Hi! I was accepted to an EAP, so I’ve been focusing on activities like research/aiming for publications that will carry through to med school (and don’t need to focus on things for applying).
I’m currently in a lab (has been 1 year now) and am trying to decide if I should stay for the summer, but it looks like I might not get any funding for it. I don’t particularly want to work full time over the summer for free while also being down 3 months of rent. There’s a potential grant that would cover enough for just my rent (not 100% sure that I’d get it but the chances are better), but then I’d still be working full time for free and only breaking even.
The only upside is that my name is on a paper that’s currently completing peer review (which should be secured) and if I stayed during the summer, they would start another project that they’ve said I could be on the author list for. But they’ve also in the past threatened to take away authorship from even the first paper, so I don’t know how much I trust them on that, especially since the paper would only be published when I’ve graduated/left the lab (takes 2-3 years for the whole process if we’re starting now). They’ve also improved/been kind in some cases, but there was a whole semester where they didn’t react nicely to me making mistakes (made out to feel useless every day, long talks, told that I could be easily replaced by a new intern since there were so many applicants, stressed every time I came to lab), and I do think that there’s a non-zero chance that that could happen again since the mistakes are lab work-related.
I’m in my junior year right now so this would be my last free summer before starting med school. Should I jump ship and look for other research? Is it still worth it to work for free when I’d be down rent or if I only broke even? I’ve been wanting to focus on publications, but is it still realistic with 1 year left if I joined another lab or stayed here? Thank you!
Edit:
Thank you all for the insight, I truly appreciate it and what’s been said is what I think I’ve been feeling inside as well. I think my gut was also telling me to leave.
Another thing that I forgot to mention or that I didn’t know if I wanted to sway the vote was context of the lab. The institution is a top research institution/med school (think level of Stanford), and the lab published major discoveries 20 years ago (Nature/Cell level) but the research I’m currently doing is a separate topic that the lab is not well known for (and recently publications are lower or Nature sub journal level). Example that’s similar: lab published in Nature for cancer research but is doing research on neuroscience unrelated to cancer (publishes Nature subjournal or lower). The paper that I mentioned before is in completing peer review in a Nature sub journal.
Does this affect the sentiment/advice to leave at all? Some other premed friends have said that they would stick it out, and I would be lying if I said the reputation/publication level of the lab was not something I thought about.
I’m currently in a lab (has been 1 year now) and am trying to decide if I should stay for the summer, but it looks like I might not get any funding for it. I don’t particularly want to work full time over the summer for free while also being down 3 months of rent. There’s a potential grant that would cover enough for just my rent (not 100% sure that I’d get it but the chances are better), but then I’d still be working full time for free and only breaking even.
The only upside is that my name is on a paper that’s currently completing peer review (which should be secured) and if I stayed during the summer, they would start another project that they’ve said I could be on the author list for. But they’ve also in the past threatened to take away authorship from even the first paper, so I don’t know how much I trust them on that, especially since the paper would only be published when I’ve graduated/left the lab (takes 2-3 years for the whole process if we’re starting now). They’ve also improved/been kind in some cases, but there was a whole semester where they didn’t react nicely to me making mistakes (made out to feel useless every day, long talks, told that I could be easily replaced by a new intern since there were so many applicants, stressed every time I came to lab), and I do think that there’s a non-zero chance that that could happen again since the mistakes are lab work-related.
I’m in my junior year right now so this would be my last free summer before starting med school. Should I jump ship and look for other research? Is it still worth it to work for free when I’d be down rent or if I only broke even? I’ve been wanting to focus on publications, but is it still realistic with 1 year left if I joined another lab or stayed here? Thank you!
Edit:
Thank you all for the insight, I truly appreciate it and what’s been said is what I think I’ve been feeling inside as well. I think my gut was also telling me to leave.
Another thing that I forgot to mention or that I didn’t know if I wanted to sway the vote was context of the lab. The institution is a top research institution/med school (think level of Stanford), and the lab published major discoveries 20 years ago (Nature/Cell level) but the research I’m currently doing is a separate topic that the lab is not well known for (and recently publications are lower or Nature sub journal level). Example that’s similar: lab published in Nature for cancer research but is doing research on neuroscience unrelated to cancer (publishes Nature subjournal or lower). The paper that I mentioned before is in completing peer review in a Nature sub journal.
Does this affect the sentiment/advice to leave at all? Some other premed friends have said that they would stick it out, and I would be lying if I said the reputation/publication level of the lab was not something I thought about.
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