I was reading a letter forwarded by my friend. It is a letter Xiaodong Wang wrote to his son, who is about to start his own research journey. Xiaodong is a humble scientist and one of those I admire the most. His son is someone who is very ambitious in launching his own research career in tissue engineering. There are many insightful thoughts from Xiaodong’s letter (translated from Chinese):
“… All I can do is share the same things I experienced back then. I don’t think which laboratory you enter during graduate school is so important. Research training and research atmosphere are more important. The so-called good laboratory is mainly that their students can post articles in good journals, and then have more opportunities to enter a good postdoctoral laboratory. But students who can post good articles are often in a hot field There is no sure correlation between students’ ability to post good articles and their own abilities. It is more about the execution ability of the advisor and the student. (Publishing on the top-tier journal itself as a graduate student is) not always correlated with their scientific vision, the creativity, resilience and project management skills that are essential to becoming an excellent scientist, to solve real scientific problems. After these students have finished their training and started independent research, the ‘hot fields’ may have changed. What will last is their training. Therefore, the important thing about starting a career in scientific research is your starting environment. Where (top-tier school or famous lab) to start may not be so important.”
“… The status of American scientific research funds makes the path of academia harder. Cruel competition for research funding is not good for young high-risk taking scientists. In addition, the general postponement of the retirement of tenured professors in top American universities has also squeezed opportunities for young people. I know that many of your classmates were full of dreams of taking an academic path when they first entered the doctoral class, and most of them were shattered by the time they graduated. The good news is that biotechnology companies are in the ascendant, especially in the Boston area, where major pharmaceutical companies have research institutes, and there are countless small biotech companies. I always tell my students that if you could survive through a tough Ph.D. study, you will get an unbreakable rice bowl (skill sets on the job market). The size of the rice bowl varies from person to person, but the quality is guaranteed.“
“… the pain and pleasure of scientific research come from its unpredictability. The real scientific breakthroughs have opportunities in them. As long as you persist, there will always be opportunities to favor you. As Pasteur said: Opportunities are more likely to favor those who are prepared. So every failed experiment, wrong idea, lonely and helpless thought, and seemingly trivial experience are all psychological preparations for your next scientific breakthrough.“
” … I also think it doesn’t matter where you start your independent research. As long as the basic conditions are met: have funds to do one or two experiments that you most want to do, and one or two colleagues who can talk about topics. Once the research takes off, you can move to a place with better research conditions. The first few years of independent research relied on your accumulation during the doctoral and postdoctoral period. A scientific research environment that can continue to produce results is important. Among them, the exchange of academic ideas among colleagues in different fields is particularly important. In a place that is not well-known, the pressure to produce (big paper) immediately is small, so you can think deeply and spend more time doing time-consuming and high-risk subjects.” – SZ note: this seems like describing ND 🙂
“… Going to the industrial world is a different path. Except for a few examples, scientists are a one-way street to industry. Scientists in academia can go to the industry at all stages of their careers. There are two reasons for this (one-way street) phenomenon: one is the high wages in the industry. Pay cuts to academia may have specific difficulties for most people. Another reason is that it is difficult for scientists in the industry to deepen their research on specific topics and fields due to the time-sensitive nature of the project conducted in companies. There is an intrinsic contradiction between the time-sensitive scientific research in industry and the exploratory nature of scientific research in academia.”
“… For industry, there are also many differences between large companies and small companies. In a large company, you can learn more but you can do less, the opposite is true for a small company. Being able to teach yourself is an important ability to play a role in a small company. So I suggest that if you have a choice, you can go to a big company to learn the correct way to do things. The company’s ability to be bigger shows that they have done the right things in the past. However, personal contributions, especially scientific contributions, are hard to be recognized in large companies. Career promotion requires the appreciation of too many bosses at different levels. Individual scientific contributions in a small company may determine the life and death of this company. It will be obvious to all. Social skills are not that important. Social prejudice has nowhere to hide.” – SZ note: the last part regarding the small company probably is the most important reason I belong to academia. I am not good at networking :=( and I admire people who can do “free-solo” 🙂