So I am currently working in a lab at the local medical school (top 5 in country…although it doesn’t matter), and am finding my experience relatively unfulfilling (I’m a junior interning for the summer). In the first couple of weeks I have just been observing the PI and post docs do their own experiments, and going into the third week of my internship, I have not yet done anything. My other friends either have their own independent research project that the PI gave them or are HELPING the post-doc by making gels, etc. I was wondering if I should tell the PI anything because I’m feeling a little bored and am wasting a lot of my time. Don’t get me wrong, i feel thankful that the PI allowed me into her lab, but I actually want to do something. Also, in terms of my application, will not doing anything at the internship actually affect admission to top tier colleges (HYS, etc.)?
Thanks!
Why don’t you just ask if there’s a way you can get more involved? Think about what you’ve observed and see if there’s something that you can do to help people out. If an opportunity comes up, volunteer to do something. Just ask if there’s more you can do to get involved.
^^that is the sort of thing that gets you ahead.
Note that the people you are envious of are helping post-docs make gels. Post-doc = 4 years of college + 4-6 years of grad school, so people at least 9-10 years older and more educated than you. It is a pretty big privilege to be in the room.
Yet, instead of either trying to learn as much as you can about what they are doing, or looking for ways that you could be useful, you are whining about being “unfulfilled”, how all your friends got better sweeties than you did, and worrying whether ‘not doing anything at the internship’ is going to hurt your chances to get into a fancy-name school (“top 5 in country…although it doesn’t matter”-lol)
Hypothesis: could it be that you are doing this internship primarily as part of an admissions strategy?
Corollary: if so, could your lack of real interest be part of why you are not being given more to do?
POV exercise: how do you suppose this looks from the PI or post-docs POV?
A few years into my job as a Research Associate in a laboratory, my PI boss started bringing undergraduate interns in. She didn’t tell me in advance of any of these engagements and never told me what to do with/for these interns. They occasionally asked for things to do. I didn’t really want to deal with them as I was fascinated with my projects and didn’t want my progress in them to be reduced because I had to design things for interns to do, teach them how to do those things and monitor their performance on them. I hadn’t defined myself as or tasked myself with being an educator. Generally I engaged with the interns as little as I could, although I remember identifying for one a simple reagent weighing out task that would be hard to do wrong.
Your situation reminds me of theirs. Perhaps your internship is one that has no working infrastructure behind it and, thus, is just a facade. If no one brings you into their work and you are not authorized and able to do your own project there, all you have is the opportunity to observe. There is only so much of that that is useful to do, and it seems you have come to the end of the utility of that.
It could be that if you tell the PI you need a project of your own or you need actual things to do in someone else’s project, that she will deliver it, so I would ask for it. But if you don’t get the hands-on you need, my choice would be to search for an internship that provides it. (But, note, I am all about being good, and I put little into looking good as a task in itself. There may have been some luck to be credited for it, but I went far on this platform.)
After this internship, you will probably want a reference. That’s not going to happen, not at this rate.
You are supposed to be proactive. Volunteer to autoclave and clean instruments. Take notes. Make copies for people. They are sometimes toooooooo busy to tell you what to do because they really don’t know you or what experience you have. Create your own internship so that they see that you are the type of student that takes the initiative.
You have a wonderful opportunity, don’t blow it.