By Darren Lee, Peer Research Ambassador
Looking back at the last three years, I can say with confidence that research is one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had during my time at UConn—it’s been an incredible opportunity to dive into my field and understand the scientific process up close. However, I’ve also learned that it’s often a difficult, grinding process rife with setbacks and failures. Although it can be deeply satisfying to finally establish a protocol or collect a set of results after months of hard work, it’s equally true that a lot of the time, you feel like you’re on a long road to nowhere. Even as someone who really enjoys research most of the time, there have certainly been occasions where I’ve put my head down on the bench questioning my life decisions! Whenever I’m struck with that feeling, it helps me a lot to think about where it’s coming from. With that, let’s talk about some reasons why you might be feeling down about your research right now and what you can do to pull yourself out of it.
Exhaustion: Don’t underestimate the effect that mental and physical exhaustion can have on your outlook. If you’re involved or interested enough in undergraduate research to be reading this, chances are that you push yourself much harder than many college students. I won’t belabor the point because you’ve surely heard enough times by now that “you work so hard!” and that “you deserve rest!” True as this may be, I know that it can be hard to really believe it as a very Type A person myself. One thing that I’ve found helpful to make time for yourself is to approach relaxation as a necessity. The need to let your brain take a break from the barrage of classes, activities, and work is as essential and human as the need to eat or sleep. Even if it’s not much, make a conscious effort to budget blocks of time for all these things. Sure, maybe you could skip lunch for that interesting talk or spend a beautiful Saturday morning checking in on your cells, but how long do you really want to keep that up? It’s arguably more important to find a good balance between work and life than it is to achieve as much as you can. Besides, being tired all the time can also affect your research, which brings us to the next topic…
Execution: Sometimes mistakes just happen. I’ve made some truly ridiculous ones in my day—dropping flasks of bacterial cultures, picking the wrong strain for a week-long assay, and coming scarily close to breaking a lab freezer on two occasions, which is twice more than I’d ever wish that experience on anyone else. What is most important in the short term is to immediately tell a mentor and ask them about the best course of action. A good mentor understands that you will make errors as a trainee, but what is less understandable is if you silently continue investing time and lab resources on something you knew had a problem. When the immediate issue is resolved, try not to let it get to you and think instead about concrete changes you can make so that the mistake doesn’t happen again. Maybe write out full protocols and check your reagents before you start, do extra replicates, or double-check your code before you run a long computing job (ask me how I know about that one…). Another thing to note is that I find myself doing more things wrong when I’m tired or rushing, which can often feed into itself: I’m running short on time, which makes me mess up an experiment, which means I end up with even more on my plate trying to repeat it. Again, budget your time wisely, because it’s better to do something once than twice!
Expectations: When your research isn’t going as well as it could be, it can feel like you aren’t living up to the expectations you set for yourself or those set by graduate or professional programs. It’s important to manage these expectations and remind yourself that failure is an intrinsic part of the research process. Even if it can feel routine when you’re deep in the woods of your project, remind yourself that in any research work you’re pushing both yourself and the boundaries of human knowledge. If everything went perfectly the first time, then it wouldn’t be research! Within every setback is a lesson to learn about yourself or about your field. In the meantime, trust in the interests that drew you to your work in the first place and celebrate the achievements you make, even if they seem small.
I hope this list provides you with some strategies to deal with the times when your research (or your academic life in general!) gets tough. Research is a messy and unpredictable process, and it’s important to keep in mind that everyone involved in it feels the same way as you are at times. For now, keep going! The challenge is worth it.
Darren is a junior majoring in Molecular and Cell Biology. Click here to learn more about Darren.