I have the opportunity to be in a direct admit, funded (via ta-ships) masters program from my current undergrad to masters via my PI’s neurogenetics lab. I started 5 months ago and I have tried to enjoy it and truly grow while here. My goals are to be a bioinformatician in industry doing analytics related to precision medicine/drug discovery (just wanna do something cool) I love to code and love genetics.
My PI and direct supervisor make us students feel really uncomfortable. Their manner of telling you you’re wrong/your work is not up to standard is very harsh. I’m a firm believer in tough love from a PI (to help me grow, produce great research, make me the best scientist I can be) but at this 5 month mark, I’m finding myself crying on the way to work, deeply sad when I get home, dissociating when in the same meeting as them. The turnover rate of undergrads is very high, there were no dry lab undergrads when I started and a few wet lab ones (many undergrads left after a couple months). And they haven’t had a PhD student in years even after several rotated. Idk how to describe them in an objective way, but they make me feel afraid and ashamed to ask them questions. they cock their head and squint at me. They say i should “think about my question before asking them”. When i already have, obviously im asking because im a novice. They throw you into the deep end and want you to excel. They are both very know it all (which I know isnt uncommon for MD PhD folks) but they’re quite hurtful the way they “mentor”. I was trying to persuade myself to stay because it could teach me how to have tough skin and make me better everyday without hearing fluff and compliments. I don’t expect a boss to compliment or not critique my work. I really appreciate their honesty and efficiency. But I feel like I don’t feel a soul behind their faces and that lack of human empathy kind of depresses me.
I think it doesn’t help that the work is more variant analysis than I’d like. I haven’t written a single line of code, I’ve looked at Varseq and Gnomad, PubMed for countless hours though.
This is unlike any of my prior lab experiences at ucla or in my industry internship, which was so wonderful (that’s why my goal is industry).
I am truly contemplating throwing away this direct admit, funded, MS opportunity because I come home feeling so sad most days, have nightmares, and feeling anxious/compulsive often. To be fair I do have issues with highly aggressive personalities due to my cptsd.
For those of you who have experience in academic biology/genetics labs, is this common treatment? If you have felt this way did you come out of your MS or PhD feeling it was worth it?