So I am currently an incoming sophomore at UC Berkeley and have spent the summer so far taking a class and doing research. However, I’m not sure what I’m doing counts as research and it is making me nervous on if it is worth it/meaningful to me.
So I joined this physics research lab during last semester and this postdoc in the lab said he would give me a project that I could start and continue over the summer. I did all the safety training, even got my own lab coat and goggles! So the project is building this circuit board for the lab that will take the output of lasers used in the lab and encode all their information on a single time domain. So instead of checking the frequency of each laser one by one, you could just see them all at once on a computer screen. I’m a CS major interested in physics but lately, as I’ve been spending time debugging the circuit board I built, I’ve been getting kind of skeptical I’m actually contributing to the lab and science. So is what I’m doing research?
Also, how do lower-div undegrads contribute to research? I’ve been helping out in random things like building a vacuum chamber for this ion trap they use but I feel as if I’m more just an extra pair of hands rather than anything else.
Sounds like you are doing a task that contributes to the overall functioning of the lab and projects going on there. It is an aspect of contributing to research. Is it research related? Yes. Is it an independent research project where you are apt to come out t b e other end with a publication? Doesn’t sound like it.
You have a job in a research lab and that is something. Many moons ago I had a summer research job working on a project for a botany professor. I literally spent weeks washing dirt.
Who, exactly, should be doing the work that you seem to feel is beneath you? What did you imagine the lowest person on the totem pole (ie, you) would be doing in a research lab?!
You are not even ‘just’ an extra pair of hands- at this point you are as likely to be a hindrance as a help. Right now it probably takes more time to teach you how to do something than it would for the more experienced person to do it themselves. You are learning a lot (if you are paying attention / trying to learn) about research- what actually goes on, how labs work, how different pieces of equipment work, how to solve the small problems / quirks of a given process (eg, debugging).
Yes, it is research, and yes, as somebody who has barely started college you are lucky to be getting ‘real’ research experience at UCB.
I wouldn’t consider this research and honestly, it seems like a dead end. Working in such a lab over summer, your goal should be something along the lines of preforming/contributing to an experiment with findings that you could present at a local poster presentation session (if not a national conference or publication). You should be upfront about your PI about this or move on to someone who could provide a better opportunity if it’s clear the PI only intends to use you as an extra set of hands.
For resume purposes, you can probably call it ‘research’ but you probably won’t have much to show for it when asked about it.
OP, @dblazer has just graduated from high school, which basically says he has lots of confidence (or high hopes or arrogance) but very limited experience. Which is how s/he can say ‘move on’ so cavalierly, and suggest that a 1st year undergrad should be turning up their nose at anything that doesn’t lead directly to a publication or national conference presentation. That can happen, but is certainly not standard.
@collegemom3717 a) you’re off by about 4 years, and b) I know a thing or two about research (albeit not physics) with several posters/abstracts/publications under my belt. When I make my comments, I am speaking from my own experience where I was in the same exact situation; I ended up working on a ‘project’ that helped the lab instead of actually preforming experiments to draw new scientific conclusions. I can conclude that the experience was pretty much a waste of a precious summer. I was naive, hanging on to the hope that if I proved myself, I would eventually have the opportunity to preform useful experiments. But ultimately, the PI of the lab and I had a mismatch of expectations, and I ended up having nothing to show for my summer’s work (when there were several other labs I could have joined which very likely would have been more fruitful).
OP, you already made commitment this summer, so it would be inappropriate to leave; but you have to be on the same page as your PI and work out an attainable goal. Having enough for a poster at your school’s research symposium,for example, is an extremely reasonable goal. If it’s clear that you will have nothing to show for your work by the end of your experience, there is no reason for you to show loyalty to your PI (both sides should benefit from the arrangement).
Apologies, @dblazer - I should have checked your past posts more carefully, and realized that you are headed to grad school not college.
And I agree: having something to show for your work by the end of the summer is a good goal. But, without knowing more about what the OP signed up for or more about your own first experience, I disagree with some of your conclusions.
First, the work that the OP describes seems to me not unrelated to his area of interest, and not meaningless. This is his first time in a lab: expecting to (as you say) “actually [preform] experiments to draw new scientific conclusions” on day one is simply naive.
Further, I would argue that what you felt “was pretty much a waste of a precious summer.” in fact taught you a lot - and possibly could have taught you even more if you had let it (dk enough to say).
That’s because there are many levels of learning in early internships and jobs, and some have nothing to do with the actual role: learning to be clear about what the job is before you start. Learning how to identify opportunities to develop your skills / be more useful to your supervisor / expand your role. Learning to recognize how the parts of a project fit together. Learning how to work with a PI, balancing being appreciative for the opportunity and what they are doing for you against putting yourself forward to try new and bigger things.
The reality is that the postdoc the OP was assigned to had to find something for a student with no experience to do for the summer. Imagine if, when you were doing your senior research project, you were told that you had to find work in that project for a 7th grade science student to do over the summer, knowing that both sides should benefit from the arrangement.
Regardless of Dblazer’s age or experience, he or she is wrong.
A sophomore doesn’t need to be worrying about moving on towards independent publications when there’s already a job in hand contributing to a lab group.
Helping the lab and helping the PI achieve the objectives in the grant proposal are why students are hired. The lab doesn’t exist to serve the student. In my field, students with one year of college study don’t really perform experiments to draw new conclusions that anyone else would be interested in. But the undergrads we hire do help move the work of the lab forward and they get useful experience.
@collegemom3717@ProfessorD@CheddarcheeseMN I’m being alarmist because I had a particularly negative experience, but I would like to make sure the OP is looking out for his or her self. Not all PI’s keep the student’s interests in mind when developing an idea (when really both should benefit). Also, I’m in a field where undergrads regularly start learning techniques and preform experiments, which probably influences my expectations.
I still think the important thing is to make sure the student and PI are on the same page and that achievable goals are set (while understanding that not everything works out). Sure, a sophomore student may not have the experience required to jump in to experiments right away, but in discussing with the PI, there should be some pathway for advancement outlined.
@dblazer I’m sorry to hear you had a bad experience. It is certainly true that some project leads have a tendency to exploit undergrads - and grad students, and sometimes even junior colleagues - for cheap labor.
But I’d hate for the OP to either take on a confrontational ‘zero-sum’ attitude to their workplace when it’s unwarranted, and possibly burn some bridges. It would also be a mistake, I think, to quit an existing position in pursuit of a more rarefied, but much more uncertain, potential.