Sharing PhD Tales from the Couch with Yevgeniy Grigoryev

Editor’s note: Obtaining a PhD is undoubtedly an intellectually challenging endeavor. However, many of us are unprepared for the extent of the mental hurdles we face on the road to our degree. Stress, loneliness, panic, anxiety, uncertainty, and depression are commonplace in most scientists’ career development at some point, yet these emotional struggles are rarely discussed openly. Couple this with the fact that many researchers find their work and sacrifices unappreciated by family, friends, and society at large and the strain can become overwhelming. At times it feels as though we’d benefit more from a therapist than from a PI.

Today we’re excited to announce our newest contributor, Yevgeniy Grigoryev, Ph.D. who will shed light on many of the shared challenges we face as scientists. In ‘PhD Tales from the Couch’ Yevgeniy will seek experiences from the broader community in order to identify solutions to help researchers move forward. We recently spoke with Yevgeniy about the roots of his passion for helping fellow scientists, the challenges he faced in his own career development and what’s at stake for science education if we don’t address the problems now.

BenchFly: As a kid, did you always know you wanted to be a scientist, or did that decision come later?

YG: As a kid, I demonstrated abundant curiosity for the world around me. I enjoyed asking questions, solving problems and tackling riddles. I think I just really wanted to know what made things work. I disassembled alarm clocks, old TV sets, anything that could tick, chime or beep and then tried to put it back together … the best I could. When I was 8 or 9, my parents bought me a small light microscope, and that’s when my foray into science began – I wanted to know what color eyes ants had, what happened when you dissolved different substances in water, if my dog could dream and what he dreamt about, etc. I did not think of this as a profession, it was just natural to want to know how things worked. I did not think too hard about what I would do when I grew up, I was too busy trying to piece back together my parent’s alarm clock.

Entering graduate school, did you have a particular career path in mind?

Entering Graduate school, I was such a visionary! I had everything planned out about how I will change the world and cure all the diseases, and become world famous for re-introducing space food to the public. Don’t we all feel this way when starting grad school? Honestly though, while in college, I was divided between a career as a medical doctor and a research scientist. Both were viable options. By then I had already developed a healthy fascination and interest in science. There were other subjects that I enjoyed as well, such as History, Literature, and Writing. But what really motivated me was my desire to be useful in this society, to help people around me, to make the old young again and the sick healthy and other such noble things. Yet, as I helplessly watched my grandmother succumb to the Alzheimer’s disease while the medical field was powerless to reverse the neurodegenerative damage it inflicted on her, I decided to choose a career of a research scientist, which seemed to me the most practical choice would enable me to address such challenges head on. I also realized that I wanted conduct research more on the clinical side (sorry, basic science, we had some good times, but it’s not you, it’s me … really!). I arrived at this conclusion after realizing that approximately 80% of my time in the lab, I transfer microscopic amounts of liquid from one tube to another, day in and day out. In order not to go crazy, I had to have a bigger picture in mind. That bigger picture to me is addressing current clinical issues, like investigating the immune mechanisms of organ transplant rejection, focusing on developing targeted cancer therapies, or promoting science communication between various sectors of society.

Yevgeniy Grigoryev, Ph.D.

Looking back on your experience at Scripps, what do you think were the most valuable components of your graduate education? 

I think the most valuable component of my graduate education was that it was unlike any other education I was used to. Most of the things that I learned in grad school were not taught in classes (which were few and not directly relevant to my research), or textbooks. The most valuable components involved developing an independent mindset, to be able to face questions that did not necessarily have answers, to dare to propose experiments even though they might fail. I think this was precisely it, not to be afraid to fail! In this world, we are all judged by our successes, and failure carries such a heavy stigma of shame. But in graduate school, failure was the driver leading to success. To quote the 1969 Nobel prize winner in Literature, Samuel Beckett, “Try again, fail again, fail better.” I learned more about the field, experimentation, and asking the right questions after my experiments failed (which happens 70-80% of the time … ever wonder why it takes 5 to 6 years to get that PhD?).

More importantly, in this unique and seemingly unstructured environment I learned a lot about myself. I would not be able to do it on my own, of course. I had the invaluable guidance of my colleagues, my graduate adviser, and my thesis committee, who challenged me, encouraged me, and occasionally criticized me (constructively, of course). Troubleshooting, learning on my feet, and thinking outside the box were just some of the skills I developed in graduate school, in addition to becoming more resilient, resourceful, and analytical in my thinking … but enough self accolades!

…and what were some of the pitfalls?

To me, the biggest pitfall in graduate school was feeling more and more alienated from the world around me. As I spent more time at the bench and increased my specialization, the fewer and fewer people around me understood, cared to understand or even bothered to understand what it is I did or why I did it. Such narrow path of specialization can make it hard for you to communicate with the rest of the world, which requires generalization. I was so used to dwell in the details of my PhD project that I lost touch with the outside world (world outside the lab, that is). This became especially noticeable when I started writing my dissertation. My friends would ask me what my work was about and I would immediately bombard them with such rods as “Genome-wide analysis”, “differential gene expression”, “post-transcriptional gene regulation”. They would quietly listen, pat me on the back and be on their way to find someone with whom they can actually have a conversation. So my biggest fear became that after so much hard work and time spent researching my project, my thesis would only be seen by a handful of people in this world: my graduate adviser, the three members of my graduate committee, and maybe a handful of graduate students who cite my work in their abstract. Isn’t it a shame that almost no living soul would care to open these pages that were saturated with my proverbial sweat, lack of sleep, and excess of caffeine? And just to think that my finest intellectual achievement would gather dust in the archives of some library until the sands of time have claimed its existence forever!

Another challenge that I became very aware of while in grad school was the question of what I should do and what path I should take once I graduate. Graduate School tends to make you feel very sheltered from the outside world. While my friends on the “outside” were getting laid off, looking for new jobs, going through the interviewing circuit and learning the ropes of what it takes to actually get a job, I was comfortably pipetting at my bench. Afterall, this is what is expected of you in grad school: you work hard, get your work published, write and defend your thesis and be on your way. The problem is, as I realized too late, is where exactly am I supposed to go with all these skills that I learned?  I was too busy working and writing to actually stop for a second and imagine where I want to be once this is all done. Do I want to continue with academic research and look for an academic post-doc? Am I interested in transitioning to Industry? What other aspects of science could provide an enjoyable career?

By asking these questions, I found a true passion for communicating science, for looking back at the big picture of why I do research. In order to communicate complex ideas and concepts, I had to become a generalist again, and find the common thread of humanity – something that unites us all and helps us relate to the big picture.  In doing so, I also was able to think more about my life’s work and how it relates to the public good and common/personal good.

How do you think these challenges will affect the future of science education and research left unchanged? 

Let’s admit it, no one wants to feel alone, alienated, and misunderstood in this world. We, as humans, have an inherent desire, nay, need to communicate, to tell stories, to relate to these stories (remember when you were just a kid and you loved listening to bedtime stories) … We simply love stories! With the current approach to graduate education, we are steadily producing hundreds of highly trained specialists each year. However, due to such rigid specialization, these highly trained PhDs may feel that they have lost that “common thread of humanity”. After all, let’s rewind back to when I was applying to Graduate School – I was young, full of zest and energy, ready to share my future discoveries and findings with the world.  Now let’s fast forward 3 or 4 years into my graduate education – I feel like a castaway … “Wilson! Wilson! I’ll do all the paddling. You just hang on”.  And then you start doubting yourself. Were you right to choose this path? Is it supposed to feel this way? Are you the only one going through such rocky experience?  I think it is important to remind these young researchers that they do not have to become isolated on this course, that while there is a trend for specialization, we should always see the big picture in front of us … otherwise we are just highly trained liquid carriers.

What are your goals with PhD Tales from the Couch? 

My goal with “PhD Tales from the Couch” is to connect people at different stages of the professional growth and specialization and create a portal where peers can shed some frustration, share a word of advice, stories of personal experiences, ask questions and remind each other that we are not alone.  There are hundreds, even thousands of us that go through this experience, and each one of us can still maintain that common thread of humanity. I see “PhD Tales from the Couch” as a portal where people involved in science and PhD studies can go for advice, guidance, and support – from their peers.

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Stay tuned for tomorrow’s launch of PhD Tales from the Couch!

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Yevgeniy grew up in New York, but decided to transplant himself to the West Coast for his PhD studies at the Scripps Research Institute, where he studied mechanisms of gene regulation in the immune system. Recently, Yevgeniy again found himself in New York City, pursuing a post-doctoral research project in oncology. In his spare time Yevgeniy works as a Krav Maga self-defense instructor, and as a scientific writer to share his passion for fostering communication between the scientific community and the public.

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