What do you do in "RESEARCH?"

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canijust

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I've been a "research student" at a lab at a major hospital since the summer. However, all I got to do was do some experiments that don't require my creativity. For example, I do a western when someone tells me to. I do genotyping, etc. What do people mean when they say they do research? Do they get to have their own projects and use their originality to come up with plans? Or is it mostly like me so far, doing very simple tasks and just watching others? I'm referring to research as an undergraduate.

Thanks in advance!

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What you're doing is fine for any and most schools under top 20. Anything higher like to see students initiate and complete their own project(s) with poster presentations/papers.


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If we're being honest, my research basically involved me following directions and then like 10% of the time making suggestions on how to make things easier by using environmentally friendly solvents

(by easier I mean safer for me, the undergrad who had to actually pour these horribly dangerous solvents into reaction flasks)
 
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At first you typically learn just how to do stuff, as you have done. A lot of it is following orders, mostly so you understand how everything works, limitations for experiments, how to get stuff done without wasting $$$ and time, how to ask for help when you need it, how to understand the data you produce, etc.

The idea is that later you ask for or are given the opportunity to start working on a project, maybe suggested by your PI but not necessarily, in the lab where you have some freedom to figure out how to get things done.

For example, my first semester doing "research" I mostly wrote some basic code to analyze data and ran molecular dynamics simulations using a bunch of tools the lab had. Then, the summer after that my PI just handed me a textbook about a topic and said "We have a project that is interested in X. One problem in X is Y. Figure out how to study Y." And I spent all summer doing that. Mostly failed but got enough data to put it on a poster and put my results up for others in the lab to use. It's a slow progression towards true "independence" which isn't really achieved by most (>99.9%) until the PhD/Postdoc level when you are writing your own grants and trying to carve out your own niche.

How far you progress as an undergrad will depend on you, the PI, the nature of your field, funding, and everything else under the sun. What you can do is show initiative and see if the lab cooperates with you. If not, find a new lab. Or don't. Lots of people are happy just being an extra set of hands and occasionally doing their own side project over a period of time and then saying "I learned what science-the-job is about and it's not for me but I get how it's done." ...and then calling it a day. Which is totally fine.

P.S. Lots of people don't even get to the extra set of hands stage and just do odd jobs like cleaning stuff and keeping the cell cultures alive. They are also counted in the "have applied with research experience" bin on MSAR.
 
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You'd be surprised how strong impending blindness & death will motivate you to find alternative reaction mechanisms for organic chem reactions
 
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You do all the bitch work and hope they throw you a bone and include your name on the paper
 
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It's mostly like what you do. The vast majority of UG students don't have the time, or training to have an independent project.

As long as you're learning something about the scientific process, you'll be fine


I've been a "research student" at a lab at a major hospital since the summer. However, all I got to do was do some experiments that don't require my creativity. For example, I do a western when someone tells me to. I do genotyping, etc. What do people mean when they say they do research? Do they get to have their own projects and use their originality to come up with plans? Or is it mostly like me so far, doing very simple tasks and just watching others? I'm referring to research as an undergraduate.

Thanks in advance!
 
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You do all the bitch work and hope they throw you a bone and include your name on the paper
Most accurate quote on research I've ever seen.

ADCOMS know that you (as an undergrad) probably didn't do anything independently.
 
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well, as an undergrad you obviously have limited knowledge so how much you could contribute on your own is limited.

I didn't even begin to work independently until after a year of learning the ropes of the lab and the techniques, and even then I'm nowhere near the aptitude of the Ph.D.'s
 
So i work in an orgo lab... My prof. drew up a synthesis and I'm following it. 95% of the time the reactions don't work... The remaining 5% is spent doing boring tasks like cleaning the sample b/c ever reaction created side product. At the end of the day, you can spend 50+ hours with 0% results. The only thing I learned from research is that dedication is rarely rewarded but when it is, it's so worth it.
 
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So i work in an orgo lab... My prof. drew up a synthesis and I'm following it. 95% of the time the reactions don't work... The remaining 5% is spent doing boring tasks like cleaning the sample b/c ever reaction created side product. At the end of the day, you can spend 50+ hours with 0% results. The only thing I learned from research is that dedication is rarely rewarded but when it is, it's so worth it.
You did Orgo research as well? Your description is 100% accurate.

Nothing quite like waiting for the combi-flash to spit out 2 products and then getting 6 different compounds instead. Its like, "Merry Christmas loser, have fun figuring out what these are"
 
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You did Orgo research as well? Your description is 100% accurate.

Nothing quite like waiting for the combi-flash to spit out 2 products and then getting 6 different compounds instead. Its like, "Merry Christmas loser, have fun figuring out what these are"

Tell me not, reading the damn NMR is like trying to decipher the secret to life. never heard of combi-flash lol we use flash columns, and no it's not automated lol. I swear we work like 50's chemists.
 
Tell me not, reading the damn NMR is like trying to decipher the secret to life. never heard of combi-flash lol we use flash columns, and no it's not automated lol. I swear we work like 50's chemists.

Gotta love mathematical biology. My "experiments" were simulations I coded myself and let run while watching The Amazing Race.
 
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it really depends on the PI and the lab size, most big labs you'll end up under a post doc or grad student. If you pick the right lab after some time the PI can give you your own independent project. it usually a scientific question, like figure out the biological mechanism or design a model, but you have to do a lot of the leg work, designing experiments, reading papers etc., If you are really interested in research then this something you want. you have to make it clear to the PI, before you join the lab that its something you want down the line.
 
If you want a bigger role, talk with your PI and take ownership of your project. You will first need to go to your PI with a proposal or at least with a faint idea of what you would like to do. Get his/her feedback - maybe he/she will even just give you a project he/she has been thinking about. Either way, once you get started, take ownership of it. That means if something doesn't go right, don't go running to the PI. Think it through and do follow-up experiments to figure out what happened. And boom, now you've got new insight into the problem.
 
Tell me not, reading the damn NMR is like trying to decipher the secret to life. never heard of combi-flash lol we use flash columns, and no it's not automated lol. I swear we work like 50's chemists.
Damn dude, We had the automated flash column (combiflash) and it was still painful. I can only imagine how you guys got by. Though my lab still uses a tub of paraformaldehyde that was manufactured in 1953....


Kinda crazy when you think about the fact that the chemist who signed off on the bottle (quality assurance) is probably long dead. Immortalized through the bin of ancient chemicals at my university...
 
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I started off working with two grad students doing things like cell counting and brain sectioning/staining/mounting. My counting was atypical and specific enough to lead to the creation of two figures, which is getting me into a publication (somehow, lol). After that, I was lucky enough to get my own project. I spend this past summer researching the technique I was going to use as well as writing a protocol. And now, I'm getting to run my protocol with another PhD we're collaborating with (she's new and hungry for tenure). I'm hoping to at least get a poster out of this research, and will definitely be presenting to both labs.
 
You pipette.

Then you pipette.
Then you pipette.
Then you pipette.
Then you pipette.
Then you pipette.
Then you pipette...
 
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I am curious. What is the significance of a "poster/presentation" to a med school application?
 
You pipette.

Then you pipette.
Then you pipette.
Then you pipette.
Then you pipette.
Then you pipette.
Then you pipette...
Anybody else ever get a pipetting callus?
 
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Good research as an undergraduate usually involves graded responsibility. You'll start out doing simple experimental procedures and figuring out how you fit in the lab. Once you have a better conceptual understanding of what those simple experimental procedures are and why they are being employed, you'll be more able to contribute to the lab at a higher intellectual level. You may be assigned a small part of a larger project. Eventually, if you're in the lab long enough and you show initiative, dedication, and an understanding of the science behind the experimental process, you might be given the freedom to come up with a project of your own. The easiest way to do this as an undergrad is to do some sort of thesis.

Now, in terms of what medical schools are looking for, generally it's just some sort of familiarity with the research process. If you decide that you like research and have some sort of productivity (paper, presentation, abstract, thesis, poster, etc), then that only helps you. Most top 20 matriculants won't have a published paper, but nearly everyone will have some sort of experience, and those with longer experiences will likely have some sort of way to demonstrate productivity, even if it's just a poster for an internal symposium.

Research as an undergrad is ultimately what you make of it. If you want to get more involved, there are nearly always ways to do so, but if you are content with just running experiments, there will always be grad students and post docs that can use the labor.
 
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I've been a "research student" at a lab at a major hospital since the summer. However, all I got to do was do some experiments that don't require my creativity. For example, I do a western when someone tells me to. I do genotyping, etc. What do people mean when they say they do research? Do they get to have their own projects and use their originality to come up with plans? Or is it mostly like me so far, doing very simple tasks and just watching others? I'm referring to research as an undergraduate.

Thanks in advance!

As Wedge alluded to, you really need to show you skills and determination in both the technical aspects (can you do the experiment and not screw it up) as well as what I would think to be the intellectual/creative aspect (can you peruse the literature and understand where the labs work is to what your reading, can you think of experiments and ideas that may advance the aims of the PI's work).

Unless you've had prior experience, everyone starts off in a position that you describe. I guess you could call it "scut work" but it's a way to prove yourself. When I was in lab I did the mouse work, the autoclaving, the "fill these ice buckets before my cells die"-ing work. You do that and work hard. Once you get comfortable running some of these simple experiments you can talk to your PI about taking on more advanced work or working side by side with a PhD student or post-doc within their project and really getting to understand what they are doing. As I said, that entails more than just doing the work, they'll give you papers to read and you should really delve into them.

It's really the effort you put in to it at the end of the day.
 
Retrospective clinical research is where it's at. Doesn't take very long to become familiar with the topic to the point you could write parts of the manuscript.


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My experience seems kind of unique but my PI basically said we're looking at designing molecules that have this function, make the molecules. I had a post-doc that I worked fairly closely with and was there to bounce ideas off of, but we each worked on our own project basically.
 
I am curious. What is the significance of a "poster/presentation" to a med school application?

It is considered a higher order experience than merely serving as a tech in the lab (cleaning glassware, tending to living organisms whether cell cultures, plants or animals, pipetting). It requires that you think on your feet, explain and defend your research, and to have some share in the development of the visual display of information about your project.
 
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I work in a smaller but well funded lab at a high profile research institution, I trained under a lab tech for a month and was set free to do my own independent project since at that point I understood the process and science behind it. No "cleaning glassware", in fact they were pushing me to become independent asap. I suppose this is atypical.
 
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Personally, my undergrad research was very hands on.

Project 1: This project was for a class I took. It was an ecology project where I was out in the field and working with two other students. We worked directly with the PI to come up with an idea, wrote a proposal, went out in the field to collect the data, analyzed it, and then we all had to do separate papers and presentations for the class and some faculty. Nothing published, the class was basically just to teach us how to do science research.

Project 2: This was essentially a lit review on a particular public health issue I had to write with another student for a class. We did a poster presentation at my school.

Project 3: This was a wet lab ecology project I did for my senior honors thesis. I worked directly with the PI to come up with an idea for a project. Wrote a proposal and got it approved. I learned the lab methods and did all the work myself, then analyzed the data (my PI gave me input on which statistical tests to run and that kind of thing). I wrote a paper with my stuff similar to what you'd see published in a journal, and did a poster presentation. Still waiting to see if it might get published together with a grad student who joined the lab as I was graduating and did a really similar project (I'm guessing it's not happening at this point). But anyway, I saw the whole project through from start to finish.

That said, I went to a small, relatively unknown liberal arts school where undergrads doing this kind of thing was not uncommon. I was also in the honors program and had to do a self-directed project, so that opened up the door for me a bit as well. Based on what I've heard, it's much tougher to get research this intensive at a bigger school with graduate programs, even some of the "brand name" schools.

I honestly didn't get asked about it a ton at interviews, but it has been an incredible help for my med school research opportunities. If I'm trying to get onto a project I can say that I already know how to do scientific writing, proposals, etc. without much need for guidance that will take time out of the PI's schedule. My med school also has a requirement for a self-directed project similar to my honors thesis I talked about above, and I've been pretty ahead of the game in terms of the writing and logistical stuff compared to some other students.

Yeah, my research experiences have taught me a lot, even if they aren't that big a deal for admissions.

My first project was a pchem lab. I did it for class credit and honestly don't even remember what the hell we were doing (it was 8 years ago). But, I learned some wet lab techniques and also learned that I never wanted to work in a wet lab again.

My second project was a neurobiology lab studying gaba antagonists in rats. Spent time with the rats, did all the operations, and actually ran the experiments. It was cool experience. Also did it for credit and didn't end up with any pubs, since I left the lab (and the school) before they even started to write.

My third project was a clinical review that resulted in a poster presentation at a national conference. I did that one while working with a vascular surgeon.

My fourth project was an independent project in immigration law. I did all the research and writing and ended up with a publication. Was really interesting, and I learned a lot about immigration in this country, but not very applicable to medicine.

My fifth project, which I am still working on, is also an independent project, except I have an advisor who generally lets me do my own thing while giving guidance when I ask for it. It's in mathematical biology and game theory, so I had to do a lot of reading. Part of the project required me to code a simulation, which was probably the most technical part of the project. The rest has been pretty theoretical. It's taught me a lot about genetics, cancer, and game theory though, so I've definitely enjoyed it. I currently have a pub in peer review and am working on another one.

I'm not sure if any of this will help my app, but it's all been great experience and has taught me a lot.
 
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