Research hours

[bigbad]

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So I'm a freshman and I have the opportunity to apply for a research position in my prof's lab. The thing is that there's a couple years' commitment at about 10 hours/week. That sounds like a little bit too much at the moment. If I want it, I'll need to apply now.

But there's another prof who has a significantly lower commitment but I'll have to wait until next quarter or maybe even next year to see if he has any openings. He seems to have a lot of students working in his lab.

I really wanted to start doing research this year but I don't know if I'll be able to handle that many hours. Both labs sound equally interesting so I don't know if I should just go for it or wait and risk not getting anything.

I know I'll probably get a lot of people telling me that I'm a freshman and better off waiting, but keep in mind that it's pretty competitive and I risk not getting anything at all later on. What do you guys think?

Thanks. 😀

 

[KickStart]

So I'm a freshman and I have the opportunity to apply for a research position in my prof's lab. The thing is that there's a couple years' commitment at about 10 hours/week. That sounds like a little bit too much at the moment. If I want it, I'll need to apply now.

But there's another prof who has a significantly lower commitment but I'll have to wait until next quarter or maybe even next year to see if he has any openings. He seems to have a lot of students working in his lab.

I really wanted to start doing research this year but I don't know if I'll be able to handle that many hours. Both labs sound equally interesting so I don't know if I should just go for it or wait and risk not getting anything.

I know I'll probably get a lot of people telling me that I'm a freshman and better off waiting, but keep in mind that it's pretty competitive and I risk not getting anything at all later on. What do you guys think?

Thanks. 😀

Go for it now! Best of luck

 

[hurryupnwait]

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[hurryupnwait]

Ten hours a week really isn't that much of a time commitment for getting anything meaningful done. I worked 20/week as an undergrad.

Keep in mind though, you most likely won't be on your feet "working" the whole 10 hours in the lab. Rather, you'll have down time in between things to catch on up homework/read up on your research topic.

 

[bigbad]

Ten hours a week really isn't that much of a time commitment for getting anything meaningful done. I worked 20/week as an undergrad.

Keep in mind though, you most likely won't be on your feet "working" the whole 10 hours in the lab. Rather, you'll have down time in between things to catch on up homework/read up on your research topic.

So those 10 hours aren't always full on work time? Are you expected to finish certain tasks during the week or is it whatever you get done during the time you're supposed to be in the lab?

 

[tinery]

So I'm a freshman and I have the opportunity to apply for a research position in my prof's lab. The thing is that there's a couple years' commitment at about 10 hours/week. That sounds like a little bit too much at the moment. If I want it, I'll need to apply now.

Start research as soon as you're ready, because you'll spend a lot of time learning techniques and stuff and then if you decide you don't like the lab you'll still have plenty of time to try out other labs. 10 hours/week really isn't bad, depending on the kind of research you do you might spend 3hrs in lab but only a few days a week, or you might be going in and out for 1/2 an hour several times a day. And it's true, a lot of the time is idle (I'm in my lab right now, shh).

But there's another prof who has a significantly lower commitment but I'll have to wait until next quarter or maybe even next year to see if he has any openings. He seems to have a lot of students working in his lab.

I really wanted to start doing research this year but I don't know if I'll be able to handle that many hours. Both labs sound equally interesting so I don't know if I should just go for it or wait and risk not getting anything.

I know I'll probably get a lot of people telling me that I'm a freshman and better off waiting, but keep in mind that it's pretty competitive and I risk not getting anything at all later on. What do you guys think?

Thanks. 😀

It sounds like you won't be very productive in this other lab. Maybe it's nice that it's a very popular lab but that also means you'll be competing for attention from your PI with all his undergrads, grad students and post docs. And you want your PI to know a lot about you and your abilities. Plus, if your time requirement is small, how much can you accomplish?

It depends on what your goal for doing research is, if it's just to satisfy the unwritten premed research requirement, then maybe you should wait to join this lab so you won't have to invest too much time. But if you're really interested in doing research and maybe want to get a publication where you won't be 6th or 7th author, then I'd say go with the first lab.

Hope that helps!

 

[tinery]

So those 10 hours aren't always full on work time? Are you expected to finish certain tasks during the week or is it whatever you get done during the time you're supposed to be in the lab?

Every lab is different! The PI of the first lab I worked in wanted his undergrads to be in lab for a certain number of hours, and do whatever had to be done during those hours. It wasn't a wet lab so I didn't do any bench work. I collected data from test subjects and analyzed them.

But since then I've worked in 3 different genetics/molecular/cell bio labs and it's project-based. You go in when your experiments require you to be there. You don't go in just to hang out. So the time you spend in lab is dictated by your experiments. Of course, sometimes you can get a postdoc to help you out if you really can't be there.