<p>Do you all have work-life balance when you are pursuing graduate studies in science/postdoc/PI? It seems like unless you work like a slave, sacrifice nights, weekends, public holidays and publish a few papers in Nature, one would have very little chance to attain a tenure or well-paying job in academia/industry. This sort of slightly shaken my slightest interest in science. I read in Nature about Alfredo Quinones, a Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon-scientists who reportedly works 20hrs per day and his staffs work every nights, weekends too. Of course I don't mean being too slack either.</p>
<p>Different labs have different standards and philosophies, and that’s one of the things you can check out during a rotation.</p>
<p>You certainly don’t need to publish multiple papers in Nature as a graduate student to get a good postdoc, and in my opinion, whether you will or won’t get tenure ten years down the road isn’t even something that should be on your radar as a PhD student. Focus on doing good work for your PhD, and publishing one or two interesting, high-quality papers. Worry about getting tenure once you’ve been hired by a university after your postdoc, if it ever comes to that.</p>
<p>I’m in a softer science/social science, but we still do lab work here and it’s still possible to spend all night “in the lab.”</p>
<p>For me, the answer is yes. This does vary widely on the professor for which you work. As a fourth-year PhD student, I’m an NSF fellow, I have a first-authored publication out for a second review (which it is very likely to pass editorially) and am currently working on a third-authored paper and another first-authored paper, with one more first-authored paper in the pipeline and a second-authored paper planned. I’m also working on a grant submission with my PI. I’m scheduled to reastically finish in 5 years, which is shorter than most finish my degree. I definitely do NOT work like a slave. It’s not worth it to me to work like a slave. I want to be a professor, not a gladiator. I go out on some weekends; I have dinner with my fiance; I hang out with my friends; I have some days during which I do absolutely nothing but lay in my bed.</p>
<p>I definitely work 60-80 hours a week depending on the week; I work on most weekends. It’s not easy; it’s hard work, but I don’t agree with the model that you have to slave away at your craft, eschewing all wordly pleasures, in order to be a scientist. You definitely don’t need to publish any papers in Nature, much less multiple ones - there are many well-respected full professors who never publish in Nature. I know a few graduate students who have successfully gotten postdocs with no publications, and most graduate students I know had between 2 and 5 when they graduated - that’s very doable if you are on your Ps and Qs. I have one superstar friend who had 15 publications when she left and got a very prestigious postdoctoral fellowship in my field; on the other hand, she was here for 8 years MS + PhD.</p>
<p>I am a bit concerned though because of this:</p>
<p>This sort of slightly shaken my slightest interest in science</p>
<p>Do you only have the “slightest” interest in science? Because if that’s the case you definitely do NOT want to pursue a PhD in the sciences. You do have to be dedicated. It will not consume your entire life if you don’t let it, but it will consume most of it, and at certain points (deadlines, important experiments, finals grading) it will consume all of it. Somehow I don’t think that’s what you actually meant, though.</p>