Am I on the right track? (future PhD candidate)

Graduate School
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I’m currently stressing about my academic career right now. I’m a first generation college student. I have older siblings who went to college, but they didn’t want the same things from it. I’m interested in doing research as my career. It’s the only thing I’ve ever really wanted to do, and I don’t know what else I could ever be interested in. The problem is, I really don’t know if I’m taking the right steps to get into a good PhD program in the future, and I don’t know any STEM grad students to talk to.

I’m majoring in chemistry with a concentration in biology. In the Fall, I’ll be transferring to another state school with a superior program and research opportunities, and instead majoring in biochemistry (considering on pursuing a communications certificate and minor in another science).

For a period of time (1 semester, to be precise!) I was convinced I wanted to double major in journalism and chemistry. My classmates thought this was a weird decision, since they don’t seem like related fields. However, I was convinced it was the right choice because of my interest in science communications and writing. I wanted to at least experiment with it, and took a journalism / COMM class with a newly-hired prof who I really like. It turned out he was doing research in a topic that I’m especially interested in, and said in lecture that he would be happy to have motivated students work with him on his projects. I ended up reaching out to him, and after emailing back and forth and meeting up in-person, we decided to commit to the research project together. I was really excited because he is an excellent teacher and some of his previous research was very interesting (although not what my career goals are aligned with). However, my experience so far… hasn’t been satisfactory I guess? We’re studying climate denial, specifically in rural / agricultural communities. The problem is that his area of research is more on the political side of things, while my interest is… more in the actual communication science department? My passion is in understanding the language barriers between scientists and the public and what can be done to improve the current coverage of the climate crisis. I thought rather than our goals being unaligned, we would make a good team by analyzing slightly different sides of the same problem and reaching conclusions together. However, he’ll make remarks about his other projects and the classes he’s teaching and how he’s been preoccupied with that – I honestly don’t know if he’s committing to our research at all? It’s like I’m just relaying information to him and not getting anything back. He also assigned another student (grad student) to our “team,” and she seems to be handling the more official side of the project (getting it approved by the university, etc.,) I’ve asked if the three of us could have a meeting together, or if there’s some way I could get acquainted with her, but he never followed up with me on that. I’m getting payed as an RA to do this, and I enjoy the work, so I’m not too upset with the situation. I just keep wondering if this is actually beneficial to my career goals when my professor is increasingly leading the work into the political science, which I’m not pursuing.

I’m also not sure how long-term I want my involvement in this research to be.

My questions are – am I “wasting time” doing research in a field I’m not majoring in? Is it wrong to start research with one prof but “switch” to working with another professor when I transfer? What can I do when if I decide I’ve outgrown the research or it’s no longer in my interests?

p.s. I should probably add:

  1. I decided against double-majoring and am focusing on my science degree after discussing it with a friend (who graduated awhile ago and has worked in different STEM fields – took his advice that I can develop journalistic skills without getting a whole degree)
  2. I want to work in environmental science post-grad, so the topic is somewhat related
  3. I’m also doing a research-based honors class involving an “actual” chemistry project, so I wouldn’t say my comm research is interfering with my ability to work on STEM-based problems.

If you made it all this way through my rambling, thanks so much! I would love love love to hear any thoughts or advice.

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This is a tough question, and one I am not sure of the answer to. I will start with things that I do know.

I think that this is exactly right. If you want to do research related to chemistry or biochemistry, then major in chemistry or biochemistry.

However, for someone who majors in sciences, the ability to write well is a very significant asset. I see this in my younger daughter, who is currently studying for a PhD in a biomedical field. The ability to write well has been a very significant strength that helped her along the way so far, and that I expect will contine to help her. I was a math major in university, but have similarly used the ability to write quite a bit in my career. The people who write chemistry papers need to both understand chemistry very well, and know how to write.

In my daughter’s case, the first research that she got involved in while an undergraduate student was not quite what she wanted to do. However, she did it very well. Then starting in her junior year of her bachelor’s degree she was able to get involved in research that she found interesting and right along the path that she wanted to pursue. After getting her bachelor’s degree (in biology) she got a research-related job that at least to me sounded a lot like what she had already been doing as an undergraduate student. All of this research experience, plus the references that came along with it, were a big part of what got her accepted to a very good PhD program.

PhD admissions is very competitive. I was actually sort of amazed at how much my daughter needed to do well in order to get accepted to a good PhD program. As one example (perhaps what surprised me the most) was that she had read the relevant papers written by professors at the universities she was applying to. She was able in each statement of purpose to relate what she wanted to work on with the work that is already being done at each university that she applied to. Similarly before interviewing with any professor for a PhD position she re-read the papers written by that professor, and walked into every interview (or perhaps zoomed in to the interview in a few cases) with questions ready to ask the professor about the professor’s specific research. This seems like a lot of work just to apply to a university, but does seem to be helpful, in a situation where any help you can get is important.

By the way, I have some ideas related to science denial and climate change. However, some of this in an indirect way relates to what I did in my career, which I do not think that I should talk about on this public forum because it might defeat the “confidential” part of this web site’s name. I will pm you.

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The first question you need to ask yourself is - why do you want to do a PhD?

A PhD is a research degree, which also allows you to teach at university level. A PhD doesn’t train you to teach, but it’s now a required qualification for a tenure-track faculty position in Life Science at all four year colleges, and even many Community Colleges prefer to hire people with PhDs for tenure track positions.

A PhD does train you to do high level research, and the other career track in Life Science is research. This can be in for-profit industry, and it can be in non-profit biomedical research institutions (some which are affiliated with universities).

There are also other non-profits that are not focused on biomedical research, but rather on social good.

So, which of these interests you? You don’t have to pick only one.

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I want to do research in environmental science. I’ve never been interested in being a professor - although I’ve thought about taking time off before grad school to work as a public school teacher for debt relief. I also want to work in science journalism, but I wouldn’t want it to be my primary career.

For who I want to do research with, I’m very undecided. I feel like I’ve seen “behind the scenes” in academia through my student jobs, and I’ve not sure if I would be the right fit for the environment. Academia has so many issues with accessibility and visibility and accountability, and I don’t think I could handle those issues for my whole professional life.

A co-worker told me I could likely make the most positive impact towards environmentalism if I went for industry positions, but I’m not sure what companies would hire me a position. The whole issue with my intended career is that helping the environment isn’t normally profitable – not as much as harming it anyway. Lately I’ve been leaning towards government positions. For example, my current college town encourages students to seek internships with the city council and work in infrastructure.

I’m also not going to lie, I would much prefer a position where I can make more money (as long as I can keep my principles with environmentalism), so I’m not sure non-profit research would be for me. I grew up lower-income and as a young adult I have to financially support myself through college without help, so money is definitely a priority for me.