system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Mentorship

 

How do you find deep mentorship in a lab where the PI isn’t super accessible? There are several labs I’m interested in rotating in, but they are larger and the PIs are somewhat well-known I’m the field and as such are busy people! Aside from that, they seem like great people, just not people I could pop in and ask a question without setting up a meeting. The mentorship they give would be great, there’s just not enough of them to go around, if that makes sense. I feel like I want more mentorship and guidance, but understand the demands that PIs have.

I don’t want to let this deter me from working in a great lab with exciting science being done. Any advice?
gpt
Larger labs with busy PIs usually have something like an upper management level. There are usually staff scientists, research scientists, postdocs and similar more senior people that manage research projects and students. Of course, ideally you should also have semi-regular meetings with your PI, but the senior scientists are usually the ones handling the day-to-day affairs.