how to make time for research

[hardworker101]

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hi
i am just starting this research in nephrology. I am kinda busy with classes, since i will be taking biochem,microbiology, and eukaryotic cell structure in spring. how many hours a week is good to spend in lab to be productive? Also
I looked at some articles from my lab and i don't undrestand a lot of things, what is a good way to learn these?

Thanks alot

 

[ChocolateKiss]

hi
i am just starting this research in nephrology. I am kinda busy with classes, since i will be taking biochem,microbiology, and eukaryotic cell structure in spring. how many hours a week is good to spend in lab to be productive? Also
I looked at some articles from my lab and i don't undrestand a lot of things, what is a good way to learn these?

Thanks alot

You may not like this answer, but I think you need at least 15 hrs/wk to be truly productive in lab, and probably at least two days a week where you can come in for a good 5 hrs or so (b/c most experiments take that at least long). The good thing is that you can do a lot of the time on weekends once you know what you're doing and don't need supervision. I work in a molecular bio lab, and this has been my experience, but others in different areas may think differently.

 

[shantster]

hi
i am just starting this research in nephrology. I am kinda busy with classes, since i will be taking biochem,microbiology, and eukaryotic cell structure in spring. how many hours a week is good to spend in lab to be productive? Also
I looked at some articles from my lab and i don't undrestand a lot of things, what is a good way to learn these?

Thanks alot

See if your mentor can go through the articles with you so that you understand the basics of what is going on in the lab. I found that once I had an idea of what was going on and what I'd be expected to do, it was easier reading the articles. I also found that it became much easier to go through the articles as I read more and more. If you have time, go to PubMed (google search it, it's the first one to come up) and look for related articles to get used to reading articles. Another good thing is to look at the articles that the articles in your lab cited because they should have some background information about the article from your lab.

For time, you'll need a decent amount of time in the lab each week to be productive. Depending on the project that you are working on, you may have a lot of time to just sit and wait while you are performing an experiment so you can get homework done as well. Also, your school may have time limits for how many hours a week you can be there.

 

[Em1]

See if you can find review articles of the topic you're researching. These tend to be easier to understand and are an overview of an entire tipoic, rather than a few really specific details.

 

[jebus]

hi
i am just starting this research in nephrology. I am kinda busy with classes, since i will be taking biochem,microbiology, and eukaryotic cell structure in spring. how many hours a week is good to spend in lab to be productive? Also
I looked at some articles from my lab and i don't undrestand a lot of things, what is a good way to learn these?

Thanks alot

You don't need to understand everything. I would look at the articles, especially the abstracts and the conclusions. Then if you don't understand things you should ask your boss. Ask the post-docs. Ask the graduate students. Ask the techs. Sometimes people will miss the point, too. (I remember when I was a tech, I was explaining the lab's research to a graduate student who was rotating through. Well, the other tech, who dropped out of PhD program like 4 years into it was also there. And she tried to explain the point of the research and she got it all wrong! She was more interested in some stupid phenotype that our transgenic mice exhibited rather than the conclusion: Gene X is necessary for Y! You need Y to live! So, just be careful!)
People like to answer questions and talk about their research/work/children. And if you actually show interest they will like you. You don't even need to ask the most intelligent questions - just make sure you're paying attention.

 

[SkylineMD]

15 hrs a week is a pretty good estimate of how much you should plan on working. Often times, if you are working on a molecular based project, you will need to stop in on consecutive days to check up/modify/continue your experiment.