Which is harder: MD or PhD?

[db1]

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The best analogy I have heard was from the dean of my grad school. He told us this during orientation. Both med school and grad school are hard, like swimming a mile. But for med school you are in a lighted, heated lap pool with people walking along side you telling you how far you have gone. When you are done everyone applaudes and throws lots of money at you. But in grad school you start out on a deserted island on a foggy night, you can't see land in any direction. You have to swim around till you find land, for however long it takes. And when you get there, it is just another deserted island. It was very encouraging.

So I think, like has already been said, the end justify the means. When you are in your 3rd year rotaions in med school, it might suck, but you see the end in sight. But grinding it out in the lab after 3 years with no end in sight makes you want to shoot yourself...

 

[Learfan]

This statement makes MD/PhD students seem absolutely insane!

And anyone whose been to grad school particularily in a hard core science, knows getting a PhD is by far harder than getting an MD.

The experience is neither easier nor harder, it is simply different. There is no easy way to perform an apples to apples type comparison. The MD is a degree with far more defined requirements and a clear end point. After obtaining the degree, most people go on to a residency and enter either private practice or academic medicine. Notice that there is a defined pathway that is likely to guide the MD to real employment. There is a shortage of physicians and such people are heavily recruited.

The PhD by contrast is much more of an open ended commitment of your time during which you will work long hours for very low compensation under unsafe conditions in an attempt to advance a branch of technology. Since one cannot write a completely negative thesis, it is incumbent on the student to continue prospecting until some new bit of technology is discovered. This can take many years. The open ended nature of the PhD tends to have a strong demoralizing effect on the students. Couple that with the problems associated with finding work that utilizes your skill set and pays what you are worth after investing five or more years in a graduate degree and the PhD is a very poor investment.

One further issue that should be explored is the nature of the jobs pursued by science PhDs once they emerge from graduate school. You are often relegated to strictly being a researcher. Your options for entering the business track of a company or obtaining a leadership role are highly circumscribed no matter what you accomplish. In my case that was a real problem. I made more money than any of the sales staff by developing new customers and selling product into novel applications but received zero credit. No promotions. Nothing came my way until I became very pushy which did not make me any friends. New product managers were sent to me for training. This was truly absurd. Why should I train my new boss?????? I should have had the job and been moved up the ladder based upon measurable accomplishment ($$$$$$$$$$$ made and new customers). Advancement does not happen for many people trapped in a research role. If you want to branch out into other areas of the larger enterprise you work within, it is quite difficult to do so coming from research. Still another reason to go MD vs. PhD. The former degree is far more versatile.

 

[Law2Doc]

you are in a lighted, heated lap pool with people walking along side you telling you how far you have gone. When you are done everyone applaudes and throws lots of money at you.

Now that's the kind of health club I want to join 🙂

 

[bor0000]

The best analogy I have heard was from the dean of my grad school. He told us this during orientation. Both med school and grad school are hard, like swimming a mile. But for med school you are in a lighted, heated lap pool with people walking along side you telling you how far you have gone. When you are done everyone applaudes and throws lots of money at you. But in grad school you start out on a deserted island on a foggy night, you can't see land in any direction. You have to swim around till you find land, for however long it takes. And when you get there, it is just another deserted island. It was very encouraging.

So I think, like has already been said, the end justify the means. When you are in your 3rd year rotaions in med school, it might suck, but you see the end in sight. But grinding it out in the lab after 3 years with no end in sight makes you want to shoot yourself...

that's why i adore girls that yearn to do a ph.d. in the hard sciences.

 

[mattorama]

You just need to pick the right field to do a PhD in. STAY AWAY from lab science. I have two sets of friends in grad school. One set in bio/chem (lab sciences), the other in math.

My friends in bio/chem PhD programs spend 95% of their time doing mundane, mindless lab work what won't necessarily yield anything useful and the other 5% doing some decent analytical thinking (their description). They pretty much rot away in their labs.

My friends working on math PhDs (who I consider quite a bit smarter then most bio/chem grad students I know) never really do anything except drink and play video games. Their research is pretty much all "thinking". No hours running gels/PCR and crap like that. No experiments. They love grad school.

I really enjoy medical school so far, but if I had to go into a PhD program it would probably be in pure math (I have a strong undergrad math background). I don't think, however, that I am smart enough to be more then a mediocre math grad student.

 

[bor0000]

yep math ph.d is awesome if you're a genius.

 

[utcrew]

My research professor told me almost exactly that. He said that the herd is culled before med school but after grad school. Plenty of people get a PhD and are never able to land a tenured position, but few people get an MD and find themselves unemployed.

Difficulty is just too subjective.

I totally agree. I've been in a research lab 3 years as an undergrad and research assistant and I talk about this every now and then with my research professor. I see first hand the applicants we have for faculty positions as basic science researchers. These people come from the very best labs from the very best schools with papers in Science and Nature and still have to compete like hell for a job that pays $55,000/year. And, this is after 5+ years of a PhD and 5+ years as a postdoc making $35,000/year. I have a tremendous amount of respect for PhD's. It's hard as hell and their definetely not in it for the money.

However, I must say from what I've seen, the PhD students who come in and actually want a graduate degree do very good. But, the ones who for whatever reason can't get into med-school and are simply in a grad program for sake of boosting their med-school application or just to have something to do, almost always are the worst students. They usually could care less about their research, come in at 10 and leave at 5 and while they're there they may run two gels. They are usually the ones that end up dropping out.

 

[1Path]

But, the ones who for whatever reason can't get into med-school and are simply in a grad program for sake of boosting their med-school application or just to have something to do, almost always are the worst students. They usually could care less about their research, come in at 10 and leave at 5 and while they're there they may run two gels. They are usually the ones that end up dropping out.

I guess I'm an exception. I finished grad school with the purpose of using my Master's to both get me in med school AND provide a solid "fall back". Not only that because of my experiences, I'm aiming to complete an MD/PhD.

I'd say that the worst grad students are the ones that couldn't get into med school in the first place and went to grad school as a "back-up".

 

[gujuDoc]

I'd say that the worst grad students are the ones that couldn't get into med school in the first place and went to grad school as a "back-up".

I agree. I've learned quite a bit from undergrad research, but know that I could never go into academic medicine. Even if I had Einstein's genius brain, that just isn't my thing. I like the nature of private practice quite a bit more, and foresee myself in that sort of evironment.

 

[Gut Shot]

Also props to Havarti and LearFan.

Any time I can give somebody a heads up about what's likely waiting for them in grad school, it is my pleasure.

While I'm at it, allow me to illustrate the other two major things that make grad school Suck Factor 9.

Uno: lousy research ideas. I swear, all the 90% of the PI's do is dream up these ******ed fishing expeditions, usually relying on whatever cockamamie bandwagon technique just came out in kit form. Myself and one of my colleagues got suckered into doing differential display (read: dismay), otherwise known as randomly primed RT-PCR. It took me 18 months to choke some results out of that stupid assay, which brings me to numero dos...

Dos: the never-ending prospect of experimental failure. So my buddy and I get zero results from differential display for 3 solid months. It wasn't working very well beforehand, but at least we were getting some bands on the films. Then, one day, nada. We troubleshot night and day, week after week, and got nowhere. Almost every night, after the latest empty film spat out of the developer, we would go out and drink ourselves into semi-catatonic states to temporarily escape the hell we were in.

Then one day, my chum was getting the radiolabeled nucleotide out of the freezer for another go, and he started screaming with rage. He showed me the label on the container. As it turned out, a recurrent clerical error had resulted in us receiving radiolabeled CTP rather than dCTP. All of a sudden the root cause of the previous 90 wasted days of our lives became starkly apparent.

I think I bought my MCAT study book the following weekend.

 

[Learfan]

I agree with you Learfan.. other industries will and are exported to other countires. There is one big difference with Phd's however: The US has the most extensive and advanced university system in the world. No one comes even close. I have spent a good portion of my life in W. Europe and I can say from first hand experience that even the European system is nothing like the US. Also, no other country comes close to funding research like the US. For every 1 dollar we spend on health care we give 11 cents to research. That is a TON of money. W. Eupore only gives around 3-5 cents and has a smaller bugdet. This is changing in East Asian countries (like Singapour (sp) which is activley puruing a research infrastructure) and I worry about the day when the US experiences a brain drain for the first time. We MUST keep foreign and US scientists here and increasing the salaries is the only way I can see this happening.

(Again, not spell-checked or proof read).

Yes, the United States has an excellent university system and we spend a disproportionate portion of our money as measured by a percentage of sales on research. These are good things that create high salary jobs for United States citizens. We attract a significant proportion of bright motivated people from Asia to study for advanced degrees within our universities.

My arguement is a bit more subtle. Industries such as steel have migrated to Asia and other lower cost venues. As the knowledge required to carry our manufacturing operations became more widely known, maturing industries migrate to venues where capital and labor are both cheaper. Hence, steel manufacturing has in part moved to Korea.

I predict the same effect in research. As industries such as oil, chemicals and computers mature, research becomes less valuable since it fails to uncover key knowledge that improves quality or further drives down costs. Since the value of research is decreasing, it is migrated to lower cost venues such as India. This does not mean that new high value industries will not be willing to create fit for purpose research facilities in the United States, Western Europe and Japan. It just means that the researchers of the future will work in new industries and will have to have different training specific to the new industry employing them.

In general, I am pesemistic about the future for classic research in mainstream areas such as chemistry and physics. There may be more hope for the more recent biological sciences that will contribute to health care advances.

 

[newguy357]

I was talking to a friend the other day and she said that getting a PhD is harder and that they are more respected. What do you all think? Obviously they are hard in their own different ways. I dont know too much about what it takes to get a PhD, but I imagine its got to be pretty hard. What are the toughest parts of getting one? What are considered to be the hardest part of going through becoming a physician?

Which is harder? It has to depend on the program. I have worked in a physics research lab, however, and I can tell you that the grad students there tend to think I'm nuts for wanting to go to medical school (since they perceive it as so much work). In fact, they tend to be rather lazy people (they admit that, it's not just my judgment) and actually chose graduate school for that reason.

 

[Belfagor]

Any time I can give somebody a heads up about what's likely waiting for them in grad school, it is my pleasure.

While I'm at it, allow me to illustrate the other two major things that make grad school Suck Factor 9.

Uno: lousy research ideas. I swear, all the 90% of the PI's do is dream up these ******ed fishing expeditions, usually relying on whatever cockamamie bandwagon technique just came out in kit form. Myself and one of my colleagues got suckered into doing differential display (read: dismay), otherwise known as randomly primed RT-PCR. It took me 18 months to choke some results out of that stupid assay, which brings me to numero dos...

Dos: the never-ending prospect of experimental failure. So my buddy and I get zero results from differential display for 3 solid months. It wasn't working very well beforehand, but at least we were getting some bands on the films. Then, one day, nada. We troubleshot night and day, week after week, and got nowhere. Almost every night, after the latest empty film spat out of the developer, we would go out and drink ourselves into semi-catatonic states to temporarily escape the hell we were in.

Then one day, my chum was getting the radiolabeled nucleotide out of the freezer for another go, and he started screaming with rage. He showed me the label on the container. As it turned out, a recurrent clerical error had resulted in us receiving radiolabeled CTP rather than dCTP. All of a sudden the root cause of the previous 90 wasted days of our lives became starkly apparent.

I think I bought my MCAT study book the following weekend.

Thank you. I say that as someone who is trying to decide what to do with my life. Honest input is hard to come by.

 

[Learfan]

Any time I can give somebody a heads up about what's likely waiting for them in grad school, it is my pleasure.

While I'm at it, allow me to illustrate the other two major things that make grad school Suck Factor 9.

Uno: lousy research ideas. I swear, all the 90% of the PI's do is dream up these ******ed fishing expeditions, usually relying on whatever cockamamie bandwagon technique just came out in kit form. Myself and one of my colleagues got suckered into doing differential display (read: dismay), otherwise known as randomly primed RT-PCR. It took me 18 months to choke some results out of that stupid assay, which brings me to numero dos...

Dos: the never-ending prospect of experimental failure. So my buddy and I get zero results from differential display for 3 solid months. It wasn't working very well beforehand, but at least we were getting some bands on the films. Then, one day, nada. We troubleshot night and day, week after week, and got nowhere. Almost every night, after the latest empty film spat out of the developer, we would go out and drink ourselves into semi-catatonic states to temporarily escape the hell we were in.

Then one day, my chum was getting the radiolabeled nucleotide out of the freezer for another go, and he started screaming with rage. He showed me the label on the container. As it turned out, a recurrent clerical error had resulted in us receiving radiolabeled CTP rather than dCTP. All of a sudden the root cause of the previous 90 wasted days of our lives became starkly apparent.

I think I bought my MCAT study book the following weekend.

I can empathise with your pain having been placed in a similar position. Sorry to hear of another tortured soul. The whole grad school experience sucks.

I worked on two projects prior to settling in on the one that became the subject of my thesis. The first was an amazingly stupid idea on the part of my advisor relating to developing the synthetic utility of organocalcium reagents. These are harder to prepare, much more basic and much less nucleophillic when compared to easily prepared Grignard reagents. These properties are exactly the opposite of what would be desired in a new synthetic tool. I even had to invent a new method of preparing a calcium dispersion in the form of a Rieke metal to get any yield of the organocalcium materials at all. To add insult to injury, an afternoon spent with Wilkenson's Comprehensive Organometallic Chemistry would have revealed that all of this was known due to Russian work performed in the 1960s and 1970s. Remember, a month in the lab will save you a day in the library.

The second project was one of those recycled wonders that had already soaked up at least five years of totally unproductive grad student work. I mean zero progress at all. The overall project was far too complicated to discuss in detail but the key issue was the development of a new synthetic tool that was a strongly nucleophillic trifluoromethyl anion equivalent. An example, if such a thing could really exist, would be "CF3Li" or "CF3MgBr". These things do not exist because no mater how cold you keep them, they eject fluoride anion to afford difluorocarbene and subsequently, teflon type oligomers. Without a working nucleophillic trifluoromethyl anion equivalent, the entire project was stopped dead in its tracks along with my progress toward the PhD. I jumped ship from that program in about four months and asked to work on developing a reaction that I knew for a fact could be made to yield some functioning examples that would lead to a thesis. My advisor was truly suprised and hostile when I did that. Guess I failed to volunteer to spend two years of additional work making zero progress toward a thesis and entry into the real world. Poor attitude on my part. Guess I failed to be a team player.

 

[Gut Shot]

Guess I failed to volunteer to spend two years of additional work making zero progress toward a thesis and entry into the real world.

Very nice. Even though you were in chemistry and I was biomedical it's nice to see that things really don't change much.

How about this one. I knew a guy who was a grad student in a micro lab with little direction or focus. He just kind of came up with his own ideas and would doggedly pursue them, no matter how bad they were. We characterized him as a blind man running in a dark room, completely unaware of his own plight.

So he's working on this bacterium (Strep pneumo) that grows in chains, trying to find some significant difference between 33 and 37C cultures that he can pursue. In other words, another fishing expedition. He concocts this "hypothesis" that the amount of polysaccharide capsule might be different based on the two temperatures, so he spends a YEAR fooling around with this polysaccharide assay. Here's the catch: he equalizes the number of bacterial cells in each tube based on equivalent colony forming units.

Twelve months after this escapade begins, and after reproducibly detecting some meager difference in capsule between the two temperatures, he has electron microscopy performed on 33 and 37C cultures. The result: the capsules were IDENTICAL, but the chain length is slightly different.

Longer chain + same CFU's = more cells = false appearance of more capsule per cell.

This really rammed home the second of two big lessons I took from grad school: if there is a single experiment that can destroy your hypothesis, do it FIRST.

The other lesson was this: wishful thinking won't change the reality behind natural phenomena.

 

[Smooth Operater]

Woah! I am glad that I've encountered this thread 2 days before I have to choose my major. I was planning to continue on with my biochemistry degree. But, 8/10 of biochemistry students that I have talked to WARNED me to avoid biochemistry at all cause if my #1 education goal is not research after undergrad. I have never intended doing a graduated study. My #1 goal is to pursue professional schools after undergrad.

I followed the biochem program in my school as a naive freshman b/c many professors and people encouraged me that scientific research is exciting and told me prospect is great once you've completed pHD. So, I though I would just give it a try. But as time goes on, there is a negative impression about research from biochem grad and undergrad students. This thread pretty solidify my decison to jump off the ship early and go for a program that is more geared toward health professional schools instead of bichemistry which gear towards totally for life science research! Thanks for sharing your stories! Keep'em coming! 🙂

 

[Learfan]

Very nice. Even though you were in chemistry and I was biomedical it's nice to see that things really don't change much.

How about this one. I knew a guy who was a grad student in a micro lab with little direction or focus. He just kind of came up with his own ideas and would doggedly pursue them, no matter how bad they were. We characterized him as a blind man running in a dark room, completely unaware of his own plight.

So he's working on this bacterium (Strep pneumo) that grows in chains, trying to find some significant difference between 33 and 37C cultures that he can pursue. In other words, another fishing expedition. He concocts this "hypothesis" that the amount of polysaccharide capsule might be different based on the two temperatures, so he spends a YEAR fooling around with this polysaccharide assay. Here's the catch: he equalizes the number of bacterial cells in each tube based on equivalent colony forming units.

Twelve months after this escapade begins, and after reproducibly detecting some meager difference in capsule between the two temperatures, he has electron microscopy performed on 33 and 37C cultures. The result: the capsules were IDENTICAL, but the chain length is slightly different.

Longer chain + same CFU's = more cells = false appearance of more capsule per cell.

This really rammed home the second of two big lessons I took from grad school: if there is a single experiment that can destroy your hypothesis, do it FIRST.

The other lesson was this: wishful thinking won't change the reality behind natural phenomena.

This really reminds me of a session I had with my advisor. After performing the experiments, I told him that the reaction under study, which was a sterically sensitive Lewis acid catalysed nucleophillic ring opening, did not work at all when the substrate epoxide had the ring placed at a secondary and tertiary carbon. I said the reaction was sterically sensitive, right? Instead of ring opening products, the Lewis acid catalysed the rearangement of the epoxide to a ketone. This was followed by enolization and silation of the ketone by another reagent in the reaction mix to afford a silyl enol ether. He thought that a previous graduate student had an example of this situation where the reaction worked. His words to me were "That does not compute". My thoughts were threefold. 1. What are you, Mr Spock off of Star Trek? 2. Hey look pal, I do not write the laws governing physical reality. I just investigate them. The guy who wrote the laws has a much higher pay grade. 3. What a useless individual. He claims to be a scientist? What a clown. I damm near said number three. I know that it showed in the look on my face.

 

[gujuDoc]

Wow the horror stories..............😱 😱 😱

That said..........I remember when I worked in the VA. The lady who was the main head of the lab was real nice. But the other PhD in the lab was someone I really couldn't stand. There were so many times when I worked in the VA, where I felt like for one step forward we would fall back 2 steps backwards.

Furthermore, the project one of the other undergrads was working on wasing going to be sent off to be reviewed for publication when we found out that just weeks before someone had the same idea elsewhere and already got published with the same experiment. One day the staining procedures for the histo samples would work, the next time it wouldn't work. It just was a pain in the butt. I knew so many people that left that lab for frustration. One girl that was going to go back and do PhD work got fed up with the way things were going and lack of compensation that she went into health management. Another girl, decided to go into a different PHD program (cancer biology) because nothing was working and people didn't seem as happy in the neuro research at that lab. But where she had interviewed at the cancer center, they had more funds, happier grad students, etc. The third PhD that used to be there even left the lab and went back to do another postdoc elsewhere. The PhD that I didn't like would often complain, seem very unhappy with life, and just generally seemed like a miserable person. She would always be looking for a new job too. But nothing ever came of it. What was worse was that the VA animal facilities were like a dungeon. They were filthy and the people didn't even take care of the animals properly. They let these animals live in their own feces and didn't change the cages at all. It was just gross. I'm so glad I don't work there anymore. I mean, there were some interesting moments too......But I'm much happier where I'm doing undergrad research now. However, that still doesn't mean that I would do research as a life long career. As an undergrad experience it is a good thing. But as a career choice, you better be real real real passionate about it and know that you may never live to see the day where your efforts paid off if you are going to go into it. Although, I've had my moments, I wouldn't trade the learning experience I got from research for anything because it thought me a lot and made me realize what real world science is about and understand where many professors and grad students come from. I, however, wouldn't go into it as a life long career because all the uncertainty would make me go crazy.

 

[LJDHC05]

Wow the horror stories..............😱 😱 😱

I, however, wouldn't go into it as a life long career because all the uncertainty would make me go crazy.

I can only say yes to gujudoc..

2 summers and winters as an assistant and my next year as a tech have convinced me that I'm not a scientist at heart and i would be not happy in a lab...no need for me to whine here about it

 

[PHD_2007]

Hello everyone! I just wanted to add my 2 cents to this forum. I really think that the MD and PhD Programs are equally difficult. I really don't think these programs can be compared because the MD program is based solely on normal human physiology vs pathology. PhD programs are based on solely on philosophy---- I think therefore It Has to BE!!!! Also, I believe that the PhD experience is based largely on choosing a wise mentor, choosing a great research area, and your attitude. 😍 If you are thinking of going into research keep one thing in mind " It took 10,000 tries for Edison to produce light". Failure is 95% of the job.

 

[Gut Shot]

If you are thinking of going into research keep one thing in mind " It took 10,000 tries for Edison to produce light". Failure is 95% of the job.

That's true, but are you aware of what a rate of 95% failure does to your psyche and sense of well being? It's left more than a few folks in vomit-encrusted comas beneath the urinals at the local pub.

And i find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which i'm dying are the best ive ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles, it's a very very mad world

-Gary Jules, soundtrack to Donnie Darko

 

[Learfan]

Hello everyone! I just wanted to add my 2 cents to this forum. I really think that the MD and PhD Programs are equally difficult. I really don't think these programs can be compared because the MD program is based solely on normal human physiology vs pathology. PhD programs are based on solely on philosophy---- I think therefore It Has to BE!!!! Also, I believe that the PhD experience is based largely on choosing a wise mentor, choosing a great research area, and your attitude. 😍 If you are thinking of going into research keep one thing in mind " It took 10,000 tries for Edison to produce light". Failure is 95% of the job.

Failure is indeed part of the job. I have spent 18 years in industry with a large oil company and can point to only one substantial success. The work was a mixture of commercial and technical efforts that resulted in substantial sales. I performed both the tech and the commercial portions of the work. Other than that, the projects have all been complete loosers. I need more that that in the way of success to feel motivated.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..................................One success vs eighteen years. That feels like it sucks. At least MDs get to score a bit more often even if it is just treating simple infections, maintaining someone on blood pressure meds or helping to keep a chronic condition in check.

Please keep in mind that the only way you will experience future career success in industry (eg. get promoted to higher grade and salary) as a techie is to leave the tech area for management or operations ASAP. Researchers are treated like dirt and ignored. Managers make decisions and operations people make the money. Both get promoted while you in research do not get promoted. So staying in research is a sure path to complete career stagnation. Still want to be a researcher after five years? After ten? Oh, you haven't been promoted for the last twelve years? Well now you are too old to move up with our current crop of up and comers. Guess you will have to stay in your obscure cubby hole and be ignored at least until the next layoff. Then, you are useful since you are expendable. This is the reality of industrial research. I have had to duck or stepside eight layoffs in 18 years. The experience has sucked.


Yes, the choice of advisor is critical. Is he or she a jerk? Do they actually have grant money? Do they have the political sway to help set the passing grades on the comprehensive or cume exams at a level that will allow you to be one of the people judged to have passed? These exams are not standardized. The passing grade is set locally and is totally subjective. Is 65 a pass or is it 75?

Here is a clue. If your advisor has a large group and research funds, he or she will also have a very aggressive personality. Translation: They will be a jerk who will use and abuse you without the slightest show of mercy. You will be offered recycled projects that are impossible to progress, have your stipend cut off at five years while your research advisor demands seven years of work for the degree and be assigned to group jobs that will suck down huge quantities of time and effort. My advisor actually circulated a memo to each new person joining the group written by another academic chemist who might as well have been his clone. The memo told you in no uncertain terms that it was your burden to deal with his overbearing and unreasonable personality since he brought in the bucks that made your degree possible. What a jerk.

My lab mate was responsible for maintaining this cheap out of date 80 MHz NMR that my advisor had as group property. This one was his vs the three far newer 300 MHz departmental instruments in the basement. Nobody needed the 80 MHz instrument any more but it was a badge of prestige to "have our own". My lab mate was not trained as an electronics tech but he spent almost a year learning how to completely rebuild that worthless old instrument. After the waste of a full year of his time on the rebuild project, nobody used it. What a waste of time and money. But since grad students are cheap (Hell, they were free after five years since access to support was cut off), and you have them by the nuts before the degree is granted, why not waste some effort to maintain images. This sort of experience crushes your soul to dust and sucks away the will to go on. Do not go here.

 

[PHD_2007]

Wow you guys have had some bad experiences in research!!!!! Were any of you in the Life Sciences? So far I haven't experienced anything like that and prafully I won't..... I guess it just depends on the person, the school, and the area you choose to study. I agree with becoming an MD and the satisfication you get when you've helped someone to get better. Personally, I would like to have both the PhD and the MD. 😍

 

[PHD_2007]

Prayfully 😛 😍

 

[gujuDoc]

I agree, I think it matters where you are at, what field you are in, etc. But that said, I still think clinical medicine is the way for me.

 

[psiyung]

When I was an undergrad during my first two years, I had a hard time choosing between MD and PhD (decided to do neither). I ended up in this general chemistry 2 class where my professor told us to avoid any "PhD" program at all costs and go with the MD. Thinking back, and knowing what I know today, I think he was right on the money

 

[docbill]

As someone who acquired a PhD in chemistry, let me try to shed a little light on the process. In many programs, the progression through the requirements to be granted the degree look like this:

1. One year of full time classes taken while teaching undergrad classes to support yourself. GPA must be a 3.0 minimum. Strong pressure from research advisor to finish all classes during first year to get you into the lab as completely devoted slave labor ASAP.
2. Comprehensive exam taken at the end of first year with three chances to earn a passing grade or take specific subject matter exams with a requirement to pass a minimum proportion of them (e.g. 6 out of 9 given during your second year in residence). Different departments utilize each exam system. Pass exams under applicable system or get dropped from program. 🙁
3. Take propositional oral exam. Preparation usually requires about three months. This is often five of them (faculty) taking on one of you in a small closed room. Yes, it is is an exercise in intimidation. Here you play research advisor and design a program that someone else could complete to obtain their PhD. The research must have the potential to materially contribute to the science. Passing or failing is completely subjective and there is no appeal of a failed grade.
4. Perform endless research for 3 to 6 additional years under unsafe conditions while either teaching to support yourself or living a meager existance being supported on a stipend from a research grant. This means long hours and dangerous working conditions followed by more long hours waiting for instrument time, chemicals to arrive, experiments to cook, etc., etc., etc.............................................Very hard to negotiate an end to the research since once you are adept in the lab, there is an interest on the part of your advisor to keep you as cheap labor pumping out publishable research advisor agrandising material. Strong potential for endless abuse in this type of situation. Keep in mind that you actually need some new science that works. You cannot write a completely negative thesis. People often spend years searching for a new bit of technology that actually works.
5. Give departmental seminar. Read articles from the literature and give a public talk. Not a very useful exercise.
6. Write up and defend thesis.
7. Leave and never return or speak to anyone at the department where you did your graduate work. The bitterness runs that deep. 😡 😡 😡
8. Try to find work. Any work. I mean any work at all. ................................................You mean I spent five (or six or seven or eight) years earning a graduate degree that does not qualify me as interesting to any employer outside of academics???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😡 I need some money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am going to be evicted from my roach infested hovel of an apartment if I dont come up with some coin NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😡 😡 😡
9. Drink heavily before applying at temp agency.

That is the PhD experience in a nutshell. Do not go here. Get an MD that actually gives you a chance to participate in the work force. Forget about respect for a PhD. Nobody cares about your degree.

I agree fully with your post. I would add a few F#Q$^% THis and F$#%^^ that in there...

Call some advisors B%^s and users.... and leave mumbelling another $#%$#^ #$^% words to publishing in big journals. While working 60hours a week and getting less then min wage pay. (Stipend/hours spent = no money and little respect)

 

[Learfan]

Wow you guys have had some bad experiences in research!!!!! Were any of you in the Life Sciences? So far I haven't experienced anything like that and prafully I won't..... I guess it just depends on the person, the school, and the area you choose to study. I agree with becoming an MD and the satisfication you get when you've helped someone to get better. Personally, I would like to have both the PhD and the MD. 😍

I started out as an organic chemist. A bad choice of advisor coupled with a worse choice of career turned into a total disaster for me. I have been trying to locate another job intermitently for the last 13 years with no success. An aquaintence of mine who was also a PhD chemist got let go from the company I work for three years ago. He just found a job at a much lower level when compared to the job he lost. Think about that. Three solid years of unemployment. The world does not need any more PhDs.

I wish you good fortune and success but invite you to consider the MD only. If you can earn a PhD in an MSTP and have the entire deal paid for, then at least you graduate without significant debt. I still do not think it is worth it. I spoke with an academic nephrologist at UT Houston and he estimated that he could triple his salary in private practice. At that price (low $100s vs $400K), I will treat kidney failure patients all day with a smile on my face and a song in my heart until I fly my private luxury helicopter home at 5:30.

Just kidding about the helicopter but the money in academic science pales by comparison to private practice. Why bother with research. It usually produces nothing but boredom and frustration. 😡 🙁 😡

 

[Learfan]

That's true, but are you aware of what a rate of 95% failure does to your psyche and sense of well being? It's left more than a few folks in vomit-encrusted comas beneath the urinals at the local pub.

And i find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which i'm dying are the best ive ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles, it's a very very mad world

-Gary Jules, soundtrack to Donnie Darko

That brings back some harsh memories. One of my friends in grad school slowly progressed from someone who drank more than was good for him to a full blown alcoholic after six years of the grad experience. Between the smoking and the drinking, I wonder if he is still alive today. The silly photochemical project he pursued for a thesis was an utterly worthless repeat of a previous completely worthless project. Sad waste of talent. He got married in grad school to a real _itch he met in undergrad. All of his friends said don't do it. They got a divorce about three years later. After graduation, he got a job at a contract research house in Cleveland and hated it. They moved back to the city where we were grad students because his wife liked it better. They got divorced shortly after the move. He got a job as a waiter in a sushi bar and later became an instructor for the grad school teaching undergrad labs. We lost touch after that. What a sad waste of youth and talent.

 

[bor0000]

since so many people here discuss research:
which research labs are generally better for ugrads(if they want to learn and to get something published,etc): theoretical or experimental? theoretical means doing most of the work on the computer or on a piece of paper(proposing various models or reading/analyzing other people's work) or doing work where you inject something in a rat and observe?

 

[nyc25]

Wow after reading these posts, I am thoroughly happy that I left my basic sciences PhD program after the first year to attend medical school. The MD just offers more versatility and if it's research you are interested in, you can do plenty of that with an MD. In fact the NIH tends to give more funds to MD's because of the translational research application of the projects. Some PhD's have to collaoborate with MD's to get that type of pull for NIH grant money. And at a prestigious school in NYC (which shall go unnamed), guess who were the heads of the basic science programs, MD's and MD/PhD's. PhD's alone rarely had upward mobility.

 

[Learfan]

Wow after reading these posts, I am thoroughly happy that I left my basic sciences PhD program after the first year to attend medical school. The MD just offers more versatility and if it's research you are interested in, you can do plenty of that with an MD. In fact the NIH tends to give more funds to MD's because of the translational research application of the projects. Some PhD's have to collaoborate with MD's to get that type of pull for NIH grant money. And at a prestigious school in NYC (which shall go unnamed), guess who were the heads of the basic science programs, MD's and MD/PhD's. PhD's alone rarely had upward mobility.

Good choice. When you are out practicing think of this. Suppose you have a patient come in with all of the classic signs of some simple problem like a bacterial sinus infection. You give them a scrip for the antibiotic and they go away and get well. You just accomplished more in 15 to 20 minutes than many researchers will in a year. You actually solved a problem.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

Good choice. When you are out practicing think of this. Suppose you have a patient come in with all of the classic signs of some simple problem like a bacterial sinus infection. You give them a scrip for the antibiotic and they go away and get well. You just accomplished more in 15 to 20 minutes than many researchers will in a year. You actually solved a problem.

Learfan: I think chemistry and basic biology are worse than physics or translational research. If I were in a physics department working on quantum field theory, I might be challenged, but at least I'd feel that the project was interesting. Physics is hard, but I think the atmosphere in chemistry and particularly *organic chemistry* is pretty bad. Also, translational biomedical research has the appeal that a problem solved could have pretty quick applications medically, so that both motivates and interests you.

I truly pity the poor synthetic organic chemists. Yuck.

 

[Learfan]

Learfan: I think chemistry and basic biology are worse than physics or translational research. If I were in a physics department working on quantum field theory, I might be challenged, but at least I'd feel that the project was interesting. Physics is hard, but I think the atmosphere in chemistry and particularly *organic chemistry* is pretty bad. Also, translational biomedical research has the appeal that a problem solved could have pretty quick applications medically, so that both motivates and interests you.

I truly pity the poor synthetic organic chemists. Yuck.

It is a poor situation. I started out in grad school with a genuine love for synthetic chemistry but outside pharm, there are no real applications for the material. The work I perform is applied engineering that happens to use some chemistry. I have not been able to progress a chemical project since 1997 and that was not real research. It was just tailoring mixtures of chemicals to the needs of a particular industry. At least that project made some money.

By the way, I have no training in engineering nor does learning the area appeal to me. So, I am reduced to complete ineffectiveness and essentially leading on others about the potential improvements that could arise if we pursue program X or program Y to get research funding. We all gotta eat. I am so looking forward to the day I resign to start med school. I estimate August 5th will be my last day.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

It is a poor situation. I started out in grad school with a genuine love for synthetic chemistry but outside pharm, there are no real applications for the material. The work I perform is applied engineering that happens to use some chemistry. I have not been able to progress a chemical project since 1997 and that was not real research. It was just tailoring mixtures of chemicals to the needs of a particular industry. At least that project made some money.

By the way, I have no training in engineering nor does learning the area appeal to me. So, I am reduced to complete ineffectiveness and essentially leading on others about the potential improvements that could arise if we pursue program X or program Y to get research funding. We all gotta eat. I am so looking forward to the day I resign to start med school. I estimate August 5th will be my last day.

You're already admitted to med school? Congrats!

 

[Learfan]

You're already admitted to med school? Congrats!

Thank you.

It feels real scary to leave a job at my age even if I hate it since it is a steady source of money. If I leave this job, then that is it. No turning back. I will never be able to find a decent position in chemistry again.

 

[gujuDoc]

Thank you.

It feels real scary to leave a job at my age even if I hate it since it is a steady source of money. If I leave this job, then that is it. No turning back. I will never be able to find a decent position in chemistry again.

Ah......but you go on to medical school and get the proper training, and you'll be able to use your MD to perform both for reserach and treating patients. You'll be able to do clinical research trials and stuff and what not. So there'll be alot of doors open to you.

A lot of people make career changes in this day and age. So don't sweat it. Just go with your heart.

 

[Learfan]

Ah......but you go on to medical school and get the proper training, and you'll be able to use your MD to perform both for reserach and treating patients. You'll be able to do clinical research trials and stuff and what not. So there'll be alot of doors open to you.

A lot of people make career changes in this day and age. So don't sweat it. Just go with your heart.

Thanks but no more research for this boy ever. I never want to see the inside of a lab again. The frustration of endless work without anything to show for it has worn me out. I never want to have to beg for money, beg for technicians, beg for intrument time, design experiements, etc., etc., etc.............................only to have the project fail on technical merit or be canceled before I can get results by someone in the business end of the company who has complete veto power over me. My loathing for the corporate environment is only second to my distaste for future research programs. After serving as a business leader for five years, I can tell you that most business decisions by committee are also made in a very poor manner. I can document the loss of over $1 billion just based upon four bad decisions made by the so called leaders in the company I be leaving in about a month.

I want to work in a small group solving real world problems that provide feedback concerning how well my solution is working. In addition, I am looking for situations that have a more definitive end which is why surgery is appealing to me.

 

[gujuDoc]

Thanks but no more research for this boy ever. I never want to see the inside of a lab again. The frustration of endless work without anything to show for it has worn me out. I never want to have to beg for money, beg for technicians, beg for intrument time, design experiements, etc., etc., etc.............................only to have the project fail on technical merit or be canceled before I can get results by someone in the business end of the company who has complete veto power over me. My loathing for the corporate environment is only second to my distaste for future research programs. After serving as a business leader for five years, I can tell you that most business decisions by committee are also made in a very poor manner. I can document the loss of over $1 billion just based upon four bad decisions made by the so called leaders in the company I be leaving in about a month.

I want to work in a small group solving real world problems that provide feedback concerning how well my solution is working. In addition, I am looking for situations that have a more definitive end which is why surgery is appealing to me.

Oh ok, that makes more sense. Wow you answered my next question without me even asking it.......which was going to be what field you were interested. But I see you already spoke on that one.

Good luck with everything and congrats with getting accepted. Sorry that your research years turned out to be so haywire, and hope that medicine brings more joy to you.

 

[dhoonlee]

.

 

[Learfan]

Woah! I am glad that I've encountered this thread 2 days before I have to choose my major. I was planning to continue on with my biochemistry degree. But, 8/10 of biochemistry students that I have talked to WARNED me to avoid biochemistry at all cause if my #1 education goal is not research after undergrad. I have never intended doing a graduated study. My #1 goal is to pursue professional schools after undergrad.

I followed the biochem program in my school as a naive freshman b/c many professors and people encouraged me that scientific research is exciting and told me prospect is great once you've completed pHD. So, I though I would just give it a try. But as time goes on, there is a negative impression about research from biochem grad and undergrad students. This thread pretty solidify my decison to jump off the ship early and go for a program that is more geared toward health professional schools instead of bichemistry which gear towards totally for life science research! Thanks for sharing your stories! Keep'em coming! 🙂

I would strongly support your interest in programs that prepare you to enter a professional rather than a research tract. Please read all of my posts along with those of Havarti666 to understand just how the PhD traps you and limits your career options. It does not matter what you accomplish in terms of real world quantifiable business success once you are working. As a PhD you are almost sure to remain trapped in research, largely ignored and subject to layoff whenever the company hits a bump in the road. In addition, the process of obtaining the degree is heart breaking. Once you are working, the lack of success in research becomes numbing and depressing. Early in my career, I used to obsess about elaborate vacations and about hobbies. I now realize that these behaviors were a means of using up time and energy I did not wish to focus on research projects that would only produce more depressing failures. Later in my career, I shifted my attention to business as a means of seeking some form of measurable success that would validate all of my work. Even though I was successful as a business person, I could not fit into the company business culture which was focussed upon inaction and risk avoidance rather than on entrepreneureal activity that might lead to new products, new customers and enhanced profitability. There was no reward for risk taking so it was strongly discouraged. This was not apparent to me since I had grown up in research rather than in the business functions of the company and I did not comprehend the culture.

 

[Gut Shot]

That sucks man 🙁 . But honestly, y'all should have run a positive control sooner to find out the problem.

Welcome to home cooked differential display, my friend! Positive control? What's that? Seriously, though, the failure of a positive control would have only pointed towards a failure of amplification (rather than sample prep), and that's the part of the process that always screws up, anyways.

"Did it work?"
"No."
"How about the positive control?"
"Nada, my friend."
"Well what does that mean?"
"It means that something is still wrong and we're no f***king closer to solving it."
"Where's the box of wine?"
"Bottom drawer."

 

[Ross434]

I would strongly support your interest in programs that prepare you to enter a professional rather than a research tract. Please read all of my posts along with those of Havarti666 to understand just how the PhD traps you and limits your career options. It does not matter what you accomplish in terms of real world quantifiable business success once you are working. As a PhD you are almost sure to remain trapped in research, largely ignored and subject to layoff whenever the company hits a bump in the road. In addition, the process of obtaining the degree is heart breaking. Once you are working, the lack of success in research becomes numbing and depressing. Early in my career, I used to obsess about elaborate vacations and about hobbies. I now realize that these behaviors were a means of using up time and energy I did not wish to focus on research projects that would only produce more depressing failures. Later in my career, I shifted my attention to business as a means of seeking some form of measurable success that would validate all of my work. Even though I was successful as a business person, I could not fit into the company business culture which was focussed upon inaction and risk avoidance rather than on entrepreneureal activity that might lead to new products, new customers and enhanced profitability. There was no reward for risk taking so it was strongly discouraged. This was not apparent to me since I had grown up in research rather than in the business functions of the company and I did not comprehend the culture.

You have a bad attitude, Maybe your company sucked!

 

[gujuDoc]

You have a bad attitude, Maybe your company sucked!

Aw come on now, I'm sure it gets frustrating. I'm sure there are people with good research experiences too but I can see where he's coming from.

Of course if you've gotten laid off too many times and been unable to find work you'd feel the same way.

 

[Learfan]

You have a bad attitude, Maybe your company sucked!

I sure do have a bad attitude and I earned every bit of it the hard way.

It does not matter any more. I will be leaving in five weeks. Goodbye endless non-functional research projects. Goodbye constant layoff threats. Goodbye incompetent mentally disturbed managers. Goodbye to no promotional opportunities. Goodbye non-entrepreneureal risk adverse culture. I will miss all of it.

 

[TheMightyAngus]

Just a question to the phuds.
Why do you think that PhD- and post-doc years are so unproductive for many?

A lot of undergraduate participate in all sorts of bench research and contribute to projects that lead to publications and poster presentations for refereed journals. I know that for a PhD your work should lead to maybe 3-4 publications, but how come there is such a lack of productivity for grad students and postdocs? It cant be because these undergrads are just getting lucky with projects, most of them work with postdocs. I'm just confused because most premeds are applying to med school with being third-,second-, and even first-author on refereed papers that were published. But you hear about PhD horror stories.

 

[Learfan]

Just a question to the phuds.
Why do you think that PhD- and post-doc years are so unproductive for many?

A lot of undergraduate participate in all sorts of bench research and contribute to projects that lead to publications and poster presentations for refereed journals. I know that for a PhD your work should lead to maybe 3-4 publications, but how come there is such a lack of productivity for grad students and postdocs? It cant be because these undergrads are just getting lucky with projects, most of them work with postdocs. I'm just confused because most premeds are applying to med school with being third-,second-, and even first-author on refereed papers that were published. But you hear about PhD horror stories.

Let me first comment on the number of publications often resulting from a complete PhD thesis. Most thesis results are not published since the information obtained is often fragmented and inconclusive. I had two publications and the material for a third which did not get written. This is the exception not the rule.

Based upon my grad student experiences, l suspect the relative success of undergraduates in performing publishable research may be traced to two factors: mentorship and the deliberate selection by the laboratory PI of projects for the undergrad researcher that will yield usable data in a short period of time. Within my experience, when an undergrad was admitted to a research group, he or she was paired with a graduate student who had a project currently producing useful data. The grad student often served as a very close mentor to the undergrad, teaching experimental technique, advising about the details of particular experiments, teaching how one should utilize analytical techniques and providing one on one counseling with regard to interpreting information. This close relationship allowed the undergrad to make relatively rapid progress and produce a quantity of publishable work within a relatively short period of time. The undergrad felt great about the experience thus fulfilling the hidden agenda of the PI. The goal of the PI is recruiting new grad students. Any undergrad who had a great research experience is more likely to choose to make that type of work a career choice, adding to the cheap lab fodder that can be recruited as a low paid grad student.

By contrast, the grad students are regarded as degreed junior scientists. They select a project from the current portfolio offered by their selected research advisor without detailed knowledge of whether or not the project is viable at all, can be made to yield a useful quantity of data within a three to four year period or can be pursued without an immense quantity of time consuming lab preps just to get to key raw materials for actual experimentation. The new grad student has to learn the literature within his or her new area, learn how to use a variety of new analytical techniques hands on rather than from a text book/theoretical point of view and must cope with up to two years of classes and constant exams. This leads to very slow progress.

Let me illustrate the problems that can actually haunt a new grad student. At my old university, after a year and a half of classes and all of the written and oral exams, most students settled down to research. We had a person whose project involved investigating the properties of the highly strained ring system found in a trans cyclopropane. The specific chemical that was under investigation was trans-bicyclo[4,1,0]heptane. First, the grad student worked for almost two years trying to reproduce a literature synthesis for this compound that proved to be utterly irreproducable. His advisor insisted that he continue to pursue that synthetic route until success was achieved. After two years of frustration, he struck out on designing his own synthesis for the bicycloheptane. After six months, he had achieved success but the synthesis was long and had several steps with very poor yields. As a result a huge quantity of material had to be carried through the process to obtain any useful quantity of bicycloheptane. To facilitate the synthesis, the lab purchased a 27 liter five necked round bottom vessel. To obtain one gram of the bicycloheptane required that over two kilograms of the starting material be carried through a synthesis that required two to three months to execute on this massive scale. For one gram of useful material. After executing this synthetic process about ten times, the grad student managed to obtain enough one gram increments of the bicycloheptane to get some useful experiments done. Think about it. Ten synthetic procedures required 20 to 30 months just to get enough of the key raw material for investigation. The grad student here took six years to get the Phd and the relationship with his advisor was very rocky and acramonious during the last three years. This should illustrate the trap of PhD level research. It often turns into a huge time sink from which many never emerge. 🙁 🙁 😡 😡

 

[gujuDoc]

Let me first comment on the number of publications often resulting from a complete PhD thesis. Most thesis results are not published since the information obtained is often fragmented and inconclusive. I had two publications and the material for a third which did not get written. This is the exception not the rule.

Based upon my grad student experiences, l suspect the relative success of undergraduates in performing publishable research may be traced to two factors: mentorship and the deliberate selection by the laboratory PI of projects for the undergrad researcher that will yield usable data in a short period of time. Within my experience, when an undergrad was admitted to a research group, he or she was paired with a graduate student who had a project currently producing useful data. The grad student often served as a very close mentor to the undergrad, teaching experimental technique, advising about the details of particular experiments, teaching how one should utilize analytical techniques and providing one on one counseling with regard to interpreting information. This close relationship allowed the undergrad to make relatively rapid progress and produce a quantity of publishable work within a relatively short period of time. The undergrad felt great about the experience thus fulfilling the hidden agenda of the PI. The goal of the PI is recruiting new grad students. Any undergrad who had a great research experience is more likely to choose to make that type of work a career choice, adding to the cheap lab fodder that can be recruited as a low paid grad student.

By contrast, the grad students are regarded as degreed junior scientists. They select a project from the current portfolio offered by their selected research advisor without detailed knowledge of whether or not the project is viable at all, can be made to yield a useful quantity of data within a three to four year period or can be pursued without an immense quantity of time consuming lab preps just to get to key raw materials for actual experimentation. The new grad student has to learn the literature within his or her new area, learn how to use a variety of new analytical techniques hands on rather than from a text book/theoretical point of view and must cope with up to two years of classes and constant exams. This leads to very slow progress.

Let me illustrate the problems that can actually haunt a new grad student. At my old university, after a year and a half of classes and all of the written and oral exams, most students settled down to research. We had a person whose project involved investigating the properties of the highly strained ring system found in a trans cyclopropane. The specific chemical that was under investigation was trans-bicyclo[4,1,0]heptane. First, the grad student worked for almost two years trying to reproduce a literature synthesis for this compound that proved to be utterly irreproducable. His advisor insisted that he continue to pursue that synthetic route until success was achieved. After two years of frustration, he struck out on designing his own synthesis for the bicycloheptane. After six months, he had achieved success but the synthesis was long and had several steps with very poor yields. As a result a huge quantity of material had to be carried through the process to obtain any useful quantity of bicyclopropane. To facilitate the synthesis, the lab purchased a 27 liter five necked round bottom vessel. To obtain one gram of the bicycloheptane required that over two kilograms of the starting material be carried through a synthesis that required two to three months to execute on this massive scale. For one gram of useful material. After executing this synthetic process about ten times, the grad student managed to obtain enough one gram increments of the bicycloheptane to get some useful experiments done. Think about it. Ten synthetic procedures required 20 to 30 months just to get enough of the key raw material for investigation. The grad student here took six years to get the Phd and the relationship with his advisor was very rocky and acramonious during the last three years. This should illustrate the trap of PhD level research. It often turns into a huge time sink from which many never emerge. 🙁 🙁 😡 😡

What Learfan said has been shown to be true in my experience talking to one of my grad student mentors too.

 

[vcatz]

Let me first comment on the number of publications often resulting from a complete PhD thesis. Most thesis results are not published since the information obtained is often fragmented and inconclusive.

This is not necessarily true for biomedical science grad students. In my experience the majority of PhD students graduate with 1 to 5 publications from their thesis work. Most undergrads get their names on publications by working with the grad students. In rare cases an undergrad is able to generate enough data for a first author publication. As for post-docs, they are often given the most risky projects in the lab. PIs do not want to give these projects to grad students because they have a really high potential for failure. If new grad students who are interested in joining the lab for their thesis research see the grad students in a particular lab struggle they will be scared away from joining that research group thus depriving the PI of a cheap source of labor.

 

[pseudoknot]

In biology it's rare to find a reputable department that will allow you to graduate without publications. Also, it is in an advisor's best interest to help grad students develop projects that will succeed, since failure does not keep a lab going. There are certainly downsides to research, but it's not nearly as bad as learfan makes it out to be, if it's what you want to do. At least in biology.