So, with the undergrad who I am supervising now, I am trying my darndest to make it work and find new ways to work together. I do not think I will ever remember him fondly, but he is a smart kid, has decent lab hands, and...well...that's it. My FB status the other day (and the wonderful exchange a PhD friend and I had under it) sums it:
Dear undergrad, come in to lab when you are supposed to. Follow explicit instructions I give you or write down for you. Bring your key with you. Do not lie. And generally speaking, just stop messing up. Thanks.
Dear Jenny,
I am busy either sunning myself on the green or getting drunk. Get off my back. Love, Undergrad. :)
Dear Undergrad,
You didn't come in yesterday so you could enjoy the sun. If you want beer money, come in and do some work so you can get paid.
Dr. JennyDear Dr. Jenny,
I was hoping you would collect my data for me, write a pub, and make me first author. I'll see you in a few months, I'm going backpacking across Europe. Have a good summer.
Ciao, Undergrad
Send a postcard, bring me chocolate, and then we can talk about it. (Translation: See ya and good luck in life.)
Just this summer, my little prodigy has come in late (like 45 minutes and then 3 hours) twice after we had explicitly discussed the scheduling of his experiments. Both times I got excuses. Actually, this week he was really defensive when I asked him about it, suggesting to me he knows full well that he was supposed to come in when he did not.
One issue is that my current PI does what my PhD advisor did - she allows herself to be wooed with a good transcript.
The other problem is that sometimes undergrads do not understand that they are doing real research in a real lab that is really important...even when you tell them repeatedly.
Because I am of the opinion that whatever an undergrad does needs to be of some value to me, it is likewise important to me that I get to a point where they are relatively independent and trustworthy. Previous attempts to explicitly tell my current prodigy what to write in his notebook, to stand over his shoulder and constantly correct him, or tell him things without having him think about them have failed.
This week he knew that I was frustrated and he is not one who will take blame, what with the random excuses he gives me. While I was cooling off at the microscope while he did some bench work, I thought about how to handle the situation.
1. I told him that I do not want excuses. Period. There is no point in excuses. My chemistry teacher in high school pointed out that it does not matter if you are late because your alarm did not go off; you are late. Period. Move on. I explained this is why I was most frustrated - we had explicitly discussed the experiment he would do, the timing of the experiment in light of his summer class schedule, and the exact times he would come in. Therefore he should have come in.
2. Clearly the way we are communicating is not working, so I brainstormed about how to improve this to achieve a better working relationship. My first idea was to have a word document that we would email back and forth with our goals, hypothesis, running lists of techniques and materials he knows and needs to learn, and research steps (from literature searches and discussions to experiments) taken to address the goal. I explained that this would make writing a proposal, presentation, or paper for any class credits he takes a MILLION times easier and would concurrently ensure he and I are on the same page. We talked about this idea, I drafted a word document, and then we decided to use g.docs to track the progress on the document rather than the emailing of many documents. We both agreed that this would allow him more freedom with his schedule, as I would know when he would need more help. Although, we are supposed to meet about this at noon tomorrow and he has yet to access the document according to google, so we will see.
My current PI has weekly meetings with us, and my lab mate in grad school did this with one of her undergrads when she was having difficulties communicating with them too. I am hoping that this will replace possible weekly meetings, but I think that can only happen if he and I check and modify the document every couple of days.
Wish me luck.
One issue is that my current PI does what my PhD advisor did - she allows herself to be wooed with a good transcript.
The other problem is that sometimes undergrads do not understand that they are doing real research in a real lab that is really important...even when you tell them repeatedly.
Because I am of the opinion that whatever an undergrad does needs to be of some value to me, it is likewise important to me that I get to a point where they are relatively independent and trustworthy. Previous attempts to explicitly tell my current prodigy what to write in his notebook, to stand over his shoulder and constantly correct him, or tell him things without having him think about them have failed.
This week he knew that I was frustrated and he is not one who will take blame, what with the random excuses he gives me. While I was cooling off at the microscope while he did some bench work, I thought about how to handle the situation.
1. I told him that I do not want excuses. Period. There is no point in excuses. My chemistry teacher in high school pointed out that it does not matter if you are late because your alarm did not go off; you are late. Period. Move on. I explained this is why I was most frustrated - we had explicitly discussed the experiment he would do, the timing of the experiment in light of his summer class schedule, and the exact times he would come in. Therefore he should have come in.
2. Clearly the way we are communicating is not working, so I brainstormed about how to improve this to achieve a better working relationship. My first idea was to have a word document that we would email back and forth with our goals, hypothesis, running lists of techniques and materials he knows and needs to learn, and research steps (from literature searches and discussions to experiments) taken to address the goal. I explained that this would make writing a proposal, presentation, or paper for any class credits he takes a MILLION times easier and would concurrently ensure he and I are on the same page. We talked about this idea, I drafted a word document, and then we decided to use g.docs to track the progress on the document rather than the emailing of many documents. We both agreed that this would allow him more freedom with his schedule, as I would know when he would need more help. Although, we are supposed to meet about this at noon tomorrow and he has yet to access the document according to google, so we will see.
My current PI has weekly meetings with us, and my lab mate in grad school did this with one of her undergrads when she was having difficulties communicating with them too. I am hoping that this will replace possible weekly meetings, but I think that can only happen if he and I check and modify the document every couple of days.
Wish me luck.
2 comments:
Give him hell. Excuses are pretty much just words, the facts stand out pretty clearly. I mean if somebody accidentally launched a nuclear bomb do you think anyone really cares that they were really just trying to access facebook???
Ron, sadly, I speak to him after every time he is late and he clearly doesn't give a flying...squirrel. Also, FB should get rid of that application. ;-)
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