Rotations

Finding Rotations

You are responsible for setting up your own rotations and will need to set up your first rotation in Fall via email, so that you can begin as soon as the quarter starts! In fact, some students who have the time and resources available may come out to Davis in the summer so that they can get a head start on their rotation work. This is by no means necessary, but can be an option if you have the time and money to do so.

To find some labs with which you may want to rotate, take a look at the IGG Faculty Page, where you can find a list of all the professors in the IGG graduate group and browse by specialty. Take a look at a faculty member's lab website (if available) and read their publications to get a better idea of their research. Find professors who do research in an area that interests you, and send them a polite, formal email asking if they could accommodate a graduate rotation student in their lab at the start of Fall quarter. Until you have a thesis laboratory confirmed, rotate only in labs that will be able to mentor and support your PhD research. This list is a good place to start considering labs to contact, but do not restrict yourself to it. We encourage you to contact any UC Davis faculty member whose interest sparks your imagination - if the fit is good, they have the opportunity to apply for membership to the IGG graduate group to serve as your faculty mentor.

Once you’re on campus, the rotation process is largely the same. There’s no formal sign­up ­ - just talk to the professor and ask for a rotation spot. A professor may ask you a few questions, but ­ the rotation itself serves as the interview, lasting over the next five weeks.

Don’t stop once you have your first rotation scheduled! Most PhD students complete four rotations - two in each quarter during their first fall and winter quarter. Rotation spots fill up fast, especially in high­ demand (aka funded and interesting) labs. If you can do so, try to have at least three of your four (as a PhD student) rotations scheduled before your first rotation ends ­ if not earlier.

How to contact prospective rotation mentors

Contact professors you are interested in working with by email. If you get a response, great! If you do not, wait a week and try again. The first rule of emailing faculty is: a non-response doesn't mean anything. Professors are all incredibly busy and they will often need several emails before they remember to respond. Write short informative messages with optional information attached or postscript. Make it easy for a professor to read and reply to your email in less than 2 minutes. Do not send this exact email, but here is an example email template you can use for guidance:

"Dear Professor [Surname],

I am an incoming first-year student in the IGG graduate program. I have laboratory experience with A and B. My curriculum vitae and graduate application are attached. From your website and publications I've seen you are studying C, which I have a keen interest in. Might you have a moment to chat by phone about the possibility of a laboratory rotation?

Sincerely,

[Your Name]"

Your top priority is arranging a first rotation. Contact professors, rank order who you think you would most like to work with and starting with #1, ask if they might be willing to mentor your first rotation. Resist the temptation to commit to further rotations before you arrive. You will learn much more meeting face to face and seeing their lab. When you have committed to a rotation please inform Mona Finucane, our graduate group coordinator.

Choosing additional prospective rotation mentors

Once you arrive in Davis, your goal is to find at least three more professors with whom you could rotate. You will be enrolled in a course (GGG 205) requiring faculty meetings to facilitate and encourage this process. Meet and talk with as many professors as possible as early as possible. This should be an active selection process. Approach faculty in whose research you are interested. Ask them if they could recommend specific papers about their current research. You can also ask them if they are open to taking rotation students in the winter and a thesis student this year. Do not necessarily commit to a rotation at first meeting, take time to reflect and consider your options before signing on. Before agreeing to a rotation, do some investigating into what spending precious years in their lab might be like.

Talk to people in their labs. Talk to their lab members privately and see if you could foresee happily spending forty plus hours a week in their company. Ask them in confidence whether they think you could be a good fit in the lab.

How to complete a successful rotation

Let your enthusiasm for research be palpable. Show up in the lab whenever you can. Take written notes on everything anyone in the lab tells you. Research the subject matter of your notes and come back with further questions. Read, read, read. Think, think, think. Understand what you are doing, what the reagents are, how the instrument works. Plan carefully for experiments. Treat equipment with the utmost care. Nothing will impress as much as experiments carried out thoughtfully and carefully. First impressions make deep imprints. Give these rotations 100% attention and you will be rewarded with an auspicious start to a graduate thesis. Try to speak with current students of the lab about the mentor style of the PI; do they expect to meet daily/weekly/monthly? How hands on or hands off are they in designing experiments and experiments? Keep all these things in mind when you make your decision of picking your home lab!

Starting a rotation

• Ask the professor with whom you are rotating for background papers to read. They may give you reprints from their own lab, a list of references, or some names/topics to search in PubMed or Google Scholar.

• Read the papers and ask questions about things you don’t understand. Find out when lab meetings are held and attend them. Learn about the general area of your rotation lab’s research beyond your individual project.

• Discuss and agree on a rotation project outline with your professor. Make sure you can define the specific problem being addressed and the hypothesis being tested. Don’t be satisfied with just doing tasks in lab.

• Start your rotation early, if possible. Eagerness to engage in research never fails to impress.

• Please complete the mandatory online training course entitled “UC Laboratory Safety Fundamentals” before you start your Fall quarter rotation. You will need your UCD Kerberos login ID and passphrase. Ask your rotation mentor which safety courses are relevant to your research project and complete them ASAP.

• If you rotate in a lab in the Shriners Hospital in Sacramento, there are extensive background checks that need to be completed before you can rotate. Talk to the professor ASAP to start the process so your rotation starts on time.

A reminder of DOs and DON'Ts for completing a successful rotation:

1. DO ask questions. This is huge. If you don’t understand something, ask about it! If you get stuck (and you will) on a project, ask questions! Ask the professor, ask other grad students, ask post­docs. One professor told me that “if you can’t find the answer yourself in ten minutes on Google, ask someone.” Similarly, its important to ask questions about the lab itself. Ask about funding, ask about potential projects and ask about expectations.

2. DO speak up; don't be unmemorable and melt into the background! The point of a rotation is to make a (good) impression. If no one remembers you, no one will speak up to support your joining the lab. Talk to other students in the lab, not just the professor. Go out to lunch, talk about what you do outside of lab, tell jokes, make friends.

3. DO spend plenty of time in the lab. If you’re not there you won’t learn about the lab, won’t meet other students, and won’t seem like a hard worker to the professor. Bring a lunch and eat in the break room, bring a book and read while you wait for a PCR run to finish, bring your laptop and work on homework or readings while a sample incubates. You don’t need to be in before the professor and stay until they go home, but you need to get face time.

4. DO present your work to the lab at the end of the rotation. If you don’t get up in lab meeting and talk about what you accomplished, people will assume that you did nothing for five weeks. Even no successes and no results are better than no attempts! It will also give you a chance to see the labs dynamics when it comes to

5. DO learn about all of the lab’s projects. How can you decide whether or not to commit to a lab, an area of research, if you don’t understand it? Learning more about a lab’s focus will help you understand motivation behind your research (and also helps give you more questions to ask!).

6. DO follow up and keep in contact. After a rotation ends, some students walk away and don’t keep in contact. It doesn’t take much, but a quick email to a professor after the following rotation, stating that you’re still interested, goes a long way. If you make friends in the lab, keep talking to them. If you stay in touch, the professor is more likely to remember you.

7. DON'T assume that if they agree to let you rotates that the lab has money or a spot for you. Some labs are completely full and cannot fit in another student. Some professors would love a student ­ but they can’t offer any money (you'd make up the difference in fellowships, which are uncertain if you don't already have one awarded, or teaching, which will use up valuable research time). You may like the work, but don’t forget to think pragmatically about your future as well. You can’t eat your research publications.

8. DON'T put course work above lab work. Courses are important to enhance your knowledge, but after graduating, you don’t get hired based on GPA. You get hired based on the work you’ve done, the papers you’ve published. Remember that a rotation is a five ­week interview; giving up around week 3 because you want to focus on IGG 201A is not a good idea.

9. DON'T tiptoe and think "better to be quiet than wrong". This goes back to point #2 ­ - it’s tough to speak up, to be bold, and to be the first one to ask a question or a comment, but take that plunge. Even if you ask something that’s incorrect, you will definitely learn from that mistake and won’t make it again! Show that, even if you don’t fully understand a presentation, you were paying attention and that you want to understand.

10. DON'T stress about the rotation but keep it bottled up. This is huge. Rotations are stressful, but you’ll make it through. And you’re not alone in experiencing this stress! Every other student in your group is similarly stressed; some are just better at hiding it. Organize a happy hour so that your year can vent. Don’t be afraid to talk to older students about your concerns. Remember that your student mentor, academic advisor, and the administrative staff are all here to help you succeed. Talk to them. Don’t keep your stress bottled up inside.