One of today’s career workshops centered on a topic that many young scientists don’t think about until it’s too late: how do you plan your first research laboratory? No, I don’t mean the research plan – you’ve all been obsessing over that for years. I mean planning for the stuff: the incubators, the chemicals. the centrifuges, the Erlenmeyer flasks. The enormity of the task may have crossed your mind already when, say, you realized that the incubator you thought nothing of cost the same as your yearly salary.

The workshop was lead by Victoria McGovern, a senior program officer at the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. The first step, she advised attendees, is to sit down one night and critically evaluate whether you want to pursue a career in research. She urged everyone to be honest with themselves, but cautioned: “you may need liquor.”

McGovern also suggests that you take a little time one weekend to make a list of every item you think you need to run your own lab. Then, the next time you go into lab, only allow yourself to use the things on the list. How long do you think you’ll last?

(The Howard Hughes Medical Institute has a great guide on how to make the postdoc-to-faculty transition. You can find it at https://www.hhmi.org/resources/labmanagement.)