I have a lot of lab work! Any suggestions on finding funds to hire undergrad help?

[geochic]

Well it's happened...my project has grown into a bigger monster than a single mama can handle and at this point requires me to be here 7 days a week or I'm never getting out of here. I need help! Unfortunately I do not have the funding to pay a lab assistant. I'm currently pursuing an MS so my projected wrap up date is in less than a year and I want to be working on my publication drafts, gainfully employed and celebrating my defense by then! But pursuing these additional proxies could really enhance my work and make for a fantastic comprehensive study of my watershed (I'm in environmental geology/hydrology). I hate to abandon the work because it's just too much to take on...

Any funding suggestions out there? I'm also simultaneously working on an exhaustive web search but I know many of you are in the throes and might offer some guidance!

Thank you!

[robot_hamster]

Would you necessarily have to pay them? Could you perhaps get them an undergrad research topic out of it? There was a student in the lab I worked in that wasn't being paid. He helped one of the grad students there with his stuff and he was able to get his senior thesis out of it.

[geochic]

Would you necessarily have to pay them? Could you perhaps get them an undergrad research topic out of it? There was a student in the lab I worked in that wasn't being paid. He helped one of the grad students there with his stuff and he was able to get his senior thesis out of it.

This university seems to expect quite a bit from their undergrad research and thesis projects. I think if my advisor and I put our heads together we could come up with a nice comprehensive project to offer so I am throwing that out there as well.

[Eigen]

I know we rarely pay our undergrads- they work for the experience, and/or credit. We only start paying them after they've had several years of training and are really worth the money.

I will caution that training undergrads can often be more time put in than you get back out, at least on the timescale you're looking at, although I'm sure it depends on the project. I would say it's taken me an average of 6-8 months before I'm getting more work out of the ones I train than I'm putting into them- and if you're on a year long timescale, that might not really be worth it, especially as overworked as you are.