In article <5hke3t$g4v at gap.cco.caltech.edu>, lesley at legs.gps.caltech.edu
(Lesley Perg) wrote:
> Subject: Changing fields in grad school
> Newsgroups: bionet.women-in-bio
> Summary:
> Keywords:
>>> I am a second year graduate student in geology at Caltech, and I have
> been seriously considering switching fields to biology. I would like to
> hear people's experiences who have changed into biology at the graduate
> level and at the post-doc level or later. I would also like to hear
> opinions about the way research is done in various fields of biology.
>> As an undergraduate at the University of Arizona, I chose geology over
> biology because of the differences I perceived in research style between
> them. I saw biology as a large group endevor, with the PI's acting as
> managers. In geology the PI's were engaged in their own research, as well
> as overseeing a small group of one to about seven students. I also saw
> the geosciences as being more integrated than biology, since many lines of
> evidence from geology, geochemistry, geophysics, and other fields of
> science are neccessary to support a theory. I had the impression that
> biology had diverged into specialized subfields that did not have as much
> communication with each other.
Biology has diverged into alot of subfields, and research styles seem to
vary among subfields. I am a 4th yr grad student in Evolutionary
biology. All of the labs in the Evolution program here at Indiana
University work as you see geology labs working. A professor acts as a
mentor for 1-7 grad students and perhaps some post docs. the students
choose their own projects with advice from their professor. However there
are evolutionists (they happen to be in the molecular/genetics/development
program here) that have factory labs, and the professor is more like a
manager. I'm sure you will find out the professor's style when you
interview.
As far as integration is concerned, you can be as integrative as you
want. I consider our lab to be quite integrative. we study evolution,
using molecular techniques, computer simulations, mathematics,
systematics, and ecology. I think that evolutionists that are willing to
learn about other fields tend to be more successful than evolutionists
that are not integrative.
I think that your geology background will be quite useful in an
evolutionary biology program - just look at Darwin!
diana
--
Diana Wolf
Biology Department
Indiana University
