Roll over, roll over...

...and they all rolled over?

My advisor wants us to bring a new undergrad in the lab for a project that is completely unrelated to anything any of the grad students or postdocs are working on. The idea is that I would do the hands-on mentoring, and an emeritus professor would get a chance to have some fun in his retirement by "overseeing" the project. Apparently I was chosen based on my potential to be a great mentor to this student.

My worries:

1. That I won't have time to add this to my growing list of projects. I doubt the emeritus professor will be very involved in the training that is required in teaching even basic lab skills to an inexperienced freshman/sophomore. Though I enjoy working with undergrads, I wish this student would at least be able to work on something that would be helpful for my project, thereby making it a more synergistic research relationship.

2. My advisor wants to give this undergrad his/her own lab space. I'm worried this is going to cause a huge stir in our lab since we're over capacity as is. I recently heard two grad students in a heated quarrel about chemical hood space, and I worry that there will neither be space nor tolerance of an undergrad taking up prime real estate.

We shall see how this goes! I plan to bring up these concerns with my advisor, but still oblige and mentor the student (I'm not sure I have the option to really say no anway).

Rewinding the years

Let's rewind to a time when Femgineer, Ph.D. was a hopeful but unsure young engineering student. Unsure about what to do with an engineering degree, unsure about whether she could "make it" in this tough major, unsure of whether it was fair that she was always working on HUGE problem sets, while her friends in the social sciences and humanities seemed to have a lot more play time in the evenings and weekends.

Top 5 things Femgineer, Ph.D.-to-be found useful at this earliest stage of her engineering career:

5. Sit in the front of the lecture room to maximize your cerebral intake. Take detailed notes of what the prof says as well as writes. Go to office hours for both the teaching assistants and professors. Talk to people. Your letters of recommendation will sound a lot more convincing if the people writing them spoke to you about your interests.

4. Spend your summers productively, for example, taking internships as early as possible. Even an unpaid lab stint can give you significant experience that you can leverage to get the next opportunity.

3. Try to incorporate research units into your school year experience. This will help you decide if you want to pursue a research path, and help you figure out what interests you.

2. Talk to as many people as possible about your potential career interests. Listen to all the advice, don't stress too much about the factors involved in making the decision, then move forward.

1. You absolutely can make it. Engineering only seems hard before you understand it. In actuality, it is a rigorously logical, beautiful, versatile training.

Maybe next time we can discuss what's useful to think about in the junior and senior years of an undergraduate education, eg, how to decide grad school versus industry, how to pick graduate programs, fellowships, etc....

Hope this was helpful Possible Scientist! If you have any specific questions that arise as you start your undergraduate education, feel free to ask them.