Still haven't started...

[Arrowfletch]

The way things work at my school, I didn't get into a lab group until about a month ago.  I'm in a group now, and I have a project, but nothing has happened since then.  I've had a single training session on how to run one type of experiment, but there are other things that need to be done first for my project that I still haven't been shown.  Beyond that, there are all sorts of little details about things as simple as the sample prep that I can't quite figure out from what I've been given.  I know I'm expected to accomplish something this semester, but there are really only a few solid weeks left and there's no way that I could start, even if I had the time--and one of the classes I have this semester is a crazy lab that takes pretty much all of that already.  I feel like there isn't much I can do about it right now, but it's all really weighing on me.

[dat_nerd]

Have you talked with your interim advisor? What are your advisor's expectations for your first semester? Have you articulated your expectations? Often times, this comes down to a communication issue. If you and your advisor are not on the same page, now's the time to talk about it or look into working with someone whose advising style suits you better.

[Arrowfletch]

My advisor doesn't generally do anything in the lab anymore, so right now it's more on the other students to help me get started.  When I talked to my advisor about the project I would be doing, they helped me set up a couple training things,and just implied that something concrete needed to be happening during this first semester (in that previous students who didn't stay with the group hadn't bothered to really start until their second).  From what I've heard from the other students, the slow start is normal--it just feels weird, I guess.  I know the first, really simple step of the project and should at least be able to do that much by finals, I hope, but it's still a matter of making the time once I'm actually confident in the techniques.  Honestly, my only expectation for myself is that I manage to get through this tough first semester and get more comfortable with everything, including the lab group, so I can have less general anxiety when I start in earnest.

[fuzzylogician]

I think it's important to talk about your expectations with your advisor and have them help you establish a routine. Also talk to more advanced students about how they got started. My guess is that you need help establishing who to go to for questions and what kind of help you can reasonably expect from people. No one starts out knowing everything, so it's perfectly fine and even expected that you need help to get you started. However, it sounds to me like you're a bit too passive in this process. If you know what needs to happen, why don't you start doing it? You may get stuck or get things wrong, but it'll be easier to ask questions and get help *with specific problems* that you are having. If you are globally confused, you need to know who you can talk to in order to unconfused. If you know what needs to happen but are just insecure about doing it, my advice is to do it anyway. You build confidence and experience by doing things; getting things wrong sometimes is not a problem, it's how you learn. The only way you can avoid making mistakes is by doing nothing at all, but you already know that's not going to work. Just choose a corner of the project that you are relatively familiar with and start there. Ask many questions, talk to many people, find out who can help you. Simply get started on something. The longer you wait, the more expectations you'll build and the more anxiety you'll create for yourself; the best way to avoid that is not to let things build up, and instead talk them out as they come up. 

[Arrowfletch]

I do want to get started soon, and once I can I will--I'd rather screw up and have something to learn from than not do anything, and at least then it would be evident that I'm trying to put the work in.  I do have a bad habit of being passive and waiting for things to happen when I first start in new groups, and I'm trying to break out of that--I've actually written down in my daily plans the things I need to talk to people about to get things going to try and force myself to do it.  I did manage to get someone to do some more training with me today, at least, so I'll have that to work on next week even if it isn't my project yet.  Since I'm just starting out, I'm not really supposed to try things completely unsupervised just yet (or so I was recently told), and it's turning out to be difficult to find an open time slot when people are there but not using the stations I need to practice on.  I'm aware that is partly a communication issue, and will work on it.  I also have no work space yet (waiting for some leaving people to actually clear out so I can move in) so that's more of the awkward waiting game (and I have talked to people about that, there's just nothing for it right now).

 

Right now, I'm hoping that I will be deemed trained enough to start trying some real work by fall break.  As long as I get the go ahead to use the equipment on my own, I can spend the first weekend and few days of that week on real stuff before heading home for the holiday, so that I have something to show at the end of the semester (it's a bit doubtful that anything will happen between the end of that week and finals what with teaching, proctoring, and my own biweekly tests at that point).  I have at least been told by older students that it isn't unusual to only get about a week's worth of real research in during the first semester, and if I can actually have some solid days of work without running off to class at odd times I know I could get a lot done.