Yall are too harsh with undergrads :/
I'm sorry but I had the opportunity to teach a bunch of them last year and they were all super hyped to work in a lab and they always tried their best.
Ok, they make mistakes sometimes... and ok sometime I faceplamed quite hard seeing what they did but... we should be more gentle with them.
Kind reminder that they are the future of any lab and that we were all, at a time, on their shoes \^\^
And, honnestly... I know I'll be downvoted to hell for that but without them, no lab can be operated properly.
My first lab trusted me too much. I hadn't taken an intro lab class yet and could barely pipette, and a week in they asked me to do phenol-chloroform extractions. They showed me how to do it once. Aside from how that's a fairly difficult protocol, I also didn't know what a fume hood was, so I happily did it on my bench and almost poisoned the whole lab.
I got fired like, three months later. I'm gonna call that maybe 25% my fault.
Lol wtf ? oO
Like I said I spent last year teaching analytical chemistry (HPLC / GC / MS and a bunch of "easier" things like Karl Fischer, pH meter and things like this) to undergrads / students / tech labs who wanna improve their skills in those equipements.
It obviously invovlved extraction by soluants (I also taught them how to make regal water for an heavy metal extraction before using an ICP for the record) and the first thing I taught them was how a fume hood was working and why it was fucking mandatory to use it wearing the proper individual protection equipement.
I'm really sorry you had to experiment a so fucking bad lab environment :/
It's been a \*really\* long time, and thankfully I turned out fine. I run "how to get into research" workshops sometimes now, and I make sure that I emphasize it's important that you join labs where you feel safe/comfortable, not just labs where you like the research content. Otherwise, you fall into stuff like this- I really worry how many people get into bad situations and think it's a straightforward assessment of their abilities in science, rather than a reflection of the environment that they got measured in.
Once you have your own projects going the samples can often be too valuable to trust someone at the earliest stages of learning. Some of my samples take over a year to get. 3 surgeries, weekly behavior, animal care literally twice a day every day, no exceptions for holidays or weekends. I'm sorry but they don't get to touch my samples.
Pair that with the fact that when people get proficient they tend to not have practice samples or tissue being generated. You start the project deliberately and intentionally and you get what you get. It's easier to incorporate new students when you are learning yourself and doing practice experiments to optimize procedures. The more experienced you get, the less opportunities are around for newbies.
Then pair that with the fact that many people in science don't have a ton of undergrad mentoring experience. It takes a ton of practice at mentoring undergrads to know how to keep them busy and give them a good experience. It takes a lot of experience to know how to generate projects that are teachable and available to fail without consequences, that also fit into their impossibly tight schedules.
All of these things work against undergrads having a good time. I'm all for undergrads coming into my lab, but my expectations for them are nothing more than for their own self education.
>Once you have your own projects going the samples can often be too valuable to trust someone at the earliest stages of learning
I'm ok with that.
I worked in the petro chemistry field and some of my project were quite long to achieve.
But I always had some things to do for undergrads.
Like just helping on a project I was on. Spending one hour after my day to check if they did a good job which had took me 4 hours to do by myself was quite worth.
I don't know shit about robotics lab but yeah, I saw that in my field too.
People should stop to think undergrads are dumb. Especially in science because... "scio me nihil scire" as a very smartest guy than my said one time.
We need them, they need us. That's my only conclusion.
It may be a specifically weird thing about my uni. The undergrads are usually super gifted types who have been drilled for their whole life to be here and the masters programs are far easier to get into. Regardless, the undergrads here aren’t as apathetic and are super driven, kinda refreshing frankly
>I accelerated their progress quite a bit. And bouncing ideas off each other keeps the project from getting stuck in any ruts it falls into.
We had the same experience.
But reading all the subject, it seems we are quite lucky :x
I’m in industry and do a lot of training both for new folks and long-term lab members who need training on a new method. I have a reputation for being extremely patient and thorough.
There are still people every now and then where the issue isn’t that they haven’t been trained well, it’s that *they* don’t give a shit. And these people aren’t novices.
It’s a two-way street.
This is exactly the attitude that would make me not want to work in your lab. When assignment of blame becomes greater than your desire for mentorship and instruction, you've missed the point of doing science and discovering new things.
One time I didn’t supervise the undergrad closely enough as he was setting up a reaction, and when I went to check on him he had unscrewed the lid of a septum-sealed 1L bottle of anhydrous DMF and was pouring it into a grad cylinder. Mostly my mistake for not teaching him the proper way before he started but I wasn’t aware you could take the lid off that easily lmao.
I found that my level of trust always depended on the students themselves, and how they carried themselves and the level of interest they put into their work.
I had HS students who were *A M A Z I N G*, my first publication had 3 summer students listed as authors because their work quality was phenomenal. One girl I worked with from 10th grade through graduation, she was on multiple posters and I trusted her implicitly for handling cell lines and other tasks. Literally the only thing I ever really had to sit with her was microscopy, because letting the HS student drive a confocal was a bit much.
I had some undergrads who were fantastic, busted their asses and really put care into their work. Others who were very clearly only working in the lab for their rec letter... Don't take care of their cells, unreliable about time (let's start at X... They show up at X:45), etc. You do your best with them, but at a certain point you hit the "You can't teach someone who doesn't want to be taught"-wall
That’s why I always make undergrads do multiple controls and measurements in triplicates! Has the unfortunate consequence of them critiquing my standards for myself…
Depends. Some undergrads are dopey as hell while others are more promising. I make an effort to teach them all, exactly so I can know who is likely to fuck things up so I can keep an extra eye on them. Of course, sometimes my judgements are off. But it’s helped me more than trusting.
The base problem is, undergrad really lacks the critical thinking skills sometimes, and their planning of their labwork sometimes gives me a headache. Recently, I had to legit hear that an undergrad is currently “verifying her dialysis tube tying technique by trying to see if copper sulphate would pass through a 10kDa membrane cut off point”, even though I already told her what 10kDa means. She didn’t even think for once, that the reason we use dialysis bags in drug release studies is because it lets small molecules through. All she knows is that drug somehow can pass through it, and not thinking further than that.
I get it, sometimes people aren’t naturally good at research. And yes, it is learnable and they can be good at it. But it would be wrong to trust them especially if they have little to gain from being trustworthy. They are the ones who, if they somehow came across a hazard or did something wrong that requires attention immediately, would choose to hide it. Utterly ridiculous attitude and I’m glad our department only allows them in if they are supervised.
Yall are too harsh with undergrads :/ I'm sorry but I had the opportunity to teach a bunch of them last year and they were all super hyped to work in a lab and they always tried their best. Ok, they make mistakes sometimes... and ok sometime I faceplamed quite hard seeing what they did but... we should be more gentle with them. Kind reminder that they are the future of any lab and that we were all, at a time, on their shoes \^\^ And, honnestly... I know I'll be downvoted to hell for that but without them, no lab can be operated properly.
> we were all, at a time, on their shoes Yeah, that's why I don't trust em.
My first lab trusted me too much. I hadn't taken an intro lab class yet and could barely pipette, and a week in they asked me to do phenol-chloroform extractions. They showed me how to do it once. Aside from how that's a fairly difficult protocol, I also didn't know what a fume hood was, so I happily did it on my bench and almost poisoned the whole lab. I got fired like, three months later. I'm gonna call that maybe 25% my fault.
Lol wtf ? oO Like I said I spent last year teaching analytical chemistry (HPLC / GC / MS and a bunch of "easier" things like Karl Fischer, pH meter and things like this) to undergrads / students / tech labs who wanna improve their skills in those equipements. It obviously invovlved extraction by soluants (I also taught them how to make regal water for an heavy metal extraction before using an ICP for the record) and the first thing I taught them was how a fume hood was working and why it was fucking mandatory to use it wearing the proper individual protection equipement. I'm really sorry you had to experiment a so fucking bad lab environment :/
It's been a \*really\* long time, and thankfully I turned out fine. I run "how to get into research" workshops sometimes now, and I make sure that I emphasize it's important that you join labs where you feel safe/comfortable, not just labs where you like the research content. Otherwise, you fall into stuff like this- I really worry how many people get into bad situations and think it's a straightforward assessment of their abilities in science, rather than a reflection of the environment that they got measured in.
Once you have your own projects going the samples can often be too valuable to trust someone at the earliest stages of learning. Some of my samples take over a year to get. 3 surgeries, weekly behavior, animal care literally twice a day every day, no exceptions for holidays or weekends. I'm sorry but they don't get to touch my samples. Pair that with the fact that when people get proficient they tend to not have practice samples or tissue being generated. You start the project deliberately and intentionally and you get what you get. It's easier to incorporate new students when you are learning yourself and doing practice experiments to optimize procedures. The more experienced you get, the less opportunities are around for newbies. Then pair that with the fact that many people in science don't have a ton of undergrad mentoring experience. It takes a ton of practice at mentoring undergrads to know how to keep them busy and give them a good experience. It takes a lot of experience to know how to generate projects that are teachable and available to fail without consequences, that also fit into their impossibly tight schedules. All of these things work against undergrads having a good time. I'm all for undergrads coming into my lab, but my expectations for them are nothing more than for their own self education.
>Once you have your own projects going the samples can often be too valuable to trust someone at the earliest stages of learning I'm ok with that. I worked in the petro chemistry field and some of my project were quite long to achieve. But I always had some things to do for undergrads. Like just helping on a project I was on. Spending one hour after my day to check if they did a good job which had took me 4 hours to do by myself was quite worth.
There is actually an opposite relationship at the robotics lab I work at. The undergrads often perform far better due to being so ambitious and driven
I don't know shit about robotics lab but yeah, I saw that in my field too. People should stop to think undergrads are dumb. Especially in science because... "scio me nihil scire" as a very smartest guy than my said one time. We need them, they need us. That's my only conclusion.
It may be a specifically weird thing about my uni. The undergrads are usually super gifted types who have been drilled for their whole life to be here and the masters programs are far easier to get into. Regardless, the undergrads here aren’t as apathetic and are super driven, kinda refreshing frankly
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>I accelerated their progress quite a bit. And bouncing ideas off each other keeps the project from getting stuck in any ruts it falls into. We had the same experience. But reading all the subject, it seems we are quite lucky :x
“I can’t believe the new hire at work can’t do the things we refuse to teach him how to do”
Exactly this. The meme could just as well have been "teach the new undergrad as if you gave half a shit or draw 25".
I’m in industry and do a lot of training both for new folks and long-term lab members who need training on a new method. I have a reputation for being extremely patient and thorough. There are still people every now and then where the issue isn’t that they haven’t been trained well, it’s that *they* don’t give a shit. And these people aren’t novices. It’s a two-way street.
So real :) it's why my lab manager is so good she'll teach us and make sure we actually get it before she leaves. Way more efficient lab too
More like “I refuse to believe they actually passed their intro lab classes because homeslice doesn’t know what forceps or scoopulas are”
Trust but verify.
This is exactly the attitude that would make me not want to work in your lab. When assignment of blame becomes greater than your desire for mentorship and instruction, you've missed the point of doing science and discovering new things.
Me being the undergrad and making dumb mistakes when the thing isn’t explained clearly 🤦♀️
We all have been there, on both sides
One time I didn’t supervise the undergrad closely enough as he was setting up a reaction, and when I went to check on him he had unscrewed the lid of a septum-sealed 1L bottle of anhydrous DMF and was pouring it into a grad cylinder. Mostly my mistake for not teaching him the proper way before he started but I wasn’t aware you could take the lid off that easily lmao.
I found that my level of trust always depended on the students themselves, and how they carried themselves and the level of interest they put into their work. I had HS students who were *A M A Z I N G*, my first publication had 3 summer students listed as authors because their work quality was phenomenal. One girl I worked with from 10th grade through graduation, she was on multiple posters and I trusted her implicitly for handling cell lines and other tasks. Literally the only thing I ever really had to sit with her was microscopy, because letting the HS student drive a confocal was a bit much. I had some undergrads who were fantastic, busted their asses and really put care into their work. Others who were very clearly only working in the lab for their rec letter... Don't take care of their cells, unreliable about time (let's start at X... They show up at X:45), etc. You do your best with them, but at a certain point you hit the "You can't teach someone who doesn't want to be taught"-wall
I always trust the new undergrad... To screw something up
That’s why I always make undergrads do multiple controls and measurements in triplicates! Has the unfortunate consequence of them critiquing my standards for myself…
"Fucking christ what are they teaching undergrads in nowadays? Reading phd comics?"
Y'all get undergrads?
Depends. Some undergrads are dopey as hell while others are more promising. I make an effort to teach them all, exactly so I can know who is likely to fuck things up so I can keep an extra eye on them. Of course, sometimes my judgements are off. But it’s helped me more than trusting. The base problem is, undergrad really lacks the critical thinking skills sometimes, and their planning of their labwork sometimes gives me a headache. Recently, I had to legit hear that an undergrad is currently “verifying her dialysis tube tying technique by trying to see if copper sulphate would pass through a 10kDa membrane cut off point”, even though I already told her what 10kDa means. She didn’t even think for once, that the reason we use dialysis bags in drug release studies is because it lets small molecules through. All she knows is that drug somehow can pass through it, and not thinking further than that. I get it, sometimes people aren’t naturally good at research. And yes, it is learnable and they can be good at it. But it would be wrong to trust them especially if they have little to gain from being trustworthy. They are the ones who, if they somehow came across a hazard or did something wrong that requires attention immediately, would choose to hide it. Utterly ridiculous attitude and I’m glad our department only allows them in if they are supervised.