My first semester as a PhD student!
Hi! I just finished my first semester as a PhD student. For those who don’t know, the rough outline of my PhD program is as follows:
Year 1:
- Do 3 rotations (2 months of research in each lab; after I finish all 3 rotations, I decide which one will be my
forever homethesis advisor) - Take classes
Year 2:
- Do research in my thesis advisor’s lab
- Take classes
Years 3-5+:
- Do research in my thesis advisor’s lab
- Propose, write, and eventually defend my PhD thesis
This semester, I did 2 out of 3 rotations and took classes. My classes were:
- Biophysical Chem I: The 3D structure of proteins
- Dynamical Models in Biology: Differential equations for modeling biological systems
- Theory of Probability: Lots of mathematical proofs of important foundational ideas in probability theory (the law of large numbers and the central limit theorem, among others)
The classes were good, but the real star of my PhD is, of course, the research. I got to do research in two different labs this semester, which was awesome :)
My first two rotations
My first rotation was in the Bhattacharya lab, which studies corals, seaweed, and extremophiles. My second rotation was in the Khare lab, which does protein engineering. They are both working on a project to develop enzymes that biodegrade seaweed. (For a fuller explanation on why this is important, see my post here.)
The seaweed project, briefly:
- Find enzymes in microbes that can degrade seaweed
- Engineer the enzymes to make them better at it
I spent my first rotation on step 1 (identifying seaweed-eating enzymes by sequencing the seaweed microbiome) and my second rotation on step 2 (training a protein-designing AI model to make new proteins with higher salt tolerance). I wrote a lot of code and presented my work to the group at the end. I also met some excellent people and got to learn more about what they do :)
The real purpose of the rotation is to choose a thesis advisor. I’m not going to spill my thoughts on that just yet, because I still have one more rotation to go! I will say that it’s going to be a tough decision. I may also end up being co-advised by two professors.
Reflections on my first semester
Overall pretty good! I feel very lucky to be doing a PhD. (Life of the mind, etc etc.) I did burn out near the end, which was a mistake on my part. So, I’m going to relax and enjoy the winter break, and I’ll come back next semester excited and ready to do science again :)