How often do you guys make mistake in the lab? What do your supervisors think?

[firsttimer123]

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Title says it all. I am working in a research lab and I keep making mistakes. For example, some reason the genotyping does not work on the mice, western blots take 5-10 attempts to work, RNA concentrations are low, and other things go wrong. Sometimes it is not my fault (bad reagents) and other times it is (I forget to add a primer). I am still friendly to everyone, and I try to help others out if I can.

I have been working in the lab for 1-1/2 years but I still mess up. I feel like when I ask for a letter my PI might mention my lack of success or disorganization/attention. I have been working fulltime (I already graduated). What do you guys think and what was your experience? I need this letter and I am leaving this job soon. He said she would write a good letter but I am not 100% sure. Why would he if she keeps mentioning my mistakes and room for improvement. How common are mistakes and issues in lab due to personal mistake?

 

[Goro]

When you keep making the same mistake over and over, it sounds like you're simply not paying attention to what you're doing.

Are you trying to rely on brute memory, instead of working from a protocol? If so stop doing that and use a checklist

Making mistakes unfortunately, is built into science. That's why you keep on doing things until you get them right. But you should not have a learning curve of more than say 5 experiments or procedures before you get it down.

Pre-meds constitutionally over rate the importance of a letter from PI. Unless you're going for an MD PhD, you don't need it from this PI .

Pre-meds also overvalue the importance of research in their application.

 

[Goro]

A more damning indictment is that you are not learning from your mistakes.

I have written bad letters of recommendation for rare students who have displayed this trait.

 

[hopefulgastro]

Mistakes will happen in science. As long as you don't make the same mistake multiple times it will be okay. Principal investigators know that mistakes happen especially in those that are new to the lab.

Around 8 months or so is when it started to "click" for me and I became much more efficient and effective in lab.

Try to stay as organized as possible in your last few months. Follow your protocols directly, make sure you're a bit anal retentive about your reagents and techniques. Try to finish strong and excel in the experiments that you have done before and realize that there will always be mistakes or inconclusive data in newer experiments/tests

 

[Robin-jay]

Title says it all. I am working in a research lab and I keep making mistakes. For example, some reason the genotyping does not work on the mice, western blots take 5-10 attempts to work, RNA concentrations are low, and other things go wrong. Sometimes it is not my fault (bad reagents) and other times it is (I forget to add a primer). I am still friendly to everyone, and I try to help others out if I can.

I have been working in the lab for 1-1/2 years but I still mess up. I feel like when I ask for a letter my PI might mention my lack of success or disorganization/attention. I have been working fulltime (I already graduated). What do you guys think and what was your experience? I need this letter and I am leaving this job soon. He said she would write a good letter but I am not 100% sure. Why would he if she keeps mentioning my mistakes and room for improvement. How common are mistakes and issues in lab due to personal mistake?

I'm a laid back kind of dude, so as long as you put in effort in my laboratory, I wouldn't care too much. I have more important things to get upset about.

However, a part of me would still be sad that my trainee won't ever be good enough to help me publish data.

If your PI said they would write you a positive LOR, generally you should trust them.

 

[faerie62]

It's natural to make those silly mistakes in lab (I know I'm forgetful and this is also my area of weakness so I feel you). It's also fair for your PI to point them out, they're there as a mentor, so they should be honest with you about where you can improve. I don't see why you don't believe them when they say they'd write a great LOR. I don't know any faculty who would lie about that; if they didn't feel they could recommend you, they'd just say no.

 

[smukke]

If you've been working full time in a lab for 1.5 years and routinely forget to add a primer, that's pretty bad reflection of your disorganization/inattention (always set up your bench the same way, print out a diagram if you need to). Routinely having bad reagents is a bad reflection of you/lab staff/manager/PI (where are you sourcing and storing these reagents?!?! and why is no one running a known good control?!?). Not fixing this for so long means you are in a bad lab, unless others are showing more consistent results then it's you (you should have asked them what makes them more consistent even with these factors they can't control).

I've been there, academic labs are notoriously bad at documentation, often times the "protocol" is a badly photocopied page out of someone's lab notebook; whereas ideally there should be a standardized template to fill out to be followed as a protocol by you/others if this is something that would do more than a couple of times. And unlike clinical/pharma/commercial labs there's no one to validate reagents before they are available for your use (or enforce using the standardized templates). But that still doesn't let you off the hook if others are showing more consistency in their results.

I will say that there are things like WB that can be notoriously finicky but it's also your job to be on top of the details to try to make them more consistent. Trying to optimize a new method can take time and effort, but the end result is that this is a method that you can replicate and trust or it's just trash (and a WB that takes 5-10 tries is trash). The real question is, deep down, do you think it's you or the method?

 

[deleted938090]

Title says it all. I am working in a research lab and I keep making mistakes. For example, some reason the genotyping does not work on the mice, western blots take 5-10 attempts to work, RNA concentrations are low, and other things go wrong. Sometimes it is not my fault (bad reagents) and other times it is (I forget to add a primer). I am still friendly to everyone, and I try to help others out if I can.

I have been working in the lab for 1-1/2 years but I still mess up. I feel like when I ask for a letter my PI might mention my lack of success or disorganization/attention. I have been working fulltime (I already graduated). What do you guys think and what was your experience? I need this letter and I am leaving this job soon. He said she would write a good letter but I am not 100% sure. Why would he if she keeps mentioning my mistakes and room for improvement. How common are mistakes and issues in lab due to personal mistake?

Genotyping mice - its normal to have a few bad results while you find a good primer. Once you get the good primer, the reactions should be fast and easy because DNA is really easy to obtain in enough quantities to send for sequencing. If it's the finding a primer stage, it's okay to fail a couple of times as you mess around with the buffer and conditions. But if is persistent, maybe you should try a new primer.

Western blots - all about the antibody. These can get really annoying if you don't find a good antibody. But 5-10, maybe you're being careless? Did you wash appropriately? Did you load equally? Are the fluorescent labels alive?

Low RNA concentration - did you lose your pellet? If you make sure that your cells are at enough confluency and make sure you didn't lose your pellet; it should be pretty decent concentration. Maybe try using spinning tube for RNA extraction. Also did you make sure you don't contaminate with RNAse?

Forgetting to add a primer is a very bad reflection, however. Forgetting reagents should never happen. After 1.5 years, you should be able to do DNA/RNA extractions and sequencing reactions easily.

 

[freedoctor17]

A more damning indictment is that you are not learning from your mistakes.

I have written bad letters of recommendation for rare students who have displayed this trait.

Wouldn't it be better to tell them you won't write them a letter? I find it strange that bad letters of recommendation are a thing when it kinda defeats the purpose. Like do you write a letter on why you wouldn't recommend them instead or you just mean it's a low quality letter in general?

Edit: Just curious about this since I've heard red flags in letters have ruined many a good applicant

 

[Goro]

Wouldn't it be better to tell them you won't write them a letter? I find it strange that bad letters of recommendation are a thing when it kinda defeats the purpose. Like do you write a letter on why you wouldn't recommend them instead or you just mean it's a low quality letter in general?

Edit: Just curious about this since I've heard red flags in letters have ruined many a good applicant

Normally I do tell them I can't write them a good LOR. I had to do this several times this year with some of our SMP students.

But RARELY, there are people who are so careless and foolish that I feel that they simply do not deserve to be doctors. I have no problem sticking the knife in them.

NOTE: this is not merely do to their being poor researchers in the lab...that's common, and I am very patient with making mistakes. Rather, their ineptitude extended to their academics, and also the fact that they ever learned from their mistakes. nor had any insight. One of these students also talked a big game like he knew what he was doing from prior experience, but it turned out he misrepresented his skillset.

I still remember what it's like to be a grad student, and my mentors were very kind and patient with me. I always try to return that.

 

[PickleRickelus]

I have also worked in a lab so can sympathize with the learning curve. It is easy to forget certain things which is why you should always adhere to a protocol and document everything you do in your lab notebook. This helps you diagnose what went wrong (or right) but also greatly helps the person who will inherit your projects when you leave so they do not have to start from square one.

In your case, I agree that this sounds like an issue with organization. If your PI is aware of these deficiencies and they still agreed to write you a strong LOR, then you probably exhibited strengths in other areas to make up for it. Do you take the initiative to maintain the lab on your spare time by washing, cleaning, sterilizing or restocking equipment? Do you contribute to a positive working environment? Does everyone work their best because of your contributions to the point where if you were gone then the lab would simply not function as well? Have you had success in lab meetings or presentations?

If you feel pretty confident that this is the case then I would have faith that it is indeed a good LOR but you should also be prepared to discuss your lack of results in interviews if it turns out that your PI mentioned you disorganization/inattention. Only you can really know what the best course of action is as we do not have all the information to help you make an informed decision.