Help an undergrad out? (research questions)

[mockturtle]

I'm a Junior, with prospective double majors in biology and neuroscience, and hopes for a PhD and career in research. I transferred to my current university as a sophomore, from a school with no neuro program and almost no opportunities for lab research, and it left me a little behind. As per my current school's policy I won't have an advisor until next spring, so forgive me if I sound like I have no idea what I'm doing (I sort of don't).

 

I took a technician job in a genetics lab this past spring and summer, not exactly planning on completing my eventual senior thesis with them, but unsure of my path and desperate for experience of any kind in the meantime. As it became increasingly apparent that my stronger interests lie with neuro, I've spent this past two months shifting over to a neuro lab whose research would better reflect my personal plans, and have heard back from two labs.

 

****So here is my conundrum:****

 

Lab #1 hired me a week before I'd even heard back from lab #2. They study human social psych with EEG, which is far more soft-science than my hopeful path of research and wouldn't seem to give me any techniques or methods I'd be likely to use again (I'd like to study cephalopods). It *would* at least give me a thesis closer to my interests than the lab I left, and it's possible I could supplement it with more relevant summer work (an REU, ideally).

They are also a very young lab, the professor only having arrived last year, and have yet to actually support an undergraduate thesis, to my knowledge.

 

Lab #2 studies visual system development in ferrets, interests me much more, and seems more helpful in preparing me for future study. However, the professor has told me that the only opportunity available is with a grad student who won't be able to meet with me until October, and that he finds it unlikely that I'd be able to complete a thesis in such little time as most students he works with accumulate all of their data by the end of their junior year. However, I could theoretically help out with said grad student's project instead.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I don't know whether I have any chance of a thesis in lab #2, and I don't know whether it'd be worth anything to complete a thesis in lab #1.

I don't know if begging and pleading with lab #2 to let me try for a thesis and committing my summer over to them would be any better than sticking with lab #1, and allotting my summer to something more relevant to my interests than either lab.

I don't know if having so little research experience has already sealed my fate and my only chance at admission to a decent PhD program will be to take several years off in between, anyway.

I don't know if I'm making mountains out of molehills and that translating a thesis in human neuropsych to a more-strongly-neuro grad program will be more doable than I realize.

 

I'm sorry for the wall of words and my general cluelessness, and thank you for your feedback.

[Vene]

What you do for your undergrad research isn't very important, what is important is that you do it. I'm currently rotating in a neuro lab despite having zero coursework in it and my work history is in chemical formulation. Worry less about doing exactly what you want in graduate school and more on getting a solid background in how to do science.

[Chimeric Phoenix]

If your senior thesis is due the end of the Spring Semester your Senior year, I don't think you need to be in a crazy rush to get started a month or two earlier. It always helps to do something that interests you, but like Vene said it really doesn't matter much at this point. Depth of research will be more important. If you're shadowing somebody doing really cool research or designing your own very boring research experiments most adcoms will be more impressed with the latter. When you have interviews, they'll want to know if you understand the process of science. You'll be much better at articulating the depth of your understanding if you've had personal experience.