<p>I wondering which place is the best place for stem cell research. I think I want to pursue that in graduate school. I got all the offers already, and I need to make a decision. Which school do you guys think would give me the most options career-wise after graduate school say if I want to move to the biotech industry or business. It seems like if i want to move into biotech, stanford would be great since it's right in silicon valley where a lot of biotech startups are started by stanford graduates and professors. Thanks.</p>
<p>Which school has the professors you'd most like to work with?</p>
<p>There is essentially no difference in program quality or resources between the three schools. You should pick based on the labs you'd like to rotate through and join.</p>
<p>they all have labs that I would like to work in. I just want a school where there will be more career options open to me after I graduate if I don't follow the traditional academic path. Would it be true that going to Stanford will give me more access to the booming biotech industry around silicon valley?</p>
<p>Having an advisor who has contacts within the biotech industry will give you more access to biotech jobs after graduation, regardless of the physical location of the school.</p>
<p>I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but the emphasis that recruits place on choosing a program is a little bit backwards. Your advisor is the person who matters for getting you a job after graduation. If you think your advisor will be equally awesome at any of your top-choice programs, feel free to pick based on any random criteria you choose.</p>
<p>To be a little more explicit, when you graduate and are looking for a job, people in science will not be looking at the name of the school on your CV, they'll be looking at the name of your advisor. (This would probably not be true if you were going outside of science, but it's true within science.) People with PhDs would be more inclined to give you a job because you worked for Professor Y, who's a collaborator, than just because you went to University X.</p>
<p>Mollie- This is definitely true and I am not trying to detract from your comments, but I would also add that I think the school might matter somewhat especially if you plan to stay within academia. That is to say, some schools, particularly lesser ranked schools, might be more willing to hire you based on what school you went to so that on their faculty page they can list "PhD - <insert top="" ranked="" school="">" under your name.</insert></p>
<p>Of course that said, when your choices are Harvard, MIT and Stanford the point becomes moot as any of those names would likely hold equal weight in my little scenario.</p>
<p>Right, that's based on the scenario of choosing between Harvard, MIT, and Stanford, where there's no difference in program quality.</p>
<p>But I do think that the advisor still matters more, and if someone were choosing between a very highly-ranked school and a low-ranked school with the guarantee that they would work with the absolute top person in the field, I think either choice would be legitimate.</p>
<p>My vote goes to Stanford.</p>
<p>Dr. Drew Endy of MIT is a new professor at Stanford as of this coming fall, and his research is some of the hottest on the planet. He is a bioengineer, who does not work specifically with stem cells.</p>
<p>Your projects in grad school, especially as a bioengineer, can involve a variety of substrates. I would seriously consider trying to work with him, and applying your work to stem cells. It could get pretty ridiculous.</p>
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But I do think that the advisor still matters more
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<p>My favorite grad school guidebook, Getting What You Came For, agrees with you. :)</p>
<p>Note to the OP: You have to get into these schools first. If all three look like good fits for you, then apply to all three. You don't need to worry about this decision until you're in the enviable position of having gotten into all of them.</p>
<p>^^^^^
"I got all the offers already, and I need to make a decision." I guess the OP is already in that "enviable position." :)</p>
<p>OP, I am actually trying to make a similar choice (dev bio, maybe stem cell work). I totally understand what you mean about many potential advisers and being unable to choose a school based on who you might work with there. After all, in this field you can't get a commitment, even just for a rotation, from an adviser before you enroll. (I understand that the situation is different for non-bio majors.) Most of the best labs are "hot," so you can't expect that there will be room for you in any given lab even if you get a rotation. So I think you're right to ask which departments people recommend.</p>
<p>These are my impressions from interviews - I am not a student at any of those three schools. Stanford is about to come into a lot of CIRM money and they're building a new building on campus for stem cell work. Right now their stem cell institute is off campus, but there is a shuttle back and forth. Very nice building, even has its own vineyard! Everyone was friendly and the weather was unbeatable. Student housing was very beautiful.</p>
<p>MIT seemed to me like a great place to be a grad student. The strange format they have for the first year, and the first-year student lounge, seemed like a great way to make friends. All of the buildings are right by the T, which is great because the student housing isn't as nice and many students live elsewhere along the red line. Tunnels, indoor walkways, and nearby buildings make the weather more bearable. The work going on at the Whitehead is fantastic and the professors there were very friendly. But no option to do summer rotations.</p>
<p>Harvard has the most labs, no question, but they are spread out between campuses, and when the new stem cell dept. opens they will be even more segregated. Housing in Cambridge seems hard to find (after the first year, when you could live in a dorm). Summer rotations seem encouraged. The students in MCB seemed happy, and I think there will be more "togetherness" next year when the curriculum is standardized for the first semester.</p>
<p>What were your thoughts from the interviews?</p>
<p>Housing is actually not so hard to find in Boston/Cambridge, but most students end up in living conditions that are different from where they'd like to be living in an ideal world. But there are plenty of apartments, and all of the young adults I know in Boston/Cambridge are basically happy with their living situations. Stanford student housing is definitely quite a bit different, though.</p>
<p>For the record, most advisors (at least at Harvard) won't take you as a rotation student if there's no room for you in their labs as a thesis student. It's just not polite.</p>
<p>I really like MIT's rotation system. At other schools, PIs will often drag their feet at the end of your rotation until it's "finished," even though there's not a huge amount you can do in a ~3-month part-time rotation anyway. I think MIT's system takes the pressure off first-years to get something accomplished, and allows them just to learn techniques and see if the lab is a good environment and if the PI is a good mentor.</p>
<p>And snowcapk, when the new stem cell department opens, the stem cell people will be less segregated, right? :) I'm excited about the new campus -- my PI showed us the plans for the building, and it looks pretty awesome.</p>
<p>The bottom line is this: feel free to pick a school based on the campus, the housing, the weather, the proximity to your significant other, or any other nitpicky pointless thing you want. Just don't pretend that your choice between MIT, Harvard, and Stanford for stem cell biology is actually going to impact your future job prospects in some meaningful way. As long as there are a few PIs at the school you pick that you'd like to work with, you'll be fine.</p>
<p>Mollie, I was told that not everyone will benefit from the new building in Allston. Some people will still be at the main campus, and some still on the medical campus. So the stem cell labs will be even more separated from one another and everyone else. I guess it is worse for me, because as a dev bio person I would like to be near the MCB labs back at the main campus, but whatever. The word is that there is not much interaction between labs at Harvard MCB anyway. (Although maybe you are having a different experience in BBS.)</p>
<p>It was also kind of off-putting to hear that the new dept. will be named "Dept. of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine," whereas the last I had heard before the interview, it was the "Dept. of Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine" or somesuch. I want to do basic science research, but I get the feeling that this department will support translational (<em>shudder</em>) research instead. Maybe this is a good thing - it will free up more lab space for real dev bio back at the main campus :)</p>
<p>Hee, they're still squabbling about the name, so it may very well go back to "Developmental". My PI is plugging heartily for one or the other, but I forget which. :D We're going to be in the new department, and we're bona fide developmental biologists, although I guess we're all pretty interested in nervous system repair even if we're really doing basic developmental biology.</p>
<p>I am not too worried about physical separation, just because of my situation -- BBS is, of course, situated at the medical school, but my lab is at Mass General. When members of my lab want to go to a lecture or a class, we just hop on the free shuttle to the medical school campus, or on the subway to the Cambridge campus. It's a pretty ingrained part of life for us, so not much will change when we move to Allston.</p>
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Tunnels, indoor walkways, and nearby buildings make the weather more bearable.
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<p>Yes, having gone to MIT for undergrad after growing up in the South, I cannot tell you enough how much of a pleasant difference the basement tunnels and interconnected buildings can make. :) I miss them.</p>