour. Professors are notorious for being late.

Based on the conversation you should be able to quickly find out if there is an open position for you in the lab. If there is an open position ask about specific next steps to starting. If there isn't ask the faculty member if there are faculty in their department that would be a good fit for your interests. If they like you, they will refer you to another faculty member. If they don't like you it should be fairly obvious. 

To be very honest, I think I was in the right place at the right time. In other words, I got lucky. Though I will say, there is something to be said about increasing your chances of serendipity.

I don't remember exactly how I found the student helper position, but one thing I did early on was subscribe to multiple listservs from all different departments. By doing this opportunities showed up directly in my inbox. 

I interviewed for the Student Helper position with the Lab Manager, James. Here is our email exchange. This example isn't particularly exciting. It is a pretty standard email exchange. It does show how things can move very quickly. If you really want the position, be ready to drop everything and jump at the opportunity.

I worked in the zebrafish lab for about a year. This counts as my first real research experience because I learned how to use a scalpel to take a tissue from a zebrafish tail and isolate DNA from the sample. To be honest, I didn't really understand what I was doing at the time, but I just went along with it.

Months later, at a college party a stranger challenged me to a game of Super Smash Bros. That stranger ended up becoming my best friend. I would later start a company with this stranger. That stranger's name is Denny. 

That Fall, Denny ended up in my Biochemistry class. So, we became study buddies and fast friends. Through the Biology Department listserv, I learned about a funding opportunity. The Biology Department received a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, or HHMI, with a goal of funding roughly twenty-five undergraduate students. To be qualified the candidates had to have little to no research experience. The deal was the grantees would receive a stipend for three quarters. During the three quarters the grantees chose any lab that they wanted and did research part time during Winter and Spring, and full time during Summer.

I almost didn't apply for this because I thought there was no way I would get it. For every position available there are hundreds of applicants that were way more qualified than me. Denny encouraged me to apply. He kept me accountable and made sure I submitted the application on time. 

If you're going to apply for something, it can be worthwhile to tell a friend. Friends can be great at keeping you accountable. Friends are also great for believing in you when you stop believing in yourself.

It turns out when you submit an application, sometimes you get what you want. I got the internship. Now that I got the internship, I needed to convince a Professor to take me on as a student.

I didn't know it at the time, but picking a lab and picking your Professor is very important. It is inevitable that you will pick up the mannerisms and style of your mentors. In my opinion, it is important to pick a PI that you respect and admire. When interviewing for PhD programs I found myself in a situation where I found the lab's work extremely fascinating, but when I went to meet the Professor in person I knew I could never work with this person. From the student position it can be hard to imagine this, but you are interviewing the Professor just as much as the Professor is interviewing you.

To be honest I didn't put too much thought into this at the time. I was more concerned about the science than the people. I was very lucky that I ended up working with two scientists that to this day I still very much admire and respect, Dr. James Bryers and Dr. Jaehyung Park. 

Let's get back to the point of this post, to expose how I convinced Professors to take me on as a student. After doing my research by reading research papers, narrowing down my research interests, I emailed my future boss.

I emailed a total of six Professors: