Meeting with profs + PhD students about research- what do I ask?

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Analog

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Ok so I talked to a guest lecturer after class one day and asked him about research opportunities as an undergraduate, he told me to email him and we have a meeting planned for Friday. His email said "You will have a discussion with me and talk to students and learn your options." So I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice about what to ask them, the students or whatever, because he said I'll be talking to them...

EDIT- I have another question 😛
Ok important question- do you guys think jeans would be Ok? I ran around the city looking for khakis and found none that fit me. Meeting is tomorrow morning.
 
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Ask about their individual research projects... If you plan on joining a lab, try to join under a graduate student who is doing a project that interests you, regardless of how geared towards medicine you may think it is.

As a researcher myself, I would say that the most important question you could ask would be much time you would be expected to spend in the lab as an undergrad. If you are serious about research, I would put more hours in than they ask (my graduate lab asked undergrads for something like 10 hours a week..not much at all. But the ones that we actually trained to do things put in well over 20 hours/week)... Also, ask what the typical undergrad responsibilities are in their lab? (Dont be supprised if they say wash dishes - theres nothing wrong with washing dishes...I did it for a while as an undergrad and had to work my way up over a couple years).

If you want to show your really interested in the research, ask if they have any publications from some of their projects, and if they do, see if they have a reprint or if they can give you a title/author list so you can go on pubmed and print them out...then read them. Or, you might go on to the PI's website, if he has one, and get a list of their recent publications (its common for them to list them..just not always up to date). If you can get ahold of some papers, read them and then ask questions regarding the actual research..get a feel for the depth of the science that they are exploring. But, most of all, if you do all that, it will show the graduate students/PI that you are really interested in research, and not just a pre-med looking for a year of "research" experience.
 
Ask about their individual research projects... If you plan on joining a lab, try to join under a graduate student who is doing a project that interests you, regardless of how geared towards medicine you may think it is.

As a researcher myself, I would say that the most important question you could ask would be much time you would be expected to spend in the lab as an undergrad. If you are serious about research, I would put more hours in than they ask (my graduate lab asked undergrads for something like 10 hours a week..not much at all. But the ones that we actually trained to do things put in well over 20 hours/week)... Also, ask what the typical undergrad responsibilities are in their lab? (Dont be supprised if they say wash dishes - theres nothing wrong with washing dishes...I did it for a while as an undergrad and had to work my way up over a couple years).

If you want to show your really interested in the research, ask if they have any publications from some of their projects, and if they do, see if they have a reprint or if they can give you a title/author list so you can go on pubmed and print them out...then read them. Or, you might go on to the PI's website, if he has one, and get a list of their recent publications (its common for them to list them..just not always up to date). If you can get ahold of some papers, read them and then ask questions regarding the actual research..get a feel for the depth of the science that they are exploring. But, most of all, if you do all that, it will show the graduate students/PI that you are really interested in research, and not just a pre-med looking for a year of "research" experience.

Thanks so much. I'm definitely hoping one of them is involved in some cell biology type stuff because that interests me. Between 10 and 20 would be comfortable for me while in school, I would hope they can work around my exams though.

I'm totally willing to wash dishes too. Unfortunately I can't 'prove' myself to the grad students before this because I have no idea who they are or where they work.

Should I be expecting to be paid? I wasn't really thinking about that going into this...I'd be fine doing it free for the experience but as it gets closer I'm wondering if they're gonna want to pay me minimum wage. I'd be fine if they paid me with a LOR 😛
 
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:laugh:

No. You're an undergrad. You are free labor. Your payment will be course credit, LORs and Experience.

👍 Makes it seem more legit this way

Haha, this prof doesn't even teach at my school.
 
:laugh:

No. You're an undergrad. You are free labor. Your payment will be course credit, LORs and Experience.

The course credit is where it is at. Sometimes you can even earn a letter grade for it (depending on your school/department). So easy gpa booster+ a good ec overall.

If you stay on over the summer, you can ask the PI if he is willing to offer you a small stipend, which happens a lot of the time. The stipend will be small and barely enough to cover your rent though.
 
The course credit is where it is at. Sometimes you can even earn a letter grade for it (depending on your school/department). So easy gpa booster+ a good ec overall.

If you stay on over the summer, you can ask the PI if he is willing to offer you a small stipend, which happens a lot of the time. The stipend will be small and barely enough to cover your rent though.

I won't be using it for course credit since it's pretty much not associated with my school at all. The professor i'm doing it through teaches at the medicine/med rehab campus way across town and I don't believe i'll be doing research with him, I think he just wants to introduce me to some people in labs to see if they need help
 
Ok important question- do you guys think jeans would be Ok? I ran around the city looking for khakis and found none that fit me. Meeting is tomorrow morning.
 
Yeah jeans will be fine.

Cool thanks👍

I should probably mention that when this guy talked to us someone he was talking about being a professor and he said he got to wear stuff like this to work every day, and he was in jeans and a nike hoodie 😛
 
Sorry I didnt reply earlier...

No I wouldnt go into it expecting to be paid. I worked in a lab as an undergrad for 2 years just for credit. At my school, after 2 semesters in the lab my professor just started giving me credit and not a grade for my time. But in the middle of my Junior year, the buisness that I was working for had closed down and I told the PI that I had to get a new job and probably wouldnt be able to work in the lab anymore (the job I had originally let me schedual my own hours, more or less)...once I told him that he offerred to pay me to do research for him. In all my years in lab now, it has more or less worked in this fashion. Not a single undergrad I have seen has joined a lab and been paid for it initially. Usually, they are in the lab for a year or so, to the point where they have been trained to do a good majority of the lab work, and that to lose them actually costs the lab more money than to just pay them to stay. Now, if your not getting credit for the research, then you might be able to work something out to where you can atleast get some volunteer hours logged or something. But, after atleast a year of being a part of the lab, especially if the lab is well funded and you do a good deal of work there, I would not hesitate to ask for some sort of monetary compensation for your work or atleast be put on a publication here and there.

Most the time Jeans are just fine for lab work. If this lab is in a hospital, which is the setting that the lab I work for now is in, the hospital may have requirements such as profesional atire... My hospital has these requirements, but I admit that I even ignore the rule under certain circumstances (when I work with animals)..and no one bothers me about it...but I would atleast ask someone that works in the lab what they suggest.

Good Luck
 
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