40-60 hours in lab as a GRA

[Dead_Meat]

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I had conversation with another graduate student at another university about research and publications. Of course, I obviously know this person (she went previously to my institution) but never completed her MS (after spending 3 full years working on it) but got accepted to a PhD program in Biochemistry at another university (and left my institution).

So I disagree with this person (what I am calling person X and no one on SDN) below:
"RA's usually get paid less unless you're REALLY good and get LOTS of papers.
GRA's (Graduate research assistant for a normal PhD program and not a MD/Phd Program) don't teach and spend 40-60hrs a week in lab and you're expected to start publishing by the middle of your second year. I have friends getting published at the end of our first year (this is with classes & Teaching).I have right now four friends with publications. Two more with paper submitted.I have right now four friends with publications. Two more with paper submitted.I was already supposed to have a publication, but the guy I was writing with missed his deadline (her thesis advisor). We'll see if it gets published anyway. You apparently talk to ****ty Phd students." (end person's X quote)



From what I've heard or seen (my opinion): the student researcher needs to do close to 60-80+ hours of research and do this for several years ie 3-5 (after classes are done) for a Ph.D student. [As Neuronix noted to me: It is possible to get a middle author but he also indicated that is NOT the same as a 1st author on a paper.] Also, I have noticed a lot of these publications seemed to be only done with a thesis advisor as a co-author (to give the student researcher credibility). I wonder, for publications being as competitive as they are, how does a thesis advisor miss a (as for a deadline- I didn't understand her statement besides the fact that a person resubmits the required forms and waits until the next month for the journal to publish your article) deadline for a publication? I have a lot of doubt that a 1st year Phd (with classes, TA duties) has enough time to also create a significant research project, all in 9-12 months, to get published with decent data-but maybe I am wrong?


So my question is: is she right or am I right for a Phd Student? 😕 IMO she is crazy or BSing

 

[reine1jb]

i don't think there is any magical formula, I think someone one this forum has said something akin to hard work or long hours does not equal publications or something like that.

Point being, everything is project dependent. If you're working on creating a transgenic mouse and characterizing it, this would take quite awhile.

If you get lucky and stumble into a project that needs a couple more experiments completed then you could perceivably get a pub in a year or less, if you're doing cell culture/ in vitro stuff only that maybe again you could get some pubs fast but then again molecular biology is never as easy as one plans.....

to emphasize, the number of hours worked in lab does not always equal meaningful results. You could spend 80 hours a week working on something only for it to not work in the end, you could imagine that if you're working on a project that is not going too well then you could put a large string of 80 hour weeks together and not get anything out of it.

Conversely, if you're lucky are involved in a project getting positive results, you could probably work 50-60 hours and get a pub out in pretty fast..

bottom line, either one of you could be right depending on the project.......and the pi is always on a publication. the last author ( or authors, depending on how many labs were collaborating on a paper) in the paper is typically the pi