Hours Spent in Lab for a PhD

[CaNEM]

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Listening to some of you guys talk about long (80-100+) hours in the lab while doing your PhD, I am wondering if this is common and the norm. All of my research experiences, when I can dedicate myself to them full time, have never been more than 45-50 hrs/week. Of course, I have never had the ultimate goal of a graduate thesis during these experiences, so the pressure wasn't there. Are regular-hour work weeks unheard of when people are working towards their PhD? Will most PIs want you to put in incredible hours in the lab? Is that what is needed to complete the thesis in ~3.5 years or so? Obviously, there would be a lot of variety between different labs and projects, but I'm wondering about the "typical" experience.

You see, I do love science, but I like having a balanced life too. If it came down to putting in incredible work hours in the lab or taking an extra year to do a thesis, I'd likely opt for the extra year and try to enjoy myself.

I'd be curious to see what experiences others have had or have heard about and how long you intend your work weeks to be when in the lab. Also, for those who haven't started like me, is this something you intend to take into consideration when choosing a lab?

Thanks!

 

[mjs]

The hours are long and the intellectual strain is tremendous but always keep in mind that people love to talk about how hard their job is, especially doctoral students.

I know people who have done great theses working 40, 60, or 80 hours a week. What it takes depends on the nature of your project and the time frame in which you intend to complete it. That being said, no Ph.D. is lightly earned in 3.5 years and if you ask around you'll see that many people who finish MD/PhD programs in less than seven years earned their degrees in computer and engineering fields. It usually takes a while to do biology, especially with mammals.

 

[Gradient Echo]

Originally posted by mjs
The hours are long and the intellectual strain is tremendous but always keep in mind that people love to talk about how hard their job is, especially doctoral students.

I know people who have done great theses working 40, 60, or 80 hours a week. What it takes depends on the nature of your project and the time frame in which you intend to complete it. That being said, no Ph.D. is lightly earned in 3.5 years and if you ask around you'll see that many people who finish MD/PhD programs in less than seven years earned their degrees in computer and engineering fields. It usually takes a while to do biology, especially with mammals.

I agree somewhat with this. Research in biomedical imaging tends to progress faster than other areas because:

1) you can generate an enormous amount of data in a short amount of time

2) The parameters of imaging experiments are easy to tweak and adjust (relatively speaking)

If something screws up, you dont necessarily have to spend weeks reformulating it, you can try it again almost immediately

 

[pathdr2b]

Originally posted by CaNEM
Listening to some of you guys talk about long (80-100+) hours in the lab while doing your PhD, I am wondering if this is common and the norm.

I don't these hours are the norm unless the student is trying to graduate in 2 years! I plan to have reasonable research hours of between 40-50 hours/ week after completing my coursework however should I decide on lab based research you better believe it WON"T involve animal work! I've noticed that these types of projects tend to be very unpredictable and time consuming. I plan to have a project that is cell or tissue culture based and work for an MD/PhD or MD. They appear to be more reasonable with work hours than strict PhD's.

 

[NukeAge]

I did some crystallography research at UT Southwestern this last summer as an summer undergraduate research fellow, and my mentor was in there anywere from 13-15 hours day M-F and was often there on weekends a well. I am not sue what the hours of the graduate student were but I'm sure that they were similar. The technicians and I were only in there 40-50 hours a week, but we didn't have papers to write. The only reason I didn't spend much more time in there was because I had transportation issues, but the next time I do this I will probably spend alot more time in there than just 40 hours a week.

 

[exigente chica]

Canem I second your inquiry on this subject. I too am curious about the time Grad students work in the lab. I like to have a life outside of school and the lab😎 Do any current students have any input?

 

[Ubu]

I am currently a student and started out in my lab averaging 40 hours a week outside of class (only my first year). Now, I am averaging about 50 hrs a week (coming in on weekends) outside of class. Even my PI doesn't come in on weekends. Being a grad student is tiring.

 

[DarkChild]

something else to consider though is that while you're in lab, you're not really running around every seccond of every hour...
in every set of experiments there's always going to be a reasonable amount of downtime when you're waiting for stuff to grow or something to incubate or some prep to finish running.
so while the number of hours i figure i'll be "in lab" might be high - easily 70-90/week, my consolation is that it'll be a relatively low stress environment (more or less) and i can work on my own time... i.e. hit the gym in the late morning, catch a movie and then come back to lab
lol - it just occured to me that i'm still naive enough to be really psyched about working on my thesis... i dont know, mixing solutions, cutting things open, and blowing things up are things that i'd be doing anyway as recreation... and someone is actually going to pay me to do that, and give me a docotoral degree at the end.
I think I'm getting the better end of the deal here...

 

[Kung Foo]

The funny thing about a PhD is that it's totally up to you how you manage your time. Med school (dent school in my case) is all about memorizing a canon of info that you'll need to know as a clinician. Grad school is about developing your thought processes and learning how to develop a solid research project (research techniques will be totally different in 5 years anyway..... unlike most clinical techniques...... imagine if "just for background experiance" they made grad students do PCR with waterbaths... that would be ridiculous... anyway...) So as a grad student you will totally dedicate yourself to being in the lab as much as your project demands. This could include 7 days a week of coming in around 10 and leaving at 3.... with some 16 hr. days sprinkled in, depending on how you plan your experiment schedule. Personally, I work with immunological memory in mice, so it takes a lot of planning and time to always have animals to work with. Generally i spend a few hrs every day checking the animals and collecting samples during a viral infection, and then the rest of the time running tests with the samples, reading, crunching numbers and doing other lab stuff. It's a slow process.... and a lot of long days. Comparing it to my first year dental curriculum, however, it's a LOT less stressful to be in the lab - even during the super-packed days. A lot of the stress during dental school comes from the dental lab work, which is a component you folks won't deal with, but the biggest switch is from simply memorizing and spitting out info to being expected to use what you've learned and more every waking minute of the day.

Time-wise, research is huge commitment..... i can't ever get away on the weekends without roping one of the lab techs into taking care of my stuff. Someone mentioned research internships and the time involved with those... I did those too... published and presented stuff.... and thought i'd be really well prepared for grad school - lol - until it hit me that i was now entirely responsible for picking out a really specific area of interest, learning everything i ddin't know so i could understand the background info, and plannign and running every single aspect of my research. As an intern, I was really busy and had my own projects, but my mentor was always looking over my shoulder explaining techniques and background and tellign me where to go next. As a grad student....ha!... my advisor is very hands-off, and i usually find out most stuff from the post-docs in the lab (some advisors are more hands on - it just depends - that's a good thing to find out about when you're looking for a lab) ...generally i run a set of experiments and then analyze the data and then meet with my advisor to see if he concurs... if there are huge problems.. and to explain what i'm planning on doing next...

time commitment to lab: total, you just have to schedule your breaks and workday so they fit your life. If this is a huge concern for you, make it one of your priorities when looking for a lab. Ask LOTS of questions of the other grad students in the lab, the techs (they don't usually hold back on opinions) and the post-docs to find out how much time everyone puts in and if there's a stigma attached to not being there 24-7.

Hope this helps - pardon if it's a bit garbled!


GOOD LUCK!!!