Anyone else feel completely retarted in their research lab?

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all this stuff takes practice. Try pipetting water and have your mentor explain good pipetting techniques, but it really is all about practice.
 
Ischemic said:
all this stuff takes practice. Try pipetting water and have your mentor explain good pipetting techniques, but it really is all about practice.
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Think about it your professor had several years of undergraduate experiance, more years as a master/Ph. D candidate, and even more during their post doc. So compared to them I think you should feel kinda ******ed. I know I do.
 
ponybreeder4 said:
I suck at pipetting, transferring, doing blots, and eerything else. Am i the only one out there?
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(*******ed, *everything)

I dunno; I'm pretty good in lab. Maybe you just need more practice? Or you could ask someone to help you with your technique; I had to do that for titration labs. No shame in trying to better yourself!
 
I'm fine with the technical stuff, it's reading journal articles to catch up on their previous research which pisses me off. I will never bitch about a textbook ever again
 
JFK90787 said:
I'm fine with the technical stuff, it's reading journal articles to catch up on their previous research which pisses me off.
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This. The technical stuff came pretty easy to me (although it doesn't to everybody, unfortunately). It was knowing why I was doing things, and then trying to figure out where to go next that was hard.
 
Everybody who begins working in a lab starts out a little bit overwhelmed and not great at everything.

How long have you been working there? The longer you're involved they better you'll get, and you will get good. After a year or so you'll be teaching others and designing procedures. Hang in there. 👍
 
Becoming proficient at lab techniques, like everything else, takes practice. If you feel you are doing something poorly ask a grad student or a post-doc to watch you do it and critique you.
 
like lab techniques, spelling takes practice
 
I agree. I do mirco dissections and ganglia culturing and I sucked. Bad. Its been almost two months now, and I can do all the lab techniques to a degree. Completely ******ed is exactly how I felt, I asked my PI did she think I was a fool lol. I'm glad I have peers that went through the same ish.
 
I can sympathize. Research didn't come naturally to me, but it does get better with more practice and confidence. Once you have some more lab time under your belt, you'll feel better about your skills. Hang in there! 🙂
 
OP i feel ur pain, I also had a huge learning curve when I began work at a Pharma lab doing analytical chem stuff. Pipetting was a b@#$% until i discover pipette bulbs, these things are golden 😀😀😀😀.

Honestly i was pissed that no one told me about them sooner. Try them out!!

The other things will come with time, watch/ask others for best practices and while it's frustrating, just keep things in perspective, there's a first time for everthing, u're learning and will get better with time.

GL

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I usually feel... slow... to a certain degree in lab, but the PhDs don't seem to acknowledge my lack of experience with mol bio. Conversations often go like this:

PhD: "Hey DaisyBuchanan, how good are you at plasmid subcloning?"
me: "... What?"
PhD: "Great, go ahead and write up that protocol and get started, we need that plasmid stat."

I love my lab though haha 🙂
 
DaisyBuchanan said:
I usually feel... slow... to a certain degree in lab, but the PhDs don't seem to acknowledge my lack of experience with mol bio. Conversations often go like this:

PhD: "Hey DaisyBuchanan, how good are you at plasmid subcloning?"
me: "... What?"
PhD: "Great, go ahead and write up that protocol and get started, we need that plasmid stat."
Click to expand...
:laugh::laugh::laugh:

Amen to that, my PI was notorious for doing stuff like this.
 
When I started in my first research lab, I was in constant fear of wasting lab money (wasting monkeys, ruining irreplaceable samples, etc) because I did something wacky that seemed like it would work. I pestered everyone to double check all of my steps and I'm pretty sure I was a huge pain in the butt.

With time, you figure it out. You get better at the techniques, you start to understand the science, and you stop feeling like a walking hazard (..most of the time. There are still days when I nearly set myself on fire or something similar). Just hang in there and ask for help when you need it.
 
My advice would be to write up your own version of the procedure for all the experiments that you're working on (or having trouble with). It will help you to be more consistent with your results and should help you understand the experimental techniques.
 
Haha, wow. Okay, you'll probably get some degree of that feeling in every lab you work/volunteer in. Every lab does things a little differently, and different PIs have different approaches as to how they handle having a "fresh" undergrad. (You sound very new to research.. so don't worry about having problems with technique, it's all acquired skills.)

The first research experience is always the worst, however. For example, ever screw up on making agar plates? I have.. granted, it was back in high school. Still! As long as you don't make the same mistake twice, it'll be okay.

The easiest way I have of handling new techniques is to convince one of my coworkers to show me how to do it first.. (They usually give tips that aren't on the raw protocol.) And then to make my own copy of the protocol to follow step-by-step. (Seriously, I make check marks. I STILL do, even if I'm familiar witht the protocol.)

If you're having problems with the basics (pipetting, etc.), talk to any other volunteers in the lab.. or even one of the post-docs or technicians. (Whoever you can find besides the PI.. unless the PI has been teaching you so far.) Also.. Practice, practice, practice.

Still, I have to admit, even now as a grad student with a near-ridiculous amount of research experience-- I thought about being a researcher instead of a doctor at one point-- I hate doing blots. Absolutely and completely. Mind you, I don't actually do them often, so.. no problem. I also know another student who does them constantly and STILL manages to make the weirdest mistakes. Every time.

Anyway, the point is: don't stress over it. Stress just makes it easier to make mistakes. 😀
 
sometimes i am confused, but if i am then i just ask people on my team or google the information (which is what i think everyone does). Also for the wet lab skills, it just takes time i guess. Pipetting is pretty easy you just need to be careful when you are doing it. There are some tricks for that to get better results (though i guess it depends on what type of pipettes your lab uses).

Just hang in there! if you just started, you shouldnt really be worrying.
 
I would imagine it would be hard without one on one instruction... but that is about it.
 
Yea i felt super ******ed in my research lab when i first started. Now its been almost a year (lol i know its kinda long but yea). I finally completely understood what was going on and started working on individual projects =] Just hang in there. u'll get used to it.
 
ponybreeder4 said:
I suck at pipetting, transferring, doing blots, and eerything else. Am i the only one out there?
Click to expand...

Don't worry. When I first started at my lab, I had to google how to use a pipet 😛. And I was always panicking that I wasn't doing things correctly (like PCR, gels, etc). In the beginning, I couldn't even get some of the gels to work! But within a few months, I could do everything in my sleep and now I teach other people these techniques.

Just keep practicing 🙂
 
bpost137 said:
Don't worry. When I first started at my lab, I had to google how to use a pipet 😛.
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LOL my first day I googled "what do the red numbers on pipets mean?"

It also helps if you have an understanding PI. I got kicked out of my first lab after three days because the PI was a bitch. She was giving oral instructions to do things at the speed of light, and every time I looked away from her face to write what she was saying down in my lab book, she would say sternly "Please pay attention". Eventually I botched up a sample because I couldn't recall the right instructions, and that was that.

Anyway I'm somewhere else now where the atmosphere is much more relaxed and I'm learning at a more tolerable pace.
 
ponybreeder4 said:
I suck at pipetting, transferring, doing blots, and eerything else. Am i the only one out there?
Click to expand...

Is this in reference to you working in a lab as a job or in a class? Not that there is a big difference, its just that during class, we all help eachother out and give eachother pointers on how to make things easier. Im a lab junkie so I would always to do all the physical stuff. Like someone else who posted above mentioned, its all about practice. Youre gonna get a lot of practice during your undergrad. years to do all that stuff. You eventually get better and more comfortable doing it. 👍
 
it's all about attention to detail!
 
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