Why go to grad school?
If you clicked on this link and are still unsure about grad studies in the life sciences, consider the fields that have made the most progress in the last decades and that are exploding... Look at the level on which most exciting things are being done, from informatics-to cancer- to biotech to forensics.... Look at who is being hired and what is being done in most life sciences departments... Note that biochemistry has gone from being an academic, ivory tower discipline to also being an applied science that is booming at the industrial and business level. Want to be part of this? Exciting! But are you ready to work hard?
Financial considerations: Don’t consider a stipend as a salary. Consider it and your time in grad school as an investment in the future. Do some simple arithmetic ([age of retirement - age of graduation] x increased salary = $ mucho ) and you will see that the years in grad school are very well paid for! Just at a later date...
Mental considerations: Grad school molds your mind. After grad school you will no longer accept blanket newsroom statements, you will want to know the real why and how of things. Warning: You will become a lot like your thesis supervisor...
Career considerations: If you want to be an independent investigator with your own lab (university prof, institute or biotech company scientist) you will need to do a postdoctoral. While we teach you how to be a scientist, a postdoc experience usually determines how people think of you and what you will be doing the rest of your life. I hope that you forget my next line after you start your grad studies, but "What you do here is not that important ,what is important is to learn to do it well!" There are still a lot of career options after you leave here.
How do we operate? Same as most other graduate programs in Canada: take a minimal number of courses, work in a lab, write a thesis, defend it, collect degree.
Why come to the our program? What do we think makes us special?
- The diversity of our sites and research not only gives you an overwhelming choice of thesis topics and resources but it also means that you will be exposed to a unique environment during your studies. Your thesis research can benefit from the presence of national laboratories and research institutes. The 140 Life Sciences companies in the area are still a resource that grad students hardly utilize...
- We have been fortunate to attract a talented student body (see each program for a snapshot of their work). In terms of the scholarships per student, our student body is unique in Ontario and might be unique in Canada. We are proud that many of them obtained their scholarships after they came here and attribute it to the formation that they receive here. The quality of your peers will affect you!
- We appreciate that with the increasing number of people in science, the presentation of science and self is important in this world. Yet it is taught less and less. We have therefore put effort into developing a seminar and poster series that is a learning experience. Both are fun and should make you a confident and good presenter when you leave here. Our poster session cash prizes are determined by a compilation of the grades given by your fellow students to your poster. And they are even tougher graders than the profs!
- If you stay in the forefront of science you will have to write grants to obtain research funds or write proposals for investors. To learn this, in a lot of our graduate courses, you will have to write a grant application and then serve on panels that evaluate them.
- You should also consider the quality of your life while you are a grad student. Ottawa residents benefit from superb museums and galleries, a long list of festivals and special National Capital Region events, an open air market, a rich selection of restaurants, a network of biking and hiking paths (Use Google Earth to see how “green” and "blue" Ottawa is!), beaches, skiing and campgrounds just minutes from downtown. If you work on the main campus or at the Civic Hospital campus site, in the winter you can skate to work on the world’s longest skating rink.
- In addition to your supervisor and thesis advisory committee, you will be nagged by me to produce good science and mainly to write a thesis to get out of here in a reasonable period of time! Warning: After our introductory meeting, the second time that you visit my office, my first question will be “How much thesis have you written?”! and you will then get this every time you walk in thereafter...
Bottom line: Register as students- leave as scientists- do it as fast as possible!
Contact for this page:Victoria Stewart or Fay Draper