How do you improve your bio skills? - I dint know where to put this (May/16/2011 )

@ casandra
Prolly cos I cant see the last 10 poster's replies like one can on usual forums? So I dint quite remember who wrote it. Was more thinking on topic.

On topic:
Reviews are really reallly long but i'll try that.

metaltemujin on Mon May 16 19:52:49 2011 said:

@ casandra
Prolly cos I cant see the last 10 poster's replies like one can on usual forums? So I dint quite remember who wrote it. Was more thinking on topic.

On topic:
Reviews are really reallly long but i'll try that.

Annoying nit picker.... -.-;;

I found using search engines optimally to be a very handly tool to get to what you what quicker.

Well learning by
doing. Do a lot of mistakes and you will got it. Read and Repeat

Try to answer what people ask on this forum ....

Teach students and you will get a lot of questions to find out

I agree that teaching is a brilliant way of learning! You have to really understand the topic/technique/idea to be able to teach it to others.

Try and synthesise your reading into some kind of presentation- say for journal club in your lab or department. Even if you don't end up presenting it. It will make you focus on the important stuff and really read to understand.

Also, there is ultimately NO shortcut to learning. You can lament that reviews are long, and you want answers quickly, from search engines. But the fact is that quality, in depth knowledge (the kind you need for a career in science) cannot be found in jazzy, summarised bite-size pieces.

My advice is to keep up with your reading. But also talk to people. Watch how they perform their experiments. Ask them why they are doing it such-and-such a way. Have regular chats with your lab mates and supervisors about your field. Don't be afraid of not knowing much, no one expects you to be an expert straight away and it will come, I promise.

Completely agree with leelee, discussion is very much important. Many things you learn just by talking to people.

Dear metaltemujin,

To answer your question " how to improve your bio skills"

There are many to learn. The most important to start with is basic lab techniques. These may include:-

Basic pipetting skills
Serial Dilutions
Western Blotting Basic cell and tissue culture
Methods of sterilisation
Basic microbiology
Basic molecular biology

.......the list is endless


Then you have to learn about setting up experiments:-

Positive and negative controls
Optimisation steps
The critical path for your experiments
Time management skills
Hypothesis lead experiments
Accuracy as well as precision....i.e. your experiments must be reproducible

......the list is endless

Then you have to learn to present your research/results to your collegues....and then further afield:-

Statistical analysis
Presentation skills
What content to put in AND LEAVE OUT
Anticipating ackward questions
Looking for weaknesses in the results
Further experiments that need to be done

....the list is endless

Then if you are lucky you can contribute or write papers to go into high impsct journals:-

Again most of the above will come into that.

The most important thing I can impress on young people coming into science is the importance of which research group they join. I was very lucky in my career that the first lab head I worked for won a Nobel prize for physiology in the 1980's. This set the standard for the whole department and the post doc I worked for spent many yeras with me teaching me the basics as listed above. You can read many books and scientific papers but the most important thing is

EXPERIENCE....EXPERIENCE.....EXPERIENCE

I hope some of this is useful

Kindest regards

Uncle Rhombus

rhombus on Mon Feb 11 11:07:04 2013 said:

rhombus


metaltemujin, on 16 May 2011 - 06:02 AM, said:

The most general answer would be, "Read, Study, Revise, Practice"

I am asking for unique styles of improving oneself and something which is more smart that reading 10+ 20 page papers on an article to learn barely two pages or more on average (based on one's capacity).

I was curious cos sometimes I feel really horrible and strange that I dont know anything in my field and I also dont know how to go about studying it

And reading more than a few papers at a time figuratively almost kills me >.<;;

Post Source: How do you improve your bio skills?
Unknown


metaltemujin, on 16 May 2011 - 06:02 AM, said:

The most general answer would be, "Read, Study, Revise, Practice"

I am asking for unique styles of improving oneself and something which is more smart that reading 10+ 20 page papers on an article to learn barely two pages or more on average (based on one's capacity).

I was curious cos sometimes I feel really horrible and strange that I dont know anything in my field and I also dont know how to go about studying it

And reading more than a few papers at a time figuratively almost kills me >.<;;

Post Source: How do you improve your bio skills?



The question is "how to improve your bio skills?

There are many to learn. The most important to start with is basic lab techniques. These may include:-

Making up stocks solutions.
Serial dilutions
Western blotting
Basic cell and tissue culture
methods of sterilisation
Basic microbiology
Basic molecular biology

......the list is endless

Then you have to learn about setting up experiments:-

Positive and Negative controls
Optimisation steps
The critical path for your experiments
Hypothesis lead research
Accuracy as well as precision.....i.e your experiments must be reproducible


..........the list is endless

Then you have to learn to present your research/results to your collegues..and then further afield:-

Statistical analysis
Presentation skills
What content to put in AND LEAVE OUT
Anticpating questions
looking for weaknesses in your results
Further experiments that need to be done.

............the list is endless

Then if you are lucky you can contribute or write papers for published journals:-

Again most of the above will come into that.


The most important thing that I can impress on young people coming into science is the importance of which research group you join. I was very lucky in my career that the first lab head I worked for won a nobel prize for physiology. I also worked for a post doc tha spent many years with me learning the basics as listed above. You can read many books and papers but the most important thing is EXPERIENCE...EXPERIENCE......EXPERIENCE.

I hope you find this useful

Kindest regards

Uncle Rhombus