The Great Grad School Search

In a couple of weeks, I will officially be a senior in college – which means it is time for me to Freak Out.

I’m 99.99% sure I want to go to grad school for my PhD, but that’s about all I know. I’ve been doing research in a lab for the last two and a half years (wow, it’s been that long?) and I absolutely love it. My main problem is that I find so many different things fascinating, that I have a horrible time picking a single topic that I will be focusing on for 3 to 7 years (hopefully closer to 3). If you ask me my interests, I’ll say genetics, evolution, and sex – preferably studying humans, but I’m willing to make exceptions. But if you know much about biology, that doesn’t narrow it down much.

And it seems the way to go about grad school hunting when you’re a go-getting undergrad like myself is to look more at individual professors instead of general programs. It’s not just about going to Harvard or UCLA – these schools are generally great at everything. You want to pick a specific research topic that you love – they’re all wonderful schools for genetics, but only Professor Jones at Suchandsuch University studies the gene regulation of sweat glands in wildebeest. So, this is kind of a problem when you’re like me and you love everything. And of course there isn’t some giant database of every researcher and all of their specific interests. There’s no “What professor should you work with?” Facebook quiz (oh god, thankfully).

Sometimes I wish it was more like recruiting for college sports. I could throw my resume into the mix and professors could try to snatch me up. “3.93 GPA??? Phi Beta Kappa? Publications?? Oh god, work in my lab, I have funding!”

Until the real world turns into my dream world, I guess I’ll just keep searching. Does anyone have grad school hunting tips? What to do or what not to do? Mistakes you made that you wish someone would have warned you about?

Mmm, nerds <3

Dilbert explains it all:
Though I have to say, I’m having a horrible track record with all the computer nerds I’ve dated. I hate to propagate the stereotype, but they’ve all had the emotional capacity of a nematode. Next time I’m aiming for a biologist.

Speaking of nerdiness, here are the classes I’m taking next semester:
– Senior Seminar in Genetics (One hour a week of discussing genetics. Woo?)
– Sex & Evolution (I’ve been dying to take this class since I got here, but it’s only offered every other year. I’m psyched! Why do we have sex? Why do (most) species have two sexes? Weeeee!)
– General Physics 2 (Oh god, so close to being done…Sorry for all you physicists, but it’s just not my thing. Now, if it was Elegant Universe kind of theoretical wacky physics, I’d be all in. But I hate doing nothing but math filled with trick questions, bah!)
– Population Genetics (This may be a mistake. I’m taking this as my “fun” elective…yeah, a 500 level graduate course. Oh boy.)
– Senior Biology Labs (Protein Expression and DNA Sequencing. Still waiting to hear back if I can get out of DNA sequencing, since I just spent a summer doing an independent research project where I was sequencing. I’ll be sad if I have to do it all over again.)
– Honors Thesis Research (Still have to pick my topic with my advisor…there are too many ideas floating around now!)

The masochistic part of me still wanted to TA one of the intro biology labs to get some teaching experience before grad school, but looking at my schedule, that may be a bad idea. I guess it really depends if I get out of that one lab or not. I could still TA in the spring, but I’d sort of like to be able to put teaching experience on my resume for when I’m applying. Any thoughts? Other than the fact that I’m a giant nerd?

Mmm, nerds

Dilbert explains it all:
Though I have to say, I’m having a horrible track record with all the computer nerds I’ve dated. I hate to propagate the stereotype, but they’ve all had the emotional capacity of a nematode. Next time I’m aiming for a biologist.

Speaking of nerdiness, here are the classes I’m taking next semester:
– Senior Seminar in Genetics (One hour a week of discussing genetics. Woo?)
– Sex & Evolution (I’ve been dying to take this class since I got here, but it’s only offered every other year. I’m psyched! Why do we have sex? Why do (most) species have two sexes? Weeeee!)
– General Physics 2 (Oh god, so close to being done…Sorry for all you physicists, but it’s just not my thing. Now, if it was Elegant Universe kind of theoretical wacky physics, I’d be all in. But I hate doing nothing but math filled with trick questions, bah!)
– Population Genetics (This may be a mistake. I’m taking this as my “fun” elective…yeah, a 500 level graduate course. Oh boy.)
– Senior Biology Labs (Protein Expression and DNA Sequencing. Still waiting to hear back if I can get out of DNA sequencing, since I just spent a summer doing an independent research project where I was sequencing. I’ll be sad if I have to do it all over again.)
– Honors Thesis Research (Still have to pick my topic with my advisor…there are too many ideas floating around now!)

The masochistic part of me still wanted to TA one of the intro biology labs to get some teaching experience before grad school, but looking at my schedule, that may be a bad idea. I guess it really depends if I get out of that one lab or not. I could still TA in the spring, but I’d sort of like to be able to put teaching experience on my resume for when I’m applying. Any thoughts? Other than the fact that I’m a giant nerd?

Sperm Bank Sued for Supplying Bad Sperm

I don’t have any professional training in ethics or law, but I can tell this is sure going to open up a can of worms. A 13 year old girl with Fragile X syndrome, which can lead to varying degrees of learning disability, is suing a sperm bank under product liability law. The sperm she was conceived with, which her mother bought from the bank in question, carried the genetic disorder (genetically, it’s fairly easy to show it didn’t come from mom).

“Donovan does not have to show that Idant was negligent, only that the sperm it provided was unsafe and caused injury. “It doesn’t matter how much care was taken,” says Daniel Thistle, the lawyer representing Donovan, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”

According to Wikipedia (which we know is infallible), sperm donors may be subjected to various levels of genetic testing. Does anyone know if there are laws requiring them to test for certain disorders? I’d imagine some would be a good idea to test for, especially if they’re dominantly inherited and late-onset like Huntington’s*. Most recessive alleles are rare enough that there’s not as much reason to test – that is, the odds of two random people carrying the same allele is incredibly low. At first glance you may think it’s a good idea to hold sperm banks responsible for testing. I mean, you’re selling a product, and you don’t want to give someone a horrible disease, right?

Well, things aren’t as simple as they seem. No two sperm are identical, and errors do occur. A single point mutation that occurs at extremely high rates is the cause of the most common form of dwarfism. A one in a million occurrence isn’t going to show up in any sort of genetic testing you may do on a semen sample. The same holds true for any sort of disorder that results from aberrant chromosome number (Down Syndrome, Klinefelter’s Syndrome, etc).

Even family history can’t always alert us to a problem. This girl’s situation is the perfect example. Fragile-X is a dominant X-linked disorder, so you should be able to see it in males, right? Well, not exactly. Fragile-X is caused by having too many trinucleotide repeats, much like Huntington’s. Trinucleotide repeats like to do this thing called genetic anticipation, where in every generation they expand and make more and more copies. So while daddy’s repeat number (and all of his family members’) may be in the “normal” range, after expansion, there may be enough repeats to cause the syndrome. The number can also vary from sperm to sperm, so there’s no good way to test this.

So you can see why if she wins, this is going to set a scary precedent. Sperm banks can screen like crazy, but there’s always the possibility of getting some bad sperm. It’s ridiculous to think you can sue them because something turns out wrong. Anyone who’s ever reproduced is taking that same risk. In fact, it’s probably lower because most people don’t do genetic screening unless there’s reason to be afraid. Sperm bank sperm is probably a safer bet than your man. So, should you be able to sue your spouse for providing bad genetic material? I certainly don’t think so, but who knows…maybe the ensuing paranoia over reproducing would help fight our overpopulation problem.

Let’s hope the judge on this case has some basic understanding of genetics.

*Of course, then you get into the whole ethical debate about whether or not to notify the donor or his children if he does have Huntington’s…but that’s a whole other issue.

Repetitive Learning

Today I walked into my upper-level Eukaryotic Genetics class and saw we were going to be studying Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium for the bajillionth time. One of my biggest pet peeves as a biology undergraduate is learning the same stuff over and over again. I understand there’s some need for review – sometimes you didn’t learn it well the first time, or maybe you’re just rusty and need a refresher. But eventually it becomes a tad bit ridiculous. If you’re a junior or senior Genetics major (aka, people in this class), I would hope you’d have the basics pretty fucking down by now. Let’s see the running total on how many classes have had me review these concepts for far:

Basics on DNA:
Pre-College: 5
College: 13

Mitosis and Meiosis:
Pre-College: 5
College: 10

Mendelian genetics:
Pre-College: 4
College: 7

Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium:
Pre-College: 2
College: 9

Even if you came from the worst high school ever, you should have been taking the college classes. Granted, I’ve taken some electives that go towards these totals…but at least 4-6 of those classes are mandatory for biology majors. The sad thing? Some people are still confused or lost about these topics. Really? I mean, I understand needing help with three-factor crosses, or elaborate signaling cascades or something…those can be confusing even if you’ve heard it once before. But it’s beyond me how you can get to your final years in a biology program and still not understand the fundamentals. How the hell have you made it this far?

If you’re a upperclassman undergraduate and don’t know what’s wrong with this picture, plz drop out of biology now kthx

We spend so much time reviewing concepts we should have mastered already that I hardly feel like I’m learning anything new from my classes. Most of my intellectual growth has come from working in a laboratory for the past two years, or reading up on science at my own leisure. We’ve yet to cover a new topic in Eukaryotic Genetics, and there are only four weeks of class left. I want to say that I absolutely love the vast majority of my biology Professors, including the one for Eukaryotic Genetics. I don’t blame them for the review, because it seems like so many people need it. The problem is our educational system is catering to the people who are lagging behind, and they end up dragging everyone down with them. I guess I was spoiled being in honors/accelerated programs in high school, but I wish there was some sort equivalent for biology courses here.

This also leads to the scary realization of how low the requirements are in order to get your degree. While I’m at the top of my class, I still feel like there is so much about genetics and evolution that I don’t know yet. I still read journal articles with some difficulty because I’ve never been taught most of the concepts they talk about. In fact, to be a Genetics major you only need to take ONE upper level genetics class, in addition to your “core” introductory biology courses. Same for the Evolution degree – just take the one upper level evolution class, and you’re done. You have to take other upper level biology classes as electives from a list, but you can pick some that aren’t directly relevant.

I realize this post may come off as pretentious/whiney, but I can’t help but be annoyed. It just scares me that I, along with my classmates, will be considered qualified in our field when we’ve learned so little. What’s even scarier is that while I recognize how much more there is to learn and I want to go to graduate school, there are people who still don’t understand punnett squares and they want to become doctors. Yikes. Let’s just hope there’s a difference between “want to become” and “will become.”

Is this a biology specific problem, or do other majors experience this?