<p>Do medical schools care if you do research with a PhD grad student rather than an actual professor. For example, I emailed a couple of professors at my school to see if I could help out with their research projects. Most said no simply because I am a sophomore and I haven't taken a lot of upper level science classes. However 1 professor said told me that she doesn't have enough space in her lab, but one of her phd grad students does. </p>
<p>So my final question is: Is doing research with a phd grad student worse than doing research with a faculty member? If so, how much worse is it?</p>
<p>^^ the grad student works in the professor’s lab, but I am unsure of whether or not the prof is overseeing the grad student.</p>
<p>When I emailed the prof, she said that she has three graduate students in her lab who have potential projects for undergraduate students and she told me to meet with them.</p>
<p>I was just wondering if medical schools will look down on my “research” if I wasn’t working on the research project with a faculty member. **** I guess I won’t get a good LOR from the professor, since I worked more with her grad students than with her.</p>
<p>At big research universities, it is unusual to be able to work directly with a professor. It is common to be advised on your project by a post-doc or graduate student. No school is going to look down on this because it’s the norm for undergraduates applying from national universities. The project you will work on with the graduate student is also the professor’s project (though yes, the graduate student is more “in charge” of developing it), and if you do a good job, the professor is going to know and write an appropriately good LOR. During the course of your research, you have plenty of opportunity to demonstrate your research aptitude by discussing with or presenting to the professor. If a publication results from your work, it will carry your name, the grad student’s, and your professor’s.</p>
<p>I literally don’t know a single person who actually worked with their PI. Sure, their PIs would (much like mine) occasionally work with them to demonstrate a procedure or explain a technique, but 95% of work was done with other lab members. I worked with a post-doc. Sometimes, my PI would show me a technique that the other lab members weren’t familiar with. We’d also discuss the direction of my work. But the other 90-95%, I was either on my own or with the post-doc and grad students.</p>
<p>Like the others said, very few undergrads work directly with the PI. If somebody works in a professor’s lab, then the professor is overseeing them, by definition. I’m not aware of a situation where a grad student would just be working on their own; they have to be part of a lab, and that lab needs to have a PI. That’s the way academic research labs work.</p>
<p>So I heard back from the lab, and I am pretty much going to have to do grunt work for 8 hours a week for an entire semester. After that, they <em>might</em> start paying me, giving me research credit, and giving me more independent work. Is this normal?</p>
<p>It’s not entirely abnormal… in fact, that’s what I had to do. I did a semester just volunteering, essentially (no credit, nothing), because the PI wanted me to learn the ropes and actually contribute before giving me credit hours and responsibility. At the same time, the majority of my friends didn’t go through such a phase. Depends on the PI, I guess. But my PI basically said that after 1 semester, he’d let me do it for credit. If I were you, I’d try and work out a concrete deal with your PI saying that you’d like to receive something for the time you’re putting in (either credit or pay) after you’ve been there for a semester. It shouldn’t take longer than that to get acquainted with the basics of how things work in the lab, anyway.</p>
<p>You may want to see if joining a lab that won’t start you out with gruntwork is an option. I’ve worked in three labs in my life, and not once did I start by doing gruntwork.</p>
<p>Are you sure that you just didn’t realize it was grunt work? Everyone, even graduate and medical students working basic science labs, does some grunt work. That or your PI is loaded and has a bunch of paid lab techs that do everything in the lab. Cleaning test tubes is not the only kind of grunt work. Specimen preparation, chemical preparation, feeding whatever you are working on, etc are all labor intensive and intellectually not that stimulating after the first 1000 or so times you do it.</p>
<p>Well the “grunt work” that I have to do the first semester, for 2 days a week consists of me counting the eggs of insects. The grad student I talked to said that it normally takes her 4 hours a day, everyday to do this and if she had someone else do it for 2 days a week, then she can get some other work done for those 2 days. In the meantime, she is going to teach me how the lab works, and some common lab techniques (pcr, preparing buffers, etc).</p>
<p>I guess everyone has to start somewhere–I have no prior research experience–so it would be a good way to get involved. Should I try finding another lab, or just stick with this one?</p>
<p>Goldshadow, how do I go about working out a concrete deal with the P.I…I don’t want to sound rude and sound like I don’t like counting the eggs of insects for 8 hours a week.</p>
<p>I remember one of the other posters on this forum saying how critical it is to have around 2 years of solid research, by the time you apply.–I think it was curmedgon, she said that it really made her daughter stand out.</p>
I qualify grunt work as being menial work other people give you to do so they don’t have to do it themselves, not work that is simply “labor intensive and intellectually not that stimulating after the first 1000 or so times you do it.” So no, I have never been given grunt work in all my years in the lab.</p>
<p>If you are really interested in doing basic science research, and especially if you plan on obtaining a PhD in the future, or even becoming a PI, then there is nothing wrong with learning how to properly perform the so-called “grunt work.” </p>
<p>For example, you may think that cleaning out test tubes is below your level of intelligence. However, have you ever considered that improper sterilization of the test tubes might result in cross-contamination and ruining your next experiment? Moreover, think about this hypothetical situation: the dishwasher is sick and cannot come in on the day of you experiment to clean out the test tubes you will use. Thus, are you going to postpone your experiment or clean the test tubes out yourself? If you cant even do the simple things, how can your PI trust you with the big projects? </p>
<p>Remember, in a research lab, every detail counts, especially if you want you data to be published in a well-known journal.</p>
<p>Kryp, I don’t think it’s a good expectation for most students to think they will not do anything that they see as menial or pass off work. Frankly, most things an undergrad will do is so the PI/post-doc/etc can devote more time to higher level activities. There are clearly multiple ways to define this type of work, but I’m sure some people have the broader definition that I have of grunt-work that is necessary but not necessarily the highlight of one’s existence.</p>
<p>The definition of “grunt work” is not the point. “Necessary but not necessarily the highlight of one’s existence” IS unavoidable; research is 95% preparation and 5% results, and even the most exciting research is going to be more unenlightening, repetitive tasks than not. But these are NOT the point either. The point IS: “grunt work” in the sense that you just carry out whatever random tasks you’re told to do, with no experimental design context, makes for a slow, if not useless, start to a research experience.</p>
<p>
How ridiculous. You will learn more than enough about proper glasswashing during the normal course of independent research, without having to dedicate your first five months to doing only that.</p>
<p>Not to mention it’s more laid back and you don’t have to be erect like a horny male at Hooters every second you’re in the lab and can afford to throw a few jokes here and there and afford to laugh every once in a while. I suspect if I worked with my PI, I’d always be on my tip toes, which isn’t necessarily bad, but I’d be constantly stressed out and trying to be perfect and overanalyzing comments/situations and etc. etc.</p>
<p>Some PIs can definitely inspire that, but other PIs are rediculously chill. Similarly, some grad students can be monsters. I right now have a PI who gives regular high fives and a PI that gives me heart palpitations. Similarly I have a research resident who is rediculously chill and a research resident who will suck the life out of you if you don’t run for it.</p>
<p>It probably depends upon the research team and the environment PI cultivates. If a new team member is mentored and invited to participate the discussion in the group meeting, he/she should be willing to take on extra “grunt work”. It may be wise to check first before joining a team especially if the student is not paid by the team.</p>
<p>counting cells is not gruntwork-- gruntwork is making buffers (the common lab ones, making your own is just part of being in grad school), doing dishes, putting pipette tips into racks, etc-- basically things that most grad schools in most labs do not need to do, or are shared jobs. Data collection, even though it may be boring to you, is not grunt work.</p>