<p>My son has been offered a PhD position in a state-of-the art lab with tons of funding, at a smaller school. Both the professor and the director of the program have e-mailed that they really want him to study there and would waive any extra TA duties that other labs might require. He's also been accepted at a larger, more "name" school with a number of labs where "he could see himself" working, but he'd have to go through the rotation, etc. Anybody have any advice about the value of a "name school" vs. the value of a guaranteed cutting edge lab experience as far as Bio PhD's go?</p>
<p>It depends on a few variables. First, the state-of-the-art lab doesn’t matter at all unless he likes the people who work there. I am only just about to start graduate school, but all my mentors and professors have told me that I should pick a lab based on the people, not the project. This is because projects can change, but the people in the lab won’t. Therefore, I think it is important to have a few good options at a given school, just in case you don’t like the people or dynamic in one particular lab (the ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ scenario).</p>
<p>Also, at least historically, some of the most important biological discoveries have been made in no-name labs with minimal funding. So again, it comes back to the people working there. With that said, if your son likes the cutting edge lab and is sure he would be happy there, then I would say no, it won’t hurt his career that he goes there over the name school, because post-docs (if he is going the academic route) are pretty easy to get if you’ve done good work. Professorships are much much harder to get, but still depend more on the reputation of your post-doc mentor (your pedigree) than the institution you were at.</p>
<p>Last thought, make sure it really <em>is</em> a name school. Schools which you might think are good because they have a high undergraduate ranking might be terrible for your son’s interests. Talent is much more spread out at the graduate level, and sometimes the world’s foremost expert on topic X works at Georgia State. This kind of thing happens a lot, I think.</p>
<p>I was pretty deadset on a specific topic less than a year ago when I entered grad school. I had several years between undergrad and grad school to try different sub fields and feel out what I liked to do and what I was good at. After only a couple of months of seeing the opportunities available at my school, I changed to a different subset of Microbiology (bacterial path to virology). I guess my point is that no matter how sure you are when you are picking out a grad school about what lab you would like to work in, you should allow for the possibility that you might want to change directions based on the opportunities afforded by the institution. If I were considering a “small school” I might think about the other opportunities available within the department and weigh them heavily. There are many reasons that a specific lab may not work out (personality of PI, coworkers, funding, space, research direction, projects available) and it would certainly be beneficial to have lots of other options.</p>
<p>Go with the institution that offers options in terms of potential mentors. Rotations allow you to not only size up the mentor but the project. By the way I would say ~70 of all incoming graduate students end up switching mentors and research topics in their first year.</p>
<p>The name/reputation/training ability of a PhD advisor is considerably more important than the name of the school in the long term, but to pick a school based on one lab rather than on a general reputation for training and a large number of labs in areas of interest represents a significantly larger gamble on the part of the student.</p>
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I think this is a really important point. Most PIs will give you a lot of freedom to choose a project, and you can really do what you want within some sort of broad intellectual space. But it’s the people you work with who can make your life wonderful or terrible, and in a lab setting, you’ll be inevitably working closely with those people.</p>
<p>I think that rotations are very important-- it is very hard to get a sense of the lab and the culture by talking to people (especially the PI!), it’s helpful to work in a lab for at least a couple of weeks so that you can tell sort of what you are getting into. If the project is amazing – and it works out, etc-- being in a lab where you are miserable won’t be worth it. It’s sometimes hard to know a priori what type of lab you would like, and what type of mentorship you are most comfortable with. The needs of an undergrad are very different than those of a grad student.</p>
<p>Who says the people in a lab don’t change?? Post docs are usually around for less time than grad students, techs usually only stick around for 2 years… The PI won’t change, so it is super important that you get along with him/her, but if you hate your project (or are even just uninterested) it’s going to be a LONG 4 years.</p>
<p>Lab makeup usually stays pretty stable. I’m in a psych lab right now and the only thing that’s changed since I’ve been here (2 years) is that one graduate student graduated and two more graduate students came in, and we hired a few more undergraduate RAs. My PI is the same, the same post-doc is still here, the other two graduate students that were here when I got here are still here, etc.</p>
<p>Project and people are both important. You’ve got to be sure that the project that’s going on right now AND the projects that your advisor is likely to work on given his interests are interesting to you. Labs are always starting new projects. I wouldn’t say one is more important than the other - it’s the interaction of the two that makes it work. If you hate the project you’ll be bored even if the people are great and if you hate the people you’ll be miserable even if the project is interesting.</p>
<p>Psych labs are a bit different from bio labs but we don’t do rotations. We do have the freedom to work in more than one lab though (departmental funding not lab funding) and many students here work with two people - I do. I don’t think rotations are important necessarily, it depends on your department and who’s there and your own personality.</p>
<p>The other thing to remember about going to a place for just one lab/person is what if that lab loses its funding, gets shut down for some other reason, or the PI dies, leaves, or goes on sabbatical during a crucial period? You need to be in a place where more than one person can advise you in the event that something happens, especially if your PI doesn’t have tenure.</p>