Undergraduate Publication?

[Nosh9713]

For the past year I have been working at my lab. My PI has been saying he does not mind too much commitment during the school year (coming in every week or so, or couple times a week). However, the caviot is he expects an average of 40 hours a week over summer. His lab publishes in many high impact journals, like Cell and Nature, and at a high volume. I was told that if I stayed in the lab then I would be on at least one, if not two or three, publications. I was looking forward to this summer, but unexpectedly I had to take a 6 week class at the last minute (if not I would be held back by a semster to graduate). The lab said it was okay and they will work around it. But now as summer is ending, they have told me that I have made no contributions/achievements in the lab. For all of summer, I spent ~40 hours a week or more time in lab. And when I had summer classes, I would still come in ~20-30 hours a week, and have done pretty much everything they said. They are very angry at me (which is surprising because they gave me the impression everything was fine) to the point where they said I should look into another lab if I have a summer class.

Question is: should I stay in the lab, or find another one? I looked into some other labs but it doesn't seem like I would be in a "prestigious high impact journal" submitting lab. Also, I'm not sure to what degree they even like me anymore... so even if I spent all of next summer (as a senior) working in the lab, I don't know if I would get a good letter of reccomendation. Should I tough it out with them, or start fresh? Do medical school's care more about high impact publications, or the fact you published your own 1st author in a lower impact journal. Thank you!

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[deleted938090]

High impact journals are extremely difficult to get publications in, infinitely more so as first author. Also 40 hours a week over a single summer + 20-30 hours a week isn't nearly enough to get a single publication out, much less 2-3. Realistically, one publication, or 2-3 in a topic you're familiar with, in a course of 4-6 years is pretty reasonable.

I encourage you to be realistic. I have worked on a project for over six years, sometimes spending 9am to 8pm every day (weekends included) for 2-3 months over the summer and winter, and I was only able to publish in impact 8-10 journal. Expecting a publication in nature, science, (or heavens, Cell b/c those projects are super long) is very difficult; you can try but its likely it won't be accepted unless you discover something extremely nontrivial. You cannot expect your first publications to be in such journals. Remember you're competing with the best post-docs for publications in those magazines.

 

[MyOdyssey]

They are very angry at me (which is surprising because they gave me the impression everything was fine) to the point where they said I should look into another lab if I have a summer class.

Question is: should I stay in the lab, or find another one? I looked into some other labs but it doesn't seem like I would be in a "prestigious high impact journal" submitting lab. Also, I'm not sure to what degree they even like me anymore... so even if I spent all of next summer (as a senior) working in the lab, I don't know if I would get a good letter of reccomendation. Should I tough it out with them, or start fresh? Do medical school's care more about high impact publications, or the fact you published your own 1st author in a lower impact journal. Thank you!

Are they angry at you for working fewer than 40 hours while taking a summer class or for demanding to be added as a co-author despite working fewer hours? Those are two very different things.

I have worked on a project for over six years

Are you doing postbacc research?

 

[deleted938090]

No, it's something I've been working on since HS.

 

[aeshnoidea]

Having a publication is not as important as having mentors that support you and can recognize your efforts. Aim for a lab that can give you a strong letter of rec rather than one that promises to slap your name on a paper only to forget about you afterwards.

 

[FreeRadicals]

Do you actually care about the research/having a connection with your lab or do you only care about being published?

 

[aldol16]

You're gonna have to be more specific about how they're angry at you and what they're angry with you about. If they're not willing to train you anymore, then there's no point staying.

With regard to publications, med schools really don't care - what matters more is your contribution to the project and what you took away from it. If you were a third author paper on a Nature paper but can't answer questions about it or speak about how you were involved in its design, that doesn't help you. If you're a first author paper on a paper in a lower-impact journal but can talk about how you designed it, carried it out, and wrote it all up, then that is much more important and helpful for your application.

 

[Goro]

For the past year I have been working at my lab. My PI has been saying he does not mind too much commitment during the school year (coming in every week or so, or couple times a week). However, the caviot is he expects an average of 40 hours a week over summer. His lab publishes in many high impact journals, like Cell and Nature, and at a high volume. I was told that if I stayed in the lab then I would be on at least one, if not two or three, publications. I was looking forward to this summer, but unexpectedly I had to take a 6 week class at the last minute (if not I would be held back by a semster to graduate). The lab said it was okay and they will work around it. But now as summer is ending, they have told me that I have made no contributions/achievements in the lab. For all of summer, I spent ~40 hours a week or more time in lab. And when I had summer classes, I would still come in ~20-30 hours a week, and have done pretty much everything they said. They are very angry at me (which is surprising because they gave me the impression everything was fine) to the point where they said I should look into another lab if I have a summer class.

Question is: should I stay in the lab, or find another one? I looked into some other labs but it doesn't seem like I would be in a "prestigious high impact journal" submitting lab. Also, I'm not sure to what degree they even like me anymore... so even if I spent all of next summer (as a senior) working in the lab, I don't know if I would get a good letter of reccomendation. Should I tough it out with them, or start fresh? Do medical school's care more about high impact publications, or the fact you published your own 1st author in a lower impact journal. Thank you!

Just taking a guess, it sounds like they're angry because you had made a commitment, and couldn't live up to it, and on top of that, you weren't productive (which is a risk in Science).

More pertinent is that the lab is clearly telling you to find another lab. I'm surprised that you didn't pick up on that.

Hence, find another lab.

Better yet, engage in service to others less fortunate than yourself. That has more impact on Adcoms than research.