My Ph.D. life

Today, I was trying to wrap up a manuscript that was done during the last year of my graduate study. I opened the fold containing all my Ph.D. research data. I started to look my lab presentations from the first year I jointed my Kentucky lab. I found that I really did tons of works. As always, particularly during my graduate study, I am trying to ask myself why many projects were not completed and published even I worked so hard. I only published one paper from the work of my first three years. Some project stopped in the middle because I could not connect a gene to its function (only cloning and expression data), while others are stuck by the technique problems...

In a word, 80% of projects are failure, only 20% are kind of completed..... I don't know if my case is special. But I do think I have learned a lot from those failure and matured from those lessons. I have learned that I should always pick up a manageable project regardless how ambitious I am. Like baby step, a small step at a time, I should accomplish one small experiment at a time and slowly accumulate each piece of data together to form a publication. Of cause, this requires the confidence and constant interest in the project and hard work.


I remember that there was a quote saying: "Vision without action is a daydream, but action without vision is a nightmare." I am probably the second one and now I am trying very hard to have both vision and action....

I metamorphosed....

Last two years was my transition from a graduate student to a postdoctoral researcher. So it was kind of busy. You know, wrapping up experiments, writing dissertation, looking for jobs, job interview, Ph.D. degree defense.....

Now I've been working as a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University for one year. I am studying the molecular mechanism of aging foe. Although it is kind of different from insect development and metamorphosis, I still use insect as my model. This time the model is fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster.

The whole scientific career just likes the life cycle of an holometabolous insect (complete metamorphosis). Undergrad and graduate study are the embryonic and larval stages. Postdoctoral training is the pupal stage. Faculty is the adult stage where next generation young scientists were 'produced'. The graduate study are the tough time. Some take longer time, others take shorter time. Eventually we make through the graduation, 'the metamorphosis', it is a bit of success. Just like the former lab mate, Alan said after he graduated from Brown,''Pupa here I come". ....