Time in the lab

[Time]

---

Members do not see this ad.

I have this question: How long do you guys actually spend in the lab DOING experiments? (Or maybe 1. physically present - X hours; 2. doing experiments - Y hours)?

I get this feeling that I work too much compared to other PhD students... so I thought that the best way to know what's really out there is to ask here.

Is is normal that MD/Phd students work more? 😡

 

[Time]

ps. me - 7am-7pm (physical presence)
do experiments about 8-9 hours a day.... 🙁

 

[b&ierstiefel]

I have seen other students in our lab come in around 8 am and leave around 6 pm. However, the majority of their time is done socializing and surfing the net. I'm totally cool with that; however, I typically came into the lab around noon cuz I would wake up late a lot. My buddies in the lab would still go out around 6 pm so I had to use the time a bit more efficiently.

 

[Spacedman]

I have this question: How long do you guys actually spend in the lab DOING experiments? (Or maybe 1. physically present - X hours; 2. doing experiments - Y hours)?

I get this feeling that I work too much compared to other PhD students... so I thought that the best way to know what's really out there is to ask here.

Is is normal that MD/Phd students work more? 😡

physically present: 7/8 am - 8/9 pm
doing experiments: 10 of those hours. now, when i say "doing" , i really mean "babysitting" and "surfing every news outlet from the san jose mercury news to aljazeera".

most people in my dept are on the 8-10 hr plan, tho.

don't sweat it-- time spent now should get you out faster than your phd classmates, unless your pi is an a$$

 

[tr]

Dern, where you guys at?

I am usually physically present in the lab for 11-12 hours (usually come in around 9:30, leave around 8:30-9:30). There are days when it's more than that (14-16), but I almost never work fewer than 10 hours unless there is some emergency or I have writing to do, which I don't do in lab.

Work hours seem to depend more on your PI than on your program (MD/PhD or straight PhD). My lab is definitely a little more hard-ass than most, but I still see plenty of people in other labs logging 12-hour days too.

The weird thing is that I see no correlation whatsoever between time in and results out. Probably there's a difference over the long haul, but at this stage of the game it seems kind of random. I know a few students who were on the six-hour plan who graduated in 3.5 years with no problem, and had papers in good journals to boot.

 

[zep]

The weird thing is that I see no correlation whatsoever between time in and results out.

This is so true.

Another thing to consider when your thinking about time in lab is the type of research you are doing. Some people I know that are molecular biology-types have really different schedules than those of us that use acute animal preps. Similarly, I have couple buddies that do computaional stuff they only spend 5-6 hours a day in lab b/c they can get a lot of work done at home (or wherever they can play on MatLab).

 

[Time]

Thanks guys. More questions:

after a 'normal' working day (whatever that means to you), do you go home and do any of the lab-related material (eg. data analysis, lab meeting prep, presentation prep), or do you do other, non-related things?

I was thinking of learning Spanish. I could imagine doing it 5 times a week or so. Is it reasonable to DO NOTHING after you leave the lab? Is it okay? Doable?

Last question: Do you guys work on Sat/Sun? Do anything lab-related on the weekend? 😕

Thanks.

 

[b&ierstiefel]

Thanks guys. More questions:

after a 'normal' working day (whatever that means to you), do you go home and do any of the lab-related material (eg. data analysis, lab meeting prep, presentation prep), or do you do other, non-related things?

I was thinking of learning Spanish. I could imagine doing it 5 times a week or so. Is it reasonable to DO NOTHING after you leave the lab? Is it okay? Doable?

Last question: Do you guys work on Sat/Sun? Do anything lab-related on the weekend? 😕

Thanks.

I did a lot of microscopy during grad school. When I went home, if I had to make figures or presentations for lab meetings, I would do that in the convenience of my own home. Now that clearly doesn't apply to every day routine. Also, I would work on manuscripts at home as well. I read journal articles mostly in the lab.

The nice thing in grad school is that you CAN have the luxury of keeping work at work and play when you come home. It is totally reasonable to DO NOTHING after you leave the lab. But it depends on how neurotic you are. Are you the type of person who thinks about your work all the time? Or can you let things go when the day is over. I have to admit, I fall somewhere in the middle. But you go out with friends, and you no longer think about that kind of stuff...especially with a few drinks in ya. 🙂

Finally, I did work weekends. Sometimes I would have to sober up for a bit in lab before actually doing work. Again, grad school is nice because of the potential of varying the pace at which you work. Some weeks you can be more ambitions and work longer hours and weekends. On other weeks, you can take it easy and work no weekends. Of course, this can be somewhat dependent on the PI you work for.

 

[mytirf]

I probably worked every weekend, unless I was out of town. My PI says that 50 hours a week is very reasonable, and 60-70 is really the sweet spot with regards to productivity.

-V

 

[zep]

after a 'normal' working day (whatever that means to you), do you go home and do any of the lab-related material (eg. data analysis, lab meeting prep, presentation prep), or do you do other, non-related things?

I think it is very difficult to be productive as a graduate student and NOT spend most nights doing some science-related stuff. Now I?m not talking about leaving lab at 6 and reading papers until 12:30, but just spending some time thinking about your project and doing some reading. Personally, I spent 80% of my time in lab running experiments and the remaining 20% was divided between writing papers, reviewing papers for my PI, playing wiffle ball behind our lab, arguing with the cardiac electrophysiologists across the hall, and goofing off on the internet. So, the best time for me to read and really think was when I got home each night. You can always find time to have some fun too.

I would get into a habit of just spending a little time each night reading articles and thinking about the questions you are asking in the lab.

Last question: Do you guys work on Sat/Sun? Do anything lab-related on the weekend?

No work on the weekends would never fly in our lab. But it would put you on the fast track [to finding another lab].

 

[Time]

Thanks, guys.

Anyone else would like to share their experience?

 

[care bear]

😱 wow you guys work a lot. do techs in your labs put in these kind of hours too??

 

[hung]

i'm an undergrad lab assistant. i spend about 8 hours rite now in the lab. i got a summer fellowship. half the time im doing experiments, the other half doing lab maintanence. am i on track to spend the rest of my life in a lab?

 

[Time]

😱 wow you guys work a lot. do techs in your labs put in these kind of hours too??

Techs in my lab come in at 9-930. leave at 430-500. A cushy job, indeed.

 

[Time]

Once again, thanks for your answers.

Question: How should I go about the theoretical part of the project? What to do about reading?
How many hours/day, etc.

Obviously, I do have some basic experience, but I am not happy with what I have achieved so far, and I was wondering what others have done (both beginners, and those about to defend, or even those that have already graduated....).

What's the best way to approach a project? (will post it as a separate question depending on the number of replies.) Thanks. 🙂

 

[utcrew]

Obviously, I do have some basic experience, but I am not happy with what I have achieved so far, and I was wondering what others have done (both beginners, and those about to defend, or even those that have already graduated....).

What's the best way to approach a project? (will post it as a separate question depending on the number of replies.) Thanks. 🙂

When you say you're not happy with what you've achieved so far, do you mean that you have good ideas, but the experiments haven't worked? Or do you mean it's hard getting ideas. Coming up with good ideas can be pretty difficult when you're new to the game. Alot of times you'll have an idea that sounds great to you, but then find out someone else has already done it. For this sort of problem, read about your particular project and talk to your PI about it. Alot of times the PI will have an idea in the back of his/her head that they'll let you work on. If it's the productivity after the idea that you're not happy with, then I can give you few pointers that I learned during my relatively limited experience. One of the most time saving things I learned is that if you have an experiment that doesnt work when it should, don't spend a week trying to figure out which reagent is contaminated or whatnot. Just make all new reagents fresh (unless they are unrealistically expense or something) and don't worry why it didnt work. Also, keep in mind the shelf life or things you make. Phosphate buffers are normally very close to physiological conditions and are easily contaminated, so only use them for a two day period max. Keep tris buffers at 4 deg. and only keep them a couple of weeks. MilliQ or nanopure water is kept by most labs in huge plastic containers. di water loves to have ions other that H and OH in solution, so it very easily leaches things like silicon from the container. This could pose problems, so for important experiments always get the water fresh from the filtration unit. There's tons of things like this that can cause problems you may not know about. Even keeping important reagents at a certain spot on your bench that only you're allowed to use is a good idea. I hope this helps, if you need more info PM me. I believe I have an e-book on pdf. that is very helpful when dealing with lab stuff.

 

[ImmunoANT]

... Phosphate buffers are normally very close to physiological conditions and are easily contaminated, so only use them for a two day period max. Keep tris buffers at 4 deg. and only keep them a couple of weeks. MilliQ or nanopure water is kept by most labs in huge plastic containers. di water loves to have ions other that H and OH in solution, so it very easily leaches things like silicon from the container. This could pose problems, so for important experiments always get the water fresh from the filtration unit. ...

wow, now I start to wonder how all my mouse T cell culture have lived with my handling them.... 😱 😱

 

[microTAS]

One of the most time saving things I learned is that if you have an experiment that doesnt work when it should, don't spend a week trying to figure out which reagent is contaminated or whatnot. Just make all new reagents fresh (unless they are unrealistically expense or something) and don't worry why it didnt work.

That's really good advice. The key is to know what's worth worrying about and what's not. You can't worry about everything, b/c you'll go insane! 😀

 

[13538]

When you say you're not happy with what you've achieved so far, do you mean that you have good ideas, but the experiments haven't worked? Or do you mean it's hard getting ideas. Coming up with good ideas can be pretty difficult when you're new to the game. Alot of times you'll have an idea that sounds great to you, but then find out someone else has already done it. For this sort of problem, read about your particular project and talk to your PI about it. Alot of times the PI will have an idea in the back of his/her head that they'll let you work on. If it's the productivity after the idea that you're not happy with, then I can give you few pointers that I learned during my relatively limited experience. One of the most time saving things I learned is that if you have an experiment that doesnt work when it should, don't spend a week trying to figure out which reagent is contaminated or whatnot. Just make all new reagents fresh (unless they are unrealistically expense or something) and don't worry why it didnt work. Also, keep in mind the shelf life or things you make. Phosphate buffers are normally very close to physiological conditions and are easily contaminated, so only use them for a two day period max. Keep tris buffers at 4 deg. and only keep them a couple of weeks. MilliQ or nanopure water is kept by most labs in huge plastic containers. di water loves to have ions other that H and OH in solution, so it very easily leaches things like silicon from the container. This could pose problems, so for important experiments always get the water fresh from the filtration unit. There's tons of things like this that can cause problems you may not know about. Even keeping important reagents at a certain spot on your bench that only you're allowed to use is a good idea. I hope this helps, if you need more info PM me. I believe I have an e-book on pdf. that is very helpful when dealing with lab stuff.

Experiments not working because of problems with reagents reminds me of a particularly trying time I had in the lab last Summer:

I'm primarily an electrophysiologist but the Prof suggested I do some in vitro experiments with cultured hippocampal neurons to finish up some of my work to be published. Since we don't routinely do culture work in our lab I had to go to another lab to learn cell culture. I shadowed one of the postdocs in the lab doing the prep and everything went swimmingly and I got a good yield for my first outing in cell culture. I then spent the next 6 weeks trying to do the preps on my own but NOTHING would grow for me. It was obviously something I was doing wrong as everyone elses preps were working. It baffled everyone as I wasn't doing anything that was apparently incorrect! It turned out that the sterile PBS that we buy from Sigma which you place the hippocampal tissue in immediately after the dissection was actually a 10X stock and I wasn't diluting it (the "10X" mark on the bottle was probably the smallest bit of writing on the bottle!!!). Sometimes it's the most trivial things that are overlooked when trouble shooting experiments!

Nevertheless it was a valuable lesson...paranoia about reagents is probably a good thing 😀

 

[care bear]

Techs in my lab come in at 9-930. leave at 430-500. A cushy job, indeed.

ok good! b/c i just finished a stint as a tech and while i had some 10-12 hour days, they were almost always around 8. . .and i was there longer than some others! but there weren't any grad students in my lab, so nothing to compare us to 🙂 that's why i was surprised to hear all these posts about very long hours.

 

[Time]

utcrew, thanks. Your advice is great.

What I would also like to know is how other students/graduates proceed with their projects in terms of reading papers, etc. where to start,... where to pause,... where to summarize what you read. And, maybe, how to end. Not so much the benchwork aspect, but rather that 'intellectual side' of research leading to culmination of the project in publication AND later, to thesis defense.

For example: I read the grant first. Then read reviews in journals with the highest impact factor. I also read individual articles if I feel they may be useful to me in terms of methodology...

But I feel I need some input to improve. Feel I am stuck at the same level much too long. Already begun forgetting the details I read first!!!!

Medschool is so structured .... phd seems to be utterly chaotic.

Any suggestions? 😕

 

[13538]

For example: I read the grant first. Then read reviews in journals with the highest impact factor. I also read individual articles if I feel they may be useful to me in terms of methodology...

This sounds perfectly logical to me... Although, reviews (for a particular topic) all begin to sound the same after a while. It's wise to keep up-to-date with the primary literature...afterall, a ground-breaking paper may not actually end up being cited in a review for up to 1-2 years after publication of the original paper. Also, when you're writing up a paper for publication or your thesis, you'd be expected to cite papers as opposed to reviews...

A useful website for keeping an eye on the literature is PubCrawler:
http://www.pubcrawler.ie/
It is basically an alerting service that scans pre-defined search queries in PubMed. You can have the results emailed to you when new papers match your search criteria. I find it really useful for watching the paper output of competing labs...

 

[tedrik]

Thanks for the link Trinners, this looks like a valuable resource. I find http://www.sciencewatch.com/ to be a great place if you want to keep up with what's going on in your field. What's especially helpful is there section on finding the most cited researchers under a particular field, you can find this at: http://in-cites.com/top/2004/index.html

I hope this helps for those of you who haven't already been following these pages. I would be interested in hearing if anyone has more suggestions...

 

[BDavis]

In addition to reading the background literature, I find that talking to upper level students (especially other MSTP students that are sometimes bitter) are extremely helpful in pointing out flaws in your thesis. Many experiments never get published because of negative data and/or the data is not clean. These students are a valuable source of this information (even if the topic is not related directly to your thesis). Furthermore, they may have a different viewpoint. It is also useful to get other students' input prior to submitting a manuscript ( although the manuscripts are sent to PI's, these manuscripts end up on the desks of students/post-docs who actually read and write the review).

 

[13538]

( although the manuscripts are sent to PI's, these manuscripts end up on the desks of students/post-docs who actually read and write the review).

Are you saying that when a manuscript is sent for peer review...students/postdocs often end up reviewing the manuscript for the journal? You are kidding, right?

 

[zep]

...although the manuscripts are sent to PI's, these manuscripts end up on the desks of students/post-docs who actually read and write the review...

This is overstated.

Are you saying that when a manuscript is sent for peer review...students/postdocs often end up reviewing the manuscript for the journal? You are kidding, right?

A PI will pass a paper onto a competent student or postdoc only as a learning experience, not for the purposes of obtaining a final review. Occasionally a stand-out postdoc will get to write the review that ends up being submitted, but it still gets looked over by the PI before hand. The goal is to have scientists-in-training get some practice at critiquing a manuscript and the advantages of this pedagogy are numerous. Otherwise, how well prepared do you expect to be when you get your first paper to peer review but have no experience at peer reviewing? Chances are you won?t write a very good critique. That can end up being a loose-loose situation for all parties involved.

Its like grant writing ? you can?t become competent unless you actually practice, and there is no sense waiting until a lot is on the line before you get the adequate training.

 

[microTAS]

I've seen reviews go to the grad student or post doc directly from the editor's desk! The PI will solicit an opinion if someone was a lot of experience in a certain area.

 

[BDavis]

Many PI's (but not all) do not have the time to write a full review so this falls on the student/post-doc who works in the field and has an intimate knowledge of the techniques. This is especially true in very large labs where the PI has multiple research interests and is often solicited for many reviews for major journals (or reviews are sent during grant review/writing). Personally for me, I have submitted multiple reviews which were looked over by my PI and directly sent on to the editors. My vote for reject/accept with revision/accept without revision was not changed. There is nothing wrong with having a peer review done by a student; one could argue that student is inexperienced in these matters, but often the student has already published in the field and/or written a review (furthermore the content may be directly related to your thesis so odds are it you will know quite a bit about the literature). Furthermore, students and postdocs may be less biased on a personal level in that their reviews are more to point out flaws in the science rather than attack someone personally. Ultimately, the PI has the choice whether or not to edit your review so their signature confirms the content of the review.

 

[pathdr2b]

A very wise grad student I knew who is now on Faculty at Harvard, once said that if you have to put in more than 8-9 hours of CONTINUOUS work in a lab on a regular basis, then you probably don't know what you're doing.

 

[Primate]

Students write reviews ALL the time. Wrote many myself back in the day. Got only a cursory peek from my PI before it went back out (usually with an, "Oh yeah, I noticed that, too. You're right. Blah Blah. I have a meeting to go to. Thanks. Here's your, um, err, I mean MY next paper to review.").

Not to sound bitter, but I really got sick of doing it. Good practice, I suppose. Now I know how to dish work off really well. 😉

P