useless research

[korndoctor]

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if you only worked one summer in a biology lab as a research assistant and only did what the graduate students asked you to do, how do you list this activity and or explain this in interview? i didn't carry out any projects or answer a specific question; i only ran random reactions asked by the grad student and prepared samples. has anyone else been in this position?

another question: what if you're working in a research lab that is doing research you don't understand (in otherwords, you haven't taken a class that is the foundations of the research ie. physical chemistry), so everything you do is bizzarre. how do i explain this to admissions officers and what would they think of this situation?

 

[ubcredfox]

if you only worked one summer in a biology lab as a research assistant and only did what the graduate students asked you to do, how do you list this activity and or explain this in interview? i didn't carry out any projects or answer a specific question; i only ran random reactions asked by the grad student and prepared samples. has anyone else been in this position?

They say hindsight is 20/20; my advice: take more initiative. I can't really understand how you went through a summer of research without every contributing anything on your own. I can understand the grad student giving you samples to run, but as for "random reactions", I highly doubt that. I don't do my research by running "random reactions."

another question: what if you're working in a research lab that is doing research you don't understand (in otherwords, you haven't taken a class that is the foundations of the research ie. physical chemistry), so everything you do is bizzarre. how do i explain this to admissions officers and what would they think of this situation?

This sounds almost pathetic. If you haven't taken the course then pick up a textbook and LEARN THE MATERIAL!!! No one is going to spoon-feed you what you need to know. Learning requires personal initiative. Maybe if you had actually devoted sime time/interest in the subject of the research you would have understood it better, and then maybe, those "random reactions" mentioned above, wouldn't have seemed so random. GO LEARN THINGS ON YOUR OWN.

 

[doublehh03]

im a research intern in a lab. at the beginning, i did work for several researchers so i didn't understand what was going on. so therefore, i asked to just work under one medical doctor and now im focusing on a knock out experiment.

i think it's fine if you don't have your own projects since i think you have to commit like a lot of hours to that and know the stuff and have the trust of your PI. so do like me. ask to be under the supervision of one researcher and perform experiments with that person. during the process, ask what's going on so you can understand.

in your case, you're still doing research i guess but it's bad if you don't know the purpose of the reactons you're performing.

 

[akinf]

I don't understand why your supervisor wouldn't give you a project. This is my first time working in a lab and my supervisor has already given me three projects to work on. They aren't entirely mine, however, I am getting a solid grounding in what is happening and why I am doing the things I am doing. It is a molecular biology lab and I am not taking molecular biology until next year, however, like someone so shrewdly described it, you have to take the personal initiative to learn things on your own. By doing this and combining a grounding in the theoretical practices, your ability to perform and make logical alterations to your experiments will improve. I've been working in the lab a month today, and I've learned so much.

But to get back to your original question, do the best you can, having to follow a person around for the summer is probably not your fault, but I'm sure you learned something from it.

 

[bioboy2007]

if you only worked one summer in a biology lab as a research assistant and only did what the graduate students asked you to do, how do you list this activity and or explain this in interview? i didn't carry out any projects or answer a specific question; i only ran random reactions asked by the grad student and prepared samples. has anyone else been in this position?

another question: what if you're working in a research lab that is doing research you don't understand (in otherwords, you haven't taken a class that is the foundations of the research ie. physical chemistry), so everything you do is bizzarre. how do i explain this to admissions officers and what would they think of this situation?

How do you plan to answer questions about your research during interviews?
Talk to your PI and express your difficulties (gauge whether they would be sympathetic and understanding first!) and talk to the grad students in your lab. Everything I've learned hasn't been learned in a classroom, and I believe that would be the same for you. You don't need to take a course to learn something, especially if you have the initiative and the urge to learn something new.

 

[doublehh03]

I don't understand why your supervisor wouldn't give you a project. This is my first time working in a lab and my supervisor has already given me three projects to work on. They aren't entirely mine, however, I am getting a solid grounding in what is happening and why I am doing the things I am doing. It is a molecular biology lab and I am not taking molecular biology until next year, however, like someone so shrewdly described it, you have to take the personal initiative to learn things on your own. By doing this and combining a grounding in the theoretical practices, your ability to perform and make logical alterations to your experiments will improve. I've been working in the lab a month today, and I've learned so much.

But to get back to your original question, do the best you can, having to follow a person around for the summer is probably not your fault, but I'm sure you learned something from it.

i think "projects" mean that it's your own work in terms of you created your own hypothesis, planning and doing your experiments yourself.

even my PI says i need to learn a lot mroe techniques before I can start my own research project b/c that takes their money and time.

 

[MiesVanDerMom]

dang, scientists are bitchy. I did a summer of research making difluorobtadienes so professor craig could study the cis effect of fluorine. it took me a while just to learn to spell difluorobutadiene. i think the idea at the time was, i would come back for the next few summers and move up the foodchain. i left that school, though. its been many years now and i remember little. so, on my app i put that i was synthesizing the dif... and said i learned about lab technique, general research skills, blah blah blah. i didnt write it up very big and tried to put more emphasis on other ECs. I did think it was valid to list because 1)I was choses to do it which showed the chem dpeartment had some faith in me 2)it taught me i never ever want to do bench research 3)it was exposure to research even if I wasn't running prjects etc.

 

[Natural Light]

Maybe you guys shouldn’t be so judgmental. It was only an appeal for advice. Besides research isn’t medicine’s sole concern.

 

[DrBowtie]

That's how I felt last summer. I wasn't working many hours a week and was still learning the ropes.

This summer it is an amazing turn around. I feel comfortable working independantly, trying things without fear of screwing up totally, putting in more hours, etc. I would just give it another shot.

 

[SkylineMD]

if you only worked one summer in a biology lab as a research assistant and only did what the graduate students asked you to do, how do you list this activity and or explain this in interview? i didn't carry out any projects or answer a specific question; i only ran random reactions asked by the grad student and prepared samples. has anyone else been in this position?

another question: what if you're working in a research lab that is doing research you don't understand (in otherwords, you haven't taken a class that is the foundations of the research ie. physical chemistry), so everything you do is bizzarre. how do i explain this to admissions officers and what would they think of this situation?

to the first question, if the interviewer asks, just tell them that you provided technical assistance to a graduate student (and then be able to explain what the graduate student's research was). You don't necessarily need to know the details but just the overall picture.

Even though you may not understand all the details of the procedure, it would be good to try to read up on the procedure and get some understanding of what is going on. i.e. a few undergraduates i worked with knew how to run PCR but had no idea why the temperature and times were set the way they were or what was going on in the vial. However, I remembered a time when I didn't know a lot of the experimental procedures and what was going on within the tube, well, etc but i looked online and got the general gist of things. Following up with a laboratory technique class cleared up many things for me and everything made sense

the other thing you could do is ask the graduate student these questions about what you're doing them and why.

 

[akaz]

I don't understand why your supervisor wouldn't give you a project. This is my first time working in a lab and my supervisor has already given me three projects to work on. They aren't entirely mine, however, I am getting a solid grounding in what is happening and why I am doing the things I am doing. It is a molecular biology lab and I am not taking molecular biology until next year, however, like someone so shrewdly described it, you have to take the personal initiative to learn things on your own. By doing this and combining a grounding in the theoretical practices, your ability to perform and make logical alterations to your experiments will improve. I've been working in the lab a month today, and I've learned so much.

But to get back to your original question, do the best you can, having to follow a person around for the summer is probably not your fault, but I'm sure you learned something from it.

Some PI's are weird. I have seen this happen, but it is not a good lab situation. It is rare. Find another lab next time.

 

[ShoMeYourOhFace]

First thing I ever did when I came to the lab was read... Performed menial lab work, and read some more when I got bored of pipetting and auto-cleaving... After that I read some more... I wrote a 10 page proposal and was awarded an undergraduate fellowship... I did more lab work that wasn't so menial, tranforming, transfection, designing siRNA... Oh and I read some more... I started working in the lab in feb btw... Now I have written a review paper (end of May) on the area I will be investigating this summer (hopefully submit publishing before august)... I have my own project and experiments to perform and design... Did I mention that I read even more???

Point is.. If you read, learn, etc etc like people in this thread have mentioned, show some initiative in lab (I seriously worked my ass off to get the respect I get now from my PI), you will have something to talk about in your interview... Trust is earned not simply given... PIs have better things to do than mentor undergrads who show up for 18 hrs a week for 10 weeks and then leave... If you feel like you are too lazy or think you are too busy to spend 40+ hrs in lab, how will you accomplish anything over one summer??? like 50 cent said.. 'progress is a slow process'

READ NILLA!

good luck!

 

[doublehh03]

so during interviews, how do they ask you about your research experience?

so if i worked under a doctor and helped her out with her experiments (she designs the experiments of course) but i performed like 60% of the work like cloning, transfection, PCR, gel, plasmid, gel, and nucleotide purification and more stuff like that, do i say i'm still a major contributor?

b/c from reading these forums, you're only good when you are independent and design your own experiments.

thanks for any input

 

[nubbey24]

My advice is to not put this research on your work/activities unless you have something to say about it. A grounds for whether you should put it on your application or not is whether you can pass the airport test. If someone were to pass by you in an airport and ask you about the research that you are involved in would you be able to make a meaningful and significant contribution to the conversation...i.e. what is the goal of the research? What methods are being used? Why? Why not other methods? What have you found? What do your findings mean in the scope of a lot of the other research that has been done? If you cannot answer those simple questions in a very matter of fact way, then I would say you should not put it down as research experience. In the end, if you are not capable of understanding your research, there is really nothing that differentiates the work you do in a lab from someone who works at McDonalds flipping burgers...mindless work.

 

[Depakote]

Most interviewers that ask about your research wont be experts in the field. You'll wan't to speak to them about it intelligently, but don't bother trying to crush them with details.

When I started in my research field, I didn't know that much specifically about the field, but I gained it as I went along. By the time I was interviewing, I had plenty to talk about.

You should be fine.

 

[hangten]

To the OP:

You could always say that the experience gave you a further knowledge of techniques (something you wouldn't get in the classroom lab) and from watching different grad students, you were able to see different work ethics. Put a spin to it, and read about the techniques that you are using, and where you can apply it to a research topic that would interest you i.e. if you were to write a proposal using the same techniques, what would you do it on and how will the clinical world benefit from your potential research? If you really don't like doing lab research at all ( I don't either), just admit that you don't like it as much and you only went in for experience and to explore your options. Which is the main reason why you're applying for an MD not a PhD (unless you're applying for a double degree) and that you prefer an environment with more human interaction like a clinical setting would provide.

 

[TheMightyAngus]

if you only worked one summer in a biology lab as a research assistant and only did what the graduate students asked you to do, how do you list this activity and or explain this in interview? i didn't carry out any projects or answer a specific question; i only ran random reactions asked by the grad student and prepared samples. has anyone else been in this position?

another question: what if you're working in a research lab that is doing research you don't understand (in otherwords, you haven't taken a class that is the foundations of the research ie. physical chemistry), so everything you do is bizzarre. how do i explain this to admissions officers and what would they think of this situation?

For an interview, prepare a short 2 min talk about the research that your lab is interested in. You can usually find this information on the PI's website. Interviewers want research to be explained to them in layman's terms--no jargon. After you give your overview, add a sentence or two about what you did specifically. Most people don't contribute anything remotely significant until they've been working in the same lab for at least a year (in reality, more like 3-5 years).

The important thing is that you are gaining exposure to basic science research. Adcoms aren't expecting you to be an incarnate of Hans Krebs or Kary Mullis.

 

[Schaden Freud]

if you only worked one summer in a biology lab as a research assistant and only did what the graduate students asked you to do, how do you list this activity and or explain this in interview? i didn't carry out any projects or answer a specific question; i only ran random reactions asked by the grad student and prepared samples. has anyone else been in this position?

another question: what if you're working in a research lab that is doing research you don't understand (in otherwords, you haven't taken a class that is the foundations of the research ie. physical chemistry), so everything you do is bizzarre. how do i explain this to admissions officers and what would they think of this situation?

Here's where your soft skills (viz.: BSing) come into play. If you're still a novice about exaggerating your research experience, find someone who claims to have worked with stem cells/cancer/HIV in undergrad (or better yet- high school) and learn learn learn.

 

[nekrogg]

i feel the same way as the poster. the phd's working in the lab have 10 times the knowledge on us and trying to research is almost like trying to navigate a ship in the fog. as you go along, the fog begins to clear up a bit but it is almost impossible for us to design a project without assistance. this is especially true in private institutions where there are many phds around and they owuldnt waste valuable time relying on a pre-med to do some giant ground breaking project.

 

[korndoctor]

let me clarify: i'm a rising sophomore, so the only science classes i've taken in freshman year was general biology 1 and 2, and general chemistry 1 and 2; i'm assuming that's what everyone had during their freshman year. i got placed into a lab for the summer when i applied for my school's undergraduate research apprenticeship program (they put students in random labs). However, this research lab, which deals with the synthesis of biochemical compounds, requires an extensive knowledge of orgo to understand anything that's going on. So i'm just wondering, how am i suppose to just read scientific papers or other materials that is all based on orgo structures when i haven't taken orgo yet. i can't just read an entire orgo book in a couple of weeks b/c i'm working int he lab for 40 hours a week. I'm sure other students have been placed into labs as a freshman but couldn't understand what's going on due to the depth of knowledge. i was wondering if there are other people in this same situation that could provide me with advice.

 

[Its_MurDAH]

aite man here is the answer to the OPs question

just fcukin lie dude...

say you were involved in the main experiment the labs working on and jus read up a lil on it (get the material from ur PI) before your interview or something

say you were an integral part of the experiments and you learned a sh1tload of protocols and whatever. And your research was "inconclusive" or is "pending publication"

case closed, goddamnit

 

[instigata]

aite man here is the answer to the OPs question

just fcukin lie dude...

say you were involved in the main experiment the labs working on and jus read up a lil on it (get the material from ur PI) before your interview or something

say you were an integral part of the experiments and you learned a sh1tload of protocols and whatever. And your research was "inconclusive" or is "pending publication"

case closed, goddamnit

And I would use that same exact language too 😛

 

[instigata]

let me clarify: i'm a rising sophomore, so the only science classes i've taken in freshman year was general biology 1 and 2, and general chemistry 1 and 2; i'm assuming that's what everyone had during their freshman year. i got placed into a lab for the summer when i applied for my school's undergraduate research apprenticeship program (they put students in random labs). However, this research lab, which deals with the synthesis of biochemical compounds, requires an extensive knowledge of orgo to understand anything that's going on. So i'm just wondering, how am i suppose to just read scientific papers or other materials that is all based on orgo structures when i haven't taken orgo yet. i can't just read an entire orgo book in a couple of weeks b/c i'm working int he lab for 40 hours a week. I'm sure other students have been placed into labs as a freshman but couldn't understand what's going on due to the depth of knowledge. i was wondering if there are other people in this same situation that could provide me with advice.

Well I just wanted to add one thing. The point of "researching" is not to have something to place on your transcript, it is something you become a part of to get a better understanding of a particular topic or field. Now you joined this research group when you were a freshman, but what did you get out of it? This is what you will have to answer during an interview if asked about your research. Good luck.

 

[Its_MurDAH]

Well I just wanted to add one thing. The point of "researching" is not to have something to place on your transcript, it is something you become a part of to get a better understanding of a particular topic or field.

I disagree

Wholeheartedly, I should add.

Research blows d1ck and if you can use it to meaningfully pad your resume without learning squat, then you are golden.

You also should prolly learn how to bs for that half-hour interview where you talk about how "research changed your life" but that's the easy part.

 

[instigata]

I disagree

Wholeheartedly, I should add.

Research blows d1ck and if you can use it to meaningfully pad your resume without learning squat, then you are golden.

You also should prolly learn how to bs for that half-hour interview where you talk about how "research changed your life" but that's the easy part.

If you don't like it then don't do it...I learned a lot from doing research. You could BS your interview if you want, but I'm going to be myself and I'm sure the person interviewing me will like me. If you're not confident in your abilities, by all means go ahead and BS your way through it.

 

[kevster2001]

Sounds like you were more of a lab assistant than doing actual research. Just say it was a summer lab assistant job and not say you were doing "research". Can you go back to that lab? During my freshman summer I basically did what you did then for the next summer and this summer i had my own research projects.

 

[jonathon]

The best way to learn a method, or technique, is to understand the question that is being asked. Many experiments can be done the same way with asking many different questions.

You also need to look at the situation at hand. You need to ask at what stage of the research is the lab at? Is the lab trying to replicate an important finding they made weeks or a moth ago? If this were the case, then a top notch PI would really not allow an undergraduate to take apart in the research project. You also need to realize how expensive some of the materials are. Maybe the material that the graduate student was working on is really expensive. If the lab is running really tight on money any screw ups on an experiment can cause the lab a lot of money that it can’t afford.

An undergraduate student usually gets a cheap, easy to replicate project to work on during a summer internship. No way should a PI ask an undergraduate student to do a complex and challenging research project (an undergraduate student does not know how to do science yet……it takes years an years to learn how to do science)

The point of the research internships during the summer for undergraduates is to get them exposed to how science is done in the lab. The best interns don’t go into the internship just learning how to do their own little experiment. The best interns instead learn how to look at the big picture and learn why certain techniques are being done the way they are with knowing the questions that are being asked.

Don’t feel bad about being assigned lab duties. I work in a lab this summer that has 15 lab members and every single person has lab duties.

 

[45408]

Well I just wanted to add one thing. The point of "researching" is not to have something to place on your transcript, it is something you become a part of to get a better understanding of a particular topic or field. Now you joined this research group when you were a freshman, but what did you get out of it? This is what you will have to answer during an interview if asked about your research. Good luck.

I disagree. Doing research at this level is not truly about broadening your understanding, because hardly anything that anyone on SDN has done is really innovative (their PI's work might be, but theirs is just following the PI usually). Doing research is about preparing yourself to do something useful later, IMO. In the future, what you do will be involved in increasing the scientific body of knowledge, but now, I think you're more limited. Yes, some people have publications and such, but without a PI, I'm pretty sure we'd all be lost.


For the OP - start reading your PI's publications and learn up about what's going on. The questions I was asked about my research at my interviews were VERY basic.

 

[Its_MurDAH]

If you don't like it then don't do it...I learned a lot from doing research. You could BS your interview if you want, but I'm going to be myself and I'm sure the person interviewing me will like me. If you're not confident in your abilities, by all means go ahead and BS your way through it.

thanks, yo

I did!

 

[shantster]

That's how I felt last summer. I wasn't working many hours a week and was still learning the ropes.

This summer it is an amazing turn around. I feel comfortable working independantly, trying things without fear of screwing up totally, putting in more hours, etc. I would just give it another shot.

I feel the exact same way. Last summer I was so confused on what was going on, and then this summer I am getting so much thrown at me since they know that I know how to do a lot of the basic techniques.

It's definitely something that you learn to do and get used to.

 

[shantster]

Even though you may not understand all the details of the procedure, it would be good to try to read up on the procedure and get some understanding of what is going on. i.e. a few undergraduates i worked with knew how to run PCR but had no idea why the temperature and times were set the way they were or what was going on in the vial. However, I remembered a time when I didn't know a lot of the experimental procedures and what was going on within the tube, well, etc but i looked online and got the general gist of things. Following up with a laboratory technique class cleared up many things for me and everything made sense

the other thing you could do is ask the graduate student these questions about what you're doing them and why.

What my mentor told me last summer was to look over all the reagents used in a particular protocol and understand why they were being used. It not only helps to conceptualize what was going on in the reaction, but to understand what could have gone wrong.

 

[shantster]

If you don't like it then don't do it...I learned a lot from doing research.

No kidding. Research is a good learning experience. Taking Biochem, molecular bio, and cell bio was so much easier after working in a lab for the summer. It should be done for more than just padding a resume.

 

[asunshine]

i'm kind of in a similar situation. i did retrospective chart-based research, which was total scut. while i understand what we were trying to do, there wasn't much more of a way for me to "show initiative".

i think i'm going to say that it helped me understand the research process, the IRB, experimental design, how to be accurate and efficient, etc. etc. and i do have ideas of my own, too.

to the OP, try to think about ways your research was meaningful to you. you have the whole summer to figure it out.

 

[LJDHC05]

The important thing is that you are gaining exposure to basic science research. Adcoms aren't expecting you to be an incarnate of Hans Krebs or Kary Mullis.

As a senior tech I get to train the summer students...JOY! Basically I give them a bunch of review papers and walk them step by step through EVERYTHING they do. Then after about a week, I dangle the carrot of a project infront of them as incentive to learn as much as possible on their own.
It's kind of a pain in the butt because I have to take time/resources to train ya'll so I take the hit and train the summer students on my less important side projects (usually the more high-risk/far out/craptacular science).

My $0.02: The more initiative you take on your own the easier life is for me. Your lovely 8-12 week "summer research experience" is my job. My favorite students have been the ones who are attentive and self-motivated. I'll answer just about any question, stand on my head while doing dissections and buy you a cup of coffee or a beer after work. My patience for silly mistakes is virtuall boundless for you guys, but I get tired of repeating myself over and over and over...

A bit of free advice: grad students wont pay attention to you unless you bug them incessently or offer to do substantial ammounts of scutwork for them. Ask the grad students for review papers to read if you want to learn about the project. They're almost always in a stack next to the grad student's desk about 50-100 deep, and they'll be glad to hand them over to you.

Anyway, hope that helps

 

[Will Ferrell]

OP, you're only a rising sophomore! I wouldn't worry about the quality of your work freshman year too much. You'll gain more independence as time goes by. Are you applying MD/PhD? The previous post by TheProwler was very good. Med schools (MD-only) aren't going to grill you on your research and as an undergraduate, they don't expect you to split the atom.

 

[zimmie256]

OP, you're only a rising sophomore! I wouldn't worry about the quality of your work freshman year too much. You'll gain more independence as time goes by. Are you applying MD/PhD? The previous post by TheProwler was very good. Med schools (MD-only) aren't going to grill you on your research and as an undergraduate, they don't expect you to split the atom.

For those who have applied already, what kind of questions about your research can you expect to get in an interview? Just broad "tell me about what you did that summer" kind of thing or more detailed?

 

[45408]

For those who have applied already, what kind of questions about your research can you expect to get in an interview? Just broad "tell me about what you did that summer" kind of thing or more detailed?

Most of your interviewers won't be doing research in your field, and they won't know more than just a broad overview of what you're up to. In my panel interview, one of the MDs was a neurology researcher, and my research on the hippocampus was something she wasn't really familiar with (and those are pretty similar fields). If I'd been asked about my micro research, virtually no one would have known about it, because my PI is almost entirely on his own (it's not super cutting edge or anything, it's just a very different topic). Remember, you're going to be dealing with MDs, and most of us are doing biology research (some are doing clinical research though, but it seems like more people just do research in their major). I studied gliding motility in Flavobacterium and I was looking for temperature sensitive mutants. Any guesses on how well-read an MD would be on that topic? Not. at. all. Of course, any intelligent person can ask you questions about your research without knowing what it's about, so you still need to know what you're doing.

Now, if you're applying MD/PhD, I would imagine you'd have very specific questions to answer, but as far as my MD interviews all went, the questions were quite generic. I told them what I did in the lab (some administrative work and some experimental work), and I told them we studied learning and memory in the hippocampus. That was about it, and they always seemed pretty satisfied with my answer.

 

[LJDHC05]

Any guesses on how well-read an MD would be on that topic? Not. at. all. Of course, any intelligent person can ask you questions about your research without knowing what it's about, so you still need to know what you're doing.

Now, if you're applying MD/PhD, I would imagine you'd have very specific questions to answer, but as far as my MD interviews all went, the questions were quite generic.

Well said prowler, you're pretty accurate on what you said. In my MD interviews, questions varied from how I liked research to "so tell me a little bit about your research experiences". I never was asked to go very in-depth about the science, just about how it had helped me decide on clinical medicine and how various experiences have shaped my view of research.

On the other hand, my MD/PhD interviews were more like exhaustive discourses on my projects, and grilling me in the minutae of the experimental concepts that my PI had come up with. In one of them, I happened to interview with someone who had done their graduate work on a similar system to what we were studying and she told me flat out that the project would never definitively yeild significant results (it did). Another guy made it his personal vendetta to tear my reasons for going into MD/PhD to shreds (which was nice because it convinced me to re-apply as MD only).