<p>I'm doing undergrad summer research now for the first time in a molecular biology lab.
Most things I'm doing are mindless tasks like picking worms, designing primers for PCR, running PCR experiment, etc., which are all told and guided by my PI and supervisors.
I understand that most undergrads start out like this in research but I'm worried about being stuck on these for the rest of summer, without actually getting to do intellectual tasks. But isn't this usual for undergrads?
What exactly are the differences between great and poor undergrad research experience?</p>
<p>im in a neuro lab, and instead of working with rats, i get to work with people! now to answer ur question, i dont know. lol</p>
<p>look, research is what you make of it. especially when you’re doing pure molecular biology, it’s important to see how what you’re doing fits into the overall project. it’s easy to get lost in the mundane experimental tasks that you’re doing, like picking worms etc., but if you can contextualize your work and maintain perspective, then you’ll probably enjoy what you’re doing. and don’t hate on designing PCR primers – i once had to write a MATLAB script to do it for me.</p>
<p>u might actually want to seek medical help for your anxiety problem…</p>
<p>this must be like the 5th thread you start about ur summer lab research</p>
<p>A great research experience is where you learn skills and just general knowledge about the area you’re researching in. Bad summer experience is doing your tasks mindlessly and not knowing why. I’m willing to bet your PI started some years ago exactly in your shoes, but slowly he started to ask his own questions. </p>
<p>The beginning is always slow, but it’s gets better once you have some sort of foundation in what you’re doing. Once you demonstrate you know what you’re doing to your supervisor and PI, they’ll let you take over some of the thinking.</p>
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Was that necessary? There’s nothing that says one should never post 5 threads on same topic.</p>
<p>(Btw, though this thread is similar to the previous ones, this one is actually asking about a completely different thing, unlike others which mainly are composed of my rant, whining, and so on. It’s obvious that you didn’t read my previous threads and this one carefully.)</p>
<p>MolSysBio and yg18, thanks for your posts!</p>
<p>i’ve read each one…hence i know how many of them there r and that they’re about the same topic…</p>
<p>and of course you can post 5 threads on the same topic…but a better thing would be to just add your new questions on the same topic to the thread you already made…theres no problem with you ranting or whatever but no reason to keep starting new threads when u can use the old one</p>