I don’t agree with all of what is written in the attached article. My students are hard working, diligent and committed. The technical possibilities for experiments that can be done has literally exploded since I began my own graduate training and although a lot of these experiments involve “kits”, a lot require careful design, good knowledge of many techniques and a broad reading of the literature. The description of that older generation o student certainly applies to me I have to admit- I worked like a dog during my PhD and read everything as it appeared in print in the library- which for a large part of my training was right next to my lab! We also dump more material on students in lectures than we used to- with PowerPoint and web links etc. so I give them a break there too. All that said, the stuff about professionalism is good advice- if you want to get into grad school or get a job- understand your target… read their papers, and be thoughtful in how you approach us. Also, learn to write… it will open more doors than any article in high impact journals ever will…
http://www.theguardian.com/science/occams-corner/2014/apr/04/science-students-professionalism-grades
I m a professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at McGill University.