Hey, summer students! Now that you're finished annoying your grad student mentor, it's time to start thinking about that end-of-summer poster session/talk/report that you need to come up with. Here are a few tips to get you started:
- Delay: Take a page from Congress -- why not wait until the last minute?
- What was my project again?: Don't bother understanding what you were working on -- who cares, it's just some random chemistry stuff.
- Don't read anything relevant: You've definitely got time for that 1045th Angry Birds game, but there's no point in reading the review that your lab's work is based on. And those figures/graphs in there? Why not just redo them on your own time?
- Bench time is wasted time: Those remaining experiments and controls that would explain everything? They can be put off.
- Spontaneous report writing is the best: After you've thrown your report together, don't bother to read it over or to ask someone else to read it over -- I'm sure it's juuust fine.
- Ad libbing is awesome: In the same vein, don't bother to practice that 10 minute talk you need to give. It's ten minutes -- what could possibly go wrong?
If you follow all these helpful tips, nothing could possibly go wrong -- really.
Give 'em a break. These are 18-21 year old kids who still have hopes and dreams. They have a few more years before the weight of the world crushes their spirits, why are you seeking to hasten that?
ReplyDeleteAnd, hey, if you're too busy rockin' out to your iPod to catch those last few column fractions, just dump it in the waste, and tell your boss it "didn't go"
ReplyDeleteMy PI's expectations for pretty much all undergrads is that they "learn something and not hurt themselves" 8-D
ReplyDelete