<p>May I know how much attention does the advisor gives to a PhD student in the biosciences? Well apart from that, Im sure some PhD students start their course without knowledge of how certain assays, lab techniques work, so does the advisor assign someone to eg postdoc to teach the grad students lab techniques?</p>
<p>I have been to several labs, some grad students had adequate amount of supervision while some were totally left to their own. I feel I am someone who could do well with some guidance.</p>
<p>All advisors are different. You have those that are completely hands-off, completely hands-on, or anything in between. There is nothing field-specific about it.</p>
<p>It varies quite a bit. I know of PIs that walk through the lab and monitor progress daily. I also know of a student who meets with his/her PI about once a month. I would say the average is maybe about once per week… This is an important and often overlooked area I think for choosing a PI. For me personally, I meet with my PI to go over progress and talk about new ideas about once every 2 weeks (usually a 1-2 hour meeting). But I see him a couple times per week for just casual brief chats, and if I ever needed to see him for something important, I could schedule a meeting easily. </p>
<p>As far as training, I think that usually falls on either more experienced grad students or post-docs. Their time is valuable though, so they wont always go out of their way to train you. If possible, observe them first and then ask if you can perform whatever task for them next time under their supervision.</p>