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:
“With all of its bad influences, T.V. is not to be feared.... It can be a fairly safe laboratory for confronting, seeing through, and thus being immunized against unhealthy values so as to be “in the world but not of it.””
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)
“The lazy manage to keep up with the earth’s rotation just as well as the industrious.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)