Are there any good open lab courses?

[Chris Benoit]

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Hey,

I have about 3 years of research experience in a field in which I don't want to continue doing lab work in and I'm looking to make myself competitive for more cutting-edge, molecular neuroscience/electrophysiology labs in medical school. My grades/test scores shouldn't be a problem, but I'm worried that they won't trump experience. I don't yet have a publication, but I might by the time I'm applying for labs in med school (yeah, I'm leaning towards doing just a straight MD program, but I figure this is a relevant subforum to ask this in).

As such, I was wondering if anyone knew of places that offered technical training/open lab courses other than Cold Spring Harbor. I'm probably going to try to apply to an ion physiology or molecular neuroscience course at CSH next summer, but these are expensive and highly selective. Do you have any other suggestions? Thanks.

 

[izibo]

To be honest, I wouldn't worry about it (paying for an open lab course). You'd be surprised how easy it is to walk into someone's lab, tell them you are interested in what they do and you'd like to rotate with them, and they will get you set up. It's really quite amazing to what extent people will go to help studnets learn.

Also, having a lack of experience isn't a problem. As long as you understand the science behind the experiments, the technical aspects are usually not too bad (note: I did say usually 😉 )

 

[Chris Benoit]

Thanks for the reply. You're probably right, and I'm being a cynic about it. I suppose it would matter more if I were trying to get a lab tech job, as opposed to a research rotation spot.

 

[MSTP?]

Thanks for the reply. You're probably right, and I'm being a cynic about it. I suppose it would matter more if I were trying to get a lab tech job, as opposed to a research rotation spot.

Even for a lab tech job, there's an expected learning period at the beginning. Having been in a quite a few labs, the most difficult thing for me is just trying to figure out where everything is stored, where lab stocks are kept and the reorder procedure. Usually in a lab there's one or two experts at whatever protocol you're doing and they're always happy to teach their methods to everyone from undergrads to post-docs. In fact, when I finally got a protocol working as an undergrad, I was teaching some post-docs my method. Lab techniques are useful if you want to hit the ground running in a lab, but there's always expected adjustment period to get familiar with the protocols.