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- Mar 14, 2014
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- Medical Student (Accepted)
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Hello! Rising senior here who after three years of constant deliberation has finally decided that I do want to go the route of an MD/Ph.D. I'd be applying to enter Fall 2016 (taking a gap year) but I'm now concerned about not having sufficient (long-term) research experience to be competitive for an MD/Ph.D program.
In the beginning of undergrad, my main research interest was organic chemistry and it was just the nature of the organic chemistry labs at my school that PIs in that area don't really accept students until after they've taken the requisite organic chem/lab courses (which is fair because it's just easier to train you if you actually understand what's going on and most people didn't have that background right out of high school). These were usually completed by the end of sophomore year so the earliest most students would begin in a lab would be the summer after. I would have been looking for a lab at my home institution but fortunately got the opportunity to do a medicinal chemistry internship at a major pharmaceutical company and found I absolutely loved it! Due to a combination of difficult classes, new leadership roles in ECs I really wanted to put some extra time into, and disillusionment with my home institution labs since I was convinced I only wanted to work in the pharmaceutical industry and never academia again (side note: I did do research at my home institution the summer after my freshmen year in an infectious disease lab that was a good experience but not great enough for me to want to continue during the school year), I decided not to look for a lab my junior year. This summer I'm doing a similar (but more independent) medicinal chemistry internship at a different pharmaceutical company but my concern is that I now have 3 kind of disjointed summer experiences with no real long-term project.
One co-worker actually suggested just joining a lab at my home institution my senior year but would that really remedy anything? I almost feel like I would accomplish less in a lab for one year where I can only be in for max 15-20 hours a week vs summers in which research is my only focus 40+ hours a week for 10-12 weeks (especially since with my experience, organic/synthetic chemistry requires huge blocks of time to accomplish anything). I've had trouble identifying labs at my own school that match my current research interests in medicinal chemistry/drug discovery and I don't really like the idea of joining a lab just for joining a lab's sake although I guess it is getting the skills that's more important.
Sorry for the essay I just wrote but basically, is not having a longer research experience going to put me completely out of the running and should I/can I try to fix that my senior year?
Thanks!
In the beginning of undergrad, my main research interest was organic chemistry and it was just the nature of the organic chemistry labs at my school that PIs in that area don't really accept students until after they've taken the requisite organic chem/lab courses (which is fair because it's just easier to train you if you actually understand what's going on and most people didn't have that background right out of high school). These were usually completed by the end of sophomore year so the earliest most students would begin in a lab would be the summer after. I would have been looking for a lab at my home institution but fortunately got the opportunity to do a medicinal chemistry internship at a major pharmaceutical company and found I absolutely loved it! Due to a combination of difficult classes, new leadership roles in ECs I really wanted to put some extra time into, and disillusionment with my home institution labs since I was convinced I only wanted to work in the pharmaceutical industry and never academia again (side note: I did do research at my home institution the summer after my freshmen year in an infectious disease lab that was a good experience but not great enough for me to want to continue during the school year), I decided not to look for a lab my junior year. This summer I'm doing a similar (but more independent) medicinal chemistry internship at a different pharmaceutical company but my concern is that I now have 3 kind of disjointed summer experiences with no real long-term project.
One co-worker actually suggested just joining a lab at my home institution my senior year but would that really remedy anything? I almost feel like I would accomplish less in a lab for one year where I can only be in for max 15-20 hours a week vs summers in which research is my only focus 40+ hours a week for 10-12 weeks (especially since with my experience, organic/synthetic chemistry requires huge blocks of time to accomplish anything). I've had trouble identifying labs at my own school that match my current research interests in medicinal chemistry/drug discovery and I don't really like the idea of joining a lab just for joining a lab's sake although I guess it is getting the skills that's more important.
Sorry for the essay I just wrote but basically, is not having a longer research experience going to put me completely out of the running and should I/can I try to fix that my senior year?
Thanks!
