Survival Guide - Your First Quarter
Written for students by students!
(and some help from faculty and the graduate program coordinator)
Content:
Fall Quarter Checklist
- Meet with your Graduate Advisor and Graduate Program Coordinator
- Your Advisor can assist with questions related to pre-requisites, degree requirements, and your specific interests
- Your Graduate Program Coordinator can assist with questions related to navigating the university
- Register for courses in Schedule Builder
- Suggested courses: GGG 201A, GGG 205, and GGG296
- Remember to register for at least 12 units to maintain full-time status.
- Find a lab for your Fall rotations
- Email faculty you are interested in working with to see if they are accepting rotation students.
- Faculty do not need to be IGG members for rotations.
- Sign up for direct deposit
- For students on fellowship, Fall stipends are split into four equal installments, with the first being disbursed on October 1
- If you need additional financial assistance for Fall, you may be eligible for emergency or short-term loans from the Financial Aid Office
- Attend orientations
- Aggie 201 is online and an introduction to UC Davis and Graduate Studies
- IGG orientation is in-person and typically held the week before classes begin. The Graduate Program Coordinator will email with more information.
- If applicable, request a Student Health Insurance Plan (SHIP) waiver by early September
- You only need to submit a waiver if you plan on staying on an existing health insurance plan.
Who are Graduate Advisors?
Academic advisors play an essential role in providing graduate students with an excellent, comprehensive educational experience. Academic advisors have program signature authority recognized by Graduate Studies for submitting certain forms, petitions, and nominations of student Committees. That is, every form that requires an advisor’s signature will be signed by your advisor. You can expect your advisor will perform the following duties:
- advise on prerequisites and required coursework
- monitor your progress in finding your research home (major professor)
- obtain periodic review of progress
- help navigate University bureaucracy
- discuss any difficulties or problems affecting your academic progress
- approve/sign forms and petitions (e.g. late drop/PELP/Advancement to Candidacy/ progress reports)
- get career advice
Each time you meet with your academic advisor, consider each of the following points:
- Student Perspective:
Your Graduate Advisor is often one of your first mentors in graduate school and crucial for your first couple of years - form a good relationship with them.
Come prepared to meetings with plans for completing your degree.
The Graduate Advisor is there to help you navigate graduate school so don’t hesitate to ask questions.
Print out the course requirements and keep them handy to ensure you’re on track
- Faculty Perspective:
The Graduate Advisor is a resource for information on academic requirements, policies, procedures and registration information.
Meet regularly with your Advisor to discuss/track progress on degree requirements. For the first two years, it is advisable to meet before the start of each quarter to discuss/track progress on degree requirements. After advancing to candidacy, meetings might be more sporadic.
If something is not going well during the quarter, contact your Advisor to discuss sooner rather than later. Some problems can be averted with early action. If you wait too long into the quarter, it becomes more difficult to find solutions.
What are rotations?
Some students enter IGG as "direct admits" into a laboratory. If you are a direct admit, rotation requirements are waived. Please contact your graduate program coordinator if you are unsure of your status.
The purpose of laboratory rotations is to find a Major Professor, who will be your mentor for your PhD. Rotations are a wonderful thing. They are a period of time to try out hands-on experimental work in different laboratories. Two of the goals of your rotations are to “learn by doing” and to impress any professors with whom you might want to do a thesis. They are both a means of garnering new technical skills and a dating period to find a lab to commit to. The most important aspect of every rotation is to identify an advisor who can support your research ambitions intellectually, interpersonally, and financially. IGG students are required to rotate with at least two different faculty before selecting a major professor.
Rotation Expectations:
Rotations are a once in a lifetime opportunity to sample different areas of genetics and genomics research and to demonstrate your potential to future mentors and supporters - take full advantage. You should try to be in your rotation lab whenever possible. It may be that nights or weekends are excellent times to conduct research without the distractions of classes. Professors will expect you to be working in the lab a minimum of 20 hours per week, and your funding support is contingent on you actively engaging with a laboratory. Make sure to let your rotation mentor know when you have class or need to prepare for class so they'll know you are serious about being in the lab whenever you can. Training you to work in any specific laboratory environment is a significant commitment and energy investment on the part of your host laboratory, make it worth their while. While it's a tall order to get any significant science done in 5 weeks; focus, careful thinking, and hard work can enable discoveries during a rotation that turn into a thesis. First -year students will be provided a rotation contract that should be signed by both the student and the professor. This document provides explicit expectations of both the student and professors.
- Student Perspective
- Start by seeking out major professors working in an area that interests you: Consider different fields, types of research or research techniques that you find interesting.
What are your future goals? Industry? Academia? Consulting? Science Policy? Consider how selecting an area, major professor, or technique may help you achieve this goal. Look into connections the professor of interest has. A Major Professor may have affiliations that help develop your network for job searches down the road.
Create a shortlist of labs that you’re interested in as early as possible. Reach out to them about a potential rotation. Consider your needs for development (What Kind of PI or Lab Would Work Best for You?). Read as much as you can about the lab's pursuits, explore a lab’s website and publications both before and during your rotation.
Consider the research techniques you would want to use in your field. Try an area of research that may be unfamiliar to you - you might like it.
You can search outside of the faculty associated with IGG. It is possible for a faculty member to join the MCIP program – just be sure to have this conversation with the PI early on so they also understand what they would be committing to.
Interested in a designated emphasis? Bring this up early as a given Major Professor may have mentored other graduate students with this training.
Before committing to a rotation, ensure that the faculty member is willing to take on and able to financially support grad students.
Ask other students in the lab questions. Here are some examples of questions to ask. - Faculty Perspective
- It is important to remember that your research rotation is a 5-week AUDITION for a spot in the lab. You are test driving the Major Professor as a mentor and their laboratory environment or dynamic, and likewise, the Major Professor is evaluating you as a potential new member of their team. Many labs will only commit to 1 or 2 students in a year, yet will have 5-6 interested in rotating. Students that have left a positive impression are more likely to be offered a position. Put your absolute best work forward. During the rotation faculty will often consider the following points:
Do you positively contribute to the laboratory environment?
Do you communicate well?
Are you respectful of everyone’s time and efforts?
Are you self-motivated, show initiative in tackling lab projects, enthusiastic about the lab, take ownership of projects/mistakes and professional in your relationship with other lab members?
How do I arrange rotations with faculty?
You can rotate with IGG affiliated faculty, and also with faculty who are willing to join the IGG group. We have also supplied you with survey results from professors indicating whether they are interested in taking rotation students and supporting thesis student research. Until you have a thesis laboratory confirmed, rotate only in labs that will be able to mentor and support your PhD research. This list is a good place to start considering labs to contact, but do not restrict yourself to it. We encourage you to contact any UC Davis faculty member whose interest sparks your imagination.
You are responsible for setting up your own rotations. We advise you to begin setting up a first rotation immediately. Look at faculty web sites and read their publications. Contact professors you are interested in working with by email. If you get a response, great! If you do not, wait a week and try again. The first rule of emailing faculty is: a non-response means nothing. We are all incredibly busy. Write short informative messages with optional information attached or postscript. Make it easy for a professor to read and reply to your email in less than 2 minutes.
Your top priority during summer is arranging a first rotation. Contact professors, rank order who you think you would most like to work with and starting with #1, ask if they might be willing to mentor your first rotation. Resist the temptation to commit to further rotations before you arrive. You will learn much more meeting face to face and seeing their lab. When you have committed to a rotation please inform your graduate program coordinator.
Once you arrive in Davis, your goal is to find at least three more professors with whom you could rotate. You will be enrolled in a course requiring faculty meetings to facilitate and encourage this process. Meet and talk with as many professors as possible as early as possible. This should be an active selection process. Approach faculty in whose research you are interested. Ask them if they could recommend specific papers about their current research. You can also ask them if they are open to taking rotation students in the winter and whether they are open to taking a thesis student this year. Do not necessarily commit to a rotation at first meeting, take time to reflect and consider your options before signing on. Before agreeing to a rotation, do some investigating into what spending precious years in their lab might be like. Talk to people in their labs. Talk to their lab members privately and see if you could foresee happily spending forty plus hours a week in their company. Ask them in confidence whether they think you could be a good fit in the lab.
- Example email
- Dear Professor [Surname],
I am a first-year student in the IGG graduate program. I have laboratory experience with A and B. My curriculum vitae and graduate application are attached. From your website and publications I've seen you are studying D, which I have a keen interest in. Might you have a moment to chat by phone about the possibility of a laboratory rotation?
Sincerely,
[Your Name] - Student Perspective
- Be formal, polite, concise, and if meeting with faculty, punctual. Professors are often very busy and would appreciate you being able to relay your point as efficiently as possible.
Clearly note the reasons you are interested in doing a rotation in the lab.
Mention current research papers they have published and what about them specifically interests you. It will allow them to see you have done your homework and are a diligent student. Remember, that if you choose to mention publications from a lab make sure you know specific details. Faculty may ask your opinion or general questions about the work.
Discuss and agree on a project outline with your professor. Make sure you can define the specific problem being addressed and the hypothesis being tested. Don’t be satisfied with just doing tasks in lab.
If you rotate in a lab in the Shriners Hospital in Sacramento, there are extensive background checks that need to be completed before you can rotate. Talk to the professor ASAP to start the process so your rotation starts on time. - Faculty Perspective
Use complete sentences, proper punctuation and grammar. This is not a text message - you are basically asking for a job. Don't start off with a bad impression.
Include the following information: What grad group you are in, whether you are a PhD or MS student, why you are interested in rotating in the lab (what aspects of the work are of particular interest), if you have any previous experience/coursework/skills that might be of particular relevance to this lab, and remember to attach your CV.
If you don’t not get a response in ~72 hours, it is OK to email again to politely follow-up.
Follow up if you change your mind about rotating with them