Summary: <br> Ten weeks is not a long time. It feels even shorter when you’re tossed into the deep-end of a top-tier research lab.<br> <br> <br> <br> If you’re spending your summer as a Research Assistant between semesters, or you’ve graduated and want to get some summer experience before grad school, we have ideas to help you hit the ground running.<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> This week, we respond to a listener question. Talia wrote:<br> <br> <br> <br> This summer I had an AMAZING opportunity to do research at my dream school. I am a public health undergraduate and I have experience mostly in qualitative methods and community-based research. This summer I’ll be in a really cool epigenetics lab. I have very little background in biology and even less bench lab experience.For all of you bench lab folks and people in a mentoring capacity, what makes an undergraduate research assistant “coachable”? What habits do you love/don’t love in your RAs?<br> <br> <br> <br> Great question, and we’re sure Talia is not alone in feeling unprepared for her first foray in the lab. Classes and textbooks are worlds away from the hands-on experience of research.<br> <br> <br> <br> That’s why we crowd-sourced the traits other scientists want to see in summer research students. If you follow these guidelines, you can expect to make lifelong friends and have a solid letter of recommendation by the end of the summer<br> <br> <br> <br> 7 Habits for Summer Research<br> <br> <br> <br> Show Humility<br> <br> <br> <br> If you’re interested in a research career, you’ve probably done well in your classes and often been the smartest person in the room. That’s great for your self-confidence, but it’s going to drive your lab-mates and mentors crazy.<br> <br> <br> <br> When you start as an undergraduate student research assistant, recognize that no one expects you to be an expert. <br> <br> <br> <br> They expect you to be teachable.<br> <br> <br> <br> That means asking questions when you are unsure about the material or getting help on the experiment where things are unclear.<br> <br> <br> <br> And even if you have some prior experience, no one wants to hear you say “That’s not how we did it in my old lab…” Take a breath and be ready to learn a new way of doing things. Maybe the ‘old way’ was better, but you’ll never know until you try the new way!<br> <br> <br> <br> Pay Attention to Detail<br> <br> <br> <br> Research is all about the details, and your ability to focus and follow directions precisely will help you succeed.<br> <br> <br> <br> Have your mentor observe and offer tips on improving your technique – things like pipetting accuracy or clearly labeling samples will make or break an experiment.<br> <br> <br> <br> And in the first few weeks, we recommend keeping your headphones in your pocket and out of your ears. Get a few successful trials under your belt before you add other distractions while you work.<br> <br> <br> <br> Engage with the Science<br> <br> <br> <br> Having a summer student means an ‘extra set of hands’ in the lab, and that’s valuable, but you should strive to be more than a gel-running robot.<br> <br> <br> <br> To get the most out of your summer research experience, do what you can to actually understand the work you’re doing.<br> <br> <br> <br> That means asking about how your experiments fit in with the broader goals of the lab. Maybe you’re working toward a figure in a paper – take the time to see the forest for the trees.<br> <br> <br> <br> It also means trying to understand the techniques and reagents you’re using. How does this enzyme work? Why are we adding this buffer?
