Title Bull lab or small lab

http://www.mitbbs.cn/article_t/Biology/31207785.html

Title  Bull lab or small lab

发信人: DrBiologist (Eureka! ), 信区: Biology
标 题: A story about a WSN
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Thu Nov 13 15:34:58 2008)

Although I still haven't figured out how WSN is linked to biology guys, if
everybody uses it, I can certainly go along.

The reason I posted "大牛 lab vs. small lab..." was that the background of
the guy who "eats pistachio" reminded me of a story about a, here you go,
WSN years ago.

This WSN was not your ordinary WSN. He had been a provincial number one (
ZHUANG YUAN) the year he was admitted into a top 5 Chinese university. He
maintained his top position throughout the 4 years. For some reason, he
didn't get into a top US school on his first try. With a big dream, he
decided to get a Master's from the so-so school and move on to a top school
for his Ph.D. Being a former zhuang yuan, his GPA, GRE, etc were as high as
you can possibly imagine.

The summer of his second year in the so-so school, he decided to spend a
month volunteering in a big bull's lab in his dream university (top 5 in the
US). He got an easy nod from the big bull, with the help of a former
senior schoolmate of his working in the lab. He spent long hours working
for a postdoc (for free), in order to impress the big bull and win admission
into their Ph.D. program.

Unfortunately, the big bull, who got to see WSN only in lab meetings, was
not impressed. The main reason, as WSN later summarized, was that big bull
didn't hear him asking any insightful questions in lab meetings. So big
bull concluded, from his brief encounters with WSN and comments from the
postdoc, that although WSN works extremely hard and is technically very
proficient (he made several constructs in the month), he does not seem to be
mature enough intellectually to pursue a Ph.D. in a top US university (
because he never asked any insightful questions in their huge lab meetings
featuring postdocs constantly arguing with each other). Even worse, big
bull wrote this in his letter of recommendation for WSN to other schools.

WSN's chances of getting into a top US university were thus dashed, in spite
of his impressively high scores and past academic performance. I will not
disclose WSN's current job, but only say that he left science. I felt bad
for WSN. I thought that had he tried a more cozy lab for his Ph.D., he
would have done much better academically. In a smaller lab, he would have
felt more at ease thinking and asking insightful questions and would have
had more time and chances to impress the PI, with his knowledge and insights.

I'm not trying to argue the merits of going to a big bull's lab. My only
suggestion is, take a look at yourself, know what you are getting into, and
exercise cautionly before jumping into a big lab. My WSN is better than the
average WSN in any aspect. Cultural differences can make our smartest WSNs
look dumb in the US.