Back in 2013, a year before I submitted my Master’s thesis, I wrote an overly long e-mail to a McGill professor who was doing the exact research I was interested in. I presented myself, talked about my interest in his work, and asked whether he’d be willing to take me on as a PhD student. We Skyped a few times shorty after that e-mail, and it seemed like this lab was indeed a great fit for me. I came to McGill in the spring of the following year to meet with Karsten and the rest of his lab in person, and this, again, went very well. Three years later, I’m still amazed by how lucky I was to land where I am now (not to say that I have no struggles in my PhD, but my lab environment just works for me, and that is super-important).
I realize how grateful I should be for the situation I am in because I see many PhD students for whom things have worked out differently. It’s not a rare case that a student wants to switch labs after a year or two of their PhD. Some continue struggling in the same lab for 4-6 years not seeing a way out. This is not surprising given that for someone with little long-term research experience, it can be difficult to understand, which lab would fit them best, and what the criteria are for a good fit.
When I hear about these very difficult situations, I always think that rotation PhD programs are a fantastic opportunity for students who want to make sure to pick the right lab for themselves. At McGill, the Integrated Program in Neuroscience (IPN) takes on less than 10 rotation students every year. A rotation student spends 3-4 months in each of the three (or sometimes four) labs of their choice, and decides which lab they want to stay at for their PhD at the end of the first year of the program.
Not all programs offer a rotation year, and it’s often unclear to prospective students what the rotation experience actually looks like. What kind of work do you get to do in the short period of 3 months? Will this experience be useful for your actual PhD project? How is your work funded during and after the rotation year?
Rotation year timeline in the Integrated Program in Neuroscience at McGill.
The IPN website does answer many of these questions. But it may be better, I thought, to hear about the details of the rotation experience from rotation students themselves. I recorded interviews with six IPN rotation students and organized them in short video-Q&As: (hopefully) all you’d want to know about starting your PhD with a rotation year. If you are considering entering a PhD program (whether IPN or not), you might want to check out these Q&As to know what rotating across different labs could offer to you as a graduate student.
Below are five short (~ 2-7 min each, all w/English subtitles) video-answers to your most tempting questions about the rotation experience:
Why did you choose the IPN rotation program?
How has your work during the rotation year contributed to your Ph.D. project?
How are rotation students funded?
When did you decide which labs you want to work in?
What did you most like about the rotation program?
Want to know more about the IPN rotation program?
Visit the IPN website
Drop us an e-mail and we’ll try to connect you to a former rotation student if you have more questions about the program: neuroblog.gsan [at] gmail [dot] com (CC me for quicker response: anastasia [dot] glushko [at] mail [dot] mcgill [dot] ca)