One person's toxic lab is another's ideal...
Using your PhD lab rotations to assess culture fit
Grad students/postdocs who are in toxic labs *should* tell potential new grad students that the working environment sucks, but often, they won’t. It might not feel safe to share such information. Or, the working environment might not suck for them. One person’s toxic workplace is another’s ideal culture. When you’re doing lab rotations, it’s important to assess the lab’s culture specifically from the perspective of how well it fits you. To do this effectively, you’ll need to develop a solid idea of what you’re looking for in terms of the following:
Mentorship Style: Do you prefer someone who is very hands-on? Do you like regular structured meetings? Would you rather have substantial input into your project, your working hours, your goals… or do you need (at least initially) more guidance in setting these? There’s no right or wrong way. Where things tend to go wrong is when there’s a mismatch between the mentoring style you get and the one you need.
Lab Culture: Do you enjoy highly collaborative work? Prefer to be more independent? Do you want to just show up, do your work, and go home… or do you want your lab relationships to double as your social life? Do you want to eat lunch with your labmates, or do you need time to yourself to recharge for the afternoon? Does it bother you if someone’s lab bench has used pipette tips on it from last week? Do you want to be in a competitive environment or a collaborative one?
Work/Life Integration: Is it important to you to be able to set your own schedule? Take vacations? Spend a substantial amount of free time on hobbies and external interests?
Future Career Interests: Are you open to multiple career options? Set on academia? Interested in professional development beyond research and teaching?
Your rotations are an opportunity to get a feel for the work you’d be doing in that lab, but ‘fit’ and whether you’ll actually want to spend most of your time for the next several years in that environment are more important than the actual research itself. You can change a bad research project. You can’t change a misaligned lab culture. TO assess fit, make sure you ask the questions you need to ask to get a clear picture of what the lab is really like. Remember that if something is bad, people might be reluctant to share, so pay attention to body language and tone when you’re asking questions. You’ll want to have a set of questions to ask each lab member and also the PI. Here are my suggested questions for lab members (work these into your regular conversations… don’t go up to everyone with a list of questions, as nobody likes to feel interrogated!):
What are meetings with the PI usually like? Structured schedule or spontaneous?
Are projects and goals set by the PI, or do you propose your own?
How does feedback on data usually work? What about writing?
How do people usually collaborate in the lab?
What is the typical lab vibe like? More quiet and focused, or a lot of discussion and troubleshooting?
When do people usually come in and leave?
How does the lab usually celebrate milestones like awards, publications, and defenses?
Bring up your last vacation in casual conversation. Ask the lab members about theirs. Do they take time off regularly?
Where do alumni from this lab usually go after graduating?
What kind of support does the PI give for applying to fellowships, jobs, and conferences?
Who do you go to outside of the lab for advice?
What’s the community like among the grad students here?
How are conflicts usually handled?
Some red flags to look out for in their responses:
Vague positivity with no concrete examples
Hesitation or nervous laughter before answering a question
Looking at others for cues before answering a question
Inconsistencies across lab members in response to the same question
Burnout indicators (e.g., joking about “basically living here”)
Lab members mostly work alone or don’t know what others are working on
Lab members don’t know where previous graduates ended up, or they all left science
And some green flags…
Multiple lab members giving consistent, specific examples of support
Specific descriptions of the PI’s mentorship philosophy and how that has helped them grow
Discussion about lab traditions, shared experiences, and the collaborative environment
Lab members know what others are working on
Lab members have interests/hobbies/lives outside of the lab and openly discuss these
Previous graduates have gone on to have careers in different sectors (academia, industry, comms etc.)
Another important thing is to make sure that what the PI tells you is consistent with the experiences of their lab members. It can be the case that a mentor’s described mentoring style is not how it actually plays out in real life. I was once told by a PI that they had meetings every 2 weeks, when in actuality, there were TWO lab meetings per week that had a tendency to run for over three hours. (I wish I was kidding.) It’s OK to ask the PI lots of questions. A good PI will understand that you need to use the rotation to determine whether you want to be there. Here’s some questions you can ask your potential PI:
How often do you usually meet with grad students, and what do those meetings typically look like?
How do you usually give feedback on data, manuscripts, and proposals?
How do you balance keeping track of progress and promoting independence?
What do you consider your role to be in shaping students’ research projects?
How do you help your students prepare for the next stage of their careers?
What kinds of careers have your recent graduates gone into?
What’s important to you in shaping the culture of your lab?
How do you handle it if a student is struggling with research or something personal?
How do you encourage collaboration among lab members?
How do you typically support students in getting funding and attending conferences?
How do you approach vacation and personal leave for your students?
Here are some red flags to watch out for in the PI’s response:
Inconsistency between what PI says and what lab members say
PI can’t describe how they foster collaboration, independence, and career development
Excessive focus on papers, grants, and results and not enough on mentorship, growth, and professional development
Language that indicates that everyone in the lab is “the same”; lack of recognition of individual needs
Only interested in training people who want to follow an academic career path or making light of industry/policy/teaching etc. jobs
Denies existence of conflict/challenges; “that doesn’t really happen here”
And some green flags…
Asks you as many questions as you ask them
Encourages collaboration among team members
Has concrete examples of how past conflicts have been professionally resolved
PI’s description of lab culture, meeting structure/frequency, feedback style matches what lab members say
Remember to consider not just what your potential new PI and lab members say, but how they say it and how consistent their answers are with each other. Reluctance to answer should make you ask yourself why, even if the eventual response is positive.
You’ll be spending a lot of time in your lab. It’s worth taking the time to fully ‘vet’ it before committing!