Posted on by ScientistSim

Supervision: May the force be with you

Academia is first and foremost a teaching environment. Many people that pass through its fickle doors are earning higher degrees and those that mentor them must have a strong stomach. The supervisor-student relationship is a strange one. I, being a complete nerd, like to think of my supervisors as Yoda guiding the innocent clueless Padawan through the minefield of poorly devised experiments and failed controls. Of course, I am Luke Skywalker in this scenario.

jedi knights academics
From phdcomics.com – a must-read to retain your sanity!

I have been lucky to only experience only one bad mentor — an undergraduate advisor who made me so terrified of doing a PCR that I still suffer from post-tramatic stress disorder. In my Honours year I was supervised by a vibrant Cuban woman who truly has one of the best scientific minds I’ve ever encountered. She was always 20 steps ahead of me, which was excellent because I had no idea what I was doing. She spoke like a freight train and on that basis we did have some comical misunderstandings. Often I would just nod and then panic because I would realise that “Put those precious samples in the kitchen” couldn’t be what she meant. Then one day she told me to sit down (probably because she knew I was prone to the dramatics) – she had some bad news. She was emigrating to Aus and I needed to finish without her there. A lesser supervisor would have left and never looked back. But every week for the duration of my course, I had Skype calls with her. We spent time on Skype practicing for my presentations and copious emails back and forth as if she was in the next room. Other senior scientists in my lab also helped me  — It takes a lab to raise a scientist… This advisor was the one who taught me all the skills I needed to know in 3 months and it was glorious. I never felt orphaned and was grateful that I had her.  The best piece of advice I had from her is, “It’s ok to be slow now Simone but some of us remain slow. Don’t be one of those people, those people get eaten.” That last word may have been “beaten” (the Cuban accent still had me occasionally confused).

I have been fortunate for both my Masters and my PhD to have the same 2 supervisors who truly have my back. I have always been the one student doing things that are not the direct focus of our laboratory and my supervisors have always tried to give me the best resources and contacts. In a female-led lab, it has been a great privilege to see the success of my supervisors in a field dominated by males. With one supervisor rushing off to do the Duzi or climb another mountain and the other having the most incredible shoe collection with 3 very cute kids (she says I’m her 4th), I feel I have access to wide perspectives not only one in terms of science but in terms of  life.

I have realised that a supervisor is not just someone who is science smart but is someone who is willing to make time for you. Having an open door policy is imperative. Being hard on your student so that they don’t crumble when the science world gets tough is also important. Good supervisors never put their names on things that are sub-par and neither should you. The best line from my current supervisor? “Yes well science isn’t easy. Doing a PhD is like producing a really potent antibody. It’s how many mutations you can take in order to target lots of things.”(This is alluding to a process called somatic hypermutation, check out this video for an explanation.) She knows how to be tough on me. I hope it’s because she sees potential in me! It seems that supervision is a bit like parenting: you can mould and mould your little ball of clay but it is unclear at the start whether your masterpiece will be a wonky vase that your 5 year old made or a beautiful work of art.

Mentoring is something everyone has to do in academia and the truth of the matter is that not everyone is a good advisor. What you as a student need to remember is that you are ultimately the person that picks your supervisor. Don’t pick on fame/name alone; read the work your supervisors have been involved in and critically assess whether this person will want to see you grow or wilt in their shadow. You want to become part of a research family, not war zone. (For other good guidelines on picking a supervisor see this great article by Tara Brabazon.) So as is the case with most things in my life, I will end with another Star Wars reference; choose a Jedi, not a Sith lord to be your supervisor. The Dark Side may have more street cred, but the Light Side, well, they have publications.

Posted on by siphomabusela · 2 Comments

Life after data collection

So do you believe in life after death?

Awkward way to start a blog, right?  I know! If you do, then I’m sure you’ll paint me a portrait of how it’s better than your current life. Where there will be no guns, no wars and hopefully no sugar tax. I guess if you want to get out of this life alive, there’s always a need to believe in something bigger and better than rising petrol prices and the depreciation of the Rand. So why do I ask? Well, because that’s exactly how I felt about my research. If you’ve read my last blog entry, you’ll know that my Master’s journey has been nothing short of novel drama. To keep myself sane during that period, I just imagined a time after data collection where I would just analyse my data, start writing up and submit after a week. For the most part, that dream kept me going — but imagination and reality are two different things.

When things don’t go your way through the practical phase of your MSc or PhD, you imagine your last day of data collection. You daydream about how nice it will be and how you’ll virtually have your qualification in your hand.

It’s only when you actually get all that data when reality really hits you like a one ton truck. When you fill in the last digit on your diary, you breathe a sigh of relief. Happy, and reminiscing about all the days when you thought your experimental diets would run out, or when load shedding nearly killed your day old chicks; surely nothing can be worse than that. It is only when you open your Excel sheet that you realise that a new chapter in your Masters tale is about to start: your “life after data collection” chapter. Having to punch in data acquired over a seven week period is no child’s play, especially if the data that you have is for more than 10 dependent variables.

My data capturing was kind of fun, I mean I had been looking for this data for 2 years and finally I had found it. I felt like I owed it to the Almighty to push on with a smile on my face. The crazy part is that as each digit left my diary and into the excel sheet, so did my smile. By the time I finished entering my data I was tired, exhausted and so drained.

With all the data sorted, the next step was data analysis. I think this is the part most students dread. Having to sort your data is one thing, but knowing what it all mean is a challenge for most. At what level are you testing? What does the output mean? How do you express this data? I bet these questions make most postgrad students wish they had paid more attention to their Biometry lectures.

Fortunately, at University of Fort Hare, we are blessed with minds that eat data analysis for breakfast, lunch and supper. Who knew having to wake up early everyday to attend the experimental design and data analysis class would help? (Hahahaha I hope my supervisors won’t be reading this.) The thing about analysis programs, is that if you can’t speak their language then you are doomed, if you can’t tell it what you want It to do then you’re better off sleeping in your room. For me, the program was fine … the problem was with the user (me). I had an idea of what I wanted to do and how I wanted to express the data but the way I’d analysed my data didn’t allow me to. I was busy running up walls and pulling out my non-existent hair!

That was till I decide to speak to my varsity friends and mentor, Thuthuzelwa Stempa, Xola Nduku, Soji Zimkitha and Lizwel Mapfumo. Having to brainstorm my intended outcomes and data expression made an HUGE difference.

So here I am, sitting at the lab and finishing up my graphs and writing up, imagining myself walking up to collect my second degree and making my family proud. I hope that this time my imagination won’t be too far off.

So what did I learn? Life’s filled with challenges, and the very same sentiments echo through your research life. Be it admin, data collection, data analysis or writing up. Your life after data collection might be better than mine or worse, but the moral of the blog as always is about grinding it out, spin those numbers to letters and making sure you graduate in time.