Sticky Wicket
247
Journal of Cell Science
An occasional column, in which
Mole, Caveman and other
troglodytes involved in cell science
emerge to share their views on
various aspects of life-science
research. Messages for Caveman
and other contributors can be left at
[email protected].
Any correspondence may be
published in forthcoming issues.
The proving ground
Ha – so there! Gotcha! Oh, I’m feeling
good. Just got out of an endlessly long
faculty meeting where we had a good, old
fashioned brawl over one of my favorite
subjects. No, not just a brawl, a saloon
fight. Complete with breaking glass, hurled
chairs and fisticuffs. And I got in a few
good blows before the sheriff had to break
it up. “Mack! A round of whiskey for my
friends.” Graduate program, indeed.
Humph!
Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, as I have
my dander up. Maybe nobody threw a
punch, and no-one was propelled out of a
window. But it did devolve to some choice
name-calling – “Big nose” and such. Well,
so I do have a big nose, and I’m proud of
it.
We’re fighting, yet again, about the
graduate program. And it put me in mind
of one of the great verbal duels in the
history of theater, where long noses and
great principles won the day. You know the
248
Journal of Cell Science 121 (3)
Journal of Cell Science
one, by Edmond Rostand, where Savinien
Cyrano de Bergerac bests his foes in a war
of words, to the delight of the audience,
and long-nosed insectivores everywhere.
And that story has something to do with
how I feel about teaching graduate
students. (If you don’t know Cyrano de
Bergerac, go rent the DVD of the classic
José Ferrer version or, failing that,
Roxanne by Steve Martin, which will do at
a pinch.)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
science is hard. Our job training graduate
students (and yours, if you are a graduate
student) is to prepare for how hard it is. A
student who is going to be successful needs
to emerge from training with the tools,
technical and intellectual, to be a scientist
in the big, big world. They must know how
to take a question and turn it into a series
of experiments that show something
interesting, which they will write up,
submit, rework, rewrite, resubmit and
publish. Our graduate programs are meant
to teach them to do this.
Graduate programs used to go like this.
The student, fresh out of undergraduate
education, and with little real science
experience, would receive rigorous course
training to prepare for the real intellectual
training,
which
involved
massive
immersion in the literature, on which they
would be tested. Generally this took the
form of candidacy exams, written and oral,
that one could (and often did) fail – albeit
with a chance of trying again (sometimes).
This was the second scariest thing the
student had to do (the scariest being
defending) – not scary, terrifying!
So terrifying, in fact, that I remember mine
in detail, even though it was hundreds of
years (okay, publications) ago. I wrote
answers to three questions, providing
historical background and experimental
bases for the conclusions, referencing
relevant papers by corresponding author
and year. Six hours to complete, and no
notes. Followed by a four-hour oral exam
to defend my answers (fortunately, I wore
a t-shirt that said “Stupid” so they were
kind). I passed. But I’m shaking just
remembering it.
most of the literature they’ll need to read,
reformat and regurgitate. In effect, the
advisor writes it for the student, who stands
before the committee, mouthing the words
(and turning back to the advisor if the
questions get tough). They all pass. The
program is very popular. Perhaps a lot like
yours.
No way I could have done this with my
coursework alone. I read hundreds and
hundreds of papers and attended
innumerable study groups to prepare. And
yes, my mentor expected me to be in the
lab, doing experiments, of course.
We do this, I think, because in fact we don’t
care. It’s what the students want, and we
convince ourselves (all of us) that it’s all
they need. For many faculty, this has the
advantage that the students have more time
for working on our projects, which is why
we want to have a graduate program
anyway. Teaching students to be better
prepared to someday be better,
independent scientists doesn’t help us, the
faculty, in the short term (or maybe ever),
so why bother. Especially if the students
would hate us if we made it tougher.
When I left the oral exam, shaken, my
famous professor, Professor Rat, shook my
hand, and told me that the time may come
when I would know a lot more about my
particular field (as he did), but right then I
knew even more general biology than he.
So while I did rush out for cocktails, I did
so several feet off the ground. I wasn’t a
scientist yet, but I’d made the first step into
a larger world.
“Mole!” you cry, “That was so then. Surely
you don’t do that to your students!” No, we
don’t. In our market-driven graduate
programs, that would be impossible, right?
Our students do a candidacy that is akin to
the relationship between our friend Cyrano
and his young protégé, Christian de
Neuvillette, who he tutors in the art of
romance, not only writing the love letters
that Christian sends to their love interest,
Roxane, but even reciting the words that
Christian mouths to her from the shadows.
Our students do a candidacy that involves
writing a small proposal on a research
project outside the scope of the immediate
area of their lab work and present it to a
committee. They do this by approaching a
faculty member, not their supervisor, who
gives them: (a) the project to present, (b)
the experiments they’ll propose, and (c)
But it ended badly for Cyrano, if you’ll
recall. If I’d been given the option to do an
exam like this, way back then, I would
definitely have gone for the easy way. If
you’d asked me (they didn’t), I’d have said
that the preparation they expected of me
was impossible and cruel. I couldn’t have
done it until I did. I’m glad they didn’t ask
me. I think we’re selling our students short.
So I’m old fashioned. I want to be harder
on students, believing as I do that
ultimately they’ll thank me for it (but not
in the short term). I know that just because
I had to go through it doesn’t make it right,
or better, except that it is. It worked for me,
and it could work again. I’m a better
scientist as a consequence. Wanna fight
about it?
Mole
Journal of Cell Science 121, 247-248
Published by The Company of Biologists 2008
doi:10.1242/jcs.023986