Poll: how many hours of undergrad research do you do per week?

Med School Insiders
This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

Poll: how many hours of undergrad research do you do per week?

  • Total voters
    141
technician

technician

Full Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Mar 31, 2013
Messages
77
Reaction score
68
.
Members don't see this ad.
 
Last edited:
I did 25-30 for 1.5 years then 40 for 5 months...
 
Members don't see this ad :)
15-20 hours a week. My professor said you need to do at least 15 hours per week to have any progress. The shortest protocol in our lab takes at least 5 hours...
 
Guess I'm on the short end here lol... I did 3-6 hours a week depending on the semester. I mostly ran gel electrophoresis, set up PCRs or analyzed images which don't take very long though...
 
I average around 15hrs/week, but it depends on the semester. I did do a semester of 25hrs/week when I was running 4 western blots a week, which take forever.
 
i was doing an antibiotic synthesis project (organic synth) and averaged probably 10. this was at a school of 1700 undergrads though so take that for what it's worth.
 
Started out at 10-15/week for a year, then dropped to about 4/week. I worked in two labs though. In retrospect, if given the opportunity to do it again, I'd have done even less work in research and more in volunteering.
 
When's the best time to start doing research?
 
It depends on the lab or project. Some are just more time-intensive than others.
 
Averaged 20 hrs/week during my senior thesis project. Start when you have a lot of time on your hands, since your project might require a lot of attention. Summer research is enough to get your feet wet.
 
At my molecular bio/toxicology lab, I usually average 10-14 hours a week. And occasionally, I would come in the lab on the weekends to do animal husbandry and do water chemistry tests on the fish tanks we use for zebrafish.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
12+ weekly. 40-60 during the summers.
 
Do most people get paid for their research? I hardly get any money but it seems as if a lot of people don't get paid at all
 
Assisted with two semesters of metagenomics research. Wasn't a very big time commitment, particularly the second semester. Definitely <5 for a lot of those weeks. Closer to 10-12 for the more "intense" weeks.
 
allenlchs said:
When's the best time to start doing research?
Click to expand...

I think that's up to the person. Personally I started the summer before my junior year. For me I couldn't imagine doing research as a freshman as I was concerned with focusing on my grades, but this is up to the person.
 
allenlchs said:
When's the best time to start doing research?
Click to expand...

When you are doing well in your classes and are confident that the extra commitment of 10-15 hours per week (minimum) will not interfere with your grades. Research experience can always be gained later on, but your GPA is very hard to repair once tanked. Also, it's best to begin during a summer you work full time so that you'll have more time to become familiar with basic techniques you'll need to use.
 
Bodysurfer said:
15+. Did not get paid
Click to expand...

How long did do research for? I personally would not put in such a time commitment without getting paid lol.

I think I averaged 10 hours per week for two years and then 20 hours per week for my two senior thesis projects.
 
15-20. My professor said I need to be there for at least 15 hours to earn my credit and learn things, which he was correct about. The procedures also took a while to complete such as western blotting.
 
Eh, I did ~9 hours for credit during the school year. In retrospect I wish I had started sooner and worked a little bit harder.
 
Depended on the semester.
Sophomore year ~20 hours first semester/ ~10 hours second,
Junior year ~ 10 hours,
Summer after Junior year ~ 40
Senior fall ~ 10 hours / spring 0 🙂))
 
First project - maybe 4-5 hours a week for 8 months (summer-winter) or so. Averages, as some weeks I would do 20-30 hrs and others I would do basically nothing.

Second project - 40-45 hours/week for 6 months (summer-fall). Numbers inflated by two 16-hr days (8:30 am - 12:30 am the following day) a week for some time.
 
Close to 10 hours or slightly less a week during my busier years (freshman, sophomore). 15-20 hours a week during my last two years. It was kind of hard getting research in with 5 hour organic/gchem and bio labs on top of each other.
 
Started summer after sophomore year with 40 hours a week, fall quarter =30 hrs/week, winter quarter was 25 hrs a weeks, and spring quarter was 35 hrs/week, and now I'm back for summer full time aka 30-60 depending on the weekly goal. I do get paid though and run a microscope research and development lab.
 
Did research for 2 summers, ~40hrs/week. No research during school year.
 
chillinillinkillin007 said:
Do most people get paid for their research? I hardly get any money but it seems as if a lot of people don't get paid at all
Click to expand...

You're fortunate if you were getting paid. Undergrad pay is usually $8-10/hr. Once you graduate, pay is usually $12-17/hr.
 
Is there an option for 0?

Jk, I do research all the time, in my head.
 
chillinillinkillin007 said:
Do most people get paid for their research? I hardly get any money but it seems as if a lot of people don't get paid at all
Click to expand...

I work 40-50 hrs/week during the summer and get paid around $8 an hour. During the semester though, it counts as credit for an independent study class and I don't get paid for that.
 
Lawper said:
:laugh: I should've clarified. By true, I meant basic science ("wet lab"). Not sure how you fit that into 10 hours per week.
Click to expand...

That's why most people like to use this formula on the AAMAS:

2n + 5, where n = hours actually in lab.
 
I was told by the professor that I was required to do roughly 12 hours total for a 2 day experiment in one week. However, he would ask me to do 2 or 3 experiments by next week so I cranked it up to 25 hours a week. I was stuck on the IHC part of the lab where the shades were shut and everyone was cursing cause of how awful IHCs are. All my friends were on the Western blot side of the lab where the sun was constantly shining and everyone was laughing. People would set up their westerns in 5 minutes and leave for 5 hours to get food while we IHC guys sat there mounting tissue to slides (the worst part of this place). Since there were so many students and so many projects, I had no idea what our overall goal was and ultimately couldn't describe it on my med school app if asked to. Professor thought I wasn't pulling my weight because I would come in at night and he thought my 25 nanometer thick tissues were too dirty for publications (This is when I realized I hated lab work). Ended up leaving because I hated it there and couldn't get a project.

I just started a new clinical research gig and I like it. Since it just started, hours are not entirely set in stone, but the doc said that its prob gonna be 10-15 hours a week once the project gets running.
 
I did ~4-10 hours of psych research per week for two years. It was very hard to do more than that, since we had human subjects with busy schedules who were only available some of the time.

I'm planning to spend 20-30 hours per week this upcoming year on my senior thesis in chemistry.
 
15 hrs/wk during the semester, 40-50 hrs/wk during the summer, starting January 2014. Have a 2nd author paper currently under review.
 
15-20 hours during the semester and 40-50 during the summer.
 
Lawper said:
True research takes much longer than 10 hours/week.
Click to expand...
Teleologist said:
It's okay, 99% of the people above are just doing research to pad their apps.
Click to expand...

That would entirely depend on the project. No PI in their right mind would assign an undergrad a project that would need grad-level hours to complete. I worked 15-20 hours a week with a professor who gave me tasks that I could reasonably finish within the constraints of my schedule. My research was no less "true" or important than his, so pretty please with a cherry on top, stop assuming that 99% of people do this for their apps alone.
 
I do 15-20 a week at my best. Getting paid by the hour is a good motivator for when things are slow in the lab that week. During the summer it's 40.
 
15-25 during the school year and 40-60 during the summer. You cannot make significant progress in a basic science project with less than 15 hours a week.
 
15-20 during junior year and 25-30 during senior year; 50+ during summers

all unpaid
 
4 years of undergrad research with a minimum of 25hrs/week during the academic year. At least 40hrs/week during the summer. I don't see how you can get anything done in just a few hours... maybe clean dishes?
 
Person0715 said:
How long did do research for? I personally would not put in such a time commitment without getting paid lol.

I think I averaged 10 hours per week for two years and then 20 hours per week for my two senior thesis projects.
Click to expand...

2 years. One summer as an intern at a local teaching hospital and the rest during the school year at school. Not getting paid really sucks lol
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

B
  • Question Question
How exactly do research hours work?
Replies
2
Views
731
BigBalla
B
hiiiihi
What counts as research hours?
Replies
11
Views
748
LizzyM
LizzyM
T
How do people with no gap yr get 3~4k+ hours of research??
Replies
12
Views
3K
JukeBoxHeroo
J
77fatcats
  • Question Question
Letter from DO doctor w/ low shadowing hours
Replies
7
Views
737
esob
esob
S
Number of Hours of Activities per week?
Replies
7
Views
1K
LizzyM
LizzyM
Top