13 replies to this topic

[toejam]

i need to rant somewhere and this is the best place to do so.

there's a guy who could volunteer to help me out with technical (i.e. laborious) work during the summer but it turns out that because of departamental policies that is not allowed...

what makes it worse, my supervisor told me last week i won't finish on time but there's still more than one year left of my phd. and just to add the cherry on the cake, another phd student has his own postdoc working on his project and every summer he gets at least 2 undergraduate students to do all the tedious work  

[casandra]

toejam, on Jul 1 2010, 05:06 AM, said:

i need to rant somewhere and this is the best place to do so.

there's a guy who could volunteer to help me out with technical (i.e. laborious) work during the summer but it turns out that because of departamental policies that is not allowed...

what makes it worse, my supervisor told me last week i won't finish on time but there's still more than one year left of my phd. and just to add the cherry on the cake, another phd student has his own postdoc working on his project and every summer he gets at least 2 undergraduate students to do all the tedious work  

hi tj,

For all our R and R, this is the best place to be.......and since your sup's super encouraging and inspiring   ...couldn't you also ask him to find some undergrads to help you out if the other guy is prohibited to do so? There are a lot of students looking to work or volunteer for the summer...meanwhile hang in there, ok?

[LostintheLab]

Can you not aquire one of the other guys students? Tempt them to your side with the offer of beer and/or chocolate?
I'm impressed the other student has his own postdoc and 2 extra students,  his project seems really different from yours, maybe thats why?
I used to have students back in the UK, but to be honest for the first 2/3 weeks they can be a hindrance to the work you're trying to do as they know nothing and don't know how to do anything,  so maybe its nicer you don't have that hassle if you're trying to finish.
I would try not to worry about your PhD finishing time, its rare that anyone finishes on time in the UK- heck I was almost a year over...but it all works out in the end.

These are my three randomly strung together thoughts

[toejam]

hi lil, thanks for your thoughts. It'd be nice if I got one of those students on my side but my supervisor and labmate wouldn't be very happy about it and I think it'd generate more problems...
Now i'm more relaxed and can think more clearly so you're right, it could be a hassle to show him how to do things, even though even a trained monkey could do it...
Many thanks and have a good weekend!

[LostintheLab]

Glad you're feeling calmer- you can sit back and smirk as the other guys gets swamped with the "how do I do..., I've set my lab coat alight..." questions (yep, we had a summer student who set herself alight while plate spreading and stood there burning).

Have a great weekend yourself- hope the weather is good

Edited by LostintheLab, 01 July 2010 - 11:20 PM.

[gebirgsziege]

Although you seemed to have settled down tutoring (and it is nothing else!!) students will cost you more time than doing yourself; once you have them as far as you can leave them alone with the work they will be away again.

Are you alone on your project? It seems the other project is a bigger one (one Postdoc and one PhD including undergrads).....and probably the post doc has better position to go and ask your boss for undergrads than you have as phd student...so maybe you find somebody to speak for you to your boss that you need some help over  summer?

But if you still would like to have somebody to help, I can send you over one of my undergrads for the summer......but dont be suprised if they do not manage to put things labelled with "A" into the vial labelled with "A" btw this is my r&R now but put it into "D" as it seemed more logical to them.....

edit because of bad spelling

Edited by gebirgsziege, 01 July 2010 - 11:39 PM.

[pito]

gebirgsziege, on Jul 2 2010, 09:38 AM, said:

Although you seemed to have settled down tutoring (and it is nothing else!!) students will cost you more time than doing yourself; once you have them as far as you can leave them alone with the work they will be away again.

Are you alone on your project? It seems the other project is a bigger one (one Postdoc and one PhD including undergrads).....and probably the post doc has better position to go and ask your boss for undergrads than you have as phd student...so maybe you find somebody to speak for you to your boss that you need some help over  summer?

But if you still would like to have somebody to help, I can send you over one of my undergrads for the summer......but dont be suprised if they do not manage to put things labelled with "A" into the vial labelled with "A" btw this is my r&R now but put it into "D" as it seemed more logical to them.....

edit because of bad spelling

Lol, are your student really that bad???

[gebirgsziege]

unfortunately I was not making up this story.....and he did such things all the time, this was just one of the tips of the iceberg......I am sure if I sent him over to London to help tj (which I would not do as he is a real plague), he would end up as exponate in the dungeon

[casandra]

..a real plague? then I admire your tolerance level gebZ....happy R & R...but tj said he needs someone for the more tedious jobs..I guess like maintaining the green house, cleaning the floors, watering plants, getting his coffee...how hard could that be? ....

and I'm glad you're feeling better now tj....

[gebirgsziege]

you can call it tolerance, at least he is afraid of me now as I got really rellay furious with him   .......but unfortunately it is not allowed to lock students away in the storage room (and btw what could he have done there   ). Another example: he once tried to clean the floor and we had to take him to hospital as he slipped on the wet floor falling with his head onto an cupboard edge (not jokeing and exaggerating.....he was a natural catastrophy).....but finally we found a place where he does no harm to anybody....he has his computer now where he can watch videos on youtube and fool around in facebook, sitting on a safe chair until his time is over in two weeks.  

But this is tjs rant, so I will stop the weired stroies now....maybe I should open a new thread...

[pito]

gebirgsziege, on Jul 2 2010, 04:12 PM, said:

you can call it tolerance, at least he is afraid of me now as I got really rellay furious with him   .......but unfortunately it is not allowed to lock students away in the storage room (and btw what could he have done there   ). Another example: he once tried to clean the floor and we had to take him to hospital as he slipped on the wet floor falling with his head onto an cupboard edge (not jokeing and exaggerating.....he was a natural catastrophy).....but finally we found a place where he does no harm to anybody....he has his computer now where he can watch videos on youtube and fool around in facebook, sitting on a safe chair until his time is over in two weeks.  

But this is tjs rant, so I will stop the weired stroies now....maybe I should open a new thread...

Lol


But the freaky thing is that those students often pass and get their degree...

I have seen a lot of idiots getting degrees.

I think thats a big problem with the education: they have no practical courses or internships for 2-3 years and only the last year orso they have an intersnhip (at least, thats how its done in Belgium)

[hobglobin]

I agree with gebz and pito...students are often more a burden. If you have to deal with them, it's often better to give them a minor or not that interesting part of your project, so that you can, if necessary, just abandon the results and it's not really a loss for the thesis. And if you do the work on your own, you know that you can trust your results. With some students, I'm not that sure sometimes....

[toejam]

haha that sounds like another guy I met before, but to be fair, there are also some good students to whom I'd almost trust their results. I took two undergraduates during the summer when I did my masters and they worked really well.  

The work is there and must be done, sooner or later... Thanks for your support everyone!

[pito]

toejam, on Jul 3 2010, 08:17 AM, said:

haha that sounds like another guy I met before, but to be fair, there are also some good students to whom I'd almost trust their results. I took two undergraduates during the summer when I did my masters and they worked really well.  

The work is there and must be done, sooner or later... Thanks for your support everyone!

Sure there are good students out there! And more often then not you will notice it very fast!

But sometimes you just have bad luck ....

Well I can start a whole debate on how I dislike the current system at school , but hell, whats the point.