Laboratory rotations are typically a part of first year graduate school (Ph.D.-oriented) in American universities, especially in the research-oriented areas like biology and chemistry where an incoming student is expected to work in 4 to 6 different laboratories (each is called a "rotation") for durations of about 6 to 8 weeks, before making a final decision regarding which group he or she wishes to join.
Laboratory rotations are uncommon in the British university system, where a Ph.D. candidate is accepted into a laboratory soon after joining, and that is partly responsible for shorter duration needed for graduating.
Famous quotes containing the words laboratory and/or rotation:
“For a novelist, a given historic situation is an anthropologic laboratory in which he explores his basic question: What is human existence?”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“The lazy manage to keep up with the earth’s rotation just as well as the industrious.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)