Enticed......

ABSTRACT

I was offered a grad position O__o"

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My PI's really quite the interesting character. He's very hard to get a hold of. A month into my co-op term now and I've only actually talked to him four times, yet each one of those chat sessions lasted more than an hour. He would ramble on about his past, rant about UBC, talk a bit more about his past research, and complain more about UBC.

But the real story started yesterday. I was finishing up my lunch with RayRay, and my PI walks into the room for a chat. He asked us both what our plans after a bachelor's were. RayRay was quick to invoke med school just as quickly as I denounced such an idea for myself.

Strangely enough, such strong convictions against med school was enough to land me an offer for a grad position O__o"

He went on talking about the lab and the research in general, the sort of projects available, and ended off mentioning the MD/PhD program so RayRay wouldn't feel too left out. But me and my big mouth......"THAT'S SEVEN YEARS!!!" I hollered.....and my PI burst out laughing. Apparently those were his exactly thoughts when he was deciding where to do his PhD. It was between 7 years in the states and 3.5 in Hong Kong. He finished in 3.5 years at HKU........"Can I do it with you in 3.5?" I asked. Another bout of laughter.

I met with him again today to talk about my presentation during the retreat. As he was going through the outline, he suddenly had the idea that my project would make a great grant proposal. He asked how flexible my co-op schedule is, whether I'd be available to work part time starting September, and if I could write the grant proposal by Sept 15, 2010. Another laugh. "If you start working on it part-time in September, it would give you a very good start for your thesis, then you CAN finish in 3.5 years!"

I'm not entirely sure what he sees in me......afterall, I've only worked a month and talked to him four times......


CONCLUSION

But as with all things, this is probably too good to be true too, because there are plenty of snags already even before we seriously consider it

1) Honours Thesis - why, oh, why must MICB 448 be so anal!! According to my program advisor, my PI for the honours thesis has to be from the department of microbi & immunology, which my current PI is not. But what I do have in my favour is that my project is immunology related, my co-PI is an immunologist (not in the dept tho), and my PI is willing to pull some strings with the head of the Faculty of Medicine (but not sure if that'd amount to anything).....but there's no way I can take on his project AND a second one for my honours thesis (I know BCIT prepared us for insanity, but a full course load with two projects would be a tad bit much......just a tad....)

2) 8-month co-op - no matter how much I don't want to pass up the opportunity, I just simply cannot let myself do my next 8-month co-op with him. I want at least want some industry experience. From my knowledge there's a local RNAi company that maybe I can work with, and maybe it won't be so difficult to convince him that it would come in handy

3) Grant Proposal - SERIOUSLY?!!! He wants ME to write a proposal for $50K (which in all fairness is not too large a sum for research)....He said he was very impressed by the way I wrote my studentship proposal (which was only for a measly $5K), but I have a feeling he's sorely mistaken......there was one which I wrote, and one which my co-PI wrote, and we submitted the latter....he probably read the latter thinking I wrote it....heck! I would be very impressed with myself if I managed to write that too!

But yes......like I said, I don't know what he sees in me (or more accurately, how he's managed to see anything in me at all given I've only talked to him four times).......