Getting Started

Abstract

Your first day in the lab. Undoubtedly you are experiencing a range of emotions from excitement to curiosity to anxiety. You’ll be working in this lab and with this group of people, as well as with your supervisor, for several years. This is Day One of a long commitment, so it’s important to get off on the right foot. Perhaps you’re so anxious to get started and prove your scientific mettle to others, that you decide to do an experiment on your first day in the lab, but this would be unwise to say the least. Give yourself a few days to get orientated, meet the people in your group, meet with your supervisor, and get to know the layout of the university, its facilities and its graduate student services.

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.

– Robert Louis Stevenson