Justin Kiggins's Blog

So, I’m a just a few months away from orientation, Boot Camp, and the beginning of my first semester of classes in the Neuroscience Graduate Program at UC San Diego. One of the big decisions that I’ve had to start thinking seriously about is the first-year research rotations. UCSD’s Neuro program requires three laboratory rotations, intended to offer “hands-on” laboratory experience and find a laboratory for dissertation research. Though we’re only allowed to sign up for the first one prior to Boot Camp, choosing that first one has required thinking strategically about all three.

How does one approach a “strategy” for rotations? Well, this is what I’ve been told:

Telescope or magnifying glass? The vertical approach.

Neuroscience is an incredibly diverse field of research, necessitating inquiry at many levels. Research on genes and neurotransmitters happens very differently than research on the visual system which happens very differently than research on the emotional effects of music. Different areas require different backgrounds, knowledge, and use different tools. Since I’ll be developing expertise at a certain level of the field during my dissertation research, the rotations will be an ideal opportunity for me to explore the other levels of neuroscience, allowing me to put the diverse coursework of the program into a laboratory context and understand the methods that are used throughout the field. Further, UCSD requires second year students to develop a project proposal in an field of neuroscience which is unrelated to their dissertation research, so any proficiency which I can build during that first year would be highly useful during my second year.

Filling up the toolbox. The horizontal approach.

The tough part of this vertical approach is that many of the lab techniques and methods that I learn will not be easily transferable to my dissertation research. Patch clamp recording is a different beast from fMRI… they address different questions at completely different levels of the brain and knowing the former would be of limited immediate value for a dissertation focusing on the latter. Further, like many incoming students, I am comfortable and most interested in a particular level of neuroscience and I think I know what kind of research I want to be doing for their dissertation. So why bother learning “useless” methods during the first year when I could be focusing on building a set of techniques which could be incorporated into my later dissertation research? Instead, I could spend my rotations learning laboratory techniques which could be used on the kinds of questions I want to study.

The sample platter

Ultimately, I expect to employ a combination of the “vertical” and the “horizontal.” Regardless, the key thing that I’ve been encouraged repeatedly to remember, whether talking to advisors, professors, or grad students, is that rotations are a testing ground for selecting a dissertation lab. Every rotation lab ought to be a lab that I am interested in entering for my dissertation research.