“Unmeaningful” research experience?

[Latteandaprayer]

I started in the lab right when my PI was starting a new project, and she kinda handed it over to me. I produced some data which did not support the hypothesis. To get this data it took 6 months (300 hours) of learning, failing, then finally getting reproducible results. The next step is to gather and grow yeast mutants under different conditions to find the transcription factors of the gene of interest... but my PI doesn’t want to pursue that, not yet at least, because it’s a huge undertaking and it would take too long/too many resources. So my project has basically ended, and now she has me doing basic things around the lab— really simple assays and really simple transformations mostly. If you’ve seen my post history then you know I hate wet lab research as is, and now that my project has ended (no poster or pub obviously since nothing was found), I feel it’s best to quit.

I’ve learned a lot about the scientific process and the research was personally meaningful, but I have no tangible results, and I’m worried that stopping after 6 months would seem uncommitted. I don’t want to rule out top 20s because of this. I’d rather go down swinging. Will this be a problem? Or is this “enough” research experience?

PS, sorry for any awkward sentences; I’m on mobile and running on 2 hours of sleep

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[Lucca]

If u hate what you’re doing then stop doing it. There are sooooo many other ways to do research if you want to be on the trajectory for an academic career. If you’re not interested in an academic career, stop worrying about what rank of medical school you might go to and just worry about getting into *a* medical school.

If you want to keep doing research try to get involved with clinical research, or psych, health disparities/sociological, or thereotical research, none of which really requires much if any time on the bench.

 

[FelicityMD]

I would find different, more meaningful research, if you are interested in academic medicine. It's better to have 6 mo of wet lab experience w/o publications than 1+ year of research w/o publications, and as it sounds you are not moving towards anything. Find some retrospective clinical work you can do- generally most results from that can be publishable.

 

[Catalystik]

I’m worried that stopping after 6 months would seem uncommitted. I don’t want to rule out top 20s because of this. I’d rather go down swinging. Will this be a problem? Or is this “enough” research experience?

Six months would be sparse if you're aiming for research-oriented schools, successful, or not, pubs and posters, or not. Not to say you couldn't get in any of them, but you'd have to bring a lot more to the table to compensate, example being evidence of strong leadership skills or outstanding accomplishment in some other field of endeavor.

If u hate what you’re doing then stop doing it. There are sooooo many other ways to do research if you want to be on the trajectory for an academic career. If you’re not interested in an academic career, stop worrying about what rank of medical school you might go to and just worry about getting into *a* medical school.

If you want to keep doing research try to get involved with clinical research, or psych, health disparities/sociological, or thereotical research, none of which really requires much if any time on the bench.

This!

 

[Latteandaprayer]

If you’re not interested in an academic career, stop worrying about what rank of medical school you might go to and just worry about getting into *a* medical school.

I hate that you’re right lol. I think I got too caught up in the obsession with Top 20s sone people have, and didn’t stop to stand back and realize that I should try to get into any med school first. Thanks!

 

[Latteandaprayer]

I would find different, more meaningful research, if you are interested in academic medicine. It's better to have 6 mo of wet lab experience w/o publications than 1+ year of research w/o publications, and as it sounds you are not moving towards anything. Find some retrospective clinical work you can do- generally most results from that can be publishable.

Do you think it would be a good idea (if I do switch) to include this wetlab experience? It was genuinely very eye opening and helped me a lot with revising hyoptheses and knowing when to move on.

Or is too sparse to be significant?

 

[LAIsTheBestPlaceEver]

OP I FEEL YOU!

I worked in a lab for three years. The first year was spent with a post-doc working as his research assistant. I then got a little side project, which eventually turned into an independent senior thesis project. However, we recently found that our data can not validly reflect or answer our original proposed question because we couldn't get some delicate technique to work. So now basically my two years of work are done with no actual result... My PI is having me focusing on another direction, which I am happy to do because some optimized experiments can still apply in the new direction! I don't hate basic research, but after this incident, I was really really discouraged and lost some confidence in myself that I will ever produce valid data. However, I learned sooooooo much from my experience for not just the analytic skill but also patience and persistence! This is the reason why I am not giving up!!

Personally, I feel like this type of story actually helped us in long run!

To answer your question, I think the quality is more important than quantity for research experience!

 

[FelicityMD]

Do you think it would be a good idea (if I do switch) to include this wetlab experience? It was genuinely very eye opening and helped me a lot with revising hyoptheses and knowing when to move on.

Or is too sparse to be significant?

Yes, any experience is can be meaningful. You can talk about how wet lab is not for you. You don't want to be a scientist you want to be a physician. Trying something and not liking it is still meaningful. And if you find youself that nice clinical research you can talk about how you you learned what you were passionate about/ and what not and how you learned about yourself and then you did something better (for you).