NIH IRTA Program *Warning*

[scistudent10]

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[Gunneria]

i agree

 

[Gunneria]

Sorry to rehash these comments so late, but today was my last day in the program and given the reflecting mood I am in, I have to completely reiterate the above user's experience. For the salary and type of environment you are going to be (expensive city + drone labor) in, it totally sucks if your boss, the PI, is just out there to look for cheap, exhaustive labor as was in my case. My experience was horrible as it resulted up in me getting zero publications and working endlessly on a stream of getting some data that would fit my PIs mold for a paper in the NEJM, Science, or Nature....needless to say, it was completely inane and since I was already accepted into med school, I basically gave up like halfway in the year and took it easy since I didn't care

At the end of the day, my coworkers became my best friends and Ill remember the nights in DC, I got to work out like rambo everyday, I saved and invested decent dough from my stipend, and I had a chance to get organized and relaxed before starting med school. This was great but the 9-5 experience was just awful on a daily basis. So moral is basically, be extremely wary of the PI you work with and the lab environment...if you are fortunate to get multiple offers, you will be enticed greatly but I hope you make the best decision.

 

[Spinietzschon]

To keep things balanced, I beg to differ on several points and am also open to PM’s however, I do not disagree with every point. I respect the OP’s experience, motivation in posting and feelings and certainly don’t mean to attack him/her in any way.

“NIH uses the IRTA program as *cheap labor* to keep their costs down instead of having to have actual employees. That is, if they want to run their clinical studies, it's easier to train IRTAs to run experiments for a year or two and pay them almost nothing, than to have to pay someone a real salary.”
-I believe this is a major overestimation of how much use they get out of postbacc labor in general. Training people continuously is enormously taxing as the cycle never ends when you’re committed to what adds up to an educational enterprise. A postdocc costs ~20k more/year but they stay for usually a min of 5 years (some stay for good) and the entry knowledge is higher, and no time has to be taken off midway to ‘retrain’ everything. Getting oriented in a lab and into a routine/niche to be truly useful takes a lot of time and there is very little to convince me that anyone at all on the administrative/hiring side has been motivated to engage a postbacc for ‘cheaper’ labor, especially since unlike a private system they don’t deal with $ directly but instead are given personnel slots assigned after reviews of labs. ON THE OTHER HAND you do have PI’s ‘stuck’ with a postbacc slot and training requirement by job to fill who don’t really want to deal with it but sortof have to, and don’t put time/effort into making sure their experience is good. Your friends being ‘zookeepers’ might just be “eh find the postbacc something quick so we can ignore them” – but the idea that they needed this (what with the dedicated animal tech staff too) would take some serious explaining to convince me of, given my time here.

I do AGREE that the experience is very individual but if someone comes in with a questionnaire of what matters to them (i.e. what time in the morning should I arrive by; how many outside grand rounds or lectures can I attend per week etc) then this will not be a problem. If you’re too afraid to ask this up front because you want the job so much but then when you have it want to complain about the mentality of the lab you’re obligated to and at that point need a rec letter from (or it would look very fishy), the responsibility is ABSOLUTELY yours. If you really want it bad enough to not screen people out yourself (which I do think it’s worth it…) then you take what you get. The lab you work in does pretty much own you once you sign, unless you don’t care about the quality of their rec in which case they really have to do a lotta paperwork to end your contract early which usually isn’t worth it (in which case you’ve got a salary for nothing haha. NOT RECCOMENDED or ethical…)

The pay is actually pretty good – I rent a 1br very conveniently located which is very nice. I think with a few good friends and some URL’s to find free stuff around the area, plus living in DC, and even going out to enjoy nightlife/movies and drinking (lightly), you can still sock away enough $ for apps/interviews and break even living in this expensive area. Unless you need a disposable income of 4 figures to blow/month, I think you’ll live just fine.

I honestly think that too many people are too afraid to ask up front what the lab is like and even if they do, to turn down an offer that would look good, but are willing to complain after they’re set in the position. It’d be like if you were so desperate for a date if they look good you just don’t ask any other questions and move in as soon as possible. I don’t know who’s more unreasonable – the speed dater who doesn’t get that you can meet like 3 people per day without deviating from your regular routine at all and just wait a month to find a good match, or people who honestly are afraid (or just to lazy to apply widely, a discussion for another day…) that they can’t find another option where even on main Bethesda campus there are 1,200 PI’s. I interviewed with people who told me when I got there they did not have a position, and a few weeks later I was deciding between joining their team or another lab. Just be gutsy and go for a lot of options, and pick one that does work you kindof like and whose lab’s dynamic (what should be your priority as a postbacc all the way… Pick the mentor, not the lab) is suited to your preferences. You’ll be fine. IMO.