5 Myths about Getting a Lab Job at BYU
I got a job working in a university laboratory my first semester at BYU. I've worked in a lab every semester since then. I've been able to present posters at four conferences in Seattle, Ogden, Denver, and Walden. By graduation, I should have one paper published, one submitted, and two in manuscript form. My experiences taught me a love for troubleshooting, put me in the path of awesome mentors, got me a job at Stanford, and paid me a good chunk of moo-la.
And I don't think I'm special. I think anyone can have great experiences working in a scientific laboratory. But a lot of students don't. Maybe they don't know that a lab job gives super flexible hours with decent pay and leads to awesome publications and letters of recommendation. Maybe they don't know how to go about getting a job. But mostly, I think, they are held back by a few common misconceptions about the difficulty of getting a lab work. Here are 5 of the most common misconceptions I've seen:
1. Not very many professors are hiring.
Almost every professor is happy to hire more helpers. Not all professors have funding to pay new research assistants, but I've only met one who doesn't take on every student who offers to work in the lab for credit. (And you can usually find a way to get paid after a semester or two of free labor. More below.) Basically, if you're super interested in a professor's work or just getting a working knowledge of science, just ask if you can do research for credit. The answer will almost always be yes.
2. I need to have taken a professor's class before I get into his/her lab. I need to have more experience before they'll want to hire me.
Nope. Often the class the professor teaches has very little to do with his/her lab work. Sometimes it helps to have taken a class so the professor knows who you are, but professors will usually be happy to take anyone with some sort of interest in their work. Plus, with professors who teach upper-level courses, if you wait to join the lab until after you've taken the course, the professor will be less likely to hire you because you won't have as much time left to be productive in the lab. Most professors want to hire freshmen or sophomores. Waiting until you're a junior or senior to join a lab hampers your likelihood of being accepted.
3. Professors expect that I understand the work they are doing before I join their lab.
Ha! There are so many lies behind this. Yes, you should understand the basic interest of the lab. (This should be a short phrase like "sugar synthesis" or "T-cell immunotherapy" or "genetic diversity" or "interspecies relationships.") But you don't know what's going on in the lab until you ask about it. Even if you read every paper that lab had published, you're at least a year behind on the lab's work, usually more.
4. I need to be totally dedicated to the field of the lab I join. It needs to match my major or future career plans.
I have worked in four laboratories working on molecular genetic work on a fungus named "Black Fingers of Death," organic synthesis of molecules for vaccines, understanding heart development in zebrafish, testing different antimicrobial compounds on catheters, and traveling to Samoa to sample the bacteria in children with rheumatic heart disease. I'm not planning on doing anything in my future career that really mimics what I've done so far. Given, I have decided to stay in the field of biology. But if I had worked on physics or statistics or mechanical engineering, I think it would have been equally helpful in working toward my future career. Future careers don't care so much about what you've worked on as that you've been working hard.
5. If a professor doesn't answer the email I sent, he/she isn't interested and I should give up.
Yes, I know the feeling when the person you're interested in doesn't text you back right away. But I promise you've also forgotten to respond to an email once or twice. In my experience, professors are horrible at responding to emails and this has nothing to do with their disinterest in hiring new lab hands. This creates the need to be persistent. So reply to your own email! Send another email! Show up to their office unannounced! Call their office phone a couple of times!
So here's how I would go about getting a lab job:
1. Decide on your priorities.
How many hours are you willing to work? Do you need a job that pays to start with? Are you looking to get out some publications, or just get into a laid-back lab that involves lots of field trips and greenhouse work?
2. Figure out who you want to work for, not what you want to work on.
Given your priorities, do some browsing. Take a few random professors at a time from whatever fields and do some snooping. Some things I would look for are how often they publish, how often undergraduate students appear on publications, how happy their undergraduate students are with their lab (you can try emailing the students or, honestly, checking their RateMyProfessor ratings--keeping students happy is about the same in and out of the lab).
*3. Send an email.
Keep it short. e.g. "I'm ___. I'm interested in your research on ___. Currently I'm a freshman/sophomore studying ___ and looking for an opportunity to work as a laboratory assistant. Do you have any openings in your lab?" You can possibly add a resume or the contact information for some recommenders.
*You may skip steps 3-5 and go to step 6 if you prefer.
4. Wait two days.
5. Send another email.
6. Show up at the professor's office. Or at the end of a class you know he/she teaches. Or at their house around dinnertime.
Kidding on the last one. But in-person meetings are almost always more effective than emails. It shows you're persistent. I've heard that sending emails beforehand is polite, but I always find that showing up unannounced is the most time-efficient strategy.
Some other tips:
And I don't think I'm special. I think anyone can have great experiences working in a scientific laboratory. But a lot of students don't. Maybe they don't know that a lab job gives super flexible hours with decent pay and leads to awesome publications and letters of recommendation. Maybe they don't know how to go about getting a job. But mostly, I think, they are held back by a few common misconceptions about the difficulty of getting a lab work. Here are 5 of the most common misconceptions I've seen:
1. Not very many professors are hiring.
Almost every professor is happy to hire more helpers. Not all professors have funding to pay new research assistants, but I've only met one who doesn't take on every student who offers to work in the lab for credit. (And you can usually find a way to get paid after a semester or two of free labor. More below.) Basically, if you're super interested in a professor's work or just getting a working knowledge of science, just ask if you can do research for credit. The answer will almost always be yes.
2. I need to have taken a professor's class before I get into his/her lab. I need to have more experience before they'll want to hire me.
Nope. Often the class the professor teaches has very little to do with his/her lab work. Sometimes it helps to have taken a class so the professor knows who you are, but professors will usually be happy to take anyone with some sort of interest in their work. Plus, with professors who teach upper-level courses, if you wait to join the lab until after you've taken the course, the professor will be less likely to hire you because you won't have as much time left to be productive in the lab. Most professors want to hire freshmen or sophomores. Waiting until you're a junior or senior to join a lab hampers your likelihood of being accepted.
3. Professors expect that I understand the work they are doing before I join their lab.
Ha! There are so many lies behind this. Yes, you should understand the basic interest of the lab. (This should be a short phrase like "sugar synthesis" or "T-cell immunotherapy" or "genetic diversity" or "interspecies relationships.") But you don't know what's going on in the lab until you ask about it. Even if you read every paper that lab had published, you're at least a year behind on the lab's work, usually more.
4. I need to be totally dedicated to the field of the lab I join. It needs to match my major or future career plans.
I have worked in four laboratories working on molecular genetic work on a fungus named "Black Fingers of Death," organic synthesis of molecules for vaccines, understanding heart development in zebrafish, testing different antimicrobial compounds on catheters, and traveling to Samoa to sample the bacteria in children with rheumatic heart disease. I'm not planning on doing anything in my future career that really mimics what I've done so far. Given, I have decided to stay in the field of biology. But if I had worked on physics or statistics or mechanical engineering, I think it would have been equally helpful in working toward my future career. Future careers don't care so much about what you've worked on as that you've been working hard.
5. If a professor doesn't answer the email I sent, he/she isn't interested and I should give up.
Yes, I know the feeling when the person you're interested in doesn't text you back right away. But I promise you've also forgotten to respond to an email once or twice. In my experience, professors are horrible at responding to emails and this has nothing to do with their disinterest in hiring new lab hands. This creates the need to be persistent. So reply to your own email! Send another email! Show up to their office unannounced! Call their office phone a couple of times!
So here's how I would go about getting a lab job:
1. Decide on your priorities.
How many hours are you willing to work? Do you need a job that pays to start with? Are you looking to get out some publications, or just get into a laid-back lab that involves lots of field trips and greenhouse work?
2. Figure out who you want to work for, not what you want to work on.
Given your priorities, do some browsing. Take a few random professors at a time from whatever fields and do some snooping. Some things I would look for are how often they publish, how often undergraduate students appear on publications, how happy their undergraduate students are with their lab (you can try emailing the students or, honestly, checking their RateMyProfessor ratings--keeping students happy is about the same in and out of the lab).
*3. Send an email.
Keep it short. e.g. "I'm ___. I'm interested in your research on ___. Currently I'm a freshman/sophomore studying ___ and looking for an opportunity to work as a laboratory assistant. Do you have any openings in your lab?" You can possibly add a resume or the contact information for some recommenders.
*You may skip steps 3-5 and go to step 6 if you prefer.
4. Wait two days.
5. Send another email.
6. Show up at the professor's office. Or at the end of a class you know he/she teaches. Or at their house around dinnertime.
Kidding on the last one. But in-person meetings are almost always more effective than emails. It shows you're persistent. I've heard that sending emails beforehand is polite, but I always find that showing up unannounced is the most time-efficient strategy.
Some other tips:
- Look out for grants for undergraduate students to do research. Grants are magical. Grants = money. The EASIEST grant to get at BYU is the Undergraduate Research Award. I've never heard of anyone being rejected after applying for this award. All you have to do is find a professor who needs an extra hand in the lab in the Physics, Mathematics, or Chemistry Department, write a 1-page description on what the professor tells you you'll be doing, and then wait a little while. I heard about this award about a year ago and knocked doors in the Chemistry Department until I found someone willing to take me (it took about 10 minutes).
- Join Facebook groups or college newsletters to hear about some research hirings. Beware that often professors who are hiring often run out of research assistants for a reason. Boring lab, low funding, social tension. Just probably talk to their other research assistants or check RateMyProfessor before joining blindly.
- Talk to other people who have awesome research jobs. The best jobs aren't advertised.
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