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Carey You Lim Huh graduated with a PhD from the Integrated Program in Neuroscience in 2013. She currently works as a Project Scientist.

Q: What made you decide to do a PhD?

I had my undergraduate education at UBC where I was pretty heavily involved in research as an undergraduate. There was actually a classroom-based research project where the biopsychology majors could design experiments, run the experiments on each other, and present it. That actually ended up becoming my first publication. I was very excited by this process. I got hands-on experience as an undergraduate student participating in research, and that solidified my interest in continuing research. As I went further in my undergraduate education, I got involved in research in two different laboratories. I really saw myself doing lab work in the future. That鈥檚 why I decided to do a PhD.

Q: What did you value the most about your time in graduate school?

I valued the opportunity to grow further as a scientist, with great mentorship and friendship. The lab I did my PhD in was at the Douglas Research Institute, which is a psychiatric hospital. The hospital cafeteria was where all the staff went to eat and there would be a table of PIs, and then there would be a table of students, post-docs, and staff鈥攚e all sat together and we were not segregated by labs. Even if it was just during lunch, we all got to know each other, and I really appreciated that. I think because the Douglas Institute was a very collegial and friendly place, I had a network of friends, colleagues, and other professors that I could reach out to afterwards for career advice.

I had a very good mentor who gave me a lot of freedom to develop my own style of science. The hands-off approach worked really well with my personality. I felt that the support and the guidance was there if I needed it. I benefited a lot from that freedom because as a postdoc, you鈥檙e expected to be a fully independent person with a little bit of guidance from your mentor.

Q: Were there any opportunities you wished you had?

I didn鈥檛 get a lot of opportunities to teach. Actually, it was kind of discouraged鈥攖here were ways that you can do some teaching, but it doesn鈥檛 always come with a very strong endorsement from your supervisor. But the fact is, in today鈥檚 job climate, the reality of the academic job market is that it鈥檚 very hard to limit yourself to those R1 universities. They want to see some teaching and that you鈥檝e given some serious thought about your teaching philosophy. I think it just helps if you鈥檙e a more well-rounded person, not just somebody that鈥檚 been in the lab for years.

Q: What were the biggest challenges for you during your PhD?

The biggest challenge for me was knowing when to stop. I think towards the end of PhD, you want to go to the next position if you have the next position set. But even if you have physically moved and started at your new position, your mind is still in some ways distracted by what you left behind鈥攜ou have to submit that paper, work on it on evenings and weekends鈥攖hat can be draining when you鈥檙e trying to get a brand new project off the ground. So the biggest challenge for me was the timing. I could have left the unfinished stuff unfinished, but then I had enough data in there for another paper. What I ended up doing was coming back鈥擨 came back two more times to Montreal to actually gather more data to finish that paper.

The extensive amount of freedom that I was given to direct my own time and project was working against me, especially at the end. That posed a challenge because I took a really long time writing my thesis and my PI let me do that.

The other challenge was picking a postdoc position. I had my own kinds of challenges picking the right environment to do my postdoc training. This is my third postdoctoral appointment. That jump from PhD to postdoc was something that could have used a lot more mentoring and discussion, but I sort of ended up going with my gut and things worked out eventually.

Q: So what do you do currently?

I am a project scientist, so I am still doing research in the lab, but with the added responsibility of looking for faculty positions and funding. I also spend some time reviewing for journals.

My day-to-day consists of doing experiments. I do听in vivo听imaging of a mouse鈥檚 brain while they are awake and look at things from the visual part of their brain. It鈥檚 really exciting鈥攜ou can use fluorescent markers to record activity directly in some cells. So I鈥檓 watching cells light up as the brain is processing information in real-time. These movies of cells firing in the brain are very heavy on the data-processing side. So I do have to do a fair bit of processing and data analysis. Lastly, I do some presentations of my data in lab meetings or in collaborator meetings.

I also do some mentoring of graduate students who have projects that I鈥檝e been involved in鈥攈elping them analyze the data and write papers. Other than that, I spend some time in my day looking for jobs or funding.

Q: So drawing from all your experiences, what would be your advice to someone who鈥檚 currently pursuing their PhD?

Find out what about science that excites you. I think developing as a scientist is the first thing, because learning how to be a scientist teaches you a lot of skills, not just about being a scientist, but about being a critical thinker, about troubleshooting, about being resourceful and knowing how to find people or solutions. If you decide that academia is the direction you want to go, then I think it鈥檚 good to think about getting a wide range of mentors that can guide you for different aspects of your path. It鈥檚 important to surround yourself with a lot of guidance and the appropriate kind of support. People in academia that are in it for the right reasons will be willing to help and they want to see the people succeed.

The other advice is to just have fun doing science and have fun with your projects. Really find something that you鈥檙e excited about and you鈥檙e having fun doing because that really shows when you鈥檙e presenting your data in any context. These are the best years of your life. You want to develop as a person as well. Don鈥檛 be afraid to have a relationship or broaden your circle of friends. Go travel. Because at the end of the day, the papers you write or what you don鈥檛 end up publishing are not everything that should consume your life.听

听 Carey鈥檚 advice for students doing a PhD.

Q: If you could go back to before your PhD and tell yourself something, what would that be?

I would advise myself not to be as stressed and as scared. Be yourself and be fearless. Don鈥檛 think that you鈥檙e not good enough or don鈥檛 deserve to go to that conference. You deserve it, you deserve everything.

I think also just be more flexible and be open-minded about what is outside of science, because these could be exciting things.