<p>I'm curious as to how many hours chemistry or biology graduate students work per week (in lab or at home). Can you give an idea of your schedule / daily or weekly routine?</p>
<p>Depends on the time of year. During the fall when I had classes, rotations, seminars, lab meetings and various other responsibilities, I was getting to work at 7:30 and working 12 hour days. During the weekends, I would come in for about four hours on one of the days.</p>
<p>During the summer, in the absence of everything but lab work, I work about 9 hours a day and only come in on the weekends as experiments demand.</p>
<p>I’m in lab around 12 hours a day on weekdays (in and out at 8:30), with a few hours one of the days of the weekend most weekends. I don’t do much work at home.</p>
<p>It really depends on your lab, your PI, and you. I tend to work ~9-10 hours a day now that it is summer. Sometimes weekends. During the school year, there is always more though since you have classes and may have to TA.</p>
<p>I’ve seen labs however that function like an average workplace, with just about everyone working 9-5, no weekends, etc. In the lab I am in, everyone works typically 9-7 or so, so you actually feel an obligation to stay as long or longer than the rest. Some PIs expect long hours, while others are more lenient.</p>
<p>In the end, though, it comes down to you. You can most likely find a lab where you work 40 hours a week and you can find one where you work 80 hours a week. Grad school is really about the effort you put into it, and if you are really interested in your given topic (which is an absolute must for grad school), then the time you spend in lab likely wont be an issue.</p>