YUKI'S TALKING TO MYSELF

There are several steps to be a scientist in biology. (Although I’m still not sure that I can declare myself as a scientist, I just speak out my thoughts here.) In Master’s course, a person will acquire skills to perform experiment (The person will be an experimenter). In Doctoral course, a person will develop thoughts to conduct research (The person will be a researcher). In Postdoc carrier, a person will be prepared to obtain a unique identity as a scientist. In the first 5 years as a PI, a person will finally become a scientist.
It is a long way, yes, to become a scientist. Experimenter is not the person who knows how to do PCR or western blot. The “experimenter” has to know how to validate the results (using positive control or negative control, with a good design of the experiment). The “experimenter” should be able to read the data, which means that she/he can spiculate what is going on behind the data. It’s like a skill to be a detective! Tackling with the negative data may be the earliest way to train yourself. But please do not intend to produce negative data!
A “researcher” is the person who has a skill to conduct research. The research activity is a loop, where it starts from raising a question, followed by observation, hypothesis, design of the experiment, getting data, and ends with conclusion, and the conclusion will lead to a question. What a hectic! I sometimes think how many times I can run this looping in my life. Recently, this loop in biological research is getting long due to many demands in the field. (It is ironic that as the methodology develops, we have to do more.. which I really appreciate… really? yes really), sometimes one loop takes 5 years!! Well, maybe I take too much time for one project, but depth is very important! This is only way to be confident about the findings.  
How to become a scientist,,, Maybe more details at next occasion. Just talking to myself…