Terrible experience (full story).

[SmashingTomatoes]

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Hello,

I am writing because I have not found any other discussions or forums dealing with this issue and I am just wondering if anyone can understand my issue? It's a little late in the game for me to post this now with my summer program ending soon but I want to know how to best avoid myself getting into this situation in the future. Also, I just want to rant about this terrible experience and am wondering what words of advice, encouragement, or criticism anyone has for me.

I am an undergraduate and I am about to start my third year. I don't go to a large research university so my experience in the lab had only been from my classes (second-level classes like genetics and cell biology and organic chemistry) and I sought out to get as much research experience in a lab as I could get. This summer I was a part of a program (summer research internship) which paired me up with a mentor who was researching an area I was interested in and allowed me therefore to conduct an independent project that my mentor designed for me. I was pretty busy during school so my contacts with the PI beyond introductions and him agreeing to let me work for him didn't really occur untill I was done with classes (mid-May). I was pumped, eager, ready to start because I absolutely loved research and I had an idea of what it would be like from the many science classes I have taken in college (and one Research Methods/Techniques class I took in high school). I didn't recieve any information of how I was to start until I emailed the PI the week before, frantically worrying that I was not going to be prepared the day I was to start. I also asked my PI if I should read anything (papers, publications) in specific regarding the research I thought I was going to be doing. Nope, PI said not necessary. Ok.

So the first week comes around. I get a nice little intro to the lab. My PI says things won't really be happening in terms of getting started until I finish paperwork which I only found out about the day I showed up for work despite having asked him this in my email. This paperwork was not related to the program I applied through but was institutional paperwork that I didn't know existed. Okay so I'll be delayed a week. That's okay, I guess. I can just work on reading some papers and getting familiar with the topic. After having my first official meeting with my PI, he tells me the details (still pretty vaguely or maybe I just didn't understand them well enough) on my project. Way different than what I initially saw the abstract was about and I learned this was for a new paper/abstract he submitted more recently. Ok, that's fine. I'm still excited I get to do independent work and be part of the research team conducting experiments and all that jazz.

By then I have met with everyone in the lab. I'm not yet fully comfortable talking to eveeryone but I am at least trying to talk to the main people who I am to be in regular contact with. I was given two main contacts besides my PI for day-to-day work. One of my contacts was not there everyday because that person split her time between two labs. This was actually the person I ended up working most closely with because this person's project was very relevant to mine (the exact same things pretty much but in a different cell model). The other contact was someone who worked everyday but his work had pretty much nothing to do with what I was doing so he would not have been able to really give me any work to do regarding my project. I asked him if he needed any help with anything, that I would be available because I had nothing to do every day since I had been there (this is two weeks in mind you) and he would sometimes allow me to watch while he performed an experiment but that quickly faded and soon I found myself asking the same thing later but not getting invited to even just watch. I don't doubt this guy is very busy and maybe he thought that it would bore me but quite the contrary, though not as exciting as actually getting to perform the experiments, I would have still been happy to do SOMETHING. I didn't want to feel like I was wasting time just sitting in the lab so I researched, and researched, and reasearched, and read, and read, and read plenty of papers on a variety of things: the topic, all previous publications by my PI related to this research, papers on techniques and research protocols, how to papers on data analysis, etc. Just tons of research. I thought, "why not just get this preliminary stuff started so that I have a lot of background to draw from when making my research poster?" The third week rolls around and I have yet to begin on the experiments my PI had planned for me to do. I'm not even being made to prepare anything like stocks, solutions, and reagents that others will be using. No, this is a pretty self-sufficient lab. If felt useless. I felt like I was becoming some burdon on them because they didn't ask me to be involved in anything they were doing and when I offered to help, they would not give me anything to help them with. I send an email to my summer program coordinator asking for help on how I can actually start doing things in this lab and I am told to talk to my PI. My PI and my supervisor and I meet one day to discuss the project in more detail. this gives me much more information and less confusion on what we actually have planned to do as far as experimentation goes. Woohoo, my eagerness for this project is renewed!

And then two more weeks go by. And literally, all the experiments we do are slow moving for a while. I am modifying and adjusting one thing but I am worried I will not have enough data or information or experiments done by the time I finish my internship. Furthermore, my supervisor does not let me do any of the work myself or insists on doing it for me. I offer to do anything I can get my hands on. I am a volunteer for them after all and they have just mostly treated me like an observer there to collect data. I was okay with being occupied with one simple experiment for about two weeks but I feared time to be running out and we hadn't even started the experiments. I am in panic mode now. I send an email basically telling my PI that the deadlines are coming up and I have nothing so far. Then something happens which frustrates me even further. I found out that my supervisor thought I would be in their lab longer than I actually was to stay and so she hadn't planned for me to do all this work earlier because of exactly that. That's probably my fault, not communicating to my supervisor (my PI already knew but was very busy) that I needed data by certain deadlines. This is the one thing I cannot forgive myself for but even as my supervisor is helping me speed up our experiments adn data collection (where I have volunteered several times to come in on the weekend if necessary and do any setting up or experiments we need finished since there's usually someone else there) she is still doing ALL the work. I am still being made to somply watch. I don't mean to complain but what kind of research experience is this where I can't even perform my own experiments.

I tried speaking up about it to my superviser ---when can we start my experiment?....when can we do this and that?-- but she kept giving telling me how she hadn't really expected my experiments to work and to wait until we get conclusive data from her experiments before starting mine. Tick-tock. The time was going right before my eyes. Suddenly I found myself becoming involved in her experiment --mostly out of my wanting to be able to just apply what I learn from watching her experiments to my experiments so that I could do it myself. I feel like I wasted everyone's time and that my time was wasted as well. There was a bit of a language barrier at first but then I became able to understand the people in my lab --especially when they used scientific jargon I did not yet know. Overall, this was a terrible experience for me and I feel like most of it was my fault. I didn't want to be the intruder or anything because they were after all spending their time and resources to teach me but at the same time, I felt more like I was shadowing them than anything else save for the occaisional mainintaining the cell line and that time I ran a single protocol multiple times to optimize it for efficiency. When I watched other students and their mentors working everyday on something, I had this urge to just go up to them and ask them to adopt me into their lab. "Just give me work to do, anything at all. I'll do it." Unfortunately, I felt like this only after having spent a bit of time already trying to get to know my mentor and my lab.

That's all I have to share. If you read through this entire rant and think that I deserve no sympathy, I'm not trying to get any of that really but being such a newbie at this I want to understand how to prevent this from ever happening again and if this is something you've encountered ever, please let me know I'm not alone.

 

[Medstart108]

I have a boss from hell and my job isn't what i applied for. At least your boss doesn't yell at you for the smallest things and yell at you for other people's mistakes. My boss doesn't believe in sick days lol, says taking a day off (unpaid mind you) is a bad impression and "not what we do here". Boss also stymies all my opportunities and doesn't even let me ask people to shadow them. The workplace is filled to the brim with gossip and corporate politics, even a summer student can't avoid it. I've been told i would do things and they all fell apart. Haven't done any research yet, barely even introduced to it, lots of yelling, they never seem to be in the rush to pay me.

 

[SmashingTomatoes]

I understand your issues with your boss. I'm not getting paid by them but from my internship program so that is why I don't care as much about the money but the fact that I wasn't trained like I see other students being trained. I'm sorry for your experience --hopefully we both get better positions next year.

 

[scarletgirl777]

This story struck a chord so I thought I'd say a few things:
1) Be glad this happened to you when it did, early in your career, when being productive in the lab is optional. Now you can move on and make sure you NEVER again work with anyone who was associated with this project.
2) This is the danger of these standalone summer programs. They are extremely variable in terms of how they vet mentors and potential mentors. In the future, it would be best if you could pick your PI yourself in a very careful way and find out whether or not they have a track record of successfully mentoring students at your level. It doesn't matter how driven or smart you are, you cannot produce anything with this kind of mentor. One thing that I think is appropriate to ask for in an undergraduate level experience is if past students have been able to present posters, even if just at student meetings. As a medical student I asked about this and about publishing papers for a summer program I got into at a very prestigious university. People hemmed and hawed and ultimately weren't able to offer any kind of guarantee that this would be likely or even a possibility for a motivated person. I dropped the program and chose to go with something else where I was able to get that outcome, even though it was not a prestigious program, which brings me to
3) In research, in the end it's the product that matters, not the name. Choose programs that can satisfy your goals over the branding of the program or the university with which they are associated
4) If they say there's no paperwork, don't be so quick to believe it. There is ALWAYS paperwork, especially if you are going to a new institution to work on a project.
5) Be extra careful if you are unpaid or are not being paid by the lab. PIs may be eager to accept free labor even if they don't need it because it costs them nothing so they don't need to think critically about how they will use you. If you were being paid by the PI, it is almost certain that this would not have happened to you. Reaching out to PIs who were already actively advertising for students they were planning to pay on their own with defined projects in mind might be helpful. Being a PI is stressful and ultimately they are looking out for #1, do not assume without supporting evidence that just because they are a professor at a university they are necessarily concerned about your welfare.
6) Even in the best of situations, it will take you some time to actually have a desk/phone/email/bench and hit your stride. Any preparation you can do before the start of the program will be tremendously helpful and worth it down the road, especially in the context of a short-term summer project.

 

[DesertPT]

I work in a lab right now and let me tell you once I transitioned from unpaid to paid things got hella busy. I had week or two of nothing to do like that and as feeling like you, wanting to be given assignments ...be careful what you wish for haha. But seriously it may be worth it for you to hold out for a paid internship in the future.

 

[IslandStyle808]

This story struck a chord so I thought I'd say a few things:
1) Be glad this happened to you when it did, early in your career, when being productive in the lab is optional. Now you can move on and make sure you NEVER again work with anyone who was associated with this project.
2) This is the danger of these standalone summer programs. They are extremely variable in terms of how they vet mentors and potential mentors. In the future, it would be best if you could pick your PI yourself in a very careful way and find out whether or not they have a track record of successfully mentoring students at your level. It doesn't matter how driven or smart you are, you cannot produce anything with this kind of mentor. One thing that I think is appropriate to ask for in an undergraduate level experience is if past students have been able to present posters, even if just at student meetings. As a medical student I asked about this and about publishing papers for a summer program I got into at a very prestigious university. People hemmed and hawed and ultimately weren't able to offer any kind of guarantee that this would be likely or even a possibility for a motivated person. I dropped the program and chose to go with something else where I was able to get that outcome, even though it was not a prestigious program, which brings me to
3) In research, in the end it's the product that matters, not the name. Choose programs that can satisfy your goals over the branding of the program or the university with which they are associated
4) If they say there's no paperwork, don't be so quick to believe it. There is ALWAYS paperwork, especially if you are going to a new institution to work on a project.
5) Be extra careful if you are unpaid or are not being paid by the lab. PIs may be eager to accept free labor even if they don't need it because it costs them nothing so they don't need to think critically about how they will use you. If you were being paid by the PI, it is almost certain that this would not have happened to you. Reaching out to PIs who were already actively advertising for students they were planning to pay on their own with defined projects in mind might be helpful. Being a PI is stressful and ultimately they are looking out for #1, do not assume without supporting evidence that just because they are a professor at a university they are necessarily concerned about your welfare.
6) Even in the best of situations, it will take you some time to actually have a desk/phone/email/bench and hit your stride. Any preparation you can do before the start of the program will be tremendously helpful and worth it down the road, especially in the context of a short-term summer project.

This is the risk of "any" volunteer research position. If you are not a classified student in graduate or medical school, these PIs can throw you away, if your presence creates any trouble for them. You don't really get to pick or choose that easily in most cases, you have take what you get.

 

[SmashingTomatoes]

This story struck a chord so I thought I'd say a few things:
1) Be glad this happened to you when it did, early in your career, when being productive in the lab is optional. Now you can move on and make sure you NEVER again work with anyone who was associated with this project.
2) This is the danger of these standalone summer programs. They are extremely variable in terms of how they vet mentors and potential mentors. In the future, it would be best if you could pick your PI yourself in a very careful way and find out whether or not they have a track record of successfully mentoring students at your level. It doesn't matter how driven or smart you are, you cannot produce anything with this kind of mentor. One thing that I think is appropriate to ask for in an undergraduate level experience is if past students have been able to present posters, even if just at student meetings. As a medical student I asked about this and about publishing papers for a summer program I got into at a very prestigious university. People hemmed and hawed and ultimately weren't able to offer any kind of guarantee that this would be likely or even a possibility for a motivated person. I dropped the program and chose to go with something else where I was able to get that outcome, even though it was not a prestigious program, which brings me to
3) In research, in the end it's the product that matters, not the name. Choose programs that can satisfy your goals over the branding of the program or the university with which they are associated
4) If they say there's no paperwork, don't be so quick to believe it. There is ALWAYS paperwork, especially if you are going to a new institution to work on a project.
5) Be extra careful if you are unpaid or are not being paid by the lab. PIs may be eager to accept free labor even if they don't need it because it costs them nothing so they don't need to think critically about how they will use you. If you were being paid by the PI, it is almost certain that this would not have happened to you. Reaching out to PIs who were already actively advertising for students they were planning to pay on their own with defined projects in mind might be helpful. Being a PI is stressful and ultimately they are looking out for #1, do not assume without supporting evidence that just because they are a professor at a university they are necessarily concerned about your welfare.
6) Even in the best of situations, it will take you some time to actually have a desk/phone/email/bench and hit your stride. Any preparation you can do before the start of the program will be tremendously helpful and worth it down the road, especially in the context of a short-term summer project.

Thanks scarletgirl777,
This past summer really put my life in perspective and thank you for your response. I think despite the fact that this may happen a lot to unpaid interns, I learned to do a better job about choosing my mentor. I initially chose that lab because it's location was where I wanted to apply to medical school and the commute was going to be easy since I have been there before. in addition, it seemed like the research he had last worked on had some potentially interesting things to learn. But, I defnitely learned to 1- really research the lab and their projects and 2-communicate clarly with my mentor even if s/he is a busy person. I thought that this would mean the end for my chance to do research but there were no hard feelings in the end and my mentor is at least willing to write a recommendation letter for me to reapply to my summer program with a different lab (so hopefully that is a good thing). I mostly am just trying to learn how to obtain these kinds of positions because I don't want to be underqualified with such little experience. I am glad to know it's not too late but I know I will have to prove I really want to do this if I want other labs to take me seriously.
Thanks again for the advice!