<p>Hi, as an intern student, along with the rest of the lab officer and PhD students, we are working 14hrs per day (weekdays & weekends), coming in at 9am and leaving at 11pm+. And I am not sure if I can take the heat if I decide to come join this lab as a PhD student. The thing that troubles me is that when I get home around 12am+, its straight off to bed and I could literally feel the loneliness in the lab. The PI is a very successful scientist who emphasizes on long working hrs to produce top-notch science.</p>
<p>What solutions do you all propose? Joining fun activities etc?</p>
<p>Fourteen hours a day, seven days a week? That’s insane, even for graduate school. Yes, there are times when students work that long and hard, but those periods usually are tempered by more reasonable stretches of time. If your PI expects this kind of dedication to his research for the five or so years it takes to get a PhD, you are right to question joining the lab. If this is just an example of crunch time to make a deadline, then that’s another matter entirely.</p>
<p>How would you join fun activities if you spent most of your waking hours commuting and working?</p>
<p>If this isn’t a bio lab, I’d say that you’re working excessive hours. I know students who work 10 hours a day, 5 days a week and publish regularly in Science/Nature. I “work” 12 hours a day myself, but perhaps only 8 of it is effective, with the rest of it being taken up by chatting, coffee, or internet surfing. I publish in mere IEEE journals, though.</p>
<p>Try working at a startup company where it is always crunch time. It could well be more than 14/7 on a low salary with no overtime pay after 40 hours (although you might get some small amount stock options if you are around long enough to vest any and they might even be worth a little).</p>
<p>Erm I hope I am just scaring myself. My previous intern labs doesnt work these hours but then again, they don’t publish great papers either. Haha, I read alot of those horror graduate school stories whose PI expects them to work like a slave, very scary though.</p>
<p>What I really want to know is how do you guys cope with staying late in the lab till midnight? I have that sense of loneliness whereby you you are running a reaction while you think about your friends who are enjoying themselves in a pub somewhere else and the fact that you cant join them makes you feel worse. And not to mention, the entire lab is already empty you could literally hear a pin drop.</p>
<p>It’s all about how you manage your time. If you get in at a normal hour, you generally don’t need to stay late. I’ve found working 8-5 is pretty good since I get in a little earlier than everyone else in the lab, have some quiet time to get work done, and then when I need help from other people I have them for the rest of the day. I can also get home in time to have dinner with my girlfriend every night.</p>
<p>The only time you generally have to work weird hours is when there are really popular machines that require you to do longer runs after hours. Even then, it’s usually not something you’ll have to do often.</p>
<p>For most people, that amount of time is crazy and unreasonable. I do know a few PIs like that – but that’s why you don’t decide to join those labs (unless that work style is your thing, which for some people, it is). Personally, I know I would flip out after a while if that work schedule was the norm (I’m okay if that’s temporary for some project). Don’t let this type of lab scare you away from grad school.</p>