At some point in your grad school career, you should be writing.

For me, it cycles through the challenge of writing while in classes to the wide open space of vacations and summers when I should be writing, but seem to do every other thing on my to do list before sitting down at my computer. 

Over the past few years, I've stumbled across some great writing resources, many provide subscription emails. A few subject lines from these resources popped out at me this morning from my inbox, and I'd like to share. 

One of my current projects as a baby genetic epidemiologist is taking a look at missing heritability in type 2 diabetes. Reading papers late one night, this image popped in my head, and I had to draw it out. Laughing alone with my laptop and my dog on PubMed is probably a sign of too much coffee, not enough sleep. But, enjoy the cartoon! I hope to have more. Science is my life, as is creativity. 

xoxo
​BD

Great news! I've come back from my first conference as a PhD student and it went great. 

• For the first time, I knew a good amount of people at the conference
  • It was great introducing my present colleagues to those of past - matchmaker!
• I spoke with a number of interesting poster presenters about the intersection of our research
  • I've already incorporated some of their suggestions in my current projects

If you read my first post on getting the most out of conferences, you may recognize a few of 'tasks' or suggestions I mentioned. 

You may be thinking, "Bailey, what was your goal for this conference?" Read more to find out. 

How do you feel when you go to a conference? Are you nervous? Overwhelmed? Personally I wonder if I’ll ever get to the point in my career where I feel at ease, looking forward to seeing colleagues from all over the nation I’ve collaborated with on projects.
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My advisor runs a weekly breakfast club for his advisees, and with a national conference coming up in the next few months, we wanted advice on how to get the most out of conferences. He came up with a top 10, that I’ve organized and elaborated on below. I’ll expand on a few in my next post (Part II).

All of these tips fall under the category of preparing for your own success They should be done before the conference, and then acted upon. Make a game plan and you’ll return home feeling accomplished. 

Click the pic or hit read more for all 3 tips.

Re-evaluating your priorities is a good idea to do at least once a year, but can be especially helpful if you are feeling stale or stuck in a rut.

Orientation brings a tsunami of information crashing down on your head. Administrators and students acknowledge this fact in your meetings with a smile and joke. But by the end of the day, your pleasant expression has twisted and you'd prefer they get on with it.

But it's not their fault - what you really need is for the semester to fast forward a week or two. Diving into course material in class, instead of syllabus review. A routine for your schedule - problem sets due Fridays, lab reports due Wednesdays, happy hour on Thursdays.

​Everything fitting in neat little boxes in your head, instead of the nebulous cloud of worry and the frantic feeling you're forgetting something.