<p>Next week, I'm going to visit some profs to ask them about working/volunteering in their labs.
If they ask me how many hours per week I can volunteer, then what is a good number to tell them? How many hours per week is considered too much, average, or low?
Thanks.</p>
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what is a good number to tell them?
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<p>The best number to tell them is the number that you can actually do. I'm not trying to be snide.. but when you tell a professor that you will put in 15 hours a week, you better put in 15 hours a week. Don't just make up a number. Look at your schedule, look at all of your commitments, and how much time you have left after doing all of your homework and studying, and then figure out how much time you can spare. </p>
<p>How many hours can you spare a day? 2? 3? Well.. then tell the lab director that you can put in 10-15 hours a week. If you can't do that, tell them what you can do.. certainly don't lie or tell them some arbitrary average.</p>
<p>Thanks for your post, sky.
Considering next semester's course load and all the other involvements, I can put in 20 hours at most per week. Generally, for lab assistants/volunteers, how high is 20 hours per week considered? I want to put in as many hours as possible to this. Doing so will help me go up the research food chain faster and maximize my chance of publishing papers as an undergrad.</p>
<p>what field is this in? often time committments to specific labs are very field-centered. for example, i can tell you right now that in order to do well in a bio science lab (get a paper published,) lab should really be your number one priority time commitment. that of course varies from university to university. if ur at a large public, you want the most time you can get i think.</p>
<p>I'm going to second what sky said. I've heard everyone at my lab (the professor, post docs, grad students) say that undergrads are usually useless. They say that most undergrads do not put in the time that they say they will, and end up not working at the lab long enough to make any significant progress on a project or even long enough to learn much. Of course, this is a generalization. There are plenty of useful undergrads who do research and get a lot out of it. But the point remains the same. If you say you're going to put in 20 hours, you better be able to put in 20 hours. Don't be flaky. </p>
<p>Also, I don't think any amount is considered too much. Especially when you're just starting out, it's good to be around the lab as much as possible. I started last year, as a freshman, and my PI had me going to their group meetings (I'm in an interdisciplinary field, so there are also meetings with professors in other departments, some of which I attended) from the first week. I can't say that I had much of an idea of what they were talking about, but it definitely helped me to be around everything, especially when I started having to present at the meetings myself.</p>
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Don't be flaky.
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<p>I can't stress that enough. I have worked with undergrad research assistants, and can't say how angry I got when they don't show up for meetings, they don't answer emails, and don't get the work done because of their commitments to other classes. If you plan on working in a lab, and you want responsibility, you need to treat it like your first job. That's how graduate students work, and no one wants to make excuses like "he's just an undergrad!" Of course, some undergrads are more reliable and work harder than grad students... so it might not be a fair assessment of you in particular, but just a warning. </p>
<p>Most lab directors would prefer that you can put in a solid 10 hours rather than a flaky 20. Make sure you are realistic with yourself. 20 hours is a long time... that's an average of 4 hours per day.. Do you really have that kind of time? </p>
<p>For reference, many graduate research assistants are required to work 1/3 to 1/2 time, meaning 14 to 20 hours. In reality, they will end up working 80 hours, but officially their assistantship is based on ~15 hours per week. Most undergrads I knew usually put in about 10-15 hours I'd say. But this will vary depending on the field, and what the job description was. </p>
<p>In summary, be realistic about your schedule, make sure the lab director or your PI know how much you will be there, and stick to what you say you will do.</p>
<p>I worked in a lab this summer. I couldn't spend all day there, so I told my mentor that I would work from 11-1pm every Monday-Friday. He went to lunch, and I kept working. It worked out. Somedays I was late, some days I worked more, some days we just ate pizza.</p>
<p>It was a decent amount of time, and I suggest you do the same. You get used to eating late eventually...</p>
<p>20 hours seems like an awful lot during the semester, especially with a full science course load. I took 17 credits last year and found it really hard to commit to my 15 hours/week. I'd say 10--they certainly won't complain if you work more! Also, at your school can you take lab volunteering as a class? At mine for 3 credits of graded (easy A!) lab volunteering you do 10-12 hrs/week. (I would've done that, except I was locked into 17 hours of actual class.)</p>
<p>How often do professors take freshman research assistants (can't imagine that they would take anymore than a very few)? I'll take info about any science, but I'm particularly interested in physics and math. Additionally, how does advance standing affect professors' decisions.</p>
<p>Since I don't know who will be best research mentors, would it be better to try out different profs first? Instead of devoting 20 hours to a lab under one prof, should I pick two labs under two different profs and work with them 10 hours each for a month or two? There are more than 10 profs in my department (biochemistry). It is certainly unrealistic to try out every single one of them to see who's the best. How can I ensure that I get to work with the best research prof who'll benefit me the most?</p>
<p>One more thing: If you realize that the lab and prof you've chosen aren't that great and that it will be unlikely to get something published in that lab with that prof, can you quit immediately to move onto a better lab directed by a better prof? To quit, do you have to wait until the next semester? Do profs allow you to quit in the middle of the semester?</p>
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If you realize that the lab and prof you've chosen aren't that great and that it will be unlikely to get something published in that lab with that prof, can you quit immediately to move onto a better lab directed by a better prof?
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<p>No! Don't do that! Quitting is one of the worst things you can do. Remember, you don't hold any cards here. Professors and lab directors talk. If you start quitting jobs, you're gonna find yourself with no one to go to. Don't use the prospect of a publishable paper be your one and only goal. Not having a published paper is not going to keep you out of graduate school. Very few entering grad students are published in anything meaningful. A great recommendation from the lab director is going to mean a whole lot more for you than being 6th author on some random paper. The best way to get a good recommendation is to be reliable, be enthusiastic, and be productive. It's hard to be all of those if you randomly jump between labs. </p>
<p>If you are getting credit for your research, then you obviously have to stay through the end of the semester. If you aren't working for credit, then you should leave at the end of the project (in other words, stay for your entire commitment period). If things are truly miserable, like no work is getting done and the situation isn't improving, then you can professionally address your concerns to your PI or lab director saying that you would like more meaningful work. If they can't give it to you, then you can ask if you can leave the project for something else. </p>
<p>Don't pick multiple positions at the same time. Twenty hours a week is a LOT. Unless you sit around for 30 hours a week playing video games all day bored out of your mind, you need to start small. Start with 10 hours a week. Don't over commit yourself. Having two simultaneous positions is just asking for trouble. Things have a tendency of piling up, and of demanding a lot of overtime. You might be asked to work double or triple your regular time towards the end of the semester when projects need to be completed and papers need to be written. </p>
<p>How do you pick good profs? During the interview process. Make sure you ask them a lot of good questions. If you don't like their responses, then don't take the position. But be realistic, you might have 10 professors in your department, but not all of them have positions for undergraduate assistants. And let's face it, as a 2nd year undergrad, you don't have a lot of experience to bring to the table. There are dozens of graduate students who want those positions as well. You don't have a lot of leverage, so don't picky or arrogant. Be respectful, be honest, and most of all, be reliable.</p>
<p>Great post, sky. I couldn't agree more.</p>
<p>I just want to highlight this part, because it's true and people need to realize it:
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Don't use the prospect of a publishable paper be your one and only goal. Not having a published paper is not going to keep you out of graduate school. Very few entering grad students are published in anything meaningful. A great recommendation from the lab director is going to mean a whole lot more for you than being 6th author on some random paper.
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At a workshop my junior year, one of the professors on the MIT biology admissions committee said that only about 5% of applicants were published; as sky says, many of them aren't published in anything meaningful.</p>
<p>Sky: All your great advice is very much appreciated. :)</p>
<p>molliebatmit: Does that 5% only include undergrads who were published as first author, or does that also include those who were published as second, third, or even tenth author?</p>
<p>That's authorship, total.</p>
<p>molliebatmit: That is a very small percentage. :eek:</p>
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How do you pick good profs? During the interview process. Make sure you ask them a lot of good questions. If you don't like their responses, then don't take the position.
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<p>sky: Next week I'm going to talk to several profs during their office hours. What are some great questions to ask them during the talk? Any other things that are good to tell them?</p>
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That is a very small percentage.
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<p>Yea, I haven't seen any figures myself, but that sounds about right. I'm in engineering and not the sciences, but I can't think of any of my peers coming into graduate school that had published papers. There might be 1 or 2 that had papers published in the industry's 'Student Journal' publication, but that's not terribly interesting. </p>
<p>Having a published paper is nice, but not critical in graduate admissions. Even research to some extent is a bit overrated. I know plenty of people that didn't do any formal research. So don't get into the mindset that you need 3 years of research before you apply to grad school. Getting an internship in industry could be just as useful for you. Don't get me wrong, research experience is a great plus on your application, but it's not like they will throw out your application if you don't have formal research experience. </p>
<p>Also, it'd be very unlikely that you'd be first or second author on a paper working in a lab. It's just the nature/hierarchy structure in the way the lab works. It'd be quite probable that the first author would be the PI who got the grant to do the research, the second author would probably be a PhD student, the subsequent authors will be grad students and undergrads depending on seniority and amount of work done. Check out the comic below:</p>
<p>The more interesting and important the research, the less chance you have of being one of the top authors of the published paper. There are some programs that allow independent research, but the most likely result of your paper would be in a Student Journal. Like I said, that's not very prestigious. It's still good experience, and it's nice on a resume. </p>
<p>As for questions to ask... Here are some that come to mind:
1) Who is the research sponsor?
2) What are the goals of the research? What is the new discovery you are trying to reach? What problem are you trying to solve?
3) What are the milestones? What is the timeline?
4) Who will I be interacting with on a daily basis? Who will I report to? Who will I be working with?
5) What skills do I need to learn/utilize? What skills will I learn during the project?
6) What will I be doing on a daily basis? How many hours do you expect I will need to put in?
7) Will there be an opportunity for me to contribute toward a published paper?</p>
<p>Those are just some of the generic questions that came to mind. Hopefully you have a little bit of background, so that you can get into a short technical discussion and impress the professor. Those are just opening questions that should get you going toward a good back-and-forth conversation.</p>
<p>My understanding is that as an undergrad in a research lab, you will almost never be doing the kind of work that would put you on an author list. You're, in essence, a lab grunt. That's not a bad thing - you have to learn about that stuff before you move on. But most undergrads don't have authorship because they aren't really researching. I could be wrong, but that's my impression from previous posters.</p>
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My understanding is that as an undergrad in a research lab, you will almost never be doing the kind of work that would put you on an author list. You're, in essence, a lab grunt.
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I'm aware of that; my hope is that I'll eventually move up to doing less or no grunt work and have a more direct impact on creating results for my research group. But is it possible that you'll be keep doing those grunt work even after 2~3 years?</p>
<p>Firstly, I've worked at a lab at Duke University and have never been much of a grunt man. I've worked there for a year in a half and they have encouraged me to write my own paper(which will likely not be published but nonetheless was good for my own practice), assigned me individual projects and I'm presenting a poster presentation at the SFN conference this year. Sincerely, you put in effort, and show initiative and people will grant you what you deserve. Furthermore, as far as hours, I think it would be excessive to promise 20 hours a week. Maybe you'll get up to 20 hours a week - but remember you're at school for classes, keep on top of them, see how things work out and when you're engaged in your project then maybe you'll put in more time. Sincerely though - I think researchers understand that undergraduate's schedules are variable - sometimes you'll have weeks with three tests and put in 2 horus of research, sometimes 25. Just make sure you tell them what you're up to - you're interested just having a busy week. A good advisor will stand behind that, putting classwork first. Just be honest about what you're doing, and don't back out of lab meetings at the last minute AND ALWAYS TELL YOUR BOSS when you can't make a scheduled meeting. Even if you don't feel valuable to the lab meeting, the necessity to show your boss respect remains the same - give him a heads up and recognize he's been an undergradute to and knows your busy, just show you are hardworking and care and are doing your best. Best
Ben</p>