I have learned quite a bit throughout this fellowship, and perhaps the most important thing is to set reasonable expectations and deadlines. We’ve done so many amazing experiments and we’ve gotten some amazing data, and this is due to careful planning and consideration of the time\/effort\/manpower required for every individual experiment. I have been incredibly lucky to work in a collaborative environment with quite a few wonderful undergrads, PhD students, and postdocs who are more than willing to provide support and assistance in both the experimental design and the actual doing of experiments. When I encountered an issue, there was always someone I could reach out to who could answer pretty much any question I had. I would say for any future WAGSFP fellows reading this, any research you’re going to do here at U-M is going to be exceptional and interesting, so what’s most important in selecting a research mentor is trying to figure out the lab environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Questions to keep in mind: Would you be working mostly by yourself or within a group? Who is your immediate supervisor (most times it’s not the PI)? Has this person mentored undergraduates before? I would say having the ability to continue a research project that I began during the school year was lucky in terms of the mentorship I’d already received and continued to receive, but if you are starting fresh, there are definitely some questions you should be asking and some ways to ensure you’re getting the most you can out of your summer experience. You spend a lot of time in your lab\/on your project (if it’s virtual work), so what you want to ensure is that you have clearly defined objectives that 1) you and your mentor have agreed upon 2) you think are feasible given your skills and the time required and 3) confer to you training\/skills that you think will aid you in your professional development. You know your goals\/what you want out of a research experience better than anyone, so it’s all about advocating for yourself to achieve them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This summer really solidified that I want to pursue a PhD, and I feel more confident in my abilities as a researcher. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have learned quite a bit throughout this fellowship, and perhaps the most important thing is to set reasonable expectations and deadlines. We’ve done so many amazing experiments and we’ve gotten some amazing data, and this is due to careful planning and consideration of the time\/effort\/manpower required for every individual experiment. I have been incredibly… Continue reading Reflections + Moving Forward: Lauren Hesse<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3885,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3885"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3358"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3361,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3358\/revisions\/3361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/wagsfp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}