Internship hunt: It's venting time! - (May/05/2010 )
The internship hunt is almost schizophrenic in its complete lack of rationality, for a field that is supposed to be all about rationality, considering this is science and we in science ought to know a thing or two about rationality. I do one thing with one internship offerer and it doesn't work, then do the opposite with another internship offerer and it doesn't work.
Hey, maybe I'll write an entire cover letter to wash dishes. Sure. I've got experience washing labware. Plenty of it.
I even have a Humboldt squid hat. Maybe I should wear that to the interview if I get one. IF.
Also, no matter how good my GPA is, there will always be someone with a better GPA and more experience. Always. Even if I have the most, there will always come along someone who has more. My GPA's great, I try to compensate for my lack of experience as much as possible by sounding enthusiastic (especially by adding a poo-eating grin when I deliver my cv and cover letter in person!), and I'm pretty darned sure what I put on paper is grammatically correct.
It doesn't help that my country's economy sucks.
I'm even offering to work for free! Except, nah, nobody's accepting me for that either.
Do I need to do a song and dance? Do I need to stand on my head and spit nickels? Do I need to introduce myself in the only other language I know, which is unfortunately only useful in a handful of Eastern European countries? (Yeah! You can use me to interpret stuff from your colleagues there! Right?)
And this stuff about needing experience to get more - how do you get your foot in the door in the first place?
I do not comprehend it.
acetylcholine on May 5 2010, 03:51 PM said:
Hey, maybe I'll write an entire cover letter to wash dishes. Sure. I've got experience washing labware. Plenty of it.
I even have a Humboldt squid hat. Maybe I should wear that to the interview if I get one. IF.
Also, no matter how good my GPA is, there will always be someone with a better GPA and more experience. Always. Even if I have the most, there will always come along someone who has more. My GPA's great, I try to compensate for my lack of experience as much as possible by sounding enthusiastic (especially by adding a poo-eating grin when I deliver my cv and cover letter in person!), and I'm pretty darned sure what I put on paper is grammatically correct.
It doesn't help that my country's economy sucks.
I'm even offering to work for free! Except, nah, nobody's accepting me for that either.
Do I need to do a song and dance? Do I need to stand on my head and spit nickels? Do I need to introduce myself in the only other language I know, which is unfortunately only useful in a handful of Eastern European countries? (Yeah! You can use me to interpret stuff from your colleagues there! Right?)
And this stuff about needing experience to get more - how do you get your foot in the door in the first place?
I do not comprehend it.
Hi acetylcholine,
Welcome to Bioforum. That's quite a rant so you've come to the right place
. Perhaps you can tell us first what you meant by internship cos personally I'd associate this with medical internship (or the Whitehouse)? And you're hunting here in North America? casandra on May 5 2010, 04:06 PM said:
acetylcholine on May 5 2010, 03:51 PM said:
Hey, maybe I'll write an entire cover letter to wash dishes. Sure. I've got experience washing labware. Plenty of it.
I even have a Humboldt squid hat. Maybe I should wear that to the interview if I get one. IF.
Also, no matter how good my GPA is, there will always be someone with a better GPA and more experience. Always. Even if I have the most, there will always come along someone who has more. My GPA's great, I try to compensate for my lack of experience as much as possible by sounding enthusiastic (especially by adding a poo-eating grin when I deliver my cv and cover letter in person!), and I'm pretty darned sure what I put on paper is grammatically correct.
It doesn't help that my country's economy sucks.
I'm even offering to work for free! Except, nah, nobody's accepting me for that either.
Do I need to do a song and dance? Do I need to stand on my head and spit nickels? Do I need to introduce myself in the only other language I know, which is unfortunately only useful in a handful of Eastern European countries? (Yeah! You can use me to interpret stuff from your colleagues there! Right?)
And this stuff about needing experience to get more - how do you get your foot in the door in the first place?
I do not comprehend it.
Hi acetylcholine,
Welcome to Bioforum. That's quite a rant so you've come to the right place
. Perhaps you can tell us first what you meant by internship cos personally I'd associate this with medical internship (or the Whitehouse)? And you're hunting here in North America?I'm an undergrad looking for an internship in a lab in the United States.
Also, my online record, what I can make of it, is practically spotless and I'm not particularly ugly either.
Maybe it's my voice. Is it my voice?
Or maybe it's the fact that my car is a clunker.
Or maybe it's the fact that I wore pants and not a skirt.
I'm feeling particularly dour today, can you tell?
acetylcholine on May 5 2010, 04:13 PM said:
casandra on May 5 2010, 04:06 PM said:
Welcome to Bioforum. That's quite a rant so you've come to the right place
. Perhaps you can tell us first what you meant by internship cos personally I'd associate this with medical internship (or the Whitehouse)? And you're hunting here in North America?I'm an undergrad looking for an internship in a lab in the United States.
ok I get, for the experience as well as the possibility of getting into a graduate program. Then empty platitudes aside, you need to be patient and you have to persevere. You're learning as you go so that's not really a total waste of time. Besides, science esp in the US is very competitive so don't sell yourself short and drop that grin. Can I just ask where you come from and are you limiting yourself to the US only? Have you considered taking a masters first from your country and then applying for a PhD in the US- you'd probably have a better chance?
casandra on May 5 2010, 03:47 PM said:
acetylcholine on May 5 2010, 04:13 PM said:
casandra on May 5 2010, 04:06 PM said:
Welcome to Bioforum. That's quite a rant so you've come to the right place
. Perhaps you can tell us first what you meant by internship cos personally I'd associate this with medical internship (or the Whitehouse)? And you're hunting here in North America?I'm an undergrad looking for an internship in a lab in the United States.
ok I get, for the experience as well as the possibility of getting into a graduate program. Then empty platitudes aside, you need to be patient and you have to persevere. You're learning as you go so that's not really a total waste of time. Besides, science esp in the US is very competitive so don't sell yourself short and drop that grin. Can I just ask where you come from and are you limiting yourself to the US only? Have you considered taking a masters first from your country and then applying for a PhD in the US- you'd probably have a better chance?
I'm a US student, so I can't afford to go anywhere else at the moment.
acetylcholine on May 5 2010, 04:47 PM said:
Maybe it's my voice. Is it my voice?
Or maybe it's the fact that my car is a clunker.
Or maybe it's the fact that I wore pants and not a skirt.
I'm feeling particularly dour today, can you tell?
Yup you can join the sulking club...
....and yup, it could be your voice...have you ever considered taking singing lessons...take it easy dude....I was gonna write dudette but the pants gave you away.. what i did, as an undergraduate, was approach one of my professors and volunteer to be a research assistant (unpaid) in his lab.
If you haven't done it already, I would recommend taking an Undergraduate Research "class" if your university offers it. You do the work for free (actually, you are paying for it!), but you get course credit (you do have to write a paper). Your academic adviser should be able to help you with this.
Also, having a clunker shows you have "character". And you will not piss your PI off by having a nicer car than him.
Chason has a good idea, but I'll add a caveat emptor: make sure you get into a lab that provides good mentorship.
I have seen many undergrads come into labs, excited to get to do "real research," only to find that they have gotten thrown off the deep end, or that they are the lowest priority in terms of the lab's focus. The students that stayed in research were the ones who got good guidance from the start.