With that out of the way, getting a PhD can be divided into two phases: precandidacy and candidacy. As a PhD candidate, you’re trying to prove that you’re good enough to be allowed into the PhD club by researching and defending a thesis. As a precandidate (where I am right now), you’re a student trying to prove that you’re good enough to even make the attempt through classes and preliminary work.

This first year, I’ve been taking a number of required classes that are supposed to ensure that everybody in the program is starting  with a similar foundation. In addition to courses in ethics, statistics, and grant writing, we have a single basic science class that’s been split over three quarters and covers everything from cellular transport to gastrointestinal physiology. When I talk about studying or taking tests, it’s usually for this class. At LLU, we also have to attend a seminar where our fellow students talk about their research on Mondays, chapel on Wednesdays, and a seminar by a visiting speaker on Thursdays (this last one includes snacks).

Unlike in undergrad, these classes don’t take up all the available time. You’re expected to spend the rest of the time in lab, rotating through two or three labs until you decide where you want to stay. I was able to make this decision after my second rotation, and will be staying in Dr. Soriano’s lab for the rest of my PhD here. As a precandidate, the goal is to advance to full candidacy, which involves completing the additional required classes for the specific PhD specialty you want – Physiology, in my case (barring a change of mind) – and taking that specialty’s comprehensive qualifying exam (”comps” or “quals”).

Once I have passed comps and become a PhD candidate I can propose my thesis project. Rather than simply selecting an interesting idea, however, this proposal needs to be based on preliminary work that I’ve already completed. Thus, the challenge from now until then is to complete my coursework and pass comps while getting enough work done in the lab that I can propose as soon as I am eligible. After that, it’s all on me to gather the data, intelligently defend my conclusions, and write it all up in a body of work that will literally fill a bound a volume, upon which I’ll be given my first doctorate get a hood and other gear to wear during graduation exercises.

I’m hoping to make good progress on my research experiments this summer, when I don’t have to take classes and can work as the project dictates. That way, when I’m taking classes again in the fall, I can do more of the analysis and writing work that more easily adapts to the in-between spaces. I’m aiming to finish everything in three years so that when things inevitably go wrong and cause me to lose time, I still end up finishing in the typical four years instead of slipping to five or six. I might also have to start medical school before fully completing the PhD to avoid having to take additional or duplicate classes, but I’m not worrying about that yet.

As for the rest of this quarter, I have a test on Monday, one more test after that and then I’m done with all the first year courses. After that I just need to accumulate ten credits of Physiology whenever I can fit them in. LLU also requires religion courses, but since you don’t have to have finished them before you take quals I’m planning on spreading them out over the whole time.

My bag of mini Nilla wafers contained one that was in the process of dividing when it was fixed (baked). The specimin allowed me to complete an informative and delicious diagram.

See the full gallery on Posterous

While waiting for my turn on the confocal microscope I did a little advanced imaging of my own. I took this with picplz but so far I’m not too “plzed” with how they deal with the images. Equating caption and title isn’t all that great, although the effects are kind of fun. ]]> http://mistypedurl.com/2011/05/while-waiting-for-my-turn-on-the-confocal-microscope-i-did-a-little-advanced-imaging-of-my-own/feed/ 0 http://mistypedurl.com/2011/05/post-exam-boba/ http://mistypedurl.com/2011/05/post-exam-boba/#comments Mon, 09 May 2011 22:30:20 +0000 SteelWolf http://mistypedurl.com/2011/05/post-exam-boba/

One thing we got introduced to when we moved out here was boba tea, a delicious blend of tea, milk, and little balls of tapioca (the boba). You drink it carefully through a large straw and try to make the boba last until you finish the tea.

We went after our exam today to celebrate. The place near our house gives a 10% discount if you wear their tshirt, so we finally got one. Here’s the evidence.

Starting things in the lab has been time-consuming as we realize all things we’re missing and still need to order. Some of the techniques I’m familiar with from my previous work at UMB, but I’m completely starting from scratch with cell culture. In the spaces between I have been doing a load of reading about the research questions I’m going to be attempting to answer.

Without any data to show yet, presenting this in some form is the most I can offer at the joint meetings we have with our neighboring lab. They’ve got a completely different research focus, so the challenge in a presentation like this is taking people from knowing next to nothing about what you’re talking about to a point where the more detailed experiments you’re attempting make sense.

I’ve found this especially challenging, as a lot of things that seem obvious to me after months of reading and studying these things make absolutely no sense to people listening. This was especially clear when I tried to explain everything to Rachel in preparation. Let’s just say she showed some incredible patience.

Ultimately, the logic is going to have be tight, with every fact I state backed up by evidence. As frustrating and demoralizing as it can be, identifying the myriad holes and gaps early is going to help me later on when I start writing my thesis.

This is what happens when we get out of class early but still have another class, so there’s not enough time to do anything else.

I’m a bit surprised that I’m already a week into the quarter. I signed up to give a presentation on the first day of Journal Club, which means I’m already done presenting in that class for the rest of the quarter. My group even managed a little April Fool’s joke, beginning our talk with a summary of a paper from NCBI ROFL, a site highlighting some of the more ridiculous studies that make it to publication. I’ve always liked the idea of April Fool’s Day jokes, but when I was a kid it didn’t seem like that many people paid attention to a day with so much potential. Thankfully, the internet takes the holiday and makes it into something great every year.

I haven’t filed all the official paperwork yet, but I’ve decided for sure that I’m going to stay in Dr. Salvador Soriano’s lab, the one I’ve been in since January. I’m using models of Niemann-Pick type C disease (NPC), which has some interesting parallels to Alzheimer’s disease (AD), to try and learn more about the mechanisms of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s. I didn’t know much at all about AD before I came to this lab, and even less about NPC. Since then I’ve made a lot of intellectual progress, learning about the field and helping to design the experiments the lab is going to undertaking this year. Progress in terms of carrying out experiments has been pretty slow so far. The lab is still getting set up, so there has been a lot of ordering equipment and supplies and waiting for things to be delivered. There have been a lot of fits and starts, but I’m hoping to start getting some data this quarter, and doing experiments in earnest over the summer.

I enjoy listening to music at work, and lately I’ve been getting a lot of stuff from hear now. My friend Kris, a stylish gentleman with impeccable taste, curates the blog and has been posting his highlights from 2010. There’s some great artists on there and a playlist at the end of every post.

It took those of us who had never been to Huntington a little while to figure out the final steps of where to go, but we eventually all met up and scored a fire pit (The state park charges $15 per vehicle for parking…ouch). The folks at some of the nearby fire pits had some impressive fuel supplies. They pretty much dismantled a fence and loaded it into a truck to burn.

I didn’t take my big camera for fear of sand, but I do have a gallery of grainy cellphone camera shots. They’re better than the ones my old phone took, anyway. It’s odd to realize that this camera has more megapixels than my first (and much chunkier) digital camera.

Yesterday, we got a check in the mail from our insurance company. Apparently, if the company does well that year, the board of directors votes to return the extra money to the customers based on how much each of them paid in premiums that year. Just like that, we’ve found yet another reason why USAA is the best insurance company around. I mean, how many companies would do something like that, let alone insurance companies? No wonder they’re always winning awards.

In keeping with our trend from the past two years, we haven’t done any Christmas decorating. We left most of our Christmas tree ornaments back at our respective parents’ houses, so even if we put one up, we wouldn’t have much to hang on its branches. Before, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal since we just visited our families and enjoyed their ornamentation, but post-move, we’re starting to consider making more of an effort. We were thinking that we could pick up a decent artificial tree after the holiday, when they’re all on clearance, and be all prepared for next year. See, we’re not complete Scrooges.

In addition to bringing in snow, they had brought horse-drawn carriages to give us rides around the campus. Rachel and I and our friends made a beeline for them as soon as they pulled up, beating the line to be the first people to ride. The carriages were also covered in lights and the horses had bows braided into their manes – all very festive. There was a turkey dinner that was tasty (despite being vegetarian), and for dessert they had caramel apples. Everybody got little stockings with candy and a five-bladed razor (we stocked up on those). The grad students even got a group picture with Santa.

I think that the older you get, the faster Christmas sneaks up on you. I remember getting an Advent calendar every year and feeling like there was an eternity before I would be able to open the next day’s window. Now, Thanksgiving and Christmas feel more like a one-two punch that leave me in a daze. Upon awakening I realize that it’s a new year and I’ve just written the date incorrectly again.

It was great to have the chance to get excited about Christmas, to do some of the fun little things that always made it so special when I was younger, despite being far from home. It’s too easy as an adult to just think about the meaning of Christmas and worry about buying people presents. Snow and horse carriages went a long way toward giving us back a little bit of the magic.