Glowing trees? Self-fertilizing plants? Maximillian Soltysiak is a PhD Candidate in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences Department at Harvard Medical School. He’s a recent graduate of the Honours Biochemistry and Genetics program at Western. In today’s episode, Maximillian talks about getting great lab experience early in undergrad, building a competitive grad school application, the value of an honours thesis, how he developed an interest for synthetic biology, and how to pick between grad school offers.

This episode was made possible by the generous support of the University Students’ Council at Western University.

Producer: Jay.

Timestamps:

(1:38); Introduction and educational background

(2:21); Starting a PhD during the pandemic

(5:00); Differences in structure between Canadian PhD programs and American PhD programs

(8:14); Figuring out if a grad program is a good fit for you

(18:52); Building a competitive grad school application

(22:06); Should you do an honours thesis?

(28:06); Maximillian’s undergraduate research experiences

(39:31); Self-fertilizing plants and glow-in-the-dark trees

(54:24); Advice for undergrads

(58:42); What if you get to the end of third-year, have close to no real research experience, and realize you want to go to grad school