Kyra writes:
Hello TWiMmers,
I currently working as a technician after completing undergrad in May 2015. I am looking into graduate school and would like to study and research the gut microbiome. However, though the research I did in undergrad focused on bacterial genomes, it was unrelated to the gut microbiome. And though the techniques I learned (PCR, gel electrophoresis, DNA/RNA extractions) can be applied to gut microbiome research, I am worried that my lack of experience in gut microbiome research will get me rejected from graduate programs, especially because schools that have strong microbiome research projects have big names such as NYU, Boulder, Michigan, Case Western, etc. I am also uneasy because I have not published. I finished up a project that students before me started and presented it at a conference. I also started another project with a group of students that is still underway and I wrote part of the intro and methods for the paper. So two questions: 1) Will never having published hurt
me for PhD programs, or Master’s programs? And 2) do graduate programs look for “ready-to-go” applicants that need minimal training in the field they’re interested in? What would you guys (particularly Michelle because UMich has a great microbiome centric program) advise me to do?
Sincerely,
A confused post-bac