Research: Quality vs. Quantity?

Graduate School
1

<p>Hi everyone. I'm a junior in Oregon State's Biological and Ecological Engineering program (BEE for short). I've got another year or two before I will be applying to graduate school, and I'm curious which will be more beneficial during the application process: having research experience in the engineering department itself, but with little to no meaningful contribution/participation, or having research experience in a lab that is not a part of the college of engineering, but with a high level of meaningful contribution/participation.</p>

<p>Here is my current situation:</p>

<p>I've been working as a research assistant (~15 - 20 hrs/wk) in a molecular biology lab for the past 1.5 years. About a year ago, I became involved in a project with one of our postdocs. We worked closely together for several months before he received a job offer across the country and moved away. I at that point essentially 'inherited' the project. Since then, I have been continuing the project semi-independently, guided only by my weekly meetings with the lab's PI. (E.g., I am expected to do my own reading/research on the subject, analyze my own results, determine from there how to proceed next, etc. It's no longer a situation where I come into work, receive a to-do list, do it, and then leave the results for my superiors to think over. The PI and I meet regularly to discuss the project's progress, and, using my latest findings, determine how to proceed.) The results I've generated thus far have already been incorporated into a coauthored paper, and should I continue my work here, there will be opportunities to contribute meaningfully to additional publications.</p>

<p>However, this lab is not in the engineering department, and thus not an 'engineering' lab. (Though to be perfectly honest, I'm not even sure what would even differentiate a regular biology lab from a biological engineering lab.) However, because a good chunk of the scope of the BEE program has a molecular/genomic focus, essentially all of the BEE labs that are actually pertinent to my interests conduct research that is fundamentally the same as my current research.</p>

<p>What I'm unsure about is whether this lack of 'engineering' in the title is going to be detrimental for me when applying for graduate engineering programs in the future. Also, more broadly, is it generally more desirable for an applicant to have several, less involved/meaningful research experiences, or only one experience that is very involved/meaningful? It would seem to me that having the single, more involved experience would be preferable, if only because it would suggest a higher degree of dedication to the research, and that the PI apparently felt you were competent enough to keep you around and assign you to projects of importance.</p>

<p>Any thoughts or input on this would be greatly appreciated. I will also be discussing this with my academic advisor the next time we meet, but the more perspectives I can get, the better. Also, if it makes any difference: obtaining the required number of LOR's would not be an issue if I were to stay at my current lab---in addition to a sparkling recommendation from the PI, there are a handful of professors in my actual program of study that know me well enough to provide good LOR's as well.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance!</p>

2

<p>I think your current lab experience will look good since a lot of stuff like reading research articles and so on is good anywhere in grad school, but I’m not an engineering major. </p>

<p>It wouldn’t hurt to look for an engineering lab in your spare time, even if its just for you to get a better feel of engineering.</p>

3

<p>I’m a senior biomedical engineering and I’m doing research at a molecular biology lab. my PI is the chair of the Molecular Bio & Biochem department, but he also has a joined appointment as professor of BME department at my school. I’ve been working in this lab for 1.5 years. at first, I had the same feeling just like you. I was worried that I would be lack of the “engineering” aspect in my research experience when applying for graduate school. however, I still wanted to give a try to at least stay there 2 quarters (my school follows quarter system), but I ended up staying there until now (and probably will stay there until I graduate next year). looking back, I think I made a wonderful decision. I was lucky enough to work with a super cool graduate student, who helps me to actually learn a lot and thinks of me as a co-worker (not just bouncing me around and telling me to do dirty works). my PI is an excellent mentor and very understanding. knowing that I’m a BME student, he brought me to a collaboration project that he has with 2 other BME labs on campus and let me work semi-independently for this project. although my part of this project is still not engineering-intensive, I was still able to learn a lot from the other 2 labs. he was also super supportive to help me get fellowships to work full-time during summer. last October, I had a research poster presentation at my BME department. believe or not, I was an odd duck among other undergrads (some of them are my friends in class) who work for other BME labs on campus, yet I was the winner of the poster competition. I talked to the judge after that, and he told me that my project was very in-depth and the quality of the poster was as good as of a grad student. while other undergrads kinda bounced around the grad students/post-docs and got a piece of the cake out for their poster, mine was 80% of my own work. </p>

<p>I also talked to my BME department chair about my concern for lack of engineering research experience when I apply for BME graduate program, and he told me that it’s not a problem at all. a lot of BME grad students have background in physics, maths or other engineering, but they still do just fine. he told me PIs look for research and learning potential more than specific skills/techniques you know. he told me that skills/techniques can be learned if one has the research and learning potential. and finally, he said that it’s better to put quality over quantity when it comes to research. instead of jumping around 3-4 labs but nothing special and a mediocre letter of recommendation, it’s better to stick with just one lab but the PI see you a golden boy/girl and give me all the best words he/she has on the letter of recommendation. the science world is small, and professors at different schools sometimes know each other well.</p>

4

<p>Thank you for the responses thus far! I really appreciate it.</p>

<p>I just realized that I should probably also mention that my current position is paid, and that I rely on it to pay for all of my living expenses since my financial aid covers little more than tuition and books. So, if I were to work in a different lab, it would need to be either a paid position that would generate an equivalent income, or I would need to maintain my current job simultaneously. Obviously this aspect doesn’t factor into what would be more beneficial on a grad school application, but it’s very important nonetheless.</p>

5

<p>I would recommend you to stay at the current lab and do your best there. my lab has a lot of collaboration projects with other BME labs (we do tissue engineering), and I often see grad students from those labs come to learn from the people in my lab all the molecular bio techniques (qPCR, western blot, FACS, ELISA…) for their projects. on the other hand, we also go to their labs to learn about engineering techniques (microfabrication, rheology, soft lithography…) or ask them to do computational modeling for us. a lot of bioengineering projects nowadays are interdisciplinary. therefore, even if you work in a biology lab, you still gain a lot of experience, which could be useful for future work in engineering lab at graduate level.</p>