The young investigators' science blog
Success is everywhere. At least this is what everybody likes to tell me. Grants are permitted, experiments work, history is made. Still, it’s 2018 and even three years after the predicted launch of hover boards I find myself walking to my work place by foot – how frustrating is that? The reason for this delay in scientific progress is very simple: Success is always also … Continue reading Lab Fails – your pain is our gain!
Jonas Möcking is a PhD student participating in the Bo&MeRanG project, a joint programme of the Universities Bonn and Melbourne. After two years of research in Prof Matthias Geyer’s Lab in Bonn working on the molecular basis of the inflammasome complex, he continues his studies in Melbourne with Prof Seth Masters. We accompany Jonas on his journey, which began on Wednesday, 28th February, and his … Continue reading Blogging live: Jonas goes Down Under – part 2
Jonas Möcking is a PhD student participating in the Bo&MeRanG project, a joint programme of the Universities Bonn and Melbourne. After two years of research in Prof Matthias Geyer’s Lab in Bonn working on the molecular basis of the inflammasome complex, he continues his studies in Melbourne with Prof Seth Masters. We accompany Jonas on his journey, which begins on Wednesday, 28th February, and his … Continue reading Blogging live: Jonas goes Down Under
My first encounter with the workshop series “Antigen Processing and Presentation” (APP) is quite a long time ago. It started more or less by accident. While I was looking around on the EMBO homepage for some financial support for the next conference participation, I found an immunological workshop named “Antigen Processing and Presentation” which was exactly what my research is about. This workshop series had … Continue reading A workshop series traveling around the world
It’s a somewhat common assumption that you have to pay a certain toll to be successful: For a PhD this can mean heaps of frustration in the lab, but also limited contracts, extra hours and a lousy pay. This last point was subject to a recent, US-centric feature in Nature. There, the author had one suggestion for those who cannot afford their PhD: Take on … Continue reading The price of a PhD
I guess many young scientists know that feeling: They collected their first useful data in the lab and are finally allowed to go to their first big conference in their field. But what is going to conferences all about? You must spend a lot of money in advance, you have to arrange your travels by yourself, you spend much time on preparing your data … Continue reading Catch the moment – Networking at a conference
Have you ever doubted your decision to pursue a PhD? We’ve found that most PhD students we’ve talked to, at one point or another, experience uncertainty of some kind. Have you ever doubted whether you correspond to what a “typical PhD student” is supposed be? Because we know that life as a graduate student can at times be chaotic and taxing, we’ve set out to … Continue reading Are you a typical PhD student?
A dry mouth, excessive sweating, aphasia – hopefully that is not what you experience when you need to talk to your PI. For some, however, the benign stress response ahead of meetings that you may be familiar with turns into an unbearable condition. Recently, Dr. Diamandis, professor at the University of Toronto, addressed what he recognized as a “growing phobia” in a Nature article sparking … Continue reading How afraid are you of your supervisor?
In our last article I wondered how long it takes for students at our faculty to finally get their PhD after having submitted their thesis. Surveys among alumni (n=32) showed that this final step takes about five months. 70% of the former PhD students were not satisfied with how long it took from handing in their thesis until their defense could take place. This time … Continue reading Time to become a PhD – Time to fasten up becoming a PhD
Imagine, years have passed and you reach the far away goal of your dreams: You have written up your PhD thesis and are ready to hand in! And, almost equally satisfying, you are ready to smile back at those people’s faces who have been driving you crazy the years by asking “When will you be finished?“. After such a long time you can finally answer … Continue reading Time to become a PhD – The dream of graduating soon