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| Breaking into Research https://gladerebooted.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=199 |
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| Author: | NephyrS [ Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:55 am ] |
| Post subject: | Breaking into Research |
Yay PhD.... I've been here over a month now- classes are going pretty smoothly. I'm not saying Quantum Mechanics doesn't have it's rough times, but nothing over the top yet. I've already joined a group, I like the general research, I have my fellowship for general funding. As far as most things go, I'm set. But my research is stagnating. My advisor wants me to work on a new, tangential project that no one else is working on. It incorporates similar elements, but as far as most of it goes, I'm on my own. Part of the problem is, it's not going to be cheap- he'll help me get the funding, but I don't feel comfortable with the project without some review on his part, to make sure I'm not spending thousands of dollars going down a wrong path. He's pretty busy (1st child due in a few weeks, 5 papers from other group members in the work, classes), so I decided to go the formal route, and submitted a 4 page proposal with the most relevant papers in the field to him, along with the costs and benefits of the tactics I'm taking for preparation. Now I get to sit and wait to hear back from him... Sitting in the office with nothing truly productive to do for 9 hours a day sucks. I feel like I'm being funded for nothing at the moment, even though none of the other 1st years have even thought about starting a research project yet. I've read close to 200 papers to keep busy, I keep up with all of the even semi-related journals on a daily basis (ASAP articles) and I've gone through a lot of the general books related to the latter stages of my project (testing the efficacy of a chemotherapuetic drug in vivo), but getting too far into that when I still have to synthesize it isn't that great of a use of time- I already know the generalities, and the specifics won't open up until I can start running characterizations on the product after I synthesize it. Bottom line, I feel like I'm doing everything I should be, and more- but at the same time I still feel like I'm slacking. It sucks! Just a general rant- putting my thoughts down like this always seems to help. |
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| Author: | Loki [ Wed Sep 16, 2009 1:00 pm ] |
| Post subject: | |
/hugs So much time spent during research is just spent waiting on things. At least you've got funding though! |
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| Author: | NephyrS [ Wed Sep 16, 2009 1:39 pm ] |
| Post subject: | |
::crosses fingers:: Yes. The funding is nice. And while I enjoy not having to TA, I'm thinking about tacking on a class next semester to have something to take up time when I'm not researching. |
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