Part-time Gap year options?

[okemba]

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Hey guys...

I'm graduating with a BS in BME (3.98/4.00, 37/45)* in May, and going to apply to MD/PhD programs this cycle. I'm taking a gap year, and I *very strongly* would prefer to not work full time. It's not out of laziness or the desire to take it easy as much as I feel like my degree has not taught me anything and I want to teach myself some specific items before entering the PhD part of the program.

So towards this goal... what are my financial options? I was at the NIH last summer, and I'd (quite strongly) rather not go back for the IRTA post-bac program. (And its full-time anyway.)

Options:
1) Part-time nursing assistant / other part-time hospital job.

2) Part-time research assistant?

3) Retail.

My questions:
1) How does it look to an admissions committee if a candidate spends their gap year while applying working in something completely unrelated to clinical practice/research? (eg, subway?)

2) I assume it is possible for me to get a full-time research technician job at my university without great trouble. (Maybe this is a bad assumption, given the funding climate. My own PI informed me that he doesn't have enough money to keep me on as a technician during my year off, which should probably dampen my expectations.)

...is it at all possible or likely for me to get a part-time research technician job?

Thanks for your time.

*I figured I would put these here in case it affects any of my employment opportunities.

Relevant knowledge/skills:

• Biological experimental design / data analysis / computational modeling of protein network dynamics / Pipetting
• Time spent shadowing physicians
• I have a degree with the word 'medical' in it
• Good programmer by biology/BME standards, very poor by CS standards

 

[cpi89]

I think productive part-time research is a fantasy. I know a few excellent techs that tried it, for very good reasons (birth of a child etc), but it ultimately ends up being counter productive. I think many PIs would agree with that sentiment. Especially for a new tech (and with the understanding that you will only be there ~1 year), part time will probably be a hard sell. By the time you actually are up and running, you'll be ready to leave.

You can always do something other than research if you want to. I took some time off from research before my most recent job to be a scribe and it didn't hurt me. I know you say you don't feel like you learned anything, but I doubt you could graduate 3.98 GPA in BME without learning something. Are there not internships or positions that could at least put your degree to work?

That being said, I would think the part time thing is going to be a problem. Part time anything. You can't just apply to MD/PhD programs and say you spent a year working part-time at the GAP. Hell, you can't say you spent a year working part-time at CERN. There's a lot of applicants that are working double-time and you'll put yourself at a disadvantage. Unless these "specific items" you want to teach yourself are going to produce something tangible that will impress the committees.

 

[okemba]

Hey cpi89, thanks for the response.

I think productive part-time research is a fantasy.

Agreed... :/

Are there not internships or positions that could at least put your degree to work?

There certainly are, but most everything is full-time. It's actually kind of funny. I could probably get a full-time $50-60k job if I wanted one, but here I am struggling to find part-time $10/hr work.

That being said, I would think the part time thing is going to be a problem. Part time anything.

I'm not familiar with how secondaries etc. work. Would it actually be necessary for me to specify that I am working part-time?

But you're quite right. Am I just being lazy? I keep asking myself that. I really don't think that I am. I just want to be the best that I can be, and I think taking a year off to strengthen my foundations would really help that. I actually have a pseudo-fleshed out plan.

Unless these "specific items" you want to teach yourself are going to produce something tangible that will impress the committees.

Definitely won't. I couldn't think of a better phrase than "specific items," so please excuse the pretension.

It's really very bothersome. I want to be the best researcher I can be, and this requires me to do something that will be very clearly looked down upon by people I'm supposed to be impressing. It's not a Catch-22, but I guess it's a pretty common local-minimum kind of problem.

I just don't at all see the point in taking my current limited background to the NIH again or to some other academic lab and do work in a field that I'm not interested in. You definitely have some flexibility in choosing an IRTA lab, but not so much flexibility. You also have some flexibility in choosing a PhD lab, but not as much flexibility as I would need. So...

I feel like it would just be digging me further into a hole.

I keep asking myself whether I'm just being obstinate and should just be 'reasonable,' but the answer I keep hitting is that I lack the skills to do work in fields I want to do work in, and most PhD advisors are not going to sit around while I get myself up to speed.

I spoke to 2 Emory MD/PhD profs, and they told me that the admissions committees tend to understand that people "need to pay the bills." But maybe they're just telling me what I want to hear.

 

[ephemeralartery]

There are lots of scribing jobs out there that will let you do "part time." 40 hours is nothing in comparison to what we have in store for us though

 

[cpi89]

I'm not familiar with how secondaries etc. work. Would it actually be necessary for me to specify that I am working part-time?

Not explicitly, but you'll have to put your hours in and duration. From there it's just an arithmetic problem.

I keep asking myself whether I'm just being obstinate and should just be 'reasonable,' but the answer I keep hitting is that I lack the skills to do work in fields I want to do work in, and most PhD advisors are not going to sit around while I get myself up to speed.

It's really hard to give you any concrete advice without knowing that the skills you are trying to develop are, but I'll dwell in the hypothetical for a moment. If you say they are necessary to learn now so that you don't burden your PhD advisor later, I'll assume they are scientific in nature. I'll make something up...let's say bioinformatics. If you feel that you don't have skills in bioinformatics and you will need them later for your PhD, then you shouldn't get a part time job at subway and learn about bioinformatics the rest of the time, you should get a job where you can learn those skills, full time.

And that's assuming that you really need this experience before you start your dissertation research. I anticipate there are relatively few fields where going from one biological system to another necessitates some sort of pre-exposure to get fully onboard in a timely manner. How many freshly minted graduate students do you think come into their PhD labs already being experts in their field? PIs know and anticipate this. More often the not, the sorts of problems that do occur, occur with biologists moving into quantitative fields where they lack the mathematical prerequisites. But being an engineer, this shouldn't be a problem for you.

 

[mTORC]

If you're applying for MD/PhD programs and are taking a year or two off, I strongly advise you to do full time research with an independent project.
The postbac IRTA is one way to do it (why are you so opposed to it?) or you can be a research technician. Stick with research; scribing, etc will not help your application much.

 

[Fencer]

... Stick with research; scribing, etc will not help your application much.

strongly agree... the NIH IRTA program gives your application a very strong edge

 

[okemba]

I'll make something up...let's say bioinformatics. If you feel that you don't have skills in bioinformatics and you will need them later for your PhD, then you shouldn't get a part time job at subway and learn about bioinformatics the rest of the time, you should get a job where you can learn those skills, full time.

I'm actually happy you chose bioinformatics*, as its a very good example of what I'm talking about. Let me take that for a run here.

Bioinformatics is a field where the real algorithmic contributions come from applied mathematicians and computer scientists, *but* where a biologist with some quantitative background or a BME can still do a PhD. I'm in a bioinformatics course right now, and there's a stark contrast in capabilities between the CS/Math grad students and the BMEs (and I am quite unfortunately among the latter).

While us BMEs can certainly take given algorithms and use them to analyze genomes, actually doing something original in the field requires deeper mathematical understanding.

The difficulty with trying to develop this deeper intuition when working as a full-time researcher (whether post-bac or grad student) is one of local minimums. Learning more about the theory of computation or the rigorous underpinnings of Bayesian inference will likely not *directly* affect your day-to-day research output, but its almost impossible to do something significantly original without it.

You see what I mean? Its hard to show that developing this skillset on a daily basis is affecting your research output while you're doing research full-time, but its integral for actually making an original contribution.

*Same goes for basically any other computational area of biomedical research. You can do good work without knowing the underlying theory, but it will usually be derivative.

you should get a job where you can learn those skills, full time.

The postbac IRTA is one way to do it (why are you so opposed to it?)

The problem is that what one learns from doing research full-time is very different from spending that time learning the underlying skills needed to be successful. To take an extreme example, if I toss a freshman undergrad into an electrical engineer's job, he will certainly learn *something*, but not as much as if he had more of the underlying theory.

Its always a perfect is the enemy of the good situation though.

And that's assuming that you really need this experience before you start your dissertation research

You're 100% right that I don't *need* it. I could do a Bioinformatics PhD. I just wouldn't be doing it at a very high-level.

And again, I'm basing these assertions on my experiences interacting with bioinformatics and computational biology phd students and seeing what backgrounds different people in the field have.

strongly agree... the NIH IRTA program gives your application a very strong edge

I have no doubt. But its a question of whether I continue to pursue the closest carrot or actually take a step back and look at what will most aid my ability to contribute good research over the course of my career. Maybe I'm just being silly.

 

[mTORC]

I'm actually happy you chose bioinformatics*, as its a very good example of what I'm talking about. Let me take that for a run here.

Bioinformatics is a field where the real algorithmic contributions come from applied mathematicians and computer scientists, *but* where a biologist with some quantitative background or a BME can still do a PhD. I'm in a bioinformatics course right now, and there's a stark contrast in capabilities between the CS/Math grad students and the BMEs (and I am quite unfortunately among the latter).

While us BMEs can certainly take given algorithms and use them to analyze genomes, actually doing something original in the field requires deeper mathematical understanding.

The difficulty with trying to develop this deeper intuition when working as a full-time researcher (whether post-bac or grad student) is one of local minimums. Learning more about the theory of computation or the rigorous underpinnings of Bayesian inference will likely not *directly* affect your day-to-day research output, but its almost impossible to do something significantly original without it.

You see what I mean? Its hard to show that developing this skillset on a daily basis is affecting your research output while you're doing research full-time, but its integral for actually making an original contribution.

*Same goes for basically any other computational area of biomedical research. You can do good work without knowing the underlying theory, but it will usually be derivative.





The problem is that what one learns from doing research full-time is very different from spending that time learning the underlying skills needed to be successful. To take an extreme example, if I toss a freshman undergrad into an electrical engineer's job, he will certainly learn *something*, but not as much as if he had more of the underlying theory.

Its always a perfect is the enemy of the good situation though.



You're 100% right that I don't *need* it. I could do a Bioinformatics PhD. I just wouldn't be doing it at a very high-level.

And again, I'm basing these assertions on my experiences interacting with bioinformatics and computational biology phd students and seeing what backgrounds different people in the field have.




I have no doubt. But its a question of whether I continue to pursue the closest carrot or actually take a step back and look at what will most aid my ability to contribute good research over the course of my career. Maybe I'm just being silly.

Your reasoning is good: unfortunately, to get into medical school you have to play the game. I can't speak for adcoms but it would probably look like you did nothing unless you had some kind of award or reference of your activity. Get a full time research job and try and do the learning on the side.

 

[gutonc]

Your reasoning is good: unfortunately, to get into medical school you have to play the game. I can't speak for adcoms but it would probably look like you did nothing unless you had some kind of award or reference of your activity. Get a full time research job and try and do the learning on the side.

What he said. It's hard to argue with your logic...but you're still wrong.

Adcoms want to see "I did a research year at X U. with Dr. Y, had two posters at national meetings and just submitted a manuscript during my year off". Not, "I worked part time at Starbucks and spent the rest of my time teaching myself R".

 

[miz]

Sounds kind of like you should get a master's in your area of interest and learn full time- if you're interested in studying theory. Or forget MD/PhD and enter a straight PhD and take 8 years.
To my perspective, if you are capable of working part time in retail and spending the rest of the time actually working on developing your abilities, I find that very impressive. That requires either strong discipline or fascination in your subject or both. And having coworkers/friends who don't make unrelated demands on your free time, which is hard because friends and because unstructured time doesn't have the same boundaries as having defined projects and goals. It's really easy to waste time without definite boundaries, but if you are capable of not wasting that time, you are a rare and precious flower.
But since you'd then have no way of proving that you didn't waste your time, you'd have to hope for an interviewer who's a rube like me who will believe you when you say you're Steve Jobs auditing typography classes and developing Apple at home 🙂

ps- my IRTA boss let me explore my scientific interests as widely as I wished, including those unrelated to his work. YMMV
pps- why don't you take an extra year if you're still in undergrad and audit the classes you want?

I'm actually happy you chose bioinformatics*, as its a very good example of what I'm talking about. Let me take that for a run here.

Bioinformatics is a field where the real algorithmic contributions come from applied mathematicians and computer scientists, *but* where a biologist with some quantitative background or a BME can still do a PhD. I'm in a bioinformatics course right now, and there's a stark contrast in capabilities between the CS/Math grad students and the BMEs (and I am quite unfortunately among the latter).

While us BMEs can certainly take given algorithms and use them to analyze genomes, actually doing something original in the field requires deeper mathematical understanding.

The difficulty with trying to develop this deeper intuition when working as a full-time researcher (whether post-bac or grad student) is one of local minimums. Learning more about the theory of computation or the rigorous underpinnings of Bayesian inference will likely not *directly* affect your day-to-day research output, but its almost impossible to do something significantly original without it.

You see what I mean? Its hard to show that developing this skillset on a daily basis is affecting your research output while you're doing research full-time, but its integral for actually making an original contribution.

*Same goes for basically any other computational area of biomedical research. You can do good work without knowing the underlying theory, but it will usually be derivative.





The problem is that what one learns from doing research full-time is very different from spending that time learning the underlying skills needed to be successful. To take an extreme example, if I toss a freshman undergrad into an electrical engineer's job, he will certainly learn *something*, but not as much as if he had more of the underlying theory.

Its always a perfect is the enemy of the good situation though.



You're 100% right that I don't *need* it. I could do a Bioinformatics PhD. I just wouldn't be doing it at a very high-level.

And again, I'm basing these assertions on my experiences interacting with bioinformatics and computational biology phd students and seeing what backgrounds different people in the field have.




I have no doubt. But its a question of whether I continue to pursue the closest carrot or actually take a step back and look at what will most aid my ability to contribute good research over the course of my career. Maybe I'm just being silly.

 

[okemba]

Sounds kind of like you should get a master's in your area of interest and learn full time- if you're interested in studying theory. Or forget MD/PhD and enter a straight PhD and take 8 years

Lol. These are certainly possibilities. I feel like the distance I could switch fields between undergrad and PhD is much smaller for MD/PhD than for straight PhD.

You know, I've found these past few weeks I've spent browsing SDN/MD.PhD to be very disquieting. I feel like I've stopped seeing myself as someone with legitimate research dreams and aspirations and instead just as another dot on a grid with two co-author publications in a field I dislike.

Another thought. From what I understand, most MSTPers do their PhDs in relatively pure biology, and so it seems accurate to say that your typical MSTP grad and his PhD-only ex-labmate will belong to nearly disjoint social classes 10 years after graduation (and for the rest of their lives).

A third disquieting thought is that entering an MD/PhD program would put me out of sync with the career progressions of the vast majority of prospective mates.

pps- why don't you take an extra year if you're still in undergrad and audit the classes you want?

I'm graduating in May. I can't afford to fork over another $40k to stay for another year. lol.

 

[Patros]

Let me get this straight. You have:
1) A 3.98 GPA as an engineering major
2) 37 on your MCAT
3) Sufficient research experience for two co-authorships

What the hell are you waiting for? You can brute-force your way into at least one competitive MD/PhD program as long as you show interest. Or if you really want to take a gap year, you should work in a bioinformatics or genomics lab as an IRTA and simultaneously take classes/teach yourself. Trust me, you will have plenty of time as an IRTA. I work ~50 hrs/week and I spent plenty of time playing videogames, hanging out with friends, lounging around at home, etc. I find it hard to believe that learning programming is so intense that it will bar you from a full-time job.

 

[miz]

Lol. These are certainly possibilities. I feel like the distance I could switch fields between undergrad and PhD is much smaller for MD/PhD than for straight PhD.
You know, I've found these past few weeks I've spent browsing SDN/MD.PhD to be very disquieting. I feel like I've stopped seeing myself as someone with legitimate research dreams and aspirations and instead just as another dot on a grid with two co-author publications in a field I dislike.

Just because you're good at playing the game doesn't mean you have to play the game. Don't do an MD/PhD if you know you're not interested in biologic systems, no matter how good your grades and MCAT are.

Another thought. From what I understand, most MSTPers do their PhDs in relatively pure biology, and so it seems accurate to say that your typical MSTP grad and his PhD-only ex-labmate will belong to nearly disjoint social classes 10 years after graduation (and for the rest of their lives).

There are plenty of MD/PhDs who did PhDs outside of biology, but again, if you don't plan on applying your work towards disease models, a PhD makes more sense.

A third disquieting thought is that entering an MD/PhD program would put me out of sync with the career progressions of the vast majority of prospective mates.

🤣

I'm graduating in May. I can't afford to fork over another $40k to stay for another year. lol.

Fair enough.

 

[miz]

I looked at your other post about wet lab research and wanted to ask: if you feel that you don't get along well with biologists and premeds and that EE/CS/math/physics researchers are your people, why fight it? And if your interests keep changing, why shouldn't they continue to evolve? Basically, why medicine?

 

[okemba]

Miz, if you gave yourself a profile picture, I'd be much better able to remember the posts you make.

Just because you're good at playing the game doesn't mean you have to play the game. Don't do an MD/PhD if you know you're not interested in biologic systems, no matter how good your grades and MCAT are.

if you feel that you don't get along well with biologists and premeds and that EE/CS/math/physics researchers are your people, why fight it?

Hey again!

Biological systems really do fascinate me; I would say I spent a lot of my spare brain time thinking about how biological systems process information (computers really are a terrible metaphor for biological information processing, but I can't articulate why well yet) or how they've evolved. I will definitely admit though, its more of a pure interest. While the prospect of translating discoveries to the clinic is appealing, it's not what drives me.

Why fight it? Well, the prospect of doing pure ee/cs/phys research does not appetize me. Also, job prospects for PhDs in engineering/phys/CS kind of scare me. I have many friends & family friends who are STEM PhDs, and the problem is:

(i) Depending on academia for a TT position as a PhD is not the best of bets, as if you don't succeed, the post-doc treadmill awaits if your research didn't require you to develop many industry-relevant skills.
(ii) The nice thing about academia is that you have a lot more flexibility than in industry to pivot around to different technologies in areas. Companies usually have a few core focus areas/technologies that they're built up around. Which translates into you having fewer core competencies.
(iii) It can be difficult to find a job at the level you expect once you're in your 50s-60s. Technology changes rapidly.

(iv) The vaaaast majority of non-academic engineering/science PhDs that I know who are working in industry have research jobs where the work is very incremental (all research is incremental, but many of these cases, its excessively so. as I said above, the fact that most companies pivot around a few sets of devices/technologies really limits the creative work to be done, from what i've seen. not always true, but its my perception).

I conceptualize it in terms of derivatives. If our society's technological progress is f(x) = e^x, then the vast majority of engineering jobs are adding some small constant to the e^x. Which is of course necessary. But I feel like with purer research you have more of a potential to add a small constant to df/dx = e^x, yielding f(x) = e^x + cx. If that makes sense. (Its obviously not a perfect model of anything, but its an acceptable metaphor.) It strikes me that the practice of medicine adds nothing to f(x), though its of course saving lives.

If I thought academic PhD prospects were good, I would completely 100% do that and not look back. But...

I feel like an MD/PhD is really the best shot that I have to ensure that I can have a reasonably stable job doing research for the rest of my life. But who knows, I'm sure my interests and needs will change in the next 10 years. Do you think my MD/PhD motivation is bad?

There are plenty of MD/PhDs who did PhDs outside of biology, but again, if you don't plan on applying your work towards disease models, a PhD makes more sense.

Absolutely, but what do I do after the PhD is the deciding question.

Basically, why medicine?

Well... good question. I used to think the whole "MDs have better perspective to guide translational research" schtick was a lot of hot air. I still kind of do (how on earth could it be most economical to throw a ~$300k MD degree at a scientific researcher just for the sake of added scientific perspective? I have a tremendous amount of trouble believing there's not some kind of deliberate practice educational shortcut you could come up with to add on to PhDs), but a few of my research projects just felt kind of... awkwardly misguided when contrasted with what would be needed to do something of real clinical relevance.

As George Whitesides put it in How to Write a Paper, a lot of scientific research is wandering randomly through the intellectual phase space. Which is of course necessary and not something I want to entirely prevent (if people hadn't been blindly exploring the intellectual phase space studying algae ion channels, D&B wouldn't have come up with optogenetics...), but... I've seen a lot of cases where I thought some added perspective would be good.

tl;dr added perspective, stable career. Are these bad reasons?

I feel like the past years I've seen a lot of professors in my department (very very established people) who've started having funding difficulties. This is obscene: I will probably not be as successful as most of these profs I saw having problems.

What the hell are you waiting for?

Well I'm currently a senior, so I've already ensured a gap year by having not applied last year. Lol. 🙂

 

[miz]

Miz, if you gave yourself a profile picture, I'd be much better able to remember the posts you make.
...
It strikes me that the practice of medicine adds nothing to f(x), though its of course saving lives.
...
I feel like an MD/PhD is really the best shot that I have to ensure that I can have a reasonably stable job doing research for the rest of my life. But who knows, I'm sure my interests and needs will change in the next 10 years. Do you think my MD/PhD motivation is bad?
...
tl;dr added perspective, stable career. Are these bad reasons?

I'll be short because I have to get back to work but:
1. MD/PhD will help ensure a stable career doing clinical work. Equally unstable basic research career. Maybe that's an exaggeration, I have no idea what it's like to get an academic CS or engineering position. Another way to look at this is that an engineering job is an equally attractive fallback to practicing medicine full time, if you prefer engineering. (Since you appear to prefer MD>industry then the MD is a better fallback.)
2. F(x)- you might consider the health of the people who contemplate and enjoy the fruits of technological progress to be a worthwhile cause
3. Added perspective: not a load of hooey. I truly believe that this is an excellent reason to add medical training to a PhD.
4. That would be admitting that I spend enough time on this website to invest in things like a profile picture.